weight to lose, took much longer. In truth, Carmel hadn’t lost any weight at all, but there was no benefit in Carmel hearing that.
“How did you come across Tranquillum House, Tony?” Masha asked him.
“I Googled ‘how to change your life,’” said Tony.
“Ah,” said Masha. As an experiment, she sat back, crossed her legs, and waited for his eyes to travel down her body, which they did, of course (the man was not dead yet), but not for very long. “Why do you want to change your life?”
“Well, Masha, life is short.” His gaze moved past hers to the window behind her head. Masha noted that he seemed much calmer and more confident now than when he had complained about his contraband being confiscated. The positive effects of Tranquillum House! “I didn’t want to waste the time I had left.”
He looked back at her. “I like your office. It’s like you’re on top of the world up here. I get claustrophobic down in that yoga studio.”
“So how do you hope to change your life?”
“I just want to get healthier and fitter,” said Tony. “Drop some weight.”
Men often used that phrase: “drop some weight.” They said it without shame or emotion, as if the weight were an object they could easily put down when they chose. Women said they needed to “lose weight,” with their eyes down, as if the extra weight was part of them, a terrible sin they’d committed.
“I used to be very fit. I should have done this sooner. I really regret …” Tony stopped, cleared his throat, as if he’d said more than he wanted.
“What do you regret?” asked Masha.
“It’s not anything I’ve done. It’s more everything I haven’t done. I’ve just kind of moped about for twenty years.”
It took a fraction of a second to translate the English word “moped”—a word she didn’t hear much.
“Twenty years is a long time to mope,” said Masha. Foolish man. She herself had never moped. Not once. Moping was for the weak.
“I kind of got into the habit of it,” said Tony. “Not sure how to stop.”
She waited to hear what he would say next. Women liked to be asked questions about themselves but with men it was better to be patient, to be silent and see what eventuated.
She waited. The minutes passed. She was considering giving up when Tony shifted in his chair.
“Your near-death experience,” he said, without looking at her. “You said you no longer feared death, or something like that?”
“That’s right,” said Masha. She studied him, wondering about his interest in this subject. “I no longer fear it. It was beautiful. People think death is like falling asleep but for me it was like waking up.”
“A tunnel?” said Tony. “Is that what you saw? A tunnel of light?”
“Not a tunnel.” She paused, considered changing the subject and putting the focus back on him. She had already revealed too much of her personal life earlier to that Frances Welty, with her bouncy hair and red lipstick, nearly knocking Masha’s glass ball off the desk, like a child, asking her greedy, nosy questions, making Masha forget her position.
It was hard to believe Frances was exactly the same age as Masha. She reminded Masha of a little girl in her second-grade class. A plump, pretty, vain little girl who always had a pocket filled with Vzletnaya candies. People like Frances lived candy-filled lives.
But she did not feel that Tony had lived a candy-filled life. “It was not a tunnel, it was a lake,” she told him. “A great lake of shimmering colored light.”
She had never told a guest this before. She had told Yao about it, but not Delilah. As Tony ran a hand over his unshaven jaw, considering her words, Masha saw again that incredible lake of color: scarlet, turquoise, lemon. She hadn’t just seen that lake, she had experienced it with all her senses: she had breathed it, heard it, smelled it, tasted it.
“Did you see … loved ones?” asked Tony.
“No,” lied Masha, even as she saw an image of a young man walking toward her through the lake of light, color streaming off him like water.
Such an ordinary but exquisite young man. He wore a baseball cap, like so many young men did. He took it off and scratched his head. She had only ever seen him as her baby, her beautiful fat-cheeked toothless baby, but she knew immediately that this was her son, this was the man he would have and should have become, and all that