第2章 The Cellar

VANNA/VERA

October 2016

I lift my skirt, pull aside the waistband of my underwear, and push my index finger in to test the sample.

The seller's eyes go wide. The maple tree's branches and sparse leaves splash shadows over his face, the whites of his eyes flash, and I can see his Adam's apple jump as he swallows.

He exudes a sour smell, a mixture of tar and spirea blossoms. Fear, confusion, disbelief: he's an amateur, probably a closet capso, hooked on capsaicin, trying to feed his addiction by dealing. He's trying to keep his face neutral, but he flinches at this habit of mine. A beginner. Probably shocked by the glimpse of my pubic hair, too. Maybe that's something he's never seen before.

I pull my hand out of my panties and let the waistband spring back into place. Snap. I lower my skirt. Press my thighs together to let the sample take effect. Flash a calm smile.

The lower lip doesn't lie.

"This will take a second," I say, looking at the sky, or rather at the branches swaying above us. "Looks as though it might drizzle."

The seller opens his mouth but no sound comes out. I can sense a whiff of hostility, the kind that happens when someone's slightly anxious, when he's lost control of a situation. Understandable. If you're engaging in illegal activity in the wee hours of the night in a corner of a cemetery, you don't want to run into surprises like me.

"I guess we should expect the first snow pretty soon," I say. That's when the stuff starts to kick in.

First the burn spreads across my lower body, my labia and vagina turning hot as glowing embers. The first drops of sweat form under my eyes, then along the edge of my scalp, then down my neck. The blood rushes in my ears. The stuff thrums a dredging bass note, almost an infrasound, with fantastic dark brown tones in its burn.

I take a deep breath and smile wider than I should. "I'll take the whole load."

The lower lip doesn't lie.

This is the real stuff.

The seller has been holding the score in his hand the whole time and gives it to me now. About a hundred grams, and if it's all like the stuff that's in my coot right now, it's incredibly strong. I twirl the transparent plastic bag in my hand and check to make sure the dried flakes aren't cut with bits of plastic or crepe paper or red flower petals. It doesn't look adulterated.

He claims it's Naga Viper, but it could just as well be some variety I've never heard of. Judging by its potency, it's about a million scovilles. This is one of the strongest scores ever.

The capsaicin is roaring so loudly through the blood vessels in my ears that it's hard to concentrate on closing the deal. I fish the agreed-upon sum out of my bra. The seller stares at me as I do this, his eyes like saucers. The whole transaction is probably starting to seem to him like a cock tease, with me flashing first my pubes and now my bosom. But if he's got any experience at all with this stuff and even a little sense in his head, he knows that under no circumstances should he try to go poking his dick into a vagina where Naga Viper is waiting to bite it. The nerve endings of a woman's genitals are sparse for an erogenous zone-and, of course, I scrupulously avoid letting the sample touch my most sensitive spots-but if a man got a dose of capsaicin around his urethra it would be quite a jolt.

The seller takes the money, counts the bills out twice--separating them with mind-numbing exactness-finally nods, and stuffs the cash into his breast pocket. I give my head a jerk: "Get lost." He raises an eyebrow, runs his gaze up and down my body. He's putting out a candy-flavored smell, a tinge of something almost like burnt sugar. I look him in the eye without blinking and cross my arms over my chest in a firm negative. He shrugs and leaves, pushing the branches out of his way and strolling down the gravel path toward the cemetery gates with purposeful slowness.

When I'm sure he's far enough away, I stuff the bag into the waist of my skirt and tug the hem of my blouse over it. The blouse is a bit too tight to cover the lump, but it's not likely to show up in a surveillance video.

I wait a few more seconds and then slip out of the grove of trees. I walk briskly down the path in the opposite direction. There aren't many cameras at the cemetery, and they check the film only when they know something suspicious has happened. There are also rumors that most of the cameras are just empty cases. Still, I try to look as if I have a purpose. If someone asks what I'm doing in this particular cemetery, and why I'm here in the middle of the night, I have an excellent explanation.

Hearing Transcript (Extract)

October 9, 2016

Hearing supervisor [hereafter HS]: Let it be noted that FN-140699-NLP [Vanna Neulap??, hereafter V], owing to her legal status, was questioned in the presence of witness Jare Valkinen.

Questioner [hereafter Q]: Why did you come to Kalevan-kangas cemetery?

Jare Valkinen [hereafter J]: To watch my girlfriend, Vanna Neulap??. I knew she was going there to visit a grave.

Q: Which grave?

V: My sister's.

Q: Why did you go there?

V: Well, um, she died just a short time ago. And I just can't sleep because I keep turning it over in my mind! [witness begins to cry]

J: Vanna's sister's death was a great shock to her. The grave is an important, beloved place for her.

Q: Why were you watching Vanna?

J: Elois are so easily led astray or pressured into things that I thought it best to be on the safe side and sort of look after her.

Q: As well you should. Is the other witness able to speak now?

V: Yeah. I think so.

Q: Did you know the man who attacked you?

V: I sure didn't!

Q: Did you know him, Valkinen?

J: No. I suspect the man may have been following Vanna for a long time and saw her go into the cemetery and thought it a good opportunity.

Q: Both the witness and the attacker spent several minutes in a location that is obscured in the surveillance footage. Was there at that time any kind of provocation or enticement?

V: Of course not! I was… I needed [said in a whisper] to pee. Because I'd drunk at least six cups of a kind of herb thing that's supposed to help you sleep, but it just made me… need to tinkle… sorry. So I wanted to sleep but I couldn't, and I went to the cemetery, but then I really had to go.

Q: So you purposely went out of sight because… you needed to do your business?

V: The man who came up to me must have been spying on me from someplace while I was peeing! I should have tried to find a restroom, but it was awfully urgent! [witness begins to cry again]

Q: So the attacker, having seen… this activity… followed the witness?

J: I assume that's what happened.

Q: And you were hiding near the grave, because you wanted to know what your girlfriend was doing when she went out at night?

J: Exactly. When the attacker got there, I thought at first that he had come there to meet her, but then he attacked her and tried to sexually assault her.

Q: Right. From the tape we can see that the man tried to tear off the witness's skirt.

J: I went to help her, of course, and I struck the attacker in the face. I assumed that he had been knocked unconsciousness by the blow, and I turned to see if Vanna was all right. Then the attacker ran away. When I saw that Vanna wasn't seriously injured, I quickly went to the nearest social disturbance alarm and pushed the button. Has the man been caught? If so, I can try to help identify him.

Q: For investigative reasons we are unable to provide any information about the progress of the case at present.

V: Can we go now?

Q: Speak when you're spoken to. I consider the matter settled. You may go, but first you must both sign the record of this hearing. Your name underneath, miss. Chop-chop. There's no time for you to work out what the whole thing says. Your manfriend will get a copy later and tell you what it all means.

VANNA/VERA

October 2016

I buy a bouquet of chrysanthemums from the cemetery kiosk in the pale October morning light.

At the grave, I carefully unwrap the flowers from their paper. I try to still my trembling hands but the paper crackles like the frost under my feet. I put the paper down with feigned nonchalance next to the stone flower vase sunk into the ground. I shove the chrysanthemum stems deep into the pot and feel around the bottom of the vase with my fingertips.

A cold surge jolts through my stomach.

I try to move naturally, take more flowers from the bouquet, and pretend to arrange them. But no matter where I place my -fingers against the cold, rough inner surface of the vase I can't find the little plastic bag. The vase is empty.

Empty.

My heart starts to pound. The mere thought of ending up back in the Cellar makes my pulse race.

Just a few hours ago I had a bag of Naga Viper in my possession. My share of it would have been enough to last for weeks. Really potent stuff.

The thought is crushing.

I pretend to arrange the last of the chrysanthemums carefully in the pot. They're purple and yellow, Manna's favorite colors.

