The Core of the Sun (13 page)

Even if you did still have a grudge against me, your behavior was mystifying. When an eloi has an opportunity to be the birthday girl, the center of attention, she makes sure she has an audience for it. Besides, every guest would be bringing a gift, and like all elois, you loved pretty, shiny things. You definitely would have wanted me at your party.

Jare came by to plan our next drop, and I told him about my worry. I was relieved that he didn't laugh at my concern and listened to me seriously. I told him I was afraid because of what had happened to Aulikki.

Jare pointed out that stumbling on the stairs and hitting your head weren't unusual accidents for a woman of Aulikki's age. If Harri had wanted to kill Aulikki so that he could get his hands on Neulapää, wouldn't he have waited for a time when the connection wouldn't have been so obvious?

Be that as it may, I was tortured with worry. The dark water in the Cellar was churning, and I had to keep it from rising. I needed information more than I had ever needed a fix.

I asked Jare if he would take me to Neulapää in his work car. He pondered for a moment and thought of an excuse he could use for taking the car there, but I wouldn't be able to come with him.

It would do. I asked only that if he saw you he would try to find the reason for your coldness.

He agreed.

I knew that you might be shocked to see Jare. But it was the only way I could think of to quickly find out what was wrong.

He told me what he saw when he went to Neulapää. Hopefully someday, if I find you, I can shed some light on at least some of what Jare was thinking, why he acted the way he did. For my sake and yours.

Until next time,

Your sister,

Vanna
(
Vera
)

JARE REMEMBERS

July 2016

I drove straight to Neulapää, parked right in front of the steps to the house, and slammed the door with exaggerated force. Driving a government car is enjoyable in a mean sort of way. People stiffen, get flustered, behave with artificial politeness, even fear. Perfectly law-abiding citizens will start to look around and wonder if they've broken some rule and not realized it.

Before I could even knock Harri Nissilä was already standing in the doorway. His hands were on his hips and his face was a mixture of nervousness and defiance.

“What do you want?”

I introduced myself: Inspector Valkinen from the Food Bureau. I showed him my card and said that because the property had recently transferred ownership, it was my responsibility to make a routine inspection and confirm that no illegal nicotine- or capsaicin-producing crops were being grown there and no alcohol was being produced. The Food Bureau had no resources for any such routine inspections, but how could Harri Nissilä know that?

He relaxed a little and put on his shoes, ready to show me the fields and outbuildings. I looked around. The air was warm and clear. If Manna was at Neulapää, why was she keeping herself indoors?

As we made the rounds Nissilä chattered about how it was just a summer place for him and he grew only enough food for his own needs and his vacation was over the next week and he would be going back to town. I noticed he kept saying “I” and “me,” rather than “we” and “us,” but I let it pass.

As expected, I didn't find anything illegal going on behind the sauna or in the shed or the barn loft. I said I'd like to look in the house. Nissilä let out a pointed sigh, but he showed me in. I didn't see Manna anywhere. The rooms had changed a great deal since the last time I saw the place. They had an unmistakable eloi's touch.

The room that had been Mrs. Neulapää's bedroom was now filled with a large double bed. Still no sign of Manna. There was a small dressing table in the corner scattered with makeup and lotions and creams. A hairbrush with long strands of platinum-blond hair in it. As if Manna had been there just a moment before brushing her hair and had stood up and stretched and gone to run some errand.

For the sake of appearances, I peeked into the kitchen and Vanna's and Manna's former rooms, one of them turned into a guest room now, the other some kind of manly den with a writing desk and some papers and manuals about heating and air-conditioning.

No trace of Manna.

I leaned back casually against the kitchen table and said, “Is the lady of the house not in?”

I could see immediately that Nissilä didn't like that question one bit.

“My wife has gone shopping.”

“Ah. Where does she do her shopping? There must be very few shops out here.”

Nissilä opened his mouth, but we both knew that anything that came out of it would be bullshit. I knew the services in the area quite well from my days as a summer farmhand. And the bicycle was parked in the yard.

“Berry picking, I mean. There's been a nice crop of blueberries this year. Picking berries at this time of year is like going to the store without needing any money. Heh heh.”

