The Core of the Sun (21 page)

JARE SPEAKS

August 2017

We have to leave, too, V. You're my wife; you'll come with me. You've said you can't go until you know what happened to Manna, but I won't take that for an answer anymore. You've burrowed your way into me, built a nest in my brain. I'd just as soon cut off my hands, or cut out my heart, as leave you here. I know you can get along without me—that's what's painful about this. You can get through anything you set your mind to, and that independence from me is the worst part of it.

Because I'm hooked on you.

I have to convince you. This isn't just about your obsession with your sister's disappearance. At one point you mentioned your precious books, how you supposedly couldn't ever leave them behind, but I've heard about amazing things in the decadent states, like tiny portable devices where a person can store a thousand books—a thousand books filled with information that's completely up-to-date. I've heard about data networks that can give you the answer to any question that's on your mind at the press of a button. I can offer that world to you. It's something you can't do by yourself.

You're my adrenaline, my new game of chance.

I can see that you're starting to give in, deep inside. You are going to come with me. You've got to.

VANNA/VERA

August 2017

Jare and I are covered in sweat, carrying the lights and the seedling boxes out of the forest. There's no way we can fit all the full-grown plants into the hidden cargo hold; all we can do is put a couple of the most precious adult plants there. We'll harvest the rest of the ripe fruit for seed.

Mirko, Valtteri, and Terhi take down the forest greenhouses and carry the parts to the yard. They can haul them in the visible portion of the truck beds. There's nothing we can do about the impressions left in the ground, but we can disguise the traces of where the floors and corner posts were to some extent with brush and sticks.

I think it would have made more sense to wait a little while in case the authorities showed up right behind Jare. There might have been some small chance they wouldn't find any evidence. If somebody comes now our guilt will be as obvious as if we'd been standing over a dead body with a smoking gun in our hands. But for some reason the Gaians want to leave immediately.

As if they were fleeing more than just the authorities.

Jare suggests that Valtteri sink the leftover stems and roots of the plants in Riihi Swamp. He should be able to shove them into the black water under the moss until there's almost no trace of them, and even if they were found it would be hard to tell them from all the other plant debris in various stages of decay.

“But why would the Authority be so ineffectual?” I wonder out loud. “If it really was a bust and they let you get away so they could follow you, they would have already thrown us in the slammer. And if they lost you at some point, I'm sure they could have just looked up your license number. It doesn't make sense.”

“Maybe they're collecting more evidence. Want to be sure.”

I nod toward the plastic bags glowing red and yellow and green that Mirko and Terhi are carrying to the car in both hands. “There couldn't be any more abundant evidence than that.” I hand some boards up to Jare where he's standing in the truck bed. “And what if this so-called Erkki wasn't a bad mark
or
a cop? What if he's a free agent?”

“Free agent?”

“A private detective. Or a bounty hunter. Somebody who's paid to find things out and report back. All he needed was to grab a piece of evidence and run. And even if he went straight to the Authority and sold them the Ukko's Dart for a good price, they wouldn't have any more hard evidence than the chili itself. They'd have Erkki's description of you, maybe a grainy surveillance video from someplace near the bar, the fact that you said your name was Petri, and I guess now our method for making contacts, but it's a big step from that to connecting the crime to Jare Valkinen, Gaian devotee and vegetable vendor.”

Jare's tension eases a bit. “There just might be a heck of a lot of sense in that. But it gives us only a little more time. We have to get at least twenty-five thousand together really fast; that's how much we're short in the kitty. There's more than enough stuff to do it, and we can sell it cheap if we can find somebody to buy it wholesale. To hell with maximizing our returns.”

“With half the drug agents in Tampere on the lookout for dealers?”

We look at each other. Jare jumps down from the loading bed and goes over to the other truck. “Mirko, can you spare another half a kilo? It doesn't matter what kind; just give us whichever one you have plenty of seed or seedlings for.”

Mirko grabs one of the bags and tosses it to Jare without a glance. Jare snatches it out of the air. Mirko's coolness might be a reaction to Jare's recklessness, and the fact that he worried about me first and about the emergency second. But I don't think so. Something else is bothering him.

Jare walks back over to me and holds up the bag. “These and the flake under the floor should be enough.” He goes to stash the bag in the house.

