The Core of the Sun (19 page)

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PUBLICATION SERIES ON DANGEROUS SUBSTANCES TO BE AVOIDED

Capsaicin
is an alkaloid made up of various capsaicinoids. Scientist L. T. Thresh gave the name to the crystal extract of the fruit of the chili plant in 1846.

Capsaicin alone is tasteless and colorless. Its effect is caused by stimulation of the pain receptors in the mouth and nose. When the pain signal reaches the brain, it begins to release a variety of chemicals into the body. These chemicals may cause a false feeling of euphoria, but some of their side effects are quite dire. In large doses capsaicin is a neurotoxin—it causes damage to the nerve cells. Side effects of capsaicin use include sweating; stomach pain; heart palpitations; damage to the digestive tract; serious inflammation of the urinary tract, mouth, and other mucous membranes; irrational behavior; and sometimes hallucinations. Capsaicin is powerfully addictive and even experimenting with small doses quickly leads to increased levels of use.

The danger of capsaicin is indicated by the fact that it is in the same family of plants as the
Solanaceae
, or nightshades, which include such toxic plants as
belladonna
(deadly nightshade) and
datura
(devil's trumpet). Just a few belladonna berries are enough to kill a person. The toxins in both plants cause powerful hallucinations and delirium. Another extremely dangerous plant, tobacco, is a member of this same family of plants.

One milligram of pure capsaicin on bare skin feels like a hot iron and causes visible damage.

Because chili peppers and the capsaicin they contain can be preserved for long periods by means such as drying, freezing, or various cooking methods, the task of tracing and destroying this terrible substance is a challenge. However, through its tireless determination, the Ministry of Health has almost completely eradicated the drug from Finland.

VANNA/VERA

August 2017

This summer has been like a plant reaching up out of the soil. It seemed to develop slowly, like a seedling, unhurried, and yet also to come in a rush, like a garden at the height of the season, bursting to send out sprouts and fruits as fast as it can. The chili production and the Gaians' methods for growing vegetables have given me a lot to learn; every day something new and exciting happens, and I feel as if I've packed a hundred hours into the day before it starts to fade into the limpid darkness of a summer night. But then I'm suddenly startled to notice that the time has stealthily flowed away like water sinking into sand, and seeds that seem to have been sown just yesterday have already pushed their first leaves out of the ground, and now here I am pulling up bright orange carrots twice as long as my hand.

Sometimes I even forget about Manna. Now that I basically have unlimited access to the hottest chilis to be found in Finland, and maybe in the whole world, I don't need a fix as often. The mere knowledge that I can get a fantastic high at a moment's notice whenever I feel like it keeps the Cellar door closed and the water low. I can go days without one, since the stuff is literally within arm's reach all the time.

And I have Jare, too. His skin and his hands saturating my senses with colors, a burning landscape that I can step into whenever I want.

The time sinking into the sand hasn't passed to no effect. Time and sun and rain have given us tomatoes and lettuce and root crops and herbs and squashes, onions and potatoes, leeks and peas. Jare and I drive a truck of vegetables to the Tammela Market every Saturday. We openly refer to them as “bioaura-dynamically grown,” although I find it a bit embarrassing, and even though we ask a little higher price for them they sell well. That's not surprising because the Gaians are very skillful farmers and teachers, and the plants and seeds they brought with them are of an extremely high quality. Our crops are abundant, beautiful to look at, and flavorful. The tomatoes are vine ripened and most of what we sell was picked the same day, early in the morning, practically still wet with dew.

By July we were already overhearing market shoppers say things like, “I never buy my turnips from anyplace but Neulapää now—they have some flavor to them,” or “Have you tried the Neulapää potatoes? There's really nothing like them. They make the Sieglindes pale in comparison.”

Time has worked its changes on the growing operation in the woods, too. The place is voluptuous. The green branches hang heavy with drops of yellow and orange and red and brown and pale green and purple in different sizes and shapes and aromas. When we close up at the market around noon, we go out to do some dealing.

