The Core of the Sun (7 page)

JARE SPEAKS

November 2016

I've sifted seeds out of bags of flake, soaked them, tried to rub the tough husks off between two pieces of sandpaper. I've watered them, kept the pots on the brightest possible windowsill, achieved seed leaves, then seedlings with stems. A couple of times I've even gotten them to flower, and once, my heart pounding with hope, I saw a flower's petals fall and at the base of the bud a little green bulge the size of a pea. But that's as far as they've gotten.

Maybe I'm not watering them right—sometimes the pot gets moldy; sometimes the plant is clearly suffering from being too dry. I think the problem is in the amount of light. The little windows in my apartment face east and west, so even in the middle of the summer the place doesn't get much sunlight. I can't put the pots outside even for a minute, not even on my little balcony. When friends come over I always put them all in the back of the closet and I'm on my guard the whole time, afraid someone will open the wrong door by accident.

I can't do it. I don't know enough. I've tried using what I've learned about farming other nightshades like tomatoes and potatoes. But since I can never be sure what variety I'm trying to grow, I always have the wrong temperature, or the wrong kind of soil, and especially the wrong light. Chilis are anything but ­straightforward—there are varieties that grow in near-desert conditions, some that like damp river valleys, and some that grow high in the mountains where the night temperatures drop below freezing.

But it seems that growing the plants is the only way I'm going to get my hands on any capsaicin these days.

When I come home from work, the door of my apartment is open.

There's someone here.

For once I'm glad of this dry spell—there's no stuff in the apartment, not even in the stash. But there is one spindly chili plant drooping on the windowsill.

If it's the Authority, the game is up. Even if I turned around right now and hopped on the next train, I would be arrested before I got to the Russian border.

I hear a clang of metal. Then the gurgle of water.

I carefully open the door a crack. Peek into my little kitchen. A man in coveralls is puttering around the sink. I recognize him—the building maintenance technician.

The situation is still anything but safe.

I walk in with a proprietary air, stomp loudly, shout a noisy hello from the doorway. The maintenance man turns, recognizes me, and says hello. He dries his hands on a rag.

“The drain's clogged upstairs. I came to see if this one was stopped up, too.”

“Ah. It's been working fine.”

I take off my shoes, trying to think of what to do about the plant, but it's too late for that. The maintenance man comes into the main room with his toolbox and is clearly curious, in a slightly malevolent way.

“Your plumbing seems to be working fine. Watering plants and everything.” He looks pointedly in the direction of the windowsill.

Oh God. I can't tell him it's a houseplant. That's a minus man's hobby.

“Basil. Excellent seasoning.”

I whip off a leaf, shove it into my mouth, and chomp on it, practically drooling over the thing. I pluck another leaf and hold it out to him, even though my heart's beating a mile a minute. “Have a taste!”

Luckily he's an old-fashioned guy, the kind who thinks dill and parsley are too exotic. “That's not really my . . . What's a young guy like you doing messing around with seasonings?”

Easy. I tell him that it's for work, that the Food Bureau is researching the possibility of producing Finnish herbs for export. This explanation suffices.

The chili leaf tastes surprisingly good. I thought it would just taste like grass, but it's tough and fibrous.

Tough like my failure.

My failure to help V.

The net is tightening.

I thought I would be earning money a lot faster than this.

I thought I would be able to get out of the country before Harri Nissilä got out on parole. He might get out any day. Sentences like his are always getting shortened for good behavior or some other reason. Nissilä's had time sitting in a cell to think, to put two and two together. He had time to figure out too many things
before
he went to jail. When they release him he'll do whatever he can to even the score. And if we come under investigation we're sure to get caught. Just like Harri did.

It doesn't matter that much for me. But V.

I can't tell V about it. I can't add to her burdens.

VANNA/VERA

November 2016

As if to torture me, they're presenting a special unit on dangerous substances at school.

I'm already shaking.

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF HOME ECONOMICS INSTRUCTIONAL FILM

Social Responsibility 102

A middle-aged masco sits at a table. He's pale, hollow cheeked, sweating. His hair is mussed and poorly cut. He's wearing a suit that looks as though it doesn't belong to him; the collar's too big and the shoulders are baggy. Someone off camera gives him a signal and he nods, licks his lips, and begins.

Masco: In the beginning it was just innocent curiosity. And besides, there was so much false or incomplete information going around. People said chili was just a spice, a kind of food. They said that enjoying it in potent concentrations was just a harmless competition between men, testing your limits. Like seeing who could jump off a high rock into the water or who could climb the highest tree. I didn't know how insidious it was.

The masco lowers his eyes for a second, takes a deep breath, and lifts his head again.