My respect for Nissilä's intelligence rose a notch. Blueberries indeed. They were even in season. But for some reason I knew—­without a hint of doubt—that Manna wasn't out there crouching among the tussocks and swatting the bugs away. Elois shun the woods. To them the woods are a chaotic, ever-changing place, lacking the regularity and permanence and familiarity of a street or front yard.

“Aren't you worried she'll get lost?”

“She always stays close by. This area's familiar to her. This is my wife's childhood home.”

Another point for Harri. I was impressed. Truth is always the most effective weapon when you want to lie convincingly.

“Is there any other nook or cranny I can show you, or shall we consider this inspection complete?”

He was fucking with me. That meant two things. First, that he had no suspicion I was interrogating him and thought I just happened to inadvertently hit upon a sore subject, and he had, by his reckoning, sailed through it admirably; and second, that he really wanted to get rid of me, and fast.

“Thanks for your time. I'll report that no further investigation is necessary.”

Naturally I had every intention of investigating further. There was something rotten going on, rotten in every way. I knew how obsessive elois are about their birthdays. Vanna could call Manna's friends. If Manna hadn't gotten in touch with any of them about a party, then something was terribly wrong. And I suspected that Harri Nissilä's fingers were in it.

SUBMISSIVE PERSONALITY TEST FOR YOUNG WOMEN

Excerpt from the Supplementary Confirmation
Questionnaire (1912)

How do you greet your husband when he comes home from work or from the fields? Choose only one answer.

1. I ask him to wash up and come eat.
   
2. I remind him of his chores.
   
3. I request his participation in household tasks such as chastising the children, preparing the meal, cleaning, etc.
   
4. I welcome him home and give him a kiss in greeting.
   

If your husband approaches you with conjugal intent, how do you respond? Choose only one answer.

1. I accept his advances, provided there is no reason to refuse such as monthly troubles or illness.
   
2. I request that he wait until I have put the children to sleep and have completed my other household duties.
   
3. I remind him that we already have a considerable number of children and that abstinence might be prudent.
   
4. I give myself to him willingly and unreservedly.
   

Who in your opinion is the best person to turn to for guidance and instruction on the road of life?

1. My father, brother, or parish pastor.
   
2. My mother, sister, or aunt.
   
3. I believe I know how to make my own decisions about my life.
   
4. My husband or fiancé.
   

How to score the test:

Nos. 1 and 4 are correct. No. 2 is acceptable provided the girl is otherwise good-natured. No. 3 is unacceptable.

Dear sister,

Just one year after your wedding, your coffin was lowered into Kalevankangas graveyard.

There weren't many mourners. Harri was still in custody, and for understandable reasons his family didn't come to the funeral. Besides Jare and me, only a few of your bravest, or perhaps softest-hearted, friends dared to come. Elois prefer to avoid any sort of unpleasantness. Some of them were probably attracted by the possibility of gossiping about it afterward with their friends, calling it a tragedy, whispering together and shuddering with horror. Manna's husband. The man she married, a
murderer
.

I'm sure it would never occur to them that such things happen all the time. An angry, frustrated, or otherwise dissatisfied masco fulfilling his duty to instruct with a slightly too heavy hand. It's so common and tacitly accepted that it's usually punished with a sentence of only a couple of years, and half of that on parole. We could no doubt expect the same for Harri.

Jare and I were the only ones at the funeral who knew the coffin was empty.

I had thought at first that you couldn't have a funeral without a body. But the funeral director told Jare that missing persons cases were common enough that it was a quite normal practice. And that it was quite understandable that the loved ones of a person presumed dead would want to have a place to remember her, even if there was no body in the grave.

I couldn't help but be fascinated at the idea of the burial of empty coffins. I wondered aloud whether it was done to dupe people, to lead them to believe that defectors were actually dead. Jare shook his head. There might be such cases, but most people who disappeared were elois.

I had called around to all your friends, and every one of them said that you hadn't been in touch with her at all and she'd thought you were “mad” at her and didn't want her to come to your birthday party. You'd vanished from everyone's life, not just mine.

I begged Jare to do something. There was nothing I, as an eloi, could do that would be taken seriously. But because I was miserable and tense and sleepless and nervous and worried about you, we had to take extreme measures. I didn't like it, but it was the only way.

