I smiled and said it sounded wonderful, amazing, how I could use something like that in my life.
“You should get it!” she exclaimed. “You’re so pretty already, with just a bit of work you could be perfect too!”
I smiled. This was my third day in the company of these women, and the first time they’d ever met me. I was good at being obliging.
And that evening,
“Do you have Perfection?” I asked Reina, as we ran together in the women-only gym, headscarves discarded, sweat clumping in our hair.
“Yes,” she mused. “I do. It’s something my family might invest in.”
“Is it as good as people say it is?”
“I… suppose it could be.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“It… Leena made me sign up, she told me I was… do you know how sometimes people say words and they should be terrible, but because you know the people and the way they say it, they aren’t? Only of course,” she added, “they are really.”
“What words?” I asked.
“Oh, the usual. Fat. Frumpy. Boring. Unattractive to men. Dull at parties. Frigid. Of course it shouldn’t matter, those are her things, not mine.”
Hi — are you sure this is the right restaurant for you? Here’s our list of recommended, Perfection-guaranteed suppliers!
We kept running. Then she said, “I used to think that it was okay just to be liked for being me.”
I nearly laughed, but there was such sadness in her eyes, and I was out of breath, so I didn’t. Instead, “People who see who you are like you for you, I’m sure of it.”
She smiled, and looked away, and we didn’t talk again that night.
Chapter 6
Why had I come to Dubai?
Specifically: to rob the royal family. My target was the Chrysalis diamond, the centrepiece of a necklace created in 1912 for Afise Lakerba, wife of Mehmed VI, the last Ottoman Sultan. When the monarchy was abolished, the jewels went on a romp through the auction houses of the world, owned at various stages by petrochemical giants, Hollywood starlets and the wife of the President of Colombia before, made infinitely more valuable by its history, returning to the Middle East via Leena’s aunt, Shamma bint Bandar, one of nearly four thousand royal scions of the House of Saudi.
Why those diamonds?
Because three separate teams had all made passes at them in the last five years, and failed. Their failure meant two things: a challenge and a buyer.
It’s easy, in my position, to be amateurish about these things. I find the buzz is greater when the puzzle fits together. On a whim, I once stole the President of Paraguay’s wristwatch, but it only fetched $250 and the buzz was nothing compared to the day I stole £98,000 in a casino heist that went off flawlessly, the most perfect execution of a beautiful plan, months in the making. You make your own highs in my line of work.
Shamma bint Bandar was coming to Dubai to party and celebrate with the makers of Perfection, and with her came the Chrysalis.
Leena was my way in, but as I circled round her, I found Reina ever more distracting.
“We haven’t met yet,” I told Reina, the fourth time we went running together. “My name is Rachel Donovan.”
And again, “We haven’t met yet,” I said, as we sat down together to listen to a recital of Syrian folk music in a bar beneath the hotel. “But I’m so very pleased to meet you.”
“I am part of an important family, in a way,” she explained with a sigh, as we shared mango served on a bed of crushed ice. “But in this place that doesn’t mean anything. I’m trying to be better.”
“Better at what?”
“At everything. Better at talking to people. Better at learning, understanding, at expressing myself and understanding others. Better looking, better thinking, just… better. It is a good thing to strive for, no?”
Have you considered buying any of these life-changing magazines? Read inspirational stories of women who found their Perfect Lives!
“Yes. I think it is.”
“I keep a blog.”
“I think I’ve read it.”
“Have you? Not many have — I should cherish you. Too many voices all at once on the internet, screaming, just all the time screaming, sometimes it’s hard to be heard. Sometimes I think that the world is full of screaming.”
I said… something. Something flat, trying to find better words, good words like the woman eating mango with Reina bint Badr al Mustakfi should have said, but somehow, in the course of our talking, I’d slipped out of character, and only Hope Arden remained, and she had very little to say for herself.
“I thought for a while that I would fight to find my place,” mused Reina, staring at nothing much. “Now I just want to be happy where I am.”
The next day she was dead.
I copied her emails onto my computer; threw her mobile phone into the sea.
Emails from her parents, worrying about her. From a couple of friends, hoping she was well, pictures of happy families, children growing up, isn’t it wonderful?
From activist groups campaigning for civil rights, immigrant rights, environmental responsibility, legal reform, etc.
From Perfection itself, an automatically generated reminder.
We see that you’ve been falling behind on your beauty and retail regime, it said. You have lost 400 points in the last week. Remember: perfection is in the mind as well as the body. Only you can chose to be perfect. Here are some inspirational stories of perfect people from the 106, to help encourage you to get back on track.
A link — pictures, men, women. Beautiful — all of them beautiful. Teeth, hair, lips, smiles, chests, breasts.
Antonyms of frigid: amicable, lovable, responsive, hot, amorous.
I read through to the end of her little handwritten notebook.
Leena is happy, she wrote. She is incredibly happy. She is stupid, and lazy, and spoilt, and dull, and perhaps at some time knew it, and then found a way to forget that she knew anything at all. I thought maybe her confidence was just a screen, a shield to protect herself from her own sorrow, but now I see that the surface is the truth, the depths are the surfaces.
I ate a meal yesterday by myself, but when I looked at the bill I saw there were two meals ordered, and I hadn’t paid.
Today, Perfection sent me pictures of a model at a wedding, to remind me of what I could be. When she fucks a guy, does he scream in ecstasy when he comes? Does she? I think I am meant to think that she does.
The screaming is loud tonight. It’s so very loud.
Those were her last words. I sat by the sea and watched the waves for an hour, then two. I wondered if she would be pleased, knowing that someone was thinking of her. I wondered if she’d be happy, given what I intended to do. I hoped she would be, and after much thought, I burned her notebook, and scattered the ashes into the sea.
Chapter 7
Types of theft: mugging, pickpocketing, smash-and-grab, autotheft, burglary, the long con, the quick graft, forgery, identity theft, shoplifting, fencing, embezzlement, larceny, looting, stealing, filching.
Actus reus: guilty act.
Mens reus: guilty mind.
An innocent woman may perform actus reus when she picks up another woman’s handbag by mistake. A guilty woman has mens reus when she does so deliberately. One may be a civil liability; only with both does the matter come before a criminal court.