I wad the wrapper in my fist and stand up. I had planned to slip the stuff from the vase into the paper and carry it away as if I were going to throw it in the trash.

I lean against Jare and he wraps his right arm around me. I put my head on his shoulder as if I'm weak with grief. I don't really have to pretend. I speak quietly, from the side of my mouth.

"It's gone."

Jare's body stiffens. A slow breath seeps out of him into the air. "Shit."

"It was that double-crossing dealer. It couldn't be anyone else."

"Not such a brilliant hiding place, then."

"I was sure nobody would dare to come and search the grave. They go over the night footage with a magnifying glass after an alarm."

"But somebody came and got the stuff without being seen. We wouldn't be walking free if they'd caught the guy."

True.

I look at the grave and the chrysanthemums. When I hid the bag the night before I had pretended to arrange some dried violets that were in the vase. They were scattered every which way over the grave in the tussle. Now there are only a few stray violet petals lying on the ground.

"The groundskeeper," I whisper to Jare. "Somebody must have pretended to be him and cleaned up the grave. Took away the old flowers and picked up a little something else while he was at it."

I take a deep breath.

"Let's go."

I pull carefully away from Jare's consoling embrace and twist the paper in my hands until my fingers hurt. I stand for a moment to look at the gravestone and the text.

Manna Nissil?

(née Neulap??)

2001–2016

My knees give out. I don't know whether it's because of my mental anguish or my need for a fix. They're all mixed together. Black water is rising in the Cellar, and it's already reached the threshold, stretching its dark, wet fingers into my thoughts. It was supposed to be such a good idea to use Manna's grave for a drop spot. A place where it would make sense for me to go often, even at unusual hours, because of emotional ties that the authorities have no interest in.

But coming to the grave is always so shattering that I need a much larger dose than usual afterward. It's a vicious circle.

I turn away from the grave, my eyes wet. I take a handkerchief from my skirt pocket, remember the cameras, and carefully dab the corners of my eyes so I don't smudge my makeup. I shouldn't forget these little gestures even momentarily.

At the cemetery gates I drop the flower wrapper into the trash can. When we get to Jare's work-issued car I bend over double and start shaking. There's a rush of black in the back of my head. The Cellar door is starting to open.

"Can you make it home?" Jare asks worriedly.

I have to.

Dear sister!

There are things that are difficult to talk about with anyone. I don't have Aulikki anymore. I have some girlfriends, but of course I can't tell them everything. Aside from you there's only one other person I can open up to who would probably listen, but he doesn't have the same points of memory that I have, like you do. Mascos have a way of always trying to find a solution for any problem you present to them, even if all you want is to share your worries. And solutions to my problems aren't that easy to find.

So I decided to write to you.

You'll probably never see this letter. But I have to tell you what happened from my own point of view. I have no idea how much you even remember of all this, or how much your memories were colored by your own experiences. There are also a lot of things you didn't necessarily know about. Or didn't really understand. In many ways, we were sisters but we didn't have the same childhood.

I'm so worried about you. I'd be glad to get news of you, however terrible it might be, if I could just know for sure. Once you've hit bottom, you're at the bottom, after all; you just have to push off from there. I might get over the grief and pain as the years go by, I might even have the mercy of forgetting. But for now I have no way to heal, not when I don't know for sure what's happened to you.

You disappeared once before.

I remember it vividly, even though I was only six years old. Aulikki was in the garden and we were playing by the swing-the board swing that Aulikki had hung from a branch of the big birch tree. You loved swinging, and I was carefully building up your speed with pushes on your back. Your long blond hair was blowing and you were squealing and giggling because the swing made your stomach tingle. I remember I was a little upset that you didn't know how to give me a push yet, even though you got to enjoy my help. But it didn't matter. You were my little sister and Grandma Aulikki had left me to take care of you.

The phone rang inside. Aulikki straightened up from weeding the carrots, wiped her hands on her apron, and strode into the house. A bird flew into a young spruce tree on the other side of the vegetable garden. The unusual color of the bird aroused my curiosity. Later-quite a long time later-I looked in a book and learned that it was a jay. I'd never seen a bird like it at the time and I crept to the edge of the vegetable patch so I could see it better.

I got so close, in fact, that I could make out the fine turquoise stripe on its wings and grayish-red feathers and the black streaks like whiskers coming from its bill. I stood there for at least a minute watching it turn an acorn against the bend of the branch with its bill. I tried to get an even closer look, but I stepped on a twig and it snapped under my foot and the jay flew away with the acorn in its mouth.

I sighed and turned around.

The swing was empty, swaying faintly in the light and shadow of the birch leaves.

I didn't see you anywhere.

I heard a muffled voice from the house that told me that Aulikki was still talking on the phone. I thought you had sneaked into the house. Aulikki wouldn't want you to bother her during a telephone call. I ran to the door and peeked inside. You hadn't gone to get Aulikki's attention; she was still in the middle of a conversation about the potato harvest. I hurried to our room and looked inside. You weren't there, either.

I went back out into the yard, my heart racing. Where could you have gone? I didn't want Aulikki to know I'd been so terribly careless.

The yard at Neulap?? didn't have a fence, but it was surrounded by a thick stand of spruce on two sides, and I didn't think you would have wanted to struggle through there. If you'd gone down the gravel driveway that led into the yard you would be visible. The only possibility was a little path that led behind the sauna to the woods and the spring.

You liked the spring. The clear stream of water bubbled up between the stones and formed a little pool with fine sand on the bottom. You liked to make your little hands swim in water that was ice-cold even in the hottest weather and to watch the narrow, gurgling spring that wound down to…

The swamp.

I took off running.

No sooner had I passed a couple of turns in the path than I heard your voice. It was a scream, telling me unequivocally that something was seriously wrong.

I tore down the path, oblivious of the roots and pinecones ripping the soles of my feet bloody. I could see a flash of Riihi Swamp through the trees, its surface covered with a bright blanket of sunbathed yellow-green moss, white tufts of cotton grass drifting on the wind. Riihi Swamp was a pond swallowed up by a bog. The layer of moss on its surface was a beautiful, deceptive shell hiding the airless black depths below.

I saw a flash of red-the red stripe around the collar of your dress-and then I saw you. Only your head and shoulders were above the layer of moss. The rest of you had sunk into the mouth of the bog that had suddenly opened up beneath your feet. You were holding on to the tufts of moss with both hands and yelling at the top of your lungs, and I saw that you were sinking a little more every moment as your weight sucked the sodden moss with you toward the bottom.

I was heavier than you, but I'd seen on television what to do in the winter if someone is on thin ice. Instead of trying to walk over the treacherous surface, I threw myself on my belly over the floating layer of moss and wriggled toward you. I tried to keep my voice steady, to calm you, but as I got closer you started to thrash and struggle, trying to get to me, your hope of rescue, and you lost hold of the moss and your head sank completely into the dark brown water.

I was quite close to you by that time. I thrust my hand into the black jaws of the swamp, felt something with my fingers, and wriggled backward, tugging with all my might, and I could feel, then see, that my fingers were gripping your hair, and your head popped up to the surface and you opened your mouth and let out a howl that stabbed my ears. I don't know how I had the strength to do it, but I got you close enough to me to get my arm under your armpits, and then partly rolled and partly crawled back to the edge, tugging us both to where the moss was thick enough to support us.

We were both wet and dirty and muddy and you were still screaming like something was eating you alive as I led you back to the house. Aulikki came running around a bend in the path toward us with a horrified look on her face, the sour smell of fear swirling around her.

The entire time that she was washing us up in the sauna, putting our muddy clothes in a bucket to soak, checking to see if you were hurt anywhere, dabbing medicine onto the cuts on the soles of my feet, she muttered and grumbled, not just at you but at me, too. I know now that she was letting her fear out, but at the time I formed a crystal clear picture that I had to look out for you.

I always look out for you.