“Last boxes!” Terhi yells to Mirko. Valtteri returns from his trip to the swamp, red and panting, his shoes wet from the bog moss.

The Gaians don't waste their time getting emotional. When the trucks are loaded, when the divider separating the secret section of the cargo hold is in place and their few personal belongings are gathered up, they're ready to go.

“Where are you headed?”

“Northeast. The Kainuu woods. The growing season there is starting to get long enough, now that exceptionally cold winters are happening less often. People in the countryside are used to the Gaians' nomadic ways. No one will think anything of it when we show up and unpack. We'll find a little fallow piece of land to rent. Keep a low profile.”

I start to feel relieved. If we thoroughly clean up all traces of the Gaians' stay here, we can claim that we just had a couple of them come to teach us bioaura farming at the beginning of the growing season, and nothing more. Luckily they've been so busy growing chilis that the amount of vegetables we've been bringing to the market to sell has been about as much as two hardworking people could manage to grow on their own.

Valtteri and Terhi jump into one truck, Mirko into the other. Mirko waves and drives out the gate. Valtteri starts his engine, too. The wheels are already starting to roll away when the truck stops, the door swings open, and Terhi hops out of the cab. She runs to me, takes something out of her pocket, puts it in my hand, and folds my fingers around it.

“I told Valtteri that I forgot to thank you. Use it wisely.”

She runs with quick, long strides back to the truck, jumps in, and slams the door in one smooth movement. The engine roars.

The two trucks pull out onto the gravel road and disappear around a curve into the spruce woods.

I open my fist. Lying on my palm is a ripe pepper about as long as my finger, the color of clotted blood. The Core of the Sun.

“I can't leave until I know—”

“Shut your trap.”

I'm stunned into silence. Jare has never talked to me like that before.

“Listen. It's possible, though very unlikely, that Manna's body will still be found. But what satisfaction will that give you?”

“I would be sure.”

“We just don't have time. Whoever it was who stole the Ukko's Dart from me won't leave it at that.”

I'm still shaking my head.

“Do you remember I told you about those two guys who managed to float out of the country on a big pile of money? One of them took his wife with him. It doesn't cost much more.”

“I won't leave Manna.”

Jare is silent, his hands in fists, his knuckles white.

“Out there—in some other place—you could be Vera.”

Vera. The name is precious and remote to me at the same time. It's a name that belongs to someone I am and am not. I read in a book once that my original name comes from the Latin word for “truth.”

I would be real. I would be true.

“Vanna Valkinen would become Vera Neulapää. Because even if we do go together . . . where we're going you'll be free to do what you want, of course.”

I look at Jare and suddenly an immense weariness flows through all my limbs. I could shed my eloi shell? Drop all the years of pretending away like a snake in a skin that's grown too small?

He sees the look on my face, sees me giving in, sees me crumble. He takes my hand and quickly kisses it.

“We have to act fast. We have to get the rest of the money together quickly, take risks—we've got nothing to lose now. I have a regular customer who buys a lot, buys often. We've arranged that when I have something to sell I call his downtown office from a public phone. My code name is Paloheimo, a car dealer, so my call is always about a car I want to show him, and if he's interested we agree on a time and place to meet. He's a wealthy man and he knows the going rates. If I made him an offer—all the fresh and flake we've got for twenty-five thousand—he might jump at it. Or maybe thirty thousand—that would give us a nest egg. It would be enough chili to last him the rest of his life. He could have the biggest down-low chiller blowout Finland's ever seen with just a couple of Ukko's Darts.”

“But what if they know enough to suspect you? Or if you're on their list of suspects? Won't they be on the lookout for you? You'll get caught. No. It's no good.”

“What do you mean ‘no good'?”

“I have to make the sale.”

Jare looks at me for a long time. Twice he opens his mouth, but he doesn't say anything.

“No one will suspect me. You can make the call, be Mr. Paloheimo, but Miss Paloheimo should be the one to meet him.”

Jare Valkinen and his cute little wife, Vanna Valkinen, his little lady in all her eloi regalia, are on an innocent shopping trip in downtown Tampere.

In the trunk of the car are three suitcases. Two of them contain all our personal possessions—a few clothes; enough cosmetics and other requisite eloi supplies to make me believable in my eloi role, at least as far as the border. The third case is full of money.

Jare comes out of the phone booth and gets into the car with me.

