All American Horror of the 21st Century

Under the Skin. Nicholas Kaufmann-1

UNDER THE SKIN

by Nicholas Kaufmann

Christine looks across the table at Karin, but her twin sister is too busy perusing the prayer book Dad handed out when they sat down for dinner. (Haggadah, he called it, having rediscovered his Jewish roots after the separation.) She stares at the top of Karin’s head until her sister glances up at her. Karin brushes back the long blonde hair that falls in her face, the same hair Christine used to have before the cut and dye job, and says, “Stop staring at me, Vampirella!”

Instinctively, Christine looks to her father at the head of the table to say something, but he doesn’t tell Karin to behave herself; he just pours wine like nothing happened. At the foot of the table, as far from Dad as the rectangular table allows, her mother doesn’t say anything either, only sighs and crosses her legs, clearly annoyed at herself for accepting Dad’s invitation. That neither of them scold Karin is no surprise to Christine. Her sister can break the rules without getting caught because she has Mom and Dad wrapped around her finger. Karin has always been the favorite twin. Mom even gave birth to her first, as if to prove her devotion.

Her mother glares at Christine as if to say, “I can’t believe you put that thing through your eyebrow.” Self-conscious, Christine touches the ring above her left eye and looks away.

Dad’s new apartment has a better smell than the one she shares with Karin and Mom, all musky leather furniture and new plastic electronics. Watching him tip the dark green wine bottle over his glass, Christine feels a sudden pang of loss. He doesn’t call or email much, and even now, with the two of them sitting at the same table, he’s not paying attention to her. When they first walked in, he asked Karin all about her plans for the summer between Junior and Senior years of high school, about her friends and social life, but all Christine got was, “What happened to your hair?”

Dad puts the bottle down. “This is the best part of the Passover seder,” he explains, picking up the Haggadah next to his plate. “Well, except for actually eating dinner, which I promise will be soon.” He grins. Mom sighs again and looks longingly at the apartment door. “Every time one of the plagues of Egypt is mentioned, what you do is dip your finger in the wine and put a drop on your plate. The spilling of the wine reminds us that our cup of joy is not complete because people died for our freedom from slavery.” He flips open the Haggadah and reads from it, “From the house of bondage we went forth to freedom. These are the ten plagues that The Holy One, blessed be He, brought upon Pharaoh and his people in Egypt.” He dips his pinky in the wine glass, then touches the finger to his plate, leaving a small, purple bead.

“Dam,” he says, pronouncing the Hebrew perfectly. “Blood.”

Christine remembers blood:

* * *

Standing naked in front of the bathroom mirror, all Christine saw, all she ever saw, was Karin. They were physically identical in every way. The same bony hips, the same woefully underdeveloped chest that she secretly hoped would fill out before her sister’s, the same straight blond hair hanging limply down to her too-narrow shoulders.

“Grounded,” she whispered to her reflection. All because she’d flunked some stupid assignment for her “Bible As Literature” class. She’d written a paper about how Moses was schizo because he heard voices no one else did. She got it back with a big red “F” and the words “You’re not taking Exodus very seriously” scrawled across the top.

“You’re not leaving this house until your grades improve,” Mom had said. “I won’t have my daughter going to community college. Karin’s getting straight ‘As,’ why can’t you?”

“Because I’m not Karin,” she said now, despite the face she saw in the bathroom mirror. “I’m Christine, the f****d up twin. The medical miracle. The one no one expected to survive.” Mom loved telling the story about how the doctors thought she would be smothered sharing the womb with her stronger, healthier, umbilical-hogging sister—it was her way of reminding Christine that from the very start she’d always been the weaker daughter. But she had survived, and when she was born it was like it was too late, like her parents had already decided not to get too attached to her. Her sister was no comfort. Instead of the bond between identical twins she’d heard so much about, their relationship had been confrontational and competitive since day one, like they were still fighting for legroom in utero. She didn’t want to be anything like her. She just wanted to be free of her. Sometimes she wished the doctors had been right.

And now she was grounded and couldn’t go out with Alan Healy, the only boy in school who seemed to like her, even though she wrote angry poetry and smoked cloves in the girls’ bathroom. She’d seen him peeking at her from around corners and behind books, and now that he’d finally worked up the nerve to ask her out, she couldn’t go. Meanwhile, Karin, who’d never cracked a textbook in her life and probably blew teachers in alleys to get her straight “As,” got to go out and enjoy herself. It wasn’t fair.

Christine clenched her fists. She swallowed her anger. It tasted bitter, thorny, and she felt it slither down the muscles under her skin.

She stepped into the tub and sat in the warm water. She lathered soap up and down her legs and grabbed the pink plastic razor next to the soap dish. She pulled it along her left leg from ankle to thigh, carving a trail through the thick white lather.

Mom’s voice floated in from the living room. Christine could tell from the way she yelled that she was on the phone with Dad. “I do everything I can to keep this family going! No, it’s not Karin, it’s your other daughter, as usual.”

A sting, a flash of red where the razor cut her, and Christine sucked air in through her teeth. She looked at the tiny crimson spot on her leg. She touched the blood with one finger.

Hello, Christine. The voice, deep and smooth, seemed to echo off the white tile walls and the inside of her skull.

“Who’s there?” She leaned out of the tub, dripping sudsy water onto the floor. The bathroom was empty. She scrunched her eyes closed as hard as she could. “Wake up,” she whispered to herself.