I don't wonder at all that you went to explore the swamp. You just wanted to see the spring-it was a trip that had always fascinated you, although you didn't much like walking in the woods otherwise-and when you saw the swamp shining in the rays of the sun with fairy-tale colors, an almost perfectly round field in the middle of the dark green of the forest, I'm sure you thought that it was like a golden meadow in a story, where fairies and princesses held their secret dances.

In your world, it's always a surprise when there's something deceptive, evil, destructive under the pretty surface.

That's why I have to look out for you.

Aulikki built a gate in front of the path later, but it wasn't necessary. You never wanted to go near the spring after that.

I'll never leave you alone again.

Your sister,

Vanna (Vera)

VANNA/VERA

October 2016

When the door to my apartment closes behind us I kick off my high-heeled shoes and run-no, sprint-to the sleeping alcove, climb like a squirrel along the shelves (going to fetch the step stool would take too long), and pound at the top of the back wall with my fist until the board tilts and reveals the secret cache with its emergency stash. I grab a jar, jump down, get a jolt through my shins when I hit the floor, and start unscrewing the metal cap.

It's stuck, immovable as death.

"Fucking hell!"

I flop onto the bed. Tears are pushing straight up from the Cellar and I don't have anything to say about it, nothing to close it off, dam it up-it just gushes out like vomit.

Jare is beside me. He takes the jar from my limp fingers and twists the top with his deft masco fingers and strong hands; he turns it once and I hear the delicious click of the lid.

I tear the jar away from him, push a finger into the salt water and start scooping the green slices into my mouth. The top of the jar is too small to get my whole hand in so I pour the jalape?os straight into my mouth, letting the blessed broth pour over my face and down my chest and onto the pink bedspread. I swallow the peppers almost without chewing them. I know that the scovilles in jalape?os are pathetic, and they taste pretty much like dill pickles to me, but just knowing that there's capsaicin in those scrunchy little slices makes my hands begin to stop trembling. A couple of minutes later the coal black of the Cellar has receded a little, lapping just barely below flood level in my brain now. The meager kick of the jalape?os is weak, blue-gray, a pale noise from between the stars at the edges of hearing.

I drop the jar onto the floor. It falls with a thud but doesn't break-it's strong glass, foreign made. I get up and go to the kitchen, turn on the tap, don't bother to look for a glass, just shove my face under the cold, trickling column of water-my head half in the sink, my neck tilted painfully-and drink greedily, then stand up and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. It leaves two streaks of lipstick across my cheek.

"Good God those are salty," I say to Jare. He looks at me and I can see the edge of his mouth twitch. Then he laughs himself almost into a knot.

"I'm-I'm sorry… I know there's nothing funny about it, but… if somebody came in here… it would sure make them wonder."

Now that I've had my fix, poor and basic as it is, a trace of a smile tries to find its way to my lips. I stroll to the full-length mirror with a purposely loose stride. Jare's right. I look like a living caricature. Tears and jalape?o juice have smeared my mascara down my cheeks; my hair, carefully curled in the morning, hangs in two wet hanks on either side of my face; and the remains of my lipstick spread around my mouth look like some kind of awful rash. My foundation has failed, too, and the ugly traces of the struggle at Kalevankangas cemetery show through on my temple and cheek.

Jare comes out of the alcove with the wet bedspread and jar. "Should we mop the floor?"

I wipe up the splashes of salt water. Jare stuffs the bedspread into the washing machine. I hate the color of the bedspread-it's garish and shows every spot-but the decor has to look right. I help Jare turn on the machine and point to the jar.

"What should we do with that?"

I look at the label. It looks like it came from Turkey. Jare turns on the tap and starts to fill the jar with warm water. I nod. I let the jar soak in the stream of water for a moment and then scratch off the label in pieces and carefully mix them into the compost.

I hand the clean jar to Jare. He gets the canvas shopping bag from the coat rack, puts the jar in the bag, and zips it closed. He slams the bag as hard as he can against the leg of the table. The glass cracks into pieces, the noise covering our speech.

"Do I know the guy you got that from?"

"I think it was before you came around. He's dead now."

"They're thinning out."

"That's why I gave that guy a shot yesterday. It's been such a long time since there's been any new blood."

"What if they catch him?"

"If he's still got the stuff and they recognize him as the same guy, there could be problems. Otherwise no. It was just an attempted assault. Nobody's going to waste society's resources on that kind of investigation."

Crunch. Crunch. Jare keeps knocking the bag against the table leg. "They wouldn't tell us for investigative reasons whether the attacker was caught, which is another way of saying that nobody's interested. There's nothing about it that points to any other illegal activity. To the police it's just a routine case. A stupid eloi in the wrong place at the wrong time, and luckily her boyfriend stepped in to rescue her."

I form the words "Health Authority" with my lips.

Jare shakes his head. "Someone just wanted to have his cake and eat it, too."

There's no more crunching noise coming from the bag, just the tinkle of splinters of glass, but Jare keeps hammering it furiously against the wood, grunting with each blow.

It's actually almost a miracle that this situation has never come up before. I know the screws are getting tighter all the time. It was inevitable somebody would eventually start playing dirty and sell the same stuff over and over, because there's not enough of it to sell.

The black water in the Cellar sloshes and rises a millimeter higher again, licking at the threshold in the dark back of my mind. I sit down-almost fall-onto the flowered cushion of a kitchen chair.

"We might be in a tight spot."

Part of the score was supposed to be for Jare. He was supposed to get a lot of money for it. Part of it was for me. For my own use.

Jare nods. He spreads a copy of State News on the table and pours cold, shining grains of glass out of the bag in a pile, then wraps the paper around it in a tight packet.

MODERN DICTIONARY ENTRY

eloi-A popular unofficial vernacular word, first entering the language in the 1940s, for what is now properly called a femiwoman. Refers to the sub-race of females who are active on the reproductive market and are distinguished by their dedication to the overall advancement of the male sex. The word has its roots in the works of H. G. Wells, an author who predicted that humanity would be evolutionarily divided into distinct sub-races, some dedicated to serving the social structure and others meant to enjoy those services. Plural: elois. Examples: "A typical eloi has light hair and a round head." "Elois can legally reproduce."

Manna,

I remember.

My sister of a different race. My fair-haired sister. My sweet-natured sister.

Round head covered in platinum curls, cute little turned-up nose, narrow shoulders, full breasts, curving waist. Tush like a peach.

When we were children we played children's games. "Aa," I said, when the block had a letter for that sound on it. "Aa-aa," you said, rocking the block in your arms, lifting it gently to your breast.

I plucked the comb like an instrument; you drew it through your hair with flirty strokes. I painted a sunset with red water-colors; you smeared vermilion on your lips. I put the pail on my head as a helmet; you took it from me to make a play salad in. For me a pen was a conductor's baton; you used it to poke a disobedient doll and then blew on the spot to make the pain go away.

Oh, my sweet, gentle sister. Your heart was made of chocolate, you hands were full of comfort, your brain was full of pink fluff.

Do you remember our games?

"I'm the princess."

"I'm the shepherd girl."

"The prince comes and proposes to the princess."

"The shepherd girl puts on a disguise and carves a sword for herself out of stone. She tames a wolf and rides it into battle and conquers the kingdom and…"

Then you burst into tears.

"I'm afraid of wolves."

"There isn't any wolf. Not really. It's just a story I made up."

"Good. I'm the princess."

"You were already the princess."

"Now the princess is going to the ball and she is the most beautiful one of all. And everyone wants to marry her."

"Didn't the prince already propose?"

"Another prince comes, and he's handsomer and richer."

"The shepherd girl comes to the ball with her stone sword in her hand. And she challenges the prince to a battle for the kingdom!"

"I don't like your sword."

"It's my turn to make it up."

"I don't want to have a sword. It's not real. It's just a story you made up."

"Your prince isn't real, either."

