Chapter 12 Rupi
Twelve
Rupi
This is my friend Saj,” Prem says. “He’s an immigration attorney. He has some questions for you.”
“I’ll bet he does,” I say, hating that I don’t want to meet the man’s gaze, which shows no memory of our meeting minutes ago.
How did I get the door to the closet wrong? Who the hell thought putting a regular door on a closet was a good idea?
This man, Saj, doesn’t react. I’m not sure if he’s heard me.
He’s tall and as dark skinned as Simi’s rasgulla is light skinned.
His brows are slashes across his forehead, and his jaw is an almost perfect square trapping gaunt hollows.
There are shadows under his eyes. He looks like the angel of death.
That’s probably why he became an immigration lawyer.
No one but the most desperate would work with someone who looks like this.
I expect a scar to be running down his cheek, but his skin is smooth and unmarred, which makes me inexplicably angry.
The fact that he’s making my anger pop to the surface like this makes me even angrier.
“So, what do you think?” Saj asks, taking me by surprise. His voice is the exact opposite of the rest of him: warm and nonthreatening.
“About what?” I say.
“He has some questions, Rupi. He’s the lawyer who’s going to help with your visa,” Simi explains in a voice used to talk to children. She’s pouring chai into four mismatched cups.
I focus on the smell of ginger, cardamom, and black tea steeped in milk. It’s been so long since this aroma brightened my senses that my legs feel weak. I want to reach out and lean on the kitchen counter, but my audience already sees me as helpless, and I’ve had about enough of that.
I pick up the biggest of the four cups and take it to the pillows laid out on the floor. “Of course I’ll answer his questions. It’s not like I have a choice.”
He’s obviously good at keeping secrets since Simi and Prem don’t have the slightest clue that he just saw me stark naked, and as far as he’s concerned, I’m the woman his friend wants to marry. I’m getting not a clue of what he thinks about any of that.
The three of them join me on the floor with their own cups.
“So, tell me about your situation,” Saj says, taking a sip.
“My situation is that I have no papers or proof of who I am. The only evidence that I exist is that I’m sitting here.
I own absolutely nothing other than the clothes on my bare body.
” I pause, but there’s not even a flicker of a reaction to my allusion to nakedness.
“Actually, these are my sister’s, so I own nothing more than what’s under them. ”
Still nothing. “The more significant thing is how that came about.” He crosses his legs and takes the posture of the Buddha. There’s a legal pad sitting next to him that he’s brought to the party. “How did you lose everything?”
I try not to laugh but fail. I throw a look at Simi. “Where would we start? When I was born, or when you were born? Or when you left to come to America?”
Honestly I can barely remember life before our mother had Simi.
My only tangible memory from before that is our father leaving after telling our very pregnant mother that he knew Simi wasn’t his.
If they aren’t yours, then why are they mine?
That was Ma’s response. Another memory ripples inside me like a tremor in my heart: waking up at night to soothe and feed newborn Simi, who slept pressed against me, and thinking, You are mine.
“Why don’t you start with how you came to America?” Saj says, picking up the pad.
“Sure.” So, I start there. “Soon after our mother died, I met this American couple, Ron and Tina. They were visiting Mumbai, and they came into the restaurant in Andheri where I worked as a hostess. Tina was impressed with my tattoos. When I told her I’d done them myself, she was blown away.”
I pause for Saj to react to the fact that I’m a tattoo artist. He doesn’t.
So, I go on. “I gave Tina the address of the parlor I worked at. It was common for customers at the restaurant to ask about my tattoos and want them. Tina and Ron showed up at the parlor. Tina wanted an Om on her butt.”
Simi and Prem narrow their eyes. The Om is a sacred Hindu symbol. The butt, obviously, isn’t the best location for sacred symbols.
Saj shows the first flash of amusement. “You refused.”
“At first. But then they offered me enough money that it would have been idiotic to refuse. So, I gave her the Om she desired. I simply mirror imaged it, so it wasn’t an Om at all. Obviously neither Tina nor Ron noticed.”
Simi grins with satisfaction. Saj’s eyes return to being inscrutable.
“Tina loved it so much that she wanted Ron to get a matching one. So, I did another reverse Om at the center of an elaborate mandala on another butt cheek. The money was more than I made at the restaurant in six months. After a week spent inking their butts, they adopted me as their local friend and asked me to show them around Mumbai.”