You’re not like your sister, Christine. Not anymore. Open your eyes and let me show you how.

She opened her eyes slowly.

See the cut on your leg? That’s what sets you apart.

The red spot against her skin looked beautiful, like a frosted rose on a birthday cake she’d never have to share.

But ask yourself, Christine, is it enough? The cut was an accident. She’s bound to have shaving cuts, too.

“No, I’m not listening,” Christine said, covering her face. The hard handle of the razor pressed against her cheek.

She could have the very same cut you do. Then how would you be different?

“Stop it.” She put her hands over her ears. “There’s no one here. You’re not real.”

You can’t rely on random accidents to set you apart from her, Christine. You need to take control.

She lowered her hands and looked at the silver glint of metal in the razor’s head.

Do it, Christine. Identical is only skin deep. It’s what’s under the skin that matters. Something moved beneath the skin of her leg, twisting around the muscle like a vine. Her breath caught in her throat.

Set it free. Cut it out of you and take control.

She pressed the razor to her soft, pale thigh. She held her breath, afraid, then slashed sideways as hard as she could. A line of blood followed the razor’s trail, dribbling down her leg and into the water, where it spread out in waving tendrils like red smoke. The sharp pain only lasted a moment before dulling, but during that moment her heart drummed, her skin tingled, and she felt more alive, more herself, than she had in years. Pain broke the walls of the cocoon she’d spun around herself, and the sensation waiting on the other side belonged to her, no one else.

In pain you are perfection. Now set it free.

She gasped as the skin around the cut bulged suddenly. What was happening? Had she cut too deep, slashed an important artery? It hurt worse than the razor slice. The pain seemed to whisper her name.

The edges of the slit puckered open like lips. Something long and black dropped out, landing in the water with a heavy splash. Christine kicked against the bathmat, trying to get out of the tub without touching the oily black eel that now swam around her ankles. She grabbed the edge of the tub, ready to pull herself over onto the tiled bathroom floor, but the eel changed course, torpedoing up along her torso. It surfaced, its slick, black, eyeless head splitting apart into spiky jaws.

“Go away!” she screamed, splashing and kicking the walls of the tub. “Go away!” The eel closed its mouth. It turned around and glided down toward the drain, bumping its head against the rubber plug that blocked its path. Christine rose to her knees. She pulled the chain, yanking the plug out of the drain, and the eel slid quickly down the dark hole.

Such a waste. You need to learn to take control, Christine.

She looked at the cut on her thigh. It had closed into a thin red line again.

* * *

Christine mimics her father, sinking her pinky into the warm wine and then touching it to her plate. The purple bead that rolls off her fingertip looks like the blood it’s named after.

“Tzfardea, frogs,” Dad continues, dipping again. “Kinim, lice.”

Her finger is too wet now. Some of the wine drips onto her palm before she can tap it on the plate. She sticks her pinky in her mouth to clean it off.

“Whoa,” Dad says. “You’re not supposed to do that, Christine. Our cup of joy is not complete because people died, remember? It’s considered insensitive to lick your finger because then it’s like you’re taking pleasure in it.”

“Sorry,” she says. Her cheeks burn.

“Passover is all about people dying so others can be set free,” he says.

Christine wants to say, “The Book of Exodus,” and wow everyone with what she learned in “Bible As Lit,” but Karin interrupts, “Idiot.”

“Let’s just get on with it,” Mom says.

“Is there a problem, Elaine?” Dad asks. Christine flinches. There’s an edge in his voice she’s not used to anymore now that he’s not living at home with them.

“No, Matt, there’s no problem,” Mom says, her voice extra saccharine. “Why don’t you tell us more about your cup of joy?”

While her parents cut into each other, Karin leans forward, her collar coming away to reveal a dark hickey on her neck. She whispers across the table to Christine, “Alan cried like a baby afterward. I did you a favor, sparing you that pathetic display. He wasn’t even very good.”

“f**k you,” Christine snarls, a little too loud.

“Christine, that’s enough,” Dad says angrily. “Behave yourself at the table.”

Karin smirks and flips her the finger when Mom and Dad aren’t looking. Not that it would matter if they saw her. She gets away with everything.

“The sooner we finish this, the sooner we can eat,” Dad says, picking up the Haggadah again.

“Hallelujah,” Mom says.

Dad glares at her, then sticks his pinky in the wine glass. “Arov,” he says, “beasts.”

“When did you learn Hebrew anyway?” Mom asks, drinking freely from her wine glass. “You were never very good at learning new things.”

“Dever,” he continues. “Pestilence.” The word slices through the air like a straightedge.

* * *

Frightened by the incident in the bathtub, Christine looked for new ways to distinguish herself from her twin sister. She raided her wardrobe and held a lonely midnight funeral behind the apartment building for her beaded V-neck tanks, fitted bellbottoms, and pink and blue topsiders. She replaced them with t-shirts with the sleeves cut off, camouflage pants, steel-toed black boots, and topped it all off with a frayed denim jacket. But it wasn’t enough. Now she just looked like Karin in a Halloween costume. Something more drastic was necessary.

She surprised Alan with her new haircut shortly before the big Spring Fling dance. She’d chopped most of it off, shaved half of her head down to a fine fuzz, and dyed it all a deep black. “It feels more like me,” she told him. Her heart sank when she saw his face. “You don’t like it?” He hemmed and hawed and kicked at the ground with his sneakers. He couldn’t break up with her fast enough.