"Grandma Aulikki. Vanna's teasing me!"

You ran sniffling to your grandmother's arms, and Aulikki looked at me over your flaxen hair, and she smelled angry and sad at the same time. She comforted you, my sweet sister, stroked your hair, hugged you, kissed you, let you go, and gave me a pointed look. I knew what that look meant. It wasn't your fault that we were different.

You came back to me and the smile returned to your face, and it made me want to be the handsome prince and bring a jeweled gown to the princess as a present.

We played and we played and we danced a wedding waltz. You were the princess and I was the prince, and the evening sun came through the window and lit up your hair as if it were made of golden fire.

I miss you so much.

Vanna (Vera)

VANNA/VERA

October 2016

The need for a fix is gnawing at my insides like a ferret. The door to the Cellar is open all the time, ready to swallow me up in its maw. After the incident at the cemetery the flow of the stuff has practically dried up completely.

We've heard about a lot of arrests. Even shots being fired.

Jare finds something every now and then-a jar of sambal oelek or some vindaloo paste-but all the real stuff is off-limits. You can't open the jars-they have to be sold whole; you can't take a cut for yourself.

It won't kill me.

But the Cellar's sucking blackness is seeping out, so greedy that I can hear its rustling, night-colored breath.

The Cellar was created by an explosion.

A blazing hot, violent nuclear charge that instantaneously melted a chamber in the gray matter of my head. It left a smooth-walled hollow, a ghostly, echoing cave with a darkness deeper than the space between the stars.

The darkness of the Cellar lives because it gets its strength from death. The Cellar is where my sister's negation lives, wrapped in a swirl of ink and pitch and coal and soot and the stifling scent of earth.

The door to the Cellar is in the back of my head.

Sometimes the door to the Cellar is made of solid steel with clunking metal bolts and rusty, creaking hinges-heavy. Sometimes it's made of rotten wood, sometimes gauze that flutters in the wind. Sometimes there's no door at all, and the ice-cold wind blows out of it.

That wind brings with it a fist, wet with black fog, a crushing grip that clenches around my mind like the hand of a sadistic child, a cruel child who wants to hear the tortured squeak of a rubber toy when it's squeezed again and again.

At the bottom of the Cellar, dark, ominous water splashes. It seeps out of openings the size of molecules through walls sealed with nuclear fire. I can bear the black wind, the merciless mist, but when the deep water starts to lap at the threshold of the Cellar and threatens to flood the rooms in my head, I know how close I am to drowning. The water's pitch-black surface shining like molten metal rises, and soon a thin, horrible snake of liquid will trickle over the threshold.

I have only one way, one bag of sand to stave off the flood, one method of trying to shove that steel door closed, to slap temporary planks on the rotting wood.

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.

Dear sister!

Just today I felt a vast longing for you.

I'm sure you have no mental image of Spain, because you were so little then. I don't remember much, either, but I do remember that one day our mother and father didn't come home anymore, and everything was confusion and commotion and sadness. A drunken truck driver was driving too fast at an intersection and crushed our parents' car. Things like that can happen only in hedonistic countries. Because we didn't have any relatives in Spain, we were sent to Finland. I was four years old then. You were just a sweet little two-year-old.

I remember how you shrank from Neulap?? on that first day, the new smells and strange furniture, the wrong kind of light, the trees in the yard that were too big. You were forlorn and teary-eyed and I tried to comfort you, even though I was worn out from homesickness and the hard journey and everything that was scary and new. It wasn't a simple thing to move from a suburb of Madrid to a little farm in the middle of the Finnish woods.

Aulikki was probably nearly seventy then. She was our only close relative. We had almost no relatives because our father had been an illegitimate child. Aulikki had never married. Maybe our father's father was a minus man or some other shady type. That would explain a lot. I never dared to ask Aulikki about it.

Many other things about Aulikki dawned on me only later. They probably never occurred to you. Aulikki was sent to Sweden as a war refugee in the 1940s, and that was why she was away from Finland when the final sex decree was made law. Her biological parents both became seriously ill when she was about twenty. Her father had kidney disease, her mother cancer. They were both about to die, because the Health Authority said that their illness came from unwholesome, wrong ways of living, so they weren't allowed any treatment by the state. They didn't have any money for a private doctor, and Aulikki returned to Finland in 1954 to help them. I don't understand why she came back. They were both going to die anyway.

But she did come back. She had Swedish citizenship in addition to her Finnish citizenship, so when she decided to stay and take care of Neulap??, she was living under a strange sort of diplomatic immunity that reserved her full citizenship rights. She was even allowed to act as an employer. That's why she was able to hire a young masco graduate from the agricultural school every summer.

Aulikki harvested enough from the vegetable garden to keep her own cellar full and also sell potatoes and other vegetables to a local farmer, who in turn sold them, along with his own berries and apples, at the Tammela Market. We got by as well as we could, and Aulikki got some state child-care money and did sewing in the winter for extra income.

The strongest of all my early Neulap?? memories is from when we first got there. We had already started to get used to our new home, to the too-bright nights and the strange sounds of nature. We were playing in the yard when Aulikki came and led us over to the storage shed, and as we got near it she put her finger to her lips. She gestured for us to crouch down and peek under the shed. How delighted we were when we saw a pair of bright, startled eyes staring back at us. A stray cat had had kittens under the shed. Aulikki told us that she'd seen the homeless cat wandering around the edges of the property and thought that it would be good to keep the voles in check, but she hadn't realized it was going to have kittens. The mother cat had managed to keep the litter a secret, but now the kittens were opening their eyes and learning to walk, and Aulikki had found them when she heard a scratching sound and a faint mewing from under the building. The mother cat was away, probably out hunting. One of the kittens stumbled toward us, curious. Its downy fur and clumsy walk, its trembling little tail stuck straight up like an antenna, and its round little head with its almost too-big ears and eyes-its whole soft and delicate and yet intensely energetic presence-flooded me with a deep, sweet anguish.

Later when I looked at you or remembered you, I would feel a splash of that same feeling.

Aulikki promised that we could keep one of the kittens, but just a couple of days after we found them, the litter and the mother cat disappeared. Aulikki said the mother must have become nervous after the nest was discovered and moved the kittens someplace else.

Of course when I got a little older I understood that there were also a lot of foxes in the woods at Neulap??.

Another very powerful early memory is from almost right after we got to Finland, when we had to have our final gender specified. I was already very late because they didn't have rules like that in Spain, of course. The Health Authority sent two child welfare workers to test us.

First they examined our appearance. Round heads, small noses, large eyes, light hair-it all seemed clear. They took photos of us. Then they started the tests.

They showed us pairs of pictures. There would be a tractor and a baby, or an airplane and a flower, or a hammer and a kettle, and we were supposed to choose which picture we liked better. I remember very well how you grabbed the picture of the baby and made your voice even more soft and childish than it really was. "Ooh, ooh, baby, ooh," you babbled. You glanced at me now and then, and I chose the baby, too, to encourage you. "Pretty baby, nice baby," I cooed, more to you than to the social worker. I thought the tests must be to find out if we were good sisters. Maybe something bad would happen if we were too different, if we didn't agree. So I chose some pictures even before you did, the ones I thought you would like better. I didn't know at the time how pivotal this would be.

Then the social workers took some toys out of a big suitcase. There was a wooden fire truck painted shiny red that I loved at first sight. There was a doll the size of a real baby dressed in pink. There was a stuffed cat, and they put a tin train engine down next to it. There were blocks with letters and numbers on them and sparkly stickers with pictures of hearts and smiling wedding couples. There was a wonderful wooden wrench and a pretty little ladle decorated with roses. A conductor's hat and a frilly apron. Little bright-colored rectangles that you could connect by pressing them together-the social worker showed us how to do it. You could build anything you wanted out of them, castles and cranes and airplanes.