At first the customers were shocked, then excited. Word has spread and demand is many times greater than our supply. That's why we purposely keep the sales of the fresh stuff to a minimum. Nobody sells diamonds by the kilo. We bring out individual Harrisburgs or Ukko's Darts as if they were rare jewels, when we actually have great piles of them, enough that we're drying part of the harvest and grinding them up—even learning to smoke some of them for the real aficionados—because the dried flake is much easier to store, hide, transport, and slip to another person than whole dried peppers would be, never mind fresh ones. We've been putting the flake in that familiar old hiding place under the living room floor.

There's also a lot of cash there. We've switched containers from a briefcase to a suitcase.

Jare will soon have enough.

I ought to be thinking about that moment, preparing myself for Jare to leave, figuring out what I'll do after that. Neulapää doesn't belong just to me anymore; it belongs to Jare and me. But the only way I can hold on to Neulapää and prevent it from being transferred to the state would be for Jare to sell it to Mirko for a nominal sum before he leaves—some negligible price between brothers in the faith that wouldn't arouse any suspicion—and include the condition that once Jare has left the country Mirko will marry me. That would give me a legal guardian I could at least trust a little. And why not? The Gaians like it here, the place feels safe, and I'm getting better at farming all the time.

But since we sell at a high price, we sell slowly. We don't use any middlemen at all, so we get the highest possible street price. We make only a handful of deals, but they add up to a lot. Jare is very careful not to let our prosperity show. He never buys expensive clothes or luxury goods and makes his car payments only when he can afford to with the money from his part-time work for the Food Bureau or from selling vegetables.

Sometimes he hints that I could go with him. After we started sharing a bed he hinted at it more often.

But I can't even think of leaving until I know what happened to Manna.

At Neulapää I might be able to find out.
Because she's partly here. I don't know where. But to me she's not dead until I see her body.

Maybe knowing would light up the Cellar. Maybe I could finally find a way out of there.

I remember what I thought when I was planting potatoes with Terhi:
This is what it would be like if I had a real sister.
The shame of that stabs me so deep.

Manna was my real sister. We have the smell of the same litter, a smell that will never rub off. How could I be so heartless, so traitorous, that I could even think otherwise?

And then there's Jare. The only thing Manna ever wanted that I wasn't able to give her.

Do I think I can make up for my betrayal by refusing to leave, by giving Jare up forever?

I need a fix. After thinking thoughts like that, I need a hell of a fix.

Jare is in Tampere making a deal, and though I ought to be helping Terhi dig potatoes, I run off to the secret greenhouses. The smell, the warmth, and the brilliance of the varied shades of green and red draw me to them irresistibly. It beats the potato patch hands down.

I step inside the smaller greenhouse. Valtteri and Mirko are in the back corner in fervent discussion about something. They see me and look at each other, and Mirko's eyebrows rise a bit. I stop. The tar smell of suspicion pierces the tropical aroma of the room, but Valtteri nods to Mirko and then beckons me over.

They're standing next to a rather sparsely stemmed plant with tapered leaves. There are numerous cardboard tags attached to it. I can see that the first fruits are ripening; a few of them look ripe already. The chilis are shaped like elongated hearts and are such a dark red that they're nearly brown in places.

Valtteri points at one.

“These are the brand-new hybrid I was talking about, and they'll be ready for testing soon. I'll warn you ahead of time that these babies are nothing to mess around with.”

“As strong as Ukko's Darts?”

“If we've succeeded, then Ukko's Darts will be oatmeal compared with these things.”

Oho.

“More than two million scovilles?”

“Maybe.”

Mirko looks at the chilis, the fruity aromas of hope and excitement positively swirling around him, though he's trying to look stiff and serious.

“When do we taste them?” I ask, trying to look businesslike and coolly professional.

Valtteri hesitates, glances at Mirko. Mirko clears his throat.

“Not quite yet, perhaps. We have to be careful, not rush things. It could be a breakthrough.”

A breakthrough to what?

“Does it have a name yet?”

Valtteri perks up.