Masco: Back then there was still quite a bit of chili, all kinds of it, coming into the country. It was like alcohol before prohibition. You could get various kinds, various strengths, if you just knew where to look. A friend of mine who'd been to one of the decadent democracies—to Spain—had played a game there called “Spanish roulette.” You played it with green Padrón chilis. You roasted them quickly in a pan with oil to give them a little color, then you rolled them in salt and put them on a plate. Each player took turns picking one up and eating it in just a couple of bites. They called it roulette because the heat in Padrón chilis varies a lot. One might be no hotter than a pea pod and the next one might be so incredibly strong that it was painful to eat it and it left you panting and burning for a long time afterward. And of course dozens of kinds in between, from just a tiny bit of spice to unbearably hot. About one in eight was very strong. You could get Padrón chilis in a lot of grocery stores back then. They were imported from Spain. They were in demand for masco stag parties, things like that.

The masco closes his eyes as if remembering some important turning point in his life.

Masco: The truth dawned on me when I'd been doing chili for a couple of years, with different chili products. I was participating in another one of these games of Spanish roulette, and every single one of the padróns I ate was really mild. They just tasted like salt and sweet peppers. At first I thought it was just luck, that the real firebombs just happened to always go to the other guys. Then I started to think it was actually bad luck—after all, it was exciting to get a really strong chili in your mouth; it was an intoxicating experience. I started to envy my friends with their faces all red, gasping for air and trying to cool their mouths off with ice water. I went out and bought a whole bag of padróns as a test and roasted and salted them just for myself. I ate them all. Not one of them tasted hot. One chili, maybe two at the most, gave me a tiny little burning feeling, just a pale shadow of what I'd felt before. I started to suspect that the stuff that was coming into the country was milder than normal for some reason. About a month went by and I kept playing roulette off and on, and every time I would get just mild chilis. I bought another bag. Same result, except this time not one of them had any bite at all. The next roulette night I went to I watched my friends. When one of them took a bite out of a chili and started to cough and pant and grimace, I grabbed the other half of it, acting like it was a joke, and tossed it in my mouth. I chewed it up and waited for the heat to spread over my tongue and palate. But nothing happened. Nothing at all. It was just a pepper.

The masco looks directly into the camera.

Masco: It was clear to me now. I was building up a tolerance for capsaicin. Back then I didn't even know the name of the substance, but I do now. There's a lot of things I wish I'd known then, before I started experimenting—like the fact that it's a nerve toxin. A toxin that demands higher and higher doses.

He glances around, as if looking for reinforcement.

Masco: I started to look for different kinds of chilis at the store, the hottest ones I could find. Fresh, canned, dried, processed into hot sauce. I'd had no idea how much of the vile stuff there was available. I tried all of them: put chili in my food, mixed different kinds of chilis. I put fresh bird's-eye chilis in my soup and topped it off with a dash of Tabasco . . .

A figure in a Health Authority uniform comes into the frame, touches the masco's shoulder. The person's head is outside the shot, but I can hear his voice saying, “Let's leave out any too specific details.” The masco nods, looking frightened, and the official steps out of the picture.

Masco: All the while I thought that it was just a game. I was just like a kid, testing my limits, looking for excitement, for extreme experiences. Nothing could happen to me. I was young and healthy; I thought I could control myself. But the poison had gotten into my blood and cut a swath through me. It was like having a demon inside me, whispering,
More, I have to get more capsaicin, stronger and stronger doses
. I just had to think about chilis and my mouth would water and my whole body would be screaming for that flood of fire on my tongue.

From off camera I hear, “Side effects.” The masco nods, takes a moment to focus.

Masco: We'd studied the effects of alcohol in school. I knew that one of the nastiest side effects of alcohol poisoning—if the poisoning wasn't so bad that it killed you—was what was called a hangover. When you use alcohol there's an inevitable aftereffect where you have a terrible headache, fatigue, shaking, nausea. If what I've said about chilis up to now sounds interesting or fascinating, maybe I can shed some light for you.

The masco takes a deep breath, seems to be gathering courage.

Masco: Using chili causes critical damage to the digestive system. It's most obvious in stomach pain and cramping, but can also take the form of powerful diarrhea. Chili addicts lose control of their bowels. They wake up the next morning lying in their own shit!

I hear an audience off camera gasp in shock and horror. This is clearly the climax of the story.

Masco: There's nothing heroic or manly about using capsaicin. It will literally get you into deep shit. The symptoms of capsaicin addiction are just like symptoms of the most revolting venereal diseases, like painful and humiliating burning with urination or defecation. If somebody offers you capsaicin, remember what I've told you. If you find some old chili products that are illegal now in the back of a family cupboard, bring them straight to the authorities.