They told us to choose the toys we liked. You immediately toddled over and hugged the cat-I'm sure your memory of the fluffy, adorable creature toddling out from under the shed was still quite fresh-and then you ran over with the cat in your pudgy little hand and pushed it into the arms of the baby doll and said happily that the baby liked the kitty. I was entranced with the fire truck, and I couldn't help running over to it first and picking it up to look at it. Then I noticed the social workers' response: as if a whiff of tar or smoke had drifted in on the air, like a distant forest fire somewhere off in the woods.

Something wasn't right.

I let go of the fire truck and it fell to the floor with a thud. I even kicked it a little, as if I'd just realized that, in spite of its bright color, it was a cold, dull thing. The smoky smell cleared up immediately and started to change into something more like the smell of a warming sauna, pine soap and dried birch whisks. I noticed that the nice smell they were exuding grew stronger and lingered when I rejected the tools and trucks and put on the apron and picked up the ladle. I built a circle of letter blocks and threw the little plastic bricks in the middle and mixed them around with the ladle and said I was making oatmeal. I scooped up a ladleful of bricks and offered them to the doll you were holding and told her to be good and eat her porridge.

I saw how one social worker looked at the other one and there was a hint of metal in the air. One of them gathered up all the dolls and stuffed toys-you protested so loudly!-and left the fire truck and the wooden wrench and the bricks and the conductor's hat.

You immediately knew what to do. You were a little copycat, and you put the bricks in the conductor's hat with your chubby hands and started mixing them with the wrench. I was left with the fire truck. It had a folding ladder and real wheels that rolled. I picked it up again.

Grandma Aulikki took a little breath and I could smell something faint, sharp like lemon juice. The social workers' eyes were cold, waiting.

Then I knew what to do.

I pulled the fire truck to my breast and rocked it. I said, "Aa-aa."

I saw the looks on the social workers' faces and my grandmother's face, and there were two completely different kinds of smells in the air: a sweet, almost overripe smell around the social workers, and a smell from my grandmother like the freshness of laundry dried in the sun.

That was the first time I heard someone use the word "femiwoman." The other social worker used the word "eloi," but they were both talking about us.

The social workers didn't give us another glance as they wrote on their papers. They told Aulikki that we would need new names, and that for simplicity's sake they would use the same first letters. I'm sure you don't even remember that you were once Mira and I was Vera. After that we were Manna and Vanna.

The new smell around our grandmother got stronger, like the cleaning fluid you use to scrub the bathroom, but she nodded and smiled and murmured her agreement that the names suited us perfectly.

The social workers gathered up the toys and I was tense, wonder-ing if they would remember the little tin train engine, which had rolled out of sight under the table. They did, and I was terribly disappointed, so disappointed that I was afraid they would notice the dark, earthy smell coming from me.

After that Aulikki called us Vanna and Manna. That same day I named your dolls Vera and Mira, to at least keep our real names that way.

Aulikki didn't care in the least about how she was supposed to raise elois, but I realized that only much later. When I turned seven and was supposed to go to school, she asked for permission to homeschool me. It was a long way from Neulap?? to the nearest school, she didn't have a car, and the state school transport would have been an extra expense to society because there were no other houses in the area with school-age children. So she had no trouble getting permission.

Just before the education inspectors came to Neulap??, Aulikki asked me to change out of my overalls and sweater into a dress and patent-leather shoes. She took my erector set and books and wooden train set into the shed and hid them behind the firewood. I was old enough by then that she didn't hide the seriousness of the situation. She told me to sit at the kitchen table and looked me in the eye.

I remember every word of that conversation. "Vanna, there's something I have to ask you to do. I want you to not tell the nice men that you know how to read and count. When they come here I want you to play house with Manna and be polite and smile and be very good and agreeable. Copy everything Manna does."

"Why?"

She started to laugh. The pear smell of amusement mixed with the lemon of worry. "Never, ever ask 'why' when they're around. You see, those men don't like little girls who are too smart and curious. Remember the story about the feisty shepherd girl who was really a princess under her ragged clothes?"

"I remember."

"Now think the other way around. Pretend that you're a clever shepherd girl, and you're just dressed up in pretty clothes, and you're trying to make everybody believe that you're a spoiled, empty-headed little princess. So no one guesses that under your clothes you're a brave shepherd girl who climbs trees and chases away wolves with your staff."

A fun, challenging game. I nodded enthusiastically.

"I know you can do it, sweetheart. Even the little girl in the story must have found it very useful to know how to be a fancy princess sometimes and a clever shepherd girl at other times. She had to be the most capable shepherd of all when she was with the shepherds, and the kind of princess who demanded ten mattresses to sleep on a pea when she was in a palace."

The inspectors found two little flaxen-haired, pink-swathed darlings. They inspected our toy box with a single glance, watched for a little while as we played house. I was the mother and you were the child and the baby doll was the other child and the teddy bear was another and the sofa cushion was the daddy, who went to the sofa to go to work. The inspectors nodded with satisfaction and smelled as sweet as jelly. They gave Aulikki a thick stack of booklets and notebooks with instructions for early eloi education.

When they had left, Aulikki put the notebooks and booklets aside and took a key out of her pocket. She went to the wide cabinet with the glass cupboard on top where she kept the good china. She unlocked the lower doors of the cabinet. All the books were kept there, out of sight. She gave me permission to touch the books again and read them. But all the toys I liked best had to be kept in the barn loft from then on, and I could play with them only where you couldn't see me.

It surprised me for a moment, but then I understood. "If Manna accidentally tells someone then everyone will know that I'm a shepherd in princess's clothing."

A smile spread over my grandmother's face and her eyes shone. "Vanna, you might be the smartest little girl in Finland. And I mean that literally."

Her tears smelled like a warming sauna.

I didn't want to keep secrets from you. I didn't want to treat anyone wrong. But I trusted that Aulikki knew best.

I miss you so much.

Your sister,

Vanna (Vera)

MODERN DICTIONARY ENTRY

morlock-A popular unofficial vernacular word, first entering the language in the 1940s, for what is now properly called a neuterwoman. Refers to the sub-race of females who, owing to physical limitations (infertility, etc.), are excluded from the mating market. The word has its roots in the works of H. G. Wells, an author who predicted that humanity would be evolutionarily divided into distinct sub-races, some dedicated to serving the social structure and others meant to enjoy those services. The morlocks are a disposable segment of society whose use is limited mainly to serving as a reserve labor force for routine tasks.

Dear sister!

Do you remember the tests? There were two of them each year at the little school in Kaanaa.

We sat side by side at shiny, varnished desks with slanted tops that opened on hinges. The pupils who attended regularly could keep their pencils and notebooks inside.

The tests were exciting and fun. I got to play princess. I wrote in poor penmanship and purposely forgot my spelling and pretended not to understand the questions. We wrote shopping lists and read them aloud, said the names of plants and mushrooms and fish on classroom charts, remembered what temperature to use to wash wool or cotton. We calculated how to alter a recipe for four to feed six. I'd heard that some elois never learned to read, but they could listen to their recipes on recordings. You were a good learner. You were smart for an eloi. I always thought of those delicate, lively little kittens as I watched you toil over your notebook, writing down the numbers, and sometimes you erased them so many times that you almost wore through the paper. Sometimes I peeked at your paper and copied your mistakes.

The eloi class had a room where we practiced making beds and washing windows. We boiled potatoes, made gravy, mixed bread dough, scrubbed grass stains out of fabric. We knew how to darn a sock and sew on a button. I was older, so I learned to iron a man's shirt, too. It wasn't a skill I particularly needed at Neulap??, but you had to show you could do it to pass the class. The higher levels of education like child care weren't taught until we were at the eloi college, the National Institute of Home Economics.

