Nine Perfect Strangers (37 page)

“Will do,” said Carmel.

Masha stubbed out her cigarette on the windowsill behind her. She leaned back against the window. “Welcome to Tranquillum House.”

Oh dear God
, thought Heather.
We've lost her again
.

Masha smiled. No one smiled back. Heather saw that every face in the room was slack with exhaustion and despair, like the face of a woman who has innocently prepared a “natural birth plan,” created a playlist, and who, after thirty hours of labor, is told that she must now have an emergency cesarean.

Masha said, “I promise you this: in ten days, you will not be the person you are now.”

“Fuck,” said Jessica. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“It's just the drugs,” said Lars. “She doesn't know what she's saying.”

“That's not the problem,” said Ben. “She doesn't know what she's
doing
.”

Masha lowered her head and put her fingertips to the neckline of her dress.

“We will all do push-ups now,” she said. “Push-ups are the perfect functional integrated-resistance exercise. It's the only exercise that works every single muscle in your body. Twenty push-ups! Now!”

No one moved.

“Why do you ignore me?” Masha jabbed a finger at the screen. “Push-ups! Now! Or I will be forced to take action!”

What action could she possibly take? But they didn't wait to find out. They dropped to the floor like soldiers.

Heather tried to lift and lower her tired hungry body in a parallel line as Masha counted out loud, “One, two, three! Drop those hips! No Harbor Bridges!”

Was she still in her hallucinogenic state, where she seemingly believed they all worked for her? Did she plan to kill them all? Heather felt a sudden, wild panic. She'd brought her daughter to this place. Zoe's life could rest in the hands of this mad, drug-affected woman.

She looked around her. Frances did girl push-ups on her knees. Jessica cried as she, too, gave up and went from her toes to her knees. Tony, the former athlete, dripped sweat as he did perfect form push-ups at twice the speed of almost everyone else, in spite of having just popped his shoulder. Heather noted that her own darling husband kept pace.

“Eighteen, nineteen, twenty! Relax! Excellent!”

Heather collapsed onto her stomach and looked up. Masha had pressed her face so close to the screen that all they could see was a magnified image of her nose, mouth, and chin.

“I'm just wondering,” said the disembodied mouth. “Can you smell it yet?”

It was Napoleon who answered in the calm, gentle voice he would use for a toddler. “Smell what, Masha?”

“The smoke.”

68

 

Tony

The screen turned to static but Masha's voice continued to ring through the room.

“Deep transformation is possible but you must
detach from your beliefs and assumptions
!”

“I
can
smell smoke,” said Zoe, her face white.

“That's right, Zoe, you can smell smoke, for this house, my house, is burning to the ground as we speak,” said Masha. “Possessions mean nothing! Will you rise from the ashes? Remember, Buddha says, ‘No one saves us but ourselves!'”

“Look,” whispered Frances.

Wisps of black smoke drifted sinuously beneath the locked heavy oak door.

“Let us out!” Jessica screamed so loudly her voice turned hoarse. “Can you hear me, Masha? You let us out right now!”

The screen turned black.

Masha's absence was now as terrifying as her presence.

“We need to block that doorway,” said Tony, but Heather and
Napoleon were way ahead of him, returning from the bathroom carrying dripping-wet towels that they were rolling into tight cylinders, as if this was their job, as if they'd been expecting exactly this situation.

As they got to the door the volume of smoke increased suddenly and frighteningly, pouring into the room like water. People began to cough. Tony's chest tightened.

“Everybody get back!” shouted Napoleon as he and Heather shoved the rolled-up towels between the door and the floor, forming a tight seal.

The low level of claustrophobia Tony had been experiencing ever since they first discovered the locked door threatened to turn into full-blown panic. He felt his breathing become ragged. Oh God, he was going to lose it in front of all these people. He had no job to do. He couldn't even put the towels at the door because Heather and Napoleon were already doing it. He couldn't help. He couldn't kick down that door because it opened inward. He couldn't fight anyone. He couldn't do a damned thing.

He coughed so violently his eyes filled with tears.

Frances grabbed his hand and pulled. “Get away from the door.”

He let her pull him back. She didn't let go of his hand. He didn't let go of hers.

Everyone huddled at the point in the room furthest away from the door.

Napoleon and Heather came and stood with them, their eyes already bloodshot from smoke. Napoleon pulled Zoe close to him and she buried her face in his shirt. “The door didn't feel hot,” he said. “That's a good sign.”

“I think I can hear it,” said Carmel. “I can hear the fire.”

They all went quiet. It sounded at first like heavy settled rain, but it wasn't rain; it was the unmistakable crackle of flames.