“It has a working name. I started with the chili's botanical name, the order
Solanales
and the family
Solanaceae.
I think that etymologically it's from the Latin for ‘sun,' and somehow this variety seems to me—to us—to suggest the idea of an extreme, life-sustaining, everlasting fire. If there were anything more powerful than the sun, it would be the source of the sun's power, its center, the deepest, perhaps nearly divine part of the sun.”

“The core of the sun,” I say.

“Exactly.”

The potatoes have been dug and I should be making dinner, but I linger around the greenhouses as if under the pull of a magnet. The Gaians have another large sowing and transplanting operation going on in the other greenhouse. I can hear their hymn through the glass.

Teach me, chile, and I shall Learn.

Take me, chile, and I shall Escape.

Focus my eyes, chile, and I shall See.

Consume more chiles.

I feel no pain, for the chile is my teacher.

I feel no pain, for the chile takes me beyond myself.

I feel no pain, for the chile gives me sight.

I know that some of those chilis are ripe. Ready to be picked.

Why should Valtteri and Mirko and Terhi make all the decisions? About matters in which I am the undisputed expert?

Even if they have brought all the lights and growing boxes and seeds and plants, they are dependent on me. My abilities. My inheritance.

I slip into the empty greenhouse. I go to the back corner and stand for a moment in front of the plant Valtteri showed to me. My heart is pounding, as if I were doing something wrong, even though that's not the case at all.

I have a right.

I take hold of a branch and pluck off one, just one ripe chili from the Core of the Sun.

I'm a morlock. I want to know.

I'm not curious the way elois are—I have a pure, clear, sincere thirst for knowledge. Those are two very different things.

I shove the Core of the Sun into my apron pocket.

JARE SPEAKS

August 2017

Sometimes with new customers it's better if V isn't with me, especially when it's a totally fresh contact. They might be nervous around her because they assume, of course, that she's an impetuous blabbermouth like most elois. I get them used to her gradually. I assure them that she's my wife, that she's so loyal she would never tell anything to an outsider, that she's as nutty about me as an eloi can possibly be—so worked up into a frenzy of love that she'd walk through fire for me. I joke about how easy it is to manipulate an eloi with little romantic gestures until all you have to do is wave your hand and she'll do whatever you tell her to, like an obedient machine. The customers nod—they know how elois are, we're on the same wavelength, sometimes a carrot's better than a stick, heh heh. And V will be standing right behind them grimacing and rolling her eyes. Once she stuck out her tongue and it was all I could do not to laugh at a totally inappropriate moment.

I promised this new mark that I would have something very special for him. And I do—a fresh sample of Ukko's Dart. I plan to give him a taste of it—just a paper-thin slice, but I'll show him the whole chili to assure him that it's real, and as wordless proof that there's more where that came from, if we can agree on a price.

We agreed to meet at a juice bar on Hämeenkatu. I go in, sit at a table, and order a mineral water. I put the personal ad page on the table nonchalantly and start reading a paperback. The book is the sign—the password is “seven” so, clever as I am, I brought a copy of Aleksis Kivi's
Seven Brothers.

I notice with amusement that there's a government poster on the wall. It shows a map of Finland with all the countries outside its borders on fire, covered in red and yellow flames, and the tips of the flames are reaching threateningly toward our country. If you look closer you see that the flames are stylized chili peppers. A brave crowd outlined in silhouette is manning the borders in a bucket brigade. At the top it says in large letters
fight the fires of destruction
and at the bottom, in smaller letters,
don't get burned—report even the smallest sign of chili to the authorities!

I feel a rush of excitement in my veins. My scalp is tingling.

After a minute a man comes into the bar carrying a brown briefcase. He orders a tomato juice, opens his briefcase, and takes out the same issue of the personals and puts it on his table. Our eyes meet; he sees the book I'm reading, its title. I raise one eyebrow a little. He does the same. He drinks his tomato juice in a couple of gulps, then goes into the men's room.

I finish my mineral water at a leisurely pace, absorbed in
Seven Brothers
, until a safe period of time has passed, and then I get up, stretch, and walk calmly to the men's room.

The contact is waiting there, obviously impatient. We glance around, slip into a stall, and lock the door. He holds out his hand. “I'm Erkki.”