We had both learned the basics of planting, watering, thinning, and weeding the garden; hilling and harvesting potatoes; staking pea vines; and drying onions from Aulikki. Do you remember how little you liked those things? Sometimes when you had to put your hands in the dirt you would hesitate, as if there were dangerous things that could bite under the ground.

I, on the other hand, enjoyed many of the garden chores, like grafting the apple trees. It was magical to me that one tree could grow several kinds of apples if you wanted it to.

But school and chores didn't take up all our time. When Aulikki didn't need our help in the kitchen or the garden and was sure we knew everything that would be asked on the test, we could use our time as we wished. Do you remember the little porcelain tea set with roses and lilies of the valley on the saucers? You never tired of setting out meals for your dolls on those plates. In the winter we slid down the little hill on our sleds and I built a lantern out of snowballs and Aulikki put a candle inside it in the evening.

I remember so clearly one fall evening when we were sitting next to each other on the sofa in the living room. Aulikki was sitting in her favorite chair listening to music. She had a small collection of records, mostly classical music and jazz records she'd brought from Sweden. She didn't care for the state music.

I was ten. You had just turned eight in August. Aulikki was listening to Mozart's Requiem.

I had a heavy encyclopedia in my hands.

The Concise Encyclopedia was my favorite thing to read, although the books my grandfather had left at Neulap?? included plenty of books on individual subjects as well. I was most interested in biology and botany, but I also read about physics, geography, and world history. I muddled through the basics of French and English for fun and learned the table of elements by heart. Aulikki had brought a collection of European and American literature with her to Neulap??, and the worlds it described were as strange to me as the alien cultures in my father's old science fiction novels.

I was sitting there with volume M through P of the Concise Encyclopedia in my lap. The pounding, stirring music had awakened a desire in me to know more about Mozart.

You were holding a copy of Femigirl magazine.

It was sent to all elois' homes when they turned six. It had romantic stories, written in the simplest sentences, about elois competing for the same masco, and one girl would always get him in the end through feminine wiles. There were pictures of elegant weddings and instructions on ladylike behavior and proper dress. Your lips moved when you read, painfully, slowly making your way through the stories, but you waded through every issue again and again.

I understood for the first time-sharply, painfully-the depth of the difference between us.

I couldn't help noticing that for a long time your favorite game was wedding.

I wasn't the prince or the knight in our games anymore; I was the groom. You would don a pillowcase veil and clutch a crumpled bouquet of dandelions and cow parsley, but the light in your eyes showed how real it all was to you. You didn't see a sister beside you; you saw a future where you would be supported and safe, sheltered by undying love.

I'm sorry I couldn't give that to you.

Your sister,

Vanna (Vera)

"LITTLE REDIANNA"

Eloi Girls' Best-Loved Stories

National Publishing (1951)

Once upon a time there was a very pretty, very good little girl who was always obedient and kind to everyone. She liked pretty clothes, and she especially liked the color red. That's why everyone called her Little Redianna.

One day Little Redianna's mother asked her to bring some medicine to her grandmother, who was sick. So Little Redianna put the medicine into her basket and set off for her grandmother's house. On the way there she met a wolf. The wolf told Little Redianna that she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen. He said he wanted her to be his wife.

Little Redianna told the wolf she couldn't marry him because she liked her grandmother very much and she wanted to bring her some medicine. Then she continued on her way. But the wolf found a quicker way to the house, and when he got there he ate her grandmother up. Then he put on her grandmother's nightgown and lay down in the bed to wait for Little Redianna.

When Little Redianna arrived at her grandmother's house with the medicine, she noticed that her grandmother looked strange.

"Grandmother, what big eyes you have," Little Redianna said.

"The better to see you with, my dear," said the wolf.

"Grandmother, what big ears you have," Little Redianna said.

"The better to hear you with, my dear," said the wolf.

"Grandmother, what big teeth you have," Little Redianna said.

"The better to gobble you up and make you a part of myself and keep you as my own for the rest of my life," said the wolf.

Then the wolf leaped out of the bed and threw off his wolf's skin, and Little Redianna saw that he wasn't a wolf at all but a handsome prince.

"Because you didn't obey me and agree to be my wife, and decided to bring medicine to your grandmother instead, I'm not going to marry you," said the handsome prince, and he left Little Redianna at her grandmother's house, and she never, ever got married.

The End

Dear Manna,

It was inevitable that we would grow out of our games.

You won't remember this because you weren't there. I was twelve and I was working in the garden on a hot day, wearing a bikini. I noticed Aulikki glancing now and then at my bikini bottoms and it was obvious that there was something she wanted to say.

"Well, what is it?" I finally asked.

"It's, um… that."

I looked down at my crotch. Aulikki pointed at the little curls of blond pubic hair peeking out of my bikini. I thought it was interesting that it was curly when the hair on my head was naturally straight.

"You have to shave," Aulikki said.

"Is there something wrong with hair?" I asked.

I had seen Aulikki in the sauna, and she didn't shave her own body hair. Aulikki looked uncomfortable and fumbled for words. She said we had to be careful in case someone dropped by on a hot day and noticed it.

At first I didn't understand, and then I did and rolled my eyes. It was another one of those eloi things that kept popping up more and more every year. This new rule about hair was inconsistent, though. I was supposed to let the hair on my head grow long so no one would mistake me for a morlock. And I was supposed to wear a bikini in the summer because elois liked to wear bikinis in the summer. So if the hair on my head was so sacred, why should the hair farther down have to be kept out of sight, particularly when I was supposed to wear clothes that were obviously going to show it?

Then Aulikki suggested I shave my armpits as well, and I asked if I should shave off my eyebrows, too. I meant it as a joke, but Aulikki said that it might be a good idea to start plucking them now, and I should keep my leg hair under control, too.

I marched inside to do some research. According to one book, a person's individual smell was an important factor in mating. The hair in the armpits and on the groin traps special odors that exude their scent to those close by. This made shaving seem even more stupid than I'd thought. Why purposely destroy a physical characteristic specifically linked to the survival of the species?

Judging by the pictures and the mascos I'd seen, they weren't required to trim anything except their beards and the hair on their heads, and even that rule seemed to be loosely interpreted.

Then it said that hair on the groin and armpits was a visible sign of sexual maturity. That in ancient human societies it may have helped to identify whether another individual was of mating age. If elois were required to shave off this identifying characteristic, did that mean that mascos actually wanted to mate with children?

Another book said that armpit and pubic hair also had a health function. It protected the extremities from chafing during movement, provided cushioning, and promoted air circulation.

But I was supposed to shave it off.

There were many, many more bizarre aspects to the world than I could have imagined. I realized I'd been stupid. It wasn't enough anymore to be a brave shepherd girl inside. My body was betraying me, turning me into a princess against my will.

We both were going to become narrow-waisted, big-breasted, long-legged elois, but you were the only one who approached the change with curiosity and excitement. You started to talk more and more about entering the mating market and the debutante ball you would have when you turned fourteen.

I was so jealous of you, Manna. You grew and developed such poise, like a young tree, but I was afraid and filled with angst about the unknown life ahead of me.

Luckily, Aulikki saw that.

Aulikki was already nearly eighty when I reached the age of coming out. Because of her age and lack of resources, she got permission to put off my debut for two years so the two of us could come on the market at the same time. That meant I could spend two more precious years at Neulap??.

I never told you how important it's been to my whole life to have a sister like you. I would never have learned how to behave, how to talk to strangers, if I didn't have you.

With eternal gratitude, your sister,

Vanna (Vera)

MODERN DICTIONARY ENTRY

masco-A popular unofficial vernacular word for the majority of males. Used to distinguish these men from so-called minus men, a minority of men who, because of their limitations (such as chronic illness or serious physical deficiencies), are designated as outside the mating market.

Dear Manna,

Sometimes, for no reason, just to torture myself, I wonder when it was that things took a wrong turn. If I could turn back time, of course, our parents would never have died. But if I stick to things that I might have been able to influence, I would go back to the spring of 2011.