We got engaged.

Forgive me, Manna. I had to do it.

It meant that Jare and I had an official relationship. We were presumed to be soon to marry. And that meant that Jare could go to the authorities to inquire about his fiancée's sister's disappearance and request an investigation. Because the missing person was just an eloi, and a married one, answerable to her husband, the police weren't particularly interested in the case, but they did make a routine visit to Neulapää.

They didn't find you there.

They searched the farm and adjoining woods and didn't find any signs of recent digging. The garden was so full of weeds that if there had been any turning of soil in the previous few weeks it would have been easy to see.

They dredged the well. No body.

At my suggestion, Jare told the police to look in Riihi Swamp, told them you had once almost drowned there. They searched the shore and even brought dogs, but no remains were found.

Then there was a breakthrough. A few of your platinum hairs were found in the trunk of your husband's car. A few drops of something dark were also found, probably in a spot where they hadn't been noticed and wiped up. They were identified as human blood.

That was evidence enough. Because the corpse-sniffing dogs didn't identify the car, it was likely that Nissilä had knocked you unconscious, driven you to some unknown location, killed you there, and hidden the body.

Even under heavy questioning, Nissilä refused to show or tell where your body or remains were. He just accepted his ridiculously lenient sentence, his slap on the wrist. And a year later he would be let out, for all intents and purposes a free man.

Harri Nissilä might have been stupid, but he was no idiot.

He must have learned that the person who had requested the investigation was the very same Food Bureau worker who had inspected the farm. He may have found out that the Food Bureau actually never made inspections like that.

And now that same man was my fiancé.

I'm sure Nissilä smelled something.

He had been perpetrating the perfect crime. He had a wife who had inherited a nice piece of land. The only living relative of this wife was, as far as he knew, a softheaded eloi, a little simpleton, and once you had coldly shut her out it would be clear to her—to me—that you no longer wanted any contact with me.

If no one had asked any questions, there would have been no reason to suspect anything. You know better than I do the length and strength of eloi friendships—if you don't see a friend for a week, she's as good as forgotten. And to the rest of the world, what an eloi does or doesn't do is a trivial matter. If Mrs. Nissilä doesn't come to her husband's company party, for instance, nothing could be less remarkable. Many a masco wishes his wife would stay quietly at home where she belongs.

If there hadn't been a police investigation, your husband probably would have waited a short time, sold Neulapää, and then obtained a divorce. It's a simple matter of declaring the marriage terminated and you wouldn't have had anything to say about it.

Then he would have been a divorced man and ready to rejoin the mating market. Manna Nissilä, née Neulapää, wouldn't have been missed by anyone. She no longer had any educational obligations, or offspring, or living parents, or relatives with any legal standing. If she didn't want to apply for state alimony benefits, that was her business; no one was going to force them on her.

Manna Nissilä's official status would have been so invisible that she might as well be dead.

No one would have wondered whether she really was dead.

But are you?

Your body hasn't been found.

Did you run away from Harri? Maybe he mistreated you, was mean and cruel and sadistic. Every time we met you were wearing heavy makeup, enough to hide any small bruises you might have had. You might have tried to get away, maybe hitchhiked somewhere, could have gotten pretty far if you were nice to the driver. Maybe somewhere out in the woods there are kind people who help elois who've run away from their husbands, like people did for runaway slaves in the United States, feeding them and sheltering them. Maybe you're someplace like that, hiding. Maybe that's what happened to other elois who mysteriously disappeared.

Maybe I'm clutching at straws.

Hair and blood in the trunk? That seems like indisputable evidence.

But what if you just bumped your head on the trunk when you were getting groceries out of the car? I mean, I'm sorry, but that would have been just like you.

It's stupid to sustain myself on this utterly unfounded nugget of hope.

After your funeral I sank into the Cellar and stayed there for days, barely able to keep my nose above the black water.

If only I hadn't . . . If only. If only.

If only I hadn't made friends with Jare at Neulapää. You would have simply had a typical eloi crush on Jare, a first case of unrequited puppy love. A way to practice your emotions, a small, inevitable setback in your preparation for life.

If only I hadn't broken your heart.

If only I hadn't spoiled your coming out.

