Chapter 11 Rupi
Eleven
Rupi
The hot spray of the shower hitting me might be the best feeling I’ve ever experienced in my entire life.
I want to open my mouth and drink in the comfort.
I want my pores to gape like a colander and rain on my parched insides.
There’s shampoo—real lathering shampoo. It’s been so long since I’ve felt lather against my scalp.
In Matthew’s studio’s powder room, I used a washcloth and hand soap in the sink through the winter.
In the summer, I discovered the public showers by North Beach and walked there to partake. But those showers had nothing on this.
I practically scrape off the surface of my scalp with the force of my scrubbing.
I avoid the scar across the back of my head, even as it tightens with sensation and memories.
I ignore everything but the relief of soap and water against my body.
Rubbing and rubbing until my skin pinkens and turns raw.
The ink on my arms and thighs brightens.
My signature watercolor style has the versatility of an amphibian.
The fire lilies that bloom through the flames blaze to life, the fire and petals indistinguishable.
Flowers that can grow only on the ashes of an inferno—the destruction and the beauty separates and rejoins—the canvas of my body speaking to me and for me.
This is the reason I love my work so much.
Tattoos are the only permanent gift you can give yourself.
A freezing in time. A moment immortalized on the only thing that stays with you forever: your physical being.
Apparently there are monks in the Himalayas who spend days creating intricate masterpieces with colored sand, and then when the art is complete, they sweep away their labor.
A practice to reinforce that nothing is permanent; that life is about the journey, not the destination; that attachment brings with it sorrow and moves you away from peace.
Tattoos are the opposite. Tattoos help you hold on. The point isn’t the doing—it’s the after, which fully erases what came before. Tattoos make you a new you. The attachment is only to yourself. If you don’t even own your own self, you own nothing.
I study the many jars and bottles lined up in the corner shelves of Simi’s bathroom.
Sugar scrub. I know my sister isn’t snacking on her beauty products, but imagining it makes me smile, nonetheless.
Simi’s always been obsessed with sugar. Probably my fault, because it was a simple comfort I always tried to provide.
Swiping money from Ma and the stepclowns to buy Simi treats was even more entertaining than the TV we loved so much.
But what about you, didi, Simi always asked. Don’t you like chocolate?
I’m already too sweet, Chipku. You’ll get a toothache if I get any sweeter, since you’re always stuck to me.
Why didn’t anyone tell you until you were too old that attachment was a bad thing? That it caused the kind of pain that could kill you piece by piece.
For the first twenty-five years of my life, I believed that the tighter I was connected to my sister, the better our chance of survival. It was impossible to imagine existing without her. Turns out I was right. Look at the mess I made of my life after I lost her.
After my luxurious shower, I step into the bedroom with its forest of tropical plants and fluffy bed. Simi said to help myself to whatever clothes I need. She even took away my old clothes so I wouldn’t be able to wear them again. There are advantages and disadvantages to being known so well.
When Simi gave me a quick tour, she showed me her closet.
It was like a tiny room all on its own. Probably half the size of our room growing up.
I remember running a hand over the neat piles of clothes and stopping on a soft black T-shirt.
Now it calls my name. I walk to the closet door and pull it open.
A man stands across the room.
Before I register I’ve opened the wrong door, he turns to me.
Instead of gasping in shock, or apologizing and turning away, he just stands there, eyes widening ever so slightly. He makes no other movement as my towel starts slipping down my body. He waits to see what I will do. Watching him is like watching time slow.
I’ve always had this thing inside me—this person who takes over when I’m faced with strange situations.
Real Rupi. That’s who I’ve always thought of this other person as.
Real Rupi likes to watch things unfold. She likes to toss water in smoking-hot oil to see what might happen.
She’s an observer, never a participant, on the outside of destruction, waiting to see how far it will go. Real Rupi lets the towel fall.
The man blinks. His eyes follow the towel as it descends my body and pools around my ankles. Without lingering any more than that, he looks back at my eyes. That’s it.
I can’t be sure if it’s been one second or one minute since I opened the door, thinking it was the closet.
I push the door shut without picking up the towel.
His eyes remain locked with mine. There’s nothing in them.
Not any of the things I’ve always seen in eyes when they take me in.
When he disappears behind the door, I’m acutely aware of two things.
That the man had the darkest, most dangerous eyes of anyone I’ve ever met, and he saw all of me without showing me anything of himself.