Something heavy and huge crashed to the ground above them. A wall? There was a dramatic whoosh of air, like wind in a storm, and then the flames grew louder.

Jessica made a sound.

“Are we all going to die down here?” asked Zoe. She looked up at her father with disbelief. “Is she seriously going to let us die?”

“Certainly not,” said Napoleon, with such matter-of-fact grown-up assurance Tony wanted to believe Napoleon had special knowledge, except that Tony was a grown-up too, and he knew better.

“We'll all put wet towels over our heads and faces to protect us from smoke inhalation,” said Heather. “Then we'll just wait this thing out.”

She sounded as calm and assured as her husband. Maybe Tony would be the same if one of his kids or grandkids were here.

He thought of his children. They would grieve for him. Yes, of course his children would grieve for him. They wouldn't be ready to lose him, even though he didn't see them that often these days. This knowledge felt like a surprise, as if he'd spent the last few years pretending his children didn't love him, when he knew they loved their dad, for Christ's sake. He knew that. Late last year, Will forgot about the time difference and rang in the middle of the night from Holland to tell him about his latest promotion at work. “Sorry,” he said. “I wanted to tell you first.” Thirty years old and he still wanted his dad's praise. According to Mimi, James was always posting pictures from Tony's football career online. “He shows off about you,” Mimi said, rolling her eyes. “Exploits your fame to pick up girls.” Then there was Mimi herself, his baby, bustling about his house, setting things right. Every time she broke up with another dickhead she turned up at his house to “give him a hand.” She couldn't lose her dad right now, when she was still dating dickheads.

He wasn't ready to die. Fifty-six years wasn't long enough. His life felt suddenly incredibly rich and abundant with possibility. He wanted to repaint the house, get another dog, a puppy; it wouldn't be betraying Banjo to get a puppy. He always got another puppy in the end. He wanted to go to the beach, eat a big breakfast at the caf
é
down the road while he read the paper, listen to music—it was like he'd forgotten music existed! He wanted to travel to Holland and see his
granddaughter perform in one of those stupid Irish dancing competitions.

He looked at Carmel, who he had written off as a kooky intellectual because of her glasses. He'd asked her how she came to teach English to refugees and she explained that her dad was a refugee from Romania back in the fifties and a next-door neighbor took it upon herself to teach him English. “My dad didn't have any aptitude for languages,” said Carmel. “And he's very impatient when he feels insecure. It would have been a tough slog. So my sister and I both teach English as a second language now. To honor Auntie Pat.”

Who the fuck did Tony honor? Who the fuck did Tony help out? He didn't even give back to the sport that had given him so much joy. Mimi had been at him for ages to coach a local team of kids. “You might even enjoy it,” she said. Why had he been so against the idea? Now he couldn't think of anything more wonderful than standing on a field in the sunlight teaching kids to see the music and poetry of football.

He met the frightened eyes of the woman whose hand he still held. She was as nutty as a fruitcake, talked too much, had clearly never seen an AFL game in her life. She wrote romance books for a living. Tony hadn't read a novel since high school. They had nothing in common.

He didn't want to die.

He wanted to take her out for a drink.

69

 

Frances

The nine guests huddled in the furthest corner of the yoga and meditation studio, wet towels draped over their heads and shoulders, while Tranquillum House burned to the ground.

Frances listened to the sound of the hungry flames and wondered if the crash she'd just heard was that beautiful staircase. She remembered how Yao had said on that first day, “We won't sink, Frances!” and imagined ripples of fire consuming that beautiful wood.

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,” murmured Jessica into her knees, over and over. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”

Frances wouldn't have picked Jessica as a believer, but maybe she wasn't, because she couldn't seem to get any further than “hallowed be thy name.”

Frances, who had been brought up Anglican but lost religion some- time back in the late eighties, thought it might not be good manners to pray for deliverance right now, when she hadn't even said thank you
for so long. God might have appreciated a thank you card over the years.

Thank you for that long hot sex-filled summer in Europe with Sol.

Thank you for that first year of my marriage to Henry which, to be honest, God, was one of the happiest of my life.

Thank you for a career that has given me virtually nothing but pleasure and I'm sorry for all that fuss about the review. I'm sure that reviewer is one of God's children too.

Thank you for my health, you've been quite generous in that regard, and it was rude of me to make such a fuss over a bad cold.

Thank you for friends who are more like family.

Thank you for my dad, even though you took him a little early.

Thank you for Bellinis and all champagne cocktails.