I had reached the age of coming out, but my debut had been postponed, so there shouldn't have been anything special about that year. The snow had melted; it was time to do the spring sowing, and a new farmhand had to be hired-an April like any other.

Aulikki had asked us to get out some clean sheets for the bed in the barn. Remember how we went out to pick pussy willows from the side of the brook and put them in a vase on the little bedside table? That was your idea. It was exciting that we were going to have a stranger at the house again, and you and I were speculating about what kind of person the new farmhand would be. Would he be grumbly and untalkative, or would he make jokes all the time? Would he be athletic, always doing chin-ups on the birch tree in the yard, or studious, shutting himself up in his room with his textbooks after his day's work was done? Would he like the food we made for him? Would he be as thoughtful as one farmhand we'd had, who would go fishing on his time off and bring Aulikki his catch to add to dinner?

The new hand was seventeen and was studying food science. Aulikki showed him around Neulap??. He would be sleeping in the barn, washing up in the sauna, and eating his meals in the kitchen. Aulikki introduced us, too. We curtsied and said our names. He asked which one of us had put the pussy willows in his room. You giggled and blushed when I told him it was your idea.

There was always a lot of work to do at Neulap?? in spring and early summer. So we helped Aulikki as well as we could. She had to save her strength for instructing and supervising the farmhand; she couldn't manage heavy physical labor anymore. Since I was already fourteen I took responsibility for the meals. Your cooking skills still needed a lot of work then, but you helped me peel the vegetables and you knew how to poke the potatoes to see if they were done and set the table and carry the food out. The farmhand couldn't come into the house except at mealtimes, and even then he could come only into the kitchen, because you and I weren't officially of mating age and any fraternizing that could be associated with mating was not allowed.

But a smell like fresh-cut grass started to float around you nevertheless, growing stronger whenever you saw the farmhand. Your cheeks would flush, and you read your Femigirl magazine stories more and more greedily.

I mentioned this to Aulikki. She sighed and said that every eloi starts practicing falling in love at some point before she reaches mating age, and that you were obviously directing these feelings at the farmhand. She also said-rather cruelly, I thought-that it was good that your feelings weren't returned because every eloi has to start competing for mascos eventually, and it's better that she have some experience with disappointment from the beginning. But maybe it would be best if you didn't help with serving the meals anymore.

You cried and threw a tantrum at that, but Aulikki wouldn't budge.

Do you remember that day?

I brought the farmhand dinner by myself. He didn't seem to notice that anything was different. He ate, thanked me, and left. I washed the dishes and went to my room. When I got to the doorway, I stopped.

On the floor was one of my favorite books, Native Plants of the Nordic Countries. A wonderful picture book. It had been cut up with scissors. I burst into tears. My library was so small and pitiful; I couldn't bear to lose even one of my books. I'd read through them all many times, but they still gave me a lot of happiness, and there wasn't really any way to get anything new to read about subjects that interested me. Aulikki could order books by mail about plant care or sewing, of course-those were things appropriate to her life-but it would have been difficult to explain a sudden interest in natural science or history without arousing suspicion. She was a full citizen, so it wasn't officially forbidden, but she thought you could never be too careful.

I knew, of course, that you were the one who'd cut up my book. But I couldn't understand why. I went to your room. You weren't there, but there were scraps of paper and scissors and pages of the book on your desk. Next to them was a sheet of paper with a clumsy drawing of a bride and groom. The bouquet in the bride's hands was a clump of plants cut from the book and glued to the paper. You'd chosen wild roses, twinflowers, lilies of the valley, and several other lovely spring flowers. Under the bride you'd written "Manna" and underneath the groom it said "Jare."

I left your room. Maybe you remember that I never mentioned that book, or your picture. I didn't blame you. I understand why you did it.

Sometimes I wish I could find you just so Jare could tell you what really happened. Maybe you would believe him.

I hope you aren't really mad at me.

Missing you, your sister,

Vanna (Vera)

JARE REMEMBERS

July 2011

I cut my hand making stakes for the peas. The cut wasn't that deep and I hoped it wasn't serious, but it bled like hell, dripping on my clothes and onto the ground. I couldn't keep working until I'd put a bandage on it. I didn't have a first aid kit, just some bath things in the sauna. I took off my shirt, found a clean spot on it and wrapped it around my hand to stop the bleeding, then ran over to the main house. I knocked on the living room door, hoping the old woman would be there-and be awake, since she was often napping. There was no answer, so I opened the door a crack and peeked into the room. I grimaced; the blood was already soaking through the shirt. I had to find a bathroom and see if there was something I could use there, maybe a towel I could borrow to use as a bandage-it was an emergency, after all. I pushed open the first door I came to.

The older eloi, Vanna, was sitting in the room alone. It seemed to be her room. There was a bed and a young eloi's clothes-but also a pile of books on the table and on a small shelf on the wall. Vanna looked up and saw me and leaped to her feet, a book falling from her hand. Seeing any kind of book in an eloi's hands was unusual, but this book was titled Astronomy and the World Today. She quickly tried to kick it under the chair where I couldn't see it.

An eloi might flip through a book for fun, of course, especially if it has pretty pictures in it. But that didn't seem to be the case here, and the strange part was that she was so afraid that I would see what she was reading. If she had just been innocently looking at the book out of curiosity she wouldn't have panicked.

And then her whole demeanor changed. Her sharp gaze dropped and turned soft and hazy, and she thrust out her breasts, cocked her hips, raised her hand to her chin as if she were embarrassed, her lower lip trying for a sweet little droop. She batted her thick eyelashes. "Oh! You can't come in here. I'll get my grandmother," she cooed.

Then she noticed the bloody shirt wrapped around my hand and suddenly her eloi mannerisms disappeared again. Her eyes brightened, her posture straightened, the submissive simper went out of her voice. "Yikes. We've gotta do something about that." She came to the door, took hold of my arm and led me through the living room to the other side of the house. We went through a small passage to the bathroom. She turned on the light, told me to sit on the toilet, and held my hand in the air as she rummaged in the medicine cabinet. She found a bottle of disinfectant and a bag of cotton balls, told me to unwrap the shirt from the cut, and quickly washed the wound. She got out gauze and a roll of bandage tape, deftly wrapped my hand, and secured the bandage with a few strips of the tape. "I'm sure it won't bleed for very long. Do you think you can change the bandage every day if I give you these, or would you rather come to the house and have one of us help you?"

I didn't answer.

Her eyelashes started to flutter again, her lower lip thrust out.

I touched her hand. "Stop that."

She pulled her hand away. "Now, now, young man," she cooed, looking up at me with her head cocked to one side. "Just because I was a good girl and fixed up your boo-boo doesn't mean you can start getting fresh."

I touched her hand again briefly to make her look at me. "It's quite obvious you're not an eloi, or at least not an ordinary eloi, even if you do look like one. But if you want to keep it secret that you're a…"

"Morlock." Her voice had lost all its flirty chirpiness. The word fell between us cold as a stone.

"Right. I won't tell anyone. It's none of my business. Or anybody else's business. What would I gain from it? You and your family haven't done anything to me."

Vanna bit her lower lip.

"I wonder what Aulikki has to say about it."

The next moment we were standing in front of the old woman, who had just awakened from her nap. Vanna explained in a few quick sentences what had happened.

I watched their conversation with a fearful amazement. It was like hearing two parrots that I'd thought could only repeat the phrases their master taught them suddenly start exchanging observations on the theory of relativity.

"Should we kill him?" Vanna asked, in the same tone she might have used to discuss changing the drapes.

When the old woman pursed her lips, apparently giving this idea serious consideration, I turned cold. "Hmm. I don't know. What do you think?" she said, and looked me straight in the eye, and it was crystal clear to me that even though I was talking to an old woman and a half-grown… something… I had reason to fear. They had a lot to lose, and the two of them allied was chilling.