The masco looks up and to the left and is apparently given permission to end, because he nods and turns back to the camera.

Masco: I'm eternally grateful that I got caught and the Health Authority rehabilitated me. I'm also grateful that the awful, nasty stuff is illegal now. Capsaicin addiction is forever—you can't ever get away from it—but now I have a life worth living.

Meaningful pause.

Masco: In clean pants.

End of film.

VANNA/VERA

November 2016

The horrified murmurs of the elois around me tell me that the message of the film has hit home.

Jare has heard from his customers that when chilis were first banned even some respectable families dared to break the rules sometimes. The secret high point of a dinner party might be a recipe seasoned with a dash of Thai sweet chili sauce from the back of a cupboard, a daring treat, like decades earlier when people would end a meal by passing around a Marlboro Light someone had gotten somewhere. But the transition had been complete for a long time now, and the young brides in training who had just watched the film would most certainly never let a speck of capsaicin anywhere near their darling husbands or their happy homes.

The film would have been more effective if the capso's speech hadn't sounded so coached. But he had really been a capso; there was no doubt of that. He knew what he was talking about. A Health Authority propagandist wouldn't have known to bring up Spanish roulette.

Using diarrhea as the clincher was shrewd. Even I know from experience that a good fix can give a beginner stomach trouble. But with regular use I built up my tolerance and calmed my digestive reaction considerably. The film gave the impression that using chilis basically weakens the sphincter muscles. And a person might easily believe it if he saw the film, still stubbornly decided to try capsaicin, and got a shock in the bathroom the next morning—tried the stuff just one time and got some kind of toxic sludge coming out his rear end. And it surely stung.

Very clever, Health Authority. Very clever.

HOMEWORK

Social Responsibility 102
Vanna Neulapää 1B
November 9, 2016

Why Is Capsaicin Dangerous?

Capsaicin when you eat it you need more and more and it give you the runs. Capsaicin is kind of like venereal disease. If somebody eats Capsaicin you should call the authorities right away.

Teacher's Notes:
You have not provided very much information, but your central themes are fairly well presented. Pay attention to spelling. I would like to see more insight on how an eloi can combat capsaicin, for example, in her home management and food preparation responsibilities. 7/10 points.

Manna dear,

I'm writing these letters partly to myself. I haven't sent a single one of them, after all. Where would I send them? Even if you are alive, I don't know your address.

I'm also writing them because they keep me momentarily sane when the Cellar is at its darkest and the water starts to rise.

Reminiscing about these things is painful, but it cleanses me. Everything gets all tangled up inside my head, and if I write it down it wraps up in a tidy thread, even if it is ugly black barbed wire.

I've thought way too many times that everything could have been different if I had tried harder. If I had stifled my dangerous, antisocial tendencies.

I could have at least tried to be a real eloi. Really made an effort to like the things elois like, studied them systematically. Trained. You may not like a food the first time you try it, but you can learn to like it.

There were many times when I thought I was learning. I like beauty the way any elois would. It's obvious to me that a bunch of flowers in a vase can make a room more colorful and pleasant. But I don't really like merely decorative things. For an eloi, beauty and decorativeness are the same thing.

I was interested in makeup as a child, too. It was exciting to change the way I looked by spreading different colors on different parts of my face. When you wanted and got the
Femigirl
Sample Pack for your birthday and let me borrow it, I had fun painting my face like a mask or putting leopard spots on my forehead. You were upset with me. I was playing it wrong. I played a lot of things wrong, even though I tried to follow your rules as well as I could.

I sat with you and watched one television show after another that ended in marriage. “Elois” flouncing around in beautiful gowns, heavily made up, wigs on their heads, padded in the right places. They couldn't use real elois—that would have been a real job, would have required memorizing lines, concentration, perseverance. The mascos dressed as elois on the TV shows tittered and giggled and fluttered and swung their hips and stuck out their lips and used an exaggerated caricature to show how an eloi should look and sound. I had read in one of Aulikki's books that in old American movies, white people painted their skin black to portray Negroes. I wonder if some dark-skinned people who watched those movies thought that they were supposed to speak in simple sentences and roll their eyes and be childish and superstitious.

I couldn't be a real eloi because I had a horrible, selfish rebelliousness inside me that only caused trouble and sorrow later on. I know there's absolutely nothing to envy about the depravities of a decadent democracy, but sometimes I find myself thinking that at least in a place like that nobody ever has to wonder about these things.

I think of you every day. Every single day. I just know that I'm going to find out what happened to you. It's the least I can do for you after all we've been through.

Your sister,

Vanna
(
Vera
)