Sorry for complaining about a paper cut while others suffered atrocities. Although, to be frank, that's why I gave up believing in you—that whole paper cuts for some versus atrocities for others thing.

Carmel cried into her wet towel and jumped at the sound of yet another crash.

Frances imagined the balcony of her room hanging at an angle and then smashing to the ground in a shower of embers.

She imagined billows of black smoke illuminated by fiery light against a summer night's sky.

“The smoke in here isn't getting any worse,” she said to Carmel, to be comforting. “Napoleon and Heather did a good job with the towels.”

She could still smell and taste smoke, but it was true, it wasn't getting any worse.

“We might be fine,” said Frances tentatively.

“We will be fine,” said Napoleon. He sat between his wife and daughter, holding their hands. “It's all going to be fine.”

He spoke with such assurance and Frances wished she hadn't caught sight of his face as he readjusted the wet towel, because it was filled with despair.

It's coming for us
, she thought.
It's coming for us and there is nowhere to hide
.

She remembered Masha saying, “I wonder, do you feel that you've ever been truly
tested
in your life?”

Jessica lifted her head from her knees and spoke in a muffled voice through her towel. “She never even heard all our presentations.”

It was cute the way she still wanted to see logic in Masha's actions. She would have been the kid who couldn't stand it when the teacher forgot to give the quiz that had been promised.

“Do you think Yao is still alive?” asked Zoe.

70

 

Yao

Yao dreamed of Finn.

Finn was very keen that Yao wake up.

“Wake up,” he said insistently. He banged together a pair of cymbals. He blasted a horn in Yao's ear. “Mate, you really need to wake up to yourself.”

Yao returned to consciousness while Finn receded. He felt the imprint of something soft and scratchy against his cheek. He lifted his head. There was a cushion on Masha's desk. He remembered the feeling of the needle in his neck. The surprise of it, because that was not a decision he could respect.

He heard the sound of something burning. He smelled smoke.

He lifted his head, turned around, and saw her, smoking a cigarette, looking out the window.

She turned to face him and smiled. She looked sad and emotional, but resigned, like his fianc
é
e when she broke off their engagement.

Masha said, “Hello, Yao.”

Yao knew it was over, and he knew he'd never love anyone ever again quite the way he loved this strange woman.

His voice rasped in his throat. “What have you done?”

71

 

Frances

Still it went on. The burning. The crashing.

Frances's fear peaked and then plateaued. Her heart rate slowed. A great tiredness swept over her.

She had always wondered how she would feel if her life was in mortal danger. What would she do if her plane began to plummet toward earth? If a crazed gunman put the barrel to her head? If she was ever truly tested? Now she knew: she wouldn't believe it. She would keep thinking right until the last word that her story would never stop, because there could be no story without her. Things would keep happening to her. It was impossible to truly believe that there would be a final page.

Another crash. Carmel startled again.

“Wait a moment,” said Lars sharply. “That sound—it's the
same
sound as before. It's exactly the same.”

Frances looked at him. She didn't understand.

Napoleon sat up straighter. He removed the towel from his face.

Jessica said, “There's a pattern, isn't there? I
knew
there was a pattern. Crackle, whoosh, small bang, crackle, crackle, crackle, huge scary bang.”

Frances said, “I'm sorry, I don't get it.”

“It's on a loop,” said Tony.

“You mean it's a recording?” said Ben. “We're listening to a recording?”

Frances couldn't get her head around it. “There's no fire?” She could
see
the fire clearly in her head.

“But we saw smoke, we smelled smoke,” said Heather. “Where there's smoke, there's fire.”

“Maybe it's a controlled fire,” said Zoe. “She wants us to think we're in danger.”

“So this is her way of making us look death in the face,” said Tony.

“I
knew
she wouldn't let us die,” said Carmel.

Lars threw the wet cloth on the floor and went to stand in front of the screen. “Well done, Masha,” he shouted. “You've successfully scared us all half to death and we'll never be the same again. Could we please go back to our rooms now?”

Nothing.

“You can't keep us in here forever, Masha,” said Lars. “What's that mantra you keep repeating? Nothing lasts forever.” He smiled ruefully and pushed his damp hair back from his forehead. “We feel like we've been down here forever.”

Nothing lasts forever
, thought Frances. Masha had made a point of saying that so many times.
Nothing lasts forever. Nothing lasts forever.

She remembered how she'd told Masha there was no code in the doll and Masha answered, “Exactly.”

Frances said now, “When was the last time someone tried the door?”

“I honestly think we've tried every possible code combination there could be,” said Napoleon.

“I don't mean the code,” said Frances. “I mean the door handle. When was the last time someone tried the door handle?”