The Core of the Sun (16 page)

VANNA/VERA

March 2017

Every dent and spot on the white enamel electric stove in the kitchen at Neulapää is familiar to me. Remodeling the kitchen wasn't a high priority for Manna or Harri Nissilä. Manna wouldn't care because guests rarely come into the kitchen, and Harri probably couldn't have cared less what kind of facilities his wife had for her household chores.

Although Harri Nissilä did, in fact, show an interest in some of the kitchen items. There wasn't a single piece of good china left in the cabinet. It had been Aulikki's parents' set, and no doubt valuable.

Oh, Harri. You must have been in a pinch for some quick cash again.

The Gaians don't eat any animal products, not even the kind you don't have to kill the animal for. Nothing made with milk, or eggs, or even honey. I make roasted root vegetables, mashed potatoes—with no butter or milk, so they taste like an old shoe—and thick green sauce from onions and dried peas. Jare and I can eat what we like, of course, but it would be too much trouble to cook two separate meals. Besides, the inexpensive diet helps Jare save more for his travel fund.

I'm the only one here who went to eloi school, so the meals are always my job. The Gaians know how to cook vegetables, of course, but how the food tastes means nothing to them, so I've learned that it's best to offer to do the cooking myself. The mascos and Terhi do help sometimes with peeling or chopping, and they help wash up. And there is a good side to kitchen duty—I can get a little fix every now and then without anyone noticing.

The mascos are coming in from washing off the day's dirt in the sauna. Terhi sets the table. The door is closed against the chilly early spring, the evening growing dark outside the windows. It's so idyllic and homey that it's as if all of our calm, deliberate movements and relaxed conversation were a carefully polished performance for some hidden camera. Look, this group of the faithful is preparing a tasty vegetarian meal and talking about next summer's bioaura-grown squash.

This makes Mirko's question all the more jarring.

“So you're a capso.”

It's as if one of the actors reciting his lines had without warning asked another member of the cast if she'd like to go have a juice after the play—it shatters the carefully constructed illusion and violently thrusts the audience into reality, which is complicated, not preordained, and more dangerous than the safe and familiar script.

I'm speechless, which isn't like me. I glare at Jare. He stares back, unflinching.

“Yes. Hi, my name is Vanna and I'm a capsaicin addict.”

“I told him, V,” Jare says calmly.

“Do you suspect me of stealing your stuff?” I ask as coldly as I can.

Valtteri's smiling, pleasant expression parries my iciness. “No! It's nothing like that. We want you to work with us.”

“We had a capso who was our taster and estimated the scoville levels,” Mirko says, “and I thought about asking him here when we start to harvest. I mentioned it to Jare, and he told us about you.”

I look at Jare accusingly, although I'm beginning to understand what this is about. He still doesn't avoid my gaze.

“Every person who stays at Neulapää costs something. There's only enough room in the outbuildings for three people to sleep comfortably. I'm thinking in purely practical terms. I also don't know how trustworthy he is. I can be absolutely certain of you.”

“Gosh,
thanks.
”

“Under no circumstances would we—or Jare—insist that you do it,” Valtteri hastens to add. “If you did do it, it would be your choice completely. And if you wanted to stop, it wouldn't be a problem for us because we could get in touch with our other contact.”

“Jare said that you're a real connoisseur,” Mirko says.

I shrug dismissively, but I feel my heart warming, and not just from the whisper of capsaicin inside me.

“I'll think about it.”

Think about it.
How long would an alcoholic think about whether to take a job as a wine taster?

“We would be very grateful if you did it. I understand you've built up quite a tolerance.”

I laugh drily. “You could say that.”

“That could be an immense advantage for us. It would help us increase the scoville count in the new varieties we're developing.”

I scowl. There seems to be a big, tattered hole in their logic.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why develop stronger chilis? It'll take years and tons of work. The customers are perfectly satisfied with the stuff we foist on them now. The average capso can get an epic high on just the ten thousand scovilles in a serrano. New, stronger stuff will be welcome, of course, and I'm sure it'll sell, but why go to all that trouble when you can make good money with the varieties we have now?”

Mirko and Valtteri exchange a glance, then Mirko sighs.

“We have some other goals besides money. We always need money, of course, but it's not the main thing. It's more about time and energy. We want to concentrate on what's important to us. That's why we outsource the sales. That's why we're spending all this money to rent space here at Neulapää. This place is ideal, and we're very grateful.”

“So your goals are scientific?”

“In a way. Or ideological, you might say.”

“Do you worship the plants? The stronger they are, the more powerful the wisdom of the soil?” I'm purposely needling him because I want an answer.

JARE SPEAKS

March 2017

Mirko strikes a noble pose, and as I look at his long, dark hair and hooked nose, I can't help thinking that he looks less like a Finn than a mythical “noble savage,” a wise, brave, mystical member of the original Native American race. I wouldn't be surprised if his inclinations toward earth-based spirituality were something inspired by growing up looking like that.