Then you never would have rushed recklessly, defiantly into a marriage with Harri Nissilä.

If only I hadn't paid for your wedding.

You would have had to wait. You might have changed your mind. Harri might have changed his mind. You might have never been able to scrape the money together.

If only.

The dark Cellar water lapped against my face and nearly drowned me.

Because I was engaged, a blind eye was turned to my recurring absences from school. Jare wrote notes to the school with various excuses for my absence, sometimes illness, sometimes wedding preparations. Otherwise I'm sure I would have ended up in some kind of institution for unstable elois.

Jare was at my apartment frequently. He didn't necessarily try to talk to me or cheer me up. He didn't try to get me to go out. He was just there and tried to answer if I managed to say anything.

After I'd been in the Cellar for almost a week, I got out of bed to go to the toilet.

On the floor in the main room was a little plastic bag. As if it had fallen out of Jare's pocket when he sat down at the table.

The bag was filled with red pieces. It was a basic bag, our standard sell, maybe about two teaspoons.

Flake.

I felt my salivary glands activate as if from an electric shock. It was the first clear sign that I was alive in days, the first step out of the darkness between the stars, spattered with supernovas of hate and the black liquid of guilt.

I remembered how I'd gotten out of the Cellar after Aulikki's death. History was repeating itself. It had a satisfying symmetry.

There was a little pot of soup on the stove. It was canned vegetable soup that Jare had bought for me. I'd even eaten a little bit of it.

I turned on the burner.

I picked up the bag and dumped the contents into the pan.

A watched pot has never taken so long to boil.

When Jare came over after work I had washed the dishes and cleaned and made the bed and was in the middle of washing the windows.

A bright light was burning in the Cellar, and the floor was dry. The Cellar was almost pleasant. You could practically bring a picnic basket in there and spread out a blanket.

I said I was ready to plan our next buy and sell. But one thing was going to be different. My pay.

Just before your funeral I had paid the last installment on my debt for your wedding. I didn't need money for the payments anymore. I didn't need money for anything. I could take my pay in goods.

Jare was my only source for a score. We were partners.

If a business partner intends to start using part of the haul, it's best to be open about it.

I knew that now. I knew that only the fleeting, shimmeringly thin, fragile calm and hope that a fix gave could save me.

I also knew that this decision would bind Jare and me closer together than any engagement or marriage ever could.

Just a few weeks later I was completely caught up in work.

Using the stuff regularly has given me a big advantage as a dealer. I've also learned a nice new trick—the mouth isn't the only part of the body with mucous membranes. You can test the strength of a batch in other ways besides tasting it. But I won't tell you any more about such things, little sister.

I'm very busy these days, but I still make time to visit the cemetery. I bring you flowers and talk to you whenever I stop by your grave. It's a place that's important to me in a lot of ways. And I have a public reason for going there.

We'll see each other again soon, because I've arranged to meet with a new wholesaler I've heard good things about. He claims to have some dried Naga Viper, which is a very hot variety. I'll soon find out whether he's telling the truth.

Although writing to you has really helped me feel better, I have to keep moving forward. But of course that doesn't mean that I'll ever forget you, Manna.

I don't think I'll write to you anymore. I hope that doesn't hurt your feelings. But I'll never forget you. You will always be my sister, and I know that one day I'll find out where you are.

Maybe I'll burn the letters I've written. And the smoke will rise up to the sky. I can pretend that you're there and that you're getting my letters. It's childish and sentimental and stupid, but I'll let myself pretend anyway. I don't feel any terrible affinity for religious beliefs, but I understand how some aspects of religion can be a comfort.

Or maybe . . . I'll get a little waterproof container. I'll put your letters in it.

I'll build a history for you, Manna. I can make a time capsule, put some magazine clippings or school reports or other mementos in it. Make you immortal in at least that way.

I'll hide the container well. I'll bury it. And someday someone will find it, in a world that's changed, and you'll live again in some stranger's thoughts.

I just might do that.

Good-bye, sister.

Vanna
(
Vera
)

P.S. Jare and I have decided to get married. It's purely for practical reasons, so we can have Neulapää. Please believe me.

P.P.S. Finally, I managed to say it.

Yours.