Growing up, I barely saw much of Mumbai outside our neighborhood.
Even the restaurant and the tattoo parlor weren’t too far from our flat.
I never had a desire to fly the nest. Not because I loved the nest but because, given what the nest was like, I had little hope for the rest of the world.
Whatever little I knew about safety, it was in that flat, which was the most darkly ironic thing ever.
But I did know I had to get my sister out.
After Simi left, the dead thing inside me had died a little more.
Whatever there was in that flat that held me tightened around me.
But Ron and Tina were relentless, and with everything else going on with the blackmailing cop, I forced myself out of my bubble.
Prem and Saj don’t need to know any of this, and Simi already does, so I restrict my narrative to the relevant parts.
“Ron and Tina were friendly and generous. It wasn’t something I had any experience with.
It was easy enough to show them around Mumbai and satisfy their hunger for local flavor.
By the end of that second week, I had an offer to go back to LA with them.
They owned a restaurant and said I would be a perfect hostess. ”
I remember wondering how it could possibly be that easy.
It had taken a lot of money and years of planning to get Simi to America.
Simi’s initial effusive daily emails had trickled to one a week after the first year, then pretty much dried up to one every few weeks.
I hadn’t allowed myself to miss my sister until the idea that I might actually be able to see her again presented itself.
None of that is relevant, either, so I just tell them that I refused the offer.
Saj asks his first question. “Why?”
“Because trusting people I’d known for just a few weeks was stupid.” And yet it was so tempting.
Saj nods for me to go on.
“Ron was surprisingly disappointed.” Which, now that I think about it, might have shrunk the size of Tina’s disappointment a little.
I didn’t notice anything but affection between them back then.
“Ron tried hard to change my mind, offered me money, a ticket, an apartment when I got to LA. He even went with me to the passport office and got me an expedited passport. Then he took me to the US consulate and got me to apply for a tourist visa. He paid all the fees. I was shocked when my visa came through.”
The day I got the visa was the first time escape felt like a real possibility. Until then I didn’t dare to believe anything Ron offered. The blackmailing cop breathing down my neck was becoming more and more unbearable.
“I still didn’t think I could leave. Ron didn’t pressure me more and left with a promise to send money and a ticket if I changed my mind.”
“How did your mother die?” Saj asks, interrupting my thoughts.
I’ve been avoiding Simi’s eyes, but now my gaze strays to her. I want to tell him that this has no relevance to the case, but something tells me to tread carefully. He can’t suspect that I’m withholding anything.
“Kidney failure.”
“This was before your sister left India?”
I very badly want to ask where he’s going with this, but I don’t. “Yes, she got sick before Simi left but died after she left.”
“So, you cared for your mother yourself? What about your dad?”
“Our dad left before I was born,” Simi says, speaking for the first time. “When Rupi was four. Our mother was . . .” She throws a wary look Prem’s way, and I realize she hasn’t told Prem about our childhood. “She was married four times after that. Her last husband died a little before she did.”
“How?”
“How what?” I snap, unable to stop myself.
“How did her last husband die?” he elaborates calmly.
I force myself to reflect his calm. “He was found dead at work. He fell and hit his head.”
“Hmm,” Saj says. “This was before Simi left?”
“Yes,” Simi says before I snap again and ask what he’s digging for.
“How did your mother meet him?”
It’s becoming impossible to not sound defensive. “He was her dialysis nurse.”
“So, he was her primary caregiver.”
“No, I was.” I was always the one to take care of Ma, even before she got sick. The only husband who ever did it was Glen. Vivek, who made it to Husband Number Five just in time to poison a dying woman for her flat, was no Glen.
“Simi, you’re a nurse, aren’t you?” Saj asks.
Simi nods.
“And you got your nursing training in India? Was that influenced by your stepfather?”
I don’t know what this guy is trying to get at with these questions, but I don’t think I want him to be my lawyer anymore. Then again, maybe I need someone exactly like him.
“No,” Simi says. “I was already done with my nursing program and was working on my licensing exams when our mother met him.”
“Okay, so, when you left India, your mother was sick?”
“Yes, she was already in a coma with no hope of recovery. And my training program here in Kentucky was starting.”