“All cultures have at some time in the past known things that have been suppressed by our excessive rationality and the reduction of life's mystery to the merely chemical or physical. Chili came to Europe, and to Finland, because it was supposed to come here. Because it has a mission here.” He has obviously made this speech many times—he delivers it so seamlessly. “Some sources claim that the Vikings brought chilis from the New World, that traces of them have been found in grave sites. In any case, they would come eventually, because their arrival was an inevitability. It was the beginning of a change in the world. Because although the north is at the top of the map, it is the route to the Lower Realms.”

None of this is new for Terhi and Valtteri, but they nevertheless seem quite rapt. V smiles wryly. I can tell she's still not particularly thrilled that I told the Gaians about her little vice.

“Back in 1609 Garcilaso de la Vega described for Euro­peans how the Incas worshipped the chili pepper as a god named Agar-Uchu, or Brother Chili. Agar-Uchu was one of the four mythical brothers in the Incas' creation story.”

“And Brother Chili is no doubt on good terms with Mother Gaia. Just one big happy family,” V says, oozing sarcasm. This doesn't seem to bother Mirko.

“Brother Chili is on good terms with humanity—the part of humanity that understands chili. Everything has a meaning. Why is chili hot?”

“Elementary. It's the plant's defensive adaptation. So animals won't eat the plant until the seeds have been sowed.”

“Then why don't birds avoid chilis?”

V wrinkles her brow. “Because their digestive tracts have adapted to it.”

“Right, but it's also an advantage to the chilis. The birds spread the seed. The seeds pass through their digestive systems and are redeposited in faraway places. But which evolutionary advantage came first? The advantage of a source of sustenance that chili tolerance gave the birds, or the reproductive advantage that the birds gave the chili?”

V looks bored. “You're talking about it as if plants and animals actively promote their own evolution. ‘I suppose we ought to start feeding our fruits to the birds.' ‘Let's start learning to tolerate capsaicin.' That's not how it works.”

“I am simplifying, of course. But the relationship between people and chilis is naturally determined in exactly the same way. When a person is interested in chilis as a medicinal or recreational substance, to the chili that person becomes a new kind of bird. An exploiter, but also a spreader of seed, a means of maintaining the species. It doesn't matter to the plant whether its seeds are planted in the ground in a bird's excrement or in a human's greenhouse. The end result is the same: the species survives and multiplies. Both parties benefit. The Incas' rocoto chili, for instance, has been bred and cultivated for eight thousand years. It's been domesticated for so long that it no longer exists in its wild form.”

V nods. “Got it. You and the Incas have a cooperation agreement with Brother Chili. What else is in the contract?”

“We call chilis the Fire Within that we wish to tame, the same way our forefathers tamed worldly fire.”

Mirko pauses dramatically and Valtteri interjects. “Eusistocratic Finland offers us a unique opportunity for experimentation and evolution. Since all the various intoxicants that affect the central nervous system and the neurochemistry of the brain have been weeded out of society, we can conduct our experiment under pristine conditions.”

“We completely understand the ban on alcohol and tobacco,” Mirko continues. “They have a particularly large negative effect on society. In the hedonistic states they claim that drinking a little red wine can actually be good for your health, but there's always the risk of slipping into overconsumption. And tobacco is never anything but bad for your body. Even overconsumption of caffeine can cause sleep disturbances, heart palpitations, or digestive irritation. Any substance that can cause confusion or loss of motor control is banned for perfectly understandable reasons, because their effects can also affect people other than the user.”

None of this is new to me, but I admit that the ban on chili has always been a riddle to me. After all, it's thought to be exceedingly healthful, full of all kinds of vitamins and antioxidants. A dealer I once met claimed that outside Finland people think that eating chilis can lower your blood pressure and cholesterol, and maybe even prevent cancer. If a person makes a pot of tom yam soup, pants and sweats for a while, and enjoys the feeling it gives him, how is social well-being threatened? Why the heck do the authorities care if somebody gets addicted to chilis if feeding the habit doesn't cause crime or weaken public health? I'm sure there are lots of caffeine addicts in the hedonistic countries who don't rob banks to pay for a cup of espresso. Maybe coffee's illegal in Finland because it causes a trade imbalance, an excess of imports. I can understand that. But why chili? After all, we import expensive oranges into Finland.

Does anyone else in Finland even think about things like this?

And am I only thinking about it because I'm sunk too deep in this swamp?

There must be some variable that I don't know about. But Mirko doesn't seem to have any opinion about that.

“Here the body and mind are undamaged, and thus ready to accept the Fire Within. And through it, the Lower World.” Mirko continues his liturgy. “Finland also has a proud past that is more recent than we might think. Those who live in the north of ­Finland—the majority of them now mixed with the general ­population—know of methods by which a person can detach from his fragile shell and allow his spirit to move free and unfettered.”

I raise my eyebrows. Although I've learned a lot of the Gaians' viewpoint and so-called philosophy by heart so I can use it and have the ring of a true believer, this gibberish is new to me.