“Call me Petri.”

“What have you got?”

“The best stuff in Finland.” I recite the list of varieties and drink in his expression. “A lot of those you won't get from anyone but us. Easily more than a million scovilles, some of it.”

He takes in his breath.

“Flake?”

“Flake. But also fresh. Serranos, habas, Nagas.”

This always works. It makes them gasp, startles them, electrifies them. Erkki absorbs this information with obvious surprise, but not the wild amazement most customers show.

“I only have a small sample of the fresh on me. We only sell the fresh by special order. But the dope I've got on me is an unusual kind. A new hybrid. Million and a half scovilles. It's called Ukko's Dart, a Finnish variety. Want a taste?”

Erkki nods. I take out a pair of disposable latex gloves. This is always a fine moment, as the mark's eyes widen when he realizes why I need the gloves. I take a small plastic bag from the small pocket sewn into my jacket lining and remove the Ukko's Dart. I show the pepper to him, dangling it by its stem. I turn it over beneath his greedy gaze, like a trapper displaying a rare pelt. I take out my pocketknife and cut off a teeny-tiny slice from the tip, then spear it on the tip of the blade and hold it out to him. “Keep in mind when you taste this that it's from the tip of the fruit, the mildest part. The real strength is at the base of the stem, where the seeds are attached—”

The blow stuns me. All my attention is on the chili, and the man's movement is quick as a cobra's, the blade of his hand striking the side of my neck. My arms flop helplessly, my knife and the pepper fall to the floor. The man makes a swift kick and the knife skids across the floor out of reach.

Another wave of pain rushes over the first as a fist hits me hard in the diaphragm. My lungs empty so fast that I almost lose consciousness, doubled over in pain, wheezing as I try to get some air. Erkki clicks open the lock on the stall before I've straightened up again, grabbing the Ukko's Dart from the floor as he runs out. I cough and try to get some breath, but can't move, and when I finally get my legs to work I know he's already long gone.

I have enough sense, at least, to flush my gloves down the toilet. I pick up my knife from the floor next to the tiled wall and slide the tiny sliver of pepper down the floor drain with the side of my shoe.

Five minutes later I'm driving back to Neulapää. I try to obey the speed limit. I'm in a hell of a hurry, but the last thing I need right now is to attract the attention of a traffic cop.

A greedy capso who wanted to keep the chili and the money? Not unheard of, like the one V met at the cemetery. But this guy knew something about martial arts. He didn't seem like an ordinary mark.

Then an extremely chilling thought occurs to me, entirely too late. If the guy was a capso looking for a score, why would he just steal the fresh chili from me—why not beat me unconscious or kill me and empty my pockets, which he knew would be full of dozens of grams of flake and a wallet to boot?

The Authority.

He has a description of me now. And if he is with the Health Authority, he also knows that we use the personals.

I've been greedy and reckless.

The snoops will know right away that the growing operation is somewhere not far from Tampere because the pepper was very fresh, picked with the morning dew. It's obvious it wasn't carried in a suitcase with a false bottom from somewhere out in Ahvenanmaa, never mind Thailand. And even if the authorities' knowledge of chili is limited, they won't need liquid chromatography or a team of botanists to tell them that Ukko's Dart is an entirely new variety, and that it's hotter than hell.

But why would a guy from the Health Authority just take the chili and run?

Why not show me his badge, slap some handcuffs on me, and take me to a paddy wagon waiting around the corner?

Another appalling idea hits me, and it, too, comes much too late.

They wanted to let me go so they could follow me. Or track my movements, sooner or later, to the farm itself.

Hopefully later. Hopefully.

I've made a terrible mistake, but what's most important now is how I can keep V out of this mess.

An idea flashes into my mind—to find a public phone and call Neulapää to warn them—but I can't afford to waste any time. Besides, there won't necessarily be anyone in the house. They might all be at the greenhouses.

When I get to the little back road that leads to Neulapää, a virtually deserted ten-kilometer stretch, I step on the gas. I'm sure there's no traffic radar here. I've got to drive like a bat out of hell.