“It's all decided. If I bring the money to the man at the Trade Ministry he can get me the papers, tickets, and travel permit all at once. We can't get passports, of course, just a travel permit with your name added, which means that in principle we can't go anywhere but the target country, but the important thing at this point is to get over the border and then think about what to do next. They say you can even buy passports in the hedonist countries.”

“Will we be able to leave right away? Where to?”

“There's just one flight out of Tampere on Wednesday afternoons. It goes to Tallinn. Once we get there we'll get a connecting flight. I'll leave the car at the airport, let the government repossess it. The man at the Trade Ministry was still working out what would be a plausible place for him to be sending urgent expert assistance. He's guessing we might end up in Spain, marketing Finland's unusually clean-grown oat bran. Crushes cholesterol with the very first spoonful.”

Spain!

“What about . . . the other phone call?”

“I wouldn't have called the Trade Ministry if I hadn't made the deal. I called as Mr. Paloheimo and said I'd like to introduce him to a friend of mine, said that it's a meeting I know he'll really enjoy. I said this friend of mine was hot to make a deal, one that could also be lucrative for him. I'm hoping, counting on him to understand and bring along plenty of cash, but if he does buy the whole stash like I hope he will, I'm sure he's going to need to make a trip to the bank.”

Jare describes the mark to me and tells me when and where we're meeting. The masco's name is Järvi, and we're supposed to behave like a couple in the first phase of mating and exchange the money and packages in some appropriately secluded makeout spot.

“Just do your parrot act.”

I nod. The fresh peppers are in two flat, transparent plastic bags taped to my thighs under my skirt. The dried chili is in a shopping bag. It's packed into two paper packages, an emptied sugar bag and flour bag, both with their tops rolled and glued to look just as they did from the store. About fifty grams that we couldn't fit in the paper bags are in a smaller plastic bag, wrapped in paper to look like something bought in bulk—a piece of cheese or a couple of herring filets. To complete the disguise, Jare scrawled a price of a few marks across the paper, to make it look like something bought from the grocer's. The contents of the shopping bag look absolutely normal. Anyone passing by who looked into my bag would assume I was an ordinary eloi out doing some shopping.

I spot Järvi the moment I walk into the station. A man in his fifties, short, potbellied, and ruddy. Obviously a great partaker in life's pleasures. I'm willing to bet he's also indulged in meat and sugar, might not even be a stranger to alcohol.

He's leaning against a pillar in the waiting room, looking bored, reading a newspaper, his leather briefcase next to him. I stand beside him and greet him in an eloi manner, curtsying with my eyes downcast at first. “Good day. I'm Miss Paloheimo.”

Järvi raises his eyebrows, letting out a whiff of surprise, then remembers the unusual arrangement and smiles unctuously and plays along. “Miss Paloheimo, of course. I've been expecting you . . . It's very nice to meet you.”

We exchange a little empty small talk for the surveillance cameras about the weather and the approaching spring, then I suggest, shyly but with firm insistence, that perhaps the gentleman knows a place we could go to get to know each other better. He does indeed. I take hold of his arm and we walk into the park next to the station. We sit on a bench under a silver willow that droops so that we're half out of sight under its hanging branches. I get straight to business.

“Mr. Paloheimo told me to tell you that he's got a good batch of fresh to sell, half a kilo undried, plus two kilos of flake. The fresh is, um, really good stuff, and some of it's more than a million sco-scovilles. And the flake is all the strongest kinds and it's just dried peppers and there's no fillers in it. Mr. Paloheimo'll only sell it to you if you buy the whole batch—no divvying it up. And he wants thirty thousand marks for the whole deal.”

The gears start turning in his head. Thirty thousand is a lot of money—many times the annual salary of the average working masco—but he can afford it. On the street you could add a zero to the end of it, and a one to the beginning, and it would still be a good deal.

“Can I see it?”

I nod. I get up from the bench and head deeper into the willow thicket, with Järvi trailing behind me. I press my back against the trunk of the tree and lift my skirt. Anyone passing by would at most see a couple messing around in the bushes. An eloi lifting her skirt in the bushes—it happens sometimes.

Järvi lets out a gasp when he sees the peppers, but he quickly recovers.

“And the flake?”

I let go of my skirt and open my shopping bag. I show him the sugar and flour packages.