“To arrive at this state, Lapp shamans used laborious methods, such as drumming and singing themselves into a trance. They sometimes freed their spirits with mushrooms, which our studies show to be a very imperfect and toxic method that can in fact injure the user. But chili works in a different way. It produces pure pain and pure ecstasy. At high levels, capsaicin produces an invaluable state of receptiveness. It produces tranquillity and sharpens the senses to their maximum sensitivity.
Focus my eyes, chile, and I shall See.
That's exactly what happens.”

“Our goal is to breed the strongest possible chili and use it to ignite the Fire Within whenever we wish and spread it among us,” Valtteri adds.

V laughs. The sound of it is like a blow. Mirko's eyes flash, his high brow furrows, but V doesn't flinch.

“This is all very interesting, but unfortunately it just doesn't hold water. Even if you set aside all the Lapp shaman mumbo jumbo and concentrate on the physiological effects, why breed a new kind of chili? Why not just use pure capsaicin? Chemically extracted pure capsaicin has a potency rating of sixteen million scovilles. You can get about two million scovilles just by separating the oleoresins from the fruit. Why take the trouble of breeding new chili varieties when you can probably devise a means to extract the alkaloids from the plant much more easily?”

I wait for Mirko to say something angry to this, but he just looks at V, her calm superiority, as if she were a small child who doesn't yet comprehend such things. “In the first place, pure capsaicin is so strong that just a few grams can put the body in shock. Animals who've been exposed to it in tests have sometimes died from respiratory failure. In the second place, a living plant that's grown in the soil has its own unique energy that is destroyed when you attempt to chemically concentrate its essence. I know how unscientific this sounds to you, but think about the vitamin C in a carrot, how its healthful properties fundamentally decrease when it's cooked. Certain forms of processing destroy the deeper essence of some substances. Artificial extraction of capsaicin destroys the natural Fire Within, the bioaura of the plant, leaving nothing but a cold, soulless, mechanistic chemical effect.”

“I understand the vitamin analogy, but as you said yourself, that bioaura stuff sounds rather unscientific.”

“Just a few hundred years ago electricity was a conjurer's trick done with cat skin and amber. Now you get it from a wall socket. Science doesn't know everything about the powers of nature. Think of a capsaicin molecule as a piece of iron. Just a lifeless piece of metal. But if a piece of iron is magnetized, you can do amazing things with it. You can use it to determine direction. You can use it to attract other pieces of iron. The capsaicin in a living chili fruit is like magnetized iron—it's identical in every other way to the pure chemical compound, but with an invisible element of energy.”

Valtteri, who's been attentively following the conversation, clears his throat. “I don't know any other plant that has so many myths and beliefs associated with it. Most folk beliefs are pure superstition and nonsense, but sometimes an old belief has a scientific basis. People knew how to fight anemia by eating nettles and liver even though no one had ever heard the words ‘anemia' or ‘hemoglobin.' Some practices seem to be purely instinctive, like the way many pregnant women crave calcium-rich foods. People have been drawn to the chili in almost all cultures because they felt it was an almost magically powerful aid and companion. Now we know that it affects dopamine activity in the brain, so it's no wonder that it's been used for centuries for every sort of ailment. Not just physical ailments, but also as a method of fighting witchcraft or the evil eye, or driving out demons.”

At this, V's expression changes. She grows serious and presses her lips tight, as if considering. “Fine. It's really none of my business, except that you say you need a tester. Why not just test it yourselves?”

“We don't use chili ourselves. We're waiting until we've developed a perfect variety. There's no sense in increasing our own tolerance—we want to give ourselves to the Fire Within as virgins, when it's ready to take us.”

“I can only imagine,” V says drily.

“We're searching for a lost, undiluted communion with nature. A state that humans have become separated from due to the effects of so-called civilization. A complete oneness with the world, freed from the fetters of being human. A state that the shamans understood. How much could we learn if we could see reality from outside our limited physical beings, as they did?”

“It certainly sounds lovely.”

V's voice drips with derision. Valtteri is visibly angered for the first time. “Let me speak your language, then. It's a state known as trance possession, and very serious research has been done on it. Fakirs and shamans sought a state of trance possession through such means as cutting themselves. But they could have activated their pain receptors almost as effectively with chilis—by irritating the trigeminal cells in the mouth and gut with capsaicin. That releases certain neuropeptides in the body that then stimulate dopamine metabolism. These same neuropeptides may have other chemical effects on the brain, which we are trying to test empirically.”

Valtteri and V stare at each other. Valtteri has just scored a point in this sparring match. Suddenly V grins. “What didn't you say so in the first place?”

Valtteri bursts out laughing, but Mirko is still serious.

“
Take me, chile, and I shall Escape.
We are looking for a path, and we intend to take a lot of other people with us,” Mirko says, and Terhi adds, “But our escape will be inward, not outward.”

Later V asks me to order her a book about shamanism. I order it without asking her any more about it. When I pick up the book at the post truck, I thumb through it. She might be disappointed with it. The only book on the subject that they had at the state bookstore isn't a scientific work. It's about shamanic spells and songs and folk poetry. There's page after page about a couple of guys named Nuwat and Ukwun.

One sentence catches my eye: “My boat is light and swift.”