I spread my arms. "I have no way to prove I won't turn you in, but if I did I would lose a good summer job reference. The reward for reporting gender fraud wouldn't be enough to make up for that."

They looked at each other, the understanding flying like sparks between them.

"It's true that he wouldn't gain anything by it," Aulikki said. I was admiring her more every moment, the way she didn't seem to take any notice of the fact that the topic of discussion was standing half a meter away, shifting from foot to foot. "And if he tried, you're so good at acting like an eloi that he'd be a laughingstock and get a fine for wasting the authorities' time. We could claim that he had a crush on you and made the story up when he couldn't get anywhere with you."

Vanna nodded. "On the other hand, what if he keeps it a secret and I get caught later on? Will he get in trouble? Will they think he was in on it?"

"No, not if he claims he didn't notice anything unusual about you."

As I watched and listened to their conversation, I realized for the first time what it's like to have people talking about you, talking over you, past you. Deciding your fate, chattering about this and that-could he be useful somehow or should we dispose of him?

I thought through my options. Should I run away? But how? On the old girl's-style bike in the yard? And where was I supposed to go?

Maybe the best tactic was to attack. The best defense is a good offense.

No. There were no neighbors close by, they had me outnumbered, and after what I'd seen that day I wouldn't have been surprised if the old woman had a pistol under her mattress. If I suddenly vanished, nobody would suspect an elderly woman and two sweet little elois.

The best thing to do was to not get cocky, and to watch my cards.

"Forgive me for prying, but how is this even possible?"

"I was born this way. Genetic lottery. Like a family where the great-grandfather was white but his descendants reproduced only with black people. Everyone in the family will have African characteristics, but then out of the blue a baby with rosy cheeks and freckles pops into the world." Vanna dropped this terminology like an educated masco.

"Morlocks have such a small, dark corner reserved for them in this world that an eloi's life-even though it's limited and regulated, too-is positively carefree by comparison," Aulikki said.

"I don't think Jare wants to mess up our lives," Vanna said. I could have hugged her when she said that.

Aulikki looked at me for a change.

I nodded. I swallowed. I nodded again.

Aulikki smiled, but her eyes showed only flinty calculation. "Let's work on the assumption that something good could come of this."

Her expression changed. She was looking at me now, seeing me as a person, an individual, not just weighing me like a chunk of meat. There was even amusement in her eyes.

"Jare, have you ever thought you might like to order a few books to read here over the summer? Just for your own edification and education?"

At first I was perplexed. Then Vanna laughed out loud and slapped her grandmother on the shoulder. They looked at each other and slapped their thighs.

Then I understood.

GENDER FRAUD IN FINNISH LAW

1. § Any person who deliberately misleads state authorities with regard to officially defined sexes by altering an inborn neuterwoman's appearance to resemble that of a femiwoman, whether through surgery or other cosmetic means, shall be charged with aggravated gender fraud and making a mockery of the state. If the neuterwoman herself is guilty of the abovementioned activities, both subject and perpetrator are legally responsible. Punishment for this offense for the subject of the fraud is a term of labor in state rehabilitation facilities and possible confiscation of family property. Punishment for the perpetrator who carries out such a crime is as outlined in applicable Criminal Code on Social Sabotage, § 220, subsection 6.

2. § Any person who deliberately misleads state authorities with regard to officially defined sexes by altering an inborn femiwoman's appearance to resemble that of a neuterwoman, whether through surgery or other cosmetic means, shall be charged with aggravated gender fraud and making a mockery of the state. If the femiwoman herself is guilty of the abovementioned activities, both subject and perpetrator are legally responsible. Punishment for the perpetrator who carries out such a crime is as outlined in applicable Criminal Code on Social Sabotage, § 220, subsection 6. Should a femiwoman be found guilty of gender fraud there is no designated punishment, because of the rarity of the crime. Instead the subject shall be referred to a mental health facility.

Dear Manna,

Jare and I were co-conspirators , that's all. You understand that, don't you? Nothing more.

Although being discovered by Jare may have been an unavoidable accident, one that was exceedingly useful to me, it was also a problem. In your mind it gnawed at the bonds of our sisterhood. It never even occurred to me that anything could cause a break between us. To me you were always the sweet little sister I loved, and you always will be.

Because of our shared secret, Jare and I became closer than we had intended. It happened almost by accident. Although Jare continued to obey the rules-living in the barn, washing up in the sauna, eating in the kitchen-the packages of books sent to him every week were like little Christmases for me. Jare would pick the books up from the postman's truck and leave them on the porch of the house, and as soon as he and I had time, we would admire the books together. Some of them interested Jare, too, especially books on botany and biology, his own subjects. I noticed that every time we looked at the books together a scent that was new to me would hover faintly around him-something like lavender, and rosemary warmed by sunlight, with a tang like pine sap underneath.

Of course you noticed.

Of course you drew conclusions.

Of course you did, even though I tried to be careful. I was cool and neutral toward Jare whenever you were around, but in some things you were very perceptive. Your intelligence was almost entirely social intelligence, quickly recognizing mating rituals and the movements of other people's relationships, skillful at reading nonverbal communication. You added up the laughter and smiles, made note of the quick exchange of looks that hid secrets, observed the simultaneous absences.

I have those typical eloi abilities, too. I can pick up people's unconscious emotional signals, wishes, mental processes. I just do it in a different way from how you do. I might be better at it than you are, even though I'm not a real eloi-or maybe precisely because I'm not, because I can analyze and tabulate my observations, use those vague sensations to create a true sense.

You made careless, quick-tempered, overly general interpretations, followed a false trail. You built a romance between Jare and me.

That happened because in your logic there was nothing else but love, human relationships, and a future marriage. For you there was no such thing (why would there be? it would have been an impossible thought to almost anyone) as a friendship or spiritual connection between a masco and an eloi.

Your heart was broken for the first time.

When you looked at me there was a sharp stink of resentment floating around you.

My heart was scraped raw.

That was the first time. And how many times after that did I let you down?

I'm sorry.

Your sister,

Vanna (Vera)

LOVE STORY

Excerpt from Femigirl

National Publishing (1958)

"No, I could never consider Elanna as a spouse," Torsti said in a firm voice, pulling Nanna into his manly embrace. Nanna trembled in the tight hold of his strong arms. "You're much nicer and prettier. And Elanna is… well, she's careless of her freshness."

"No!" Nanna gasped. "Poor Elanna! I feel sorry for her. Every femiwoman should know how important freshness is."

"I think I fell in love with you the moment I noticed how wonderful you smelled, Nanna," Torsti said. He bent toward her and pressed his passionate, powerful lips on hers. Nanna shivered under the bliss of that kiss.

As they pulled away from each other for a moment, Torsti looked deep into Nanna's eyes. "Nanna, will you be my wife?"

"Gosh! Of course I will!" Nanna exclaimed, her voice trembling. "Oh, Torsti, I'm so happy! I have a feeling I have Fresh Scent to thank for this!"

Torsti smiled. "The most important thing is your sweet, humble nature-but I must admit that Fresh Scent may have had something to do with it!"

* NOTICE *

The sweet smile of a real eloi

will bring a husband pride and joy.

But to attract a handsome gent

you also need a nice Fresh Scent!

Be dainty-fresh when love is near

and a sweaty smell you need not fear.

Fresh Scent will make you clean and nice,

and at such an easy price!

So buy some Fresh Scent and don't tarry

if you ever wish to marry.

Fresh Scent

The First Choice in Femi-Freshness

Fresh Scent is a registered trademark of the State Cosmetics Corporation. Available from all well-stocked chemists.

VANNA/VERA

October 2016

I shout and rage at Jare. It gives me a moment's relief from the adrenaline.

Then I collapse and cry, and the black water in the Cellar splashes over my chilled feet. My knees. My thighs. My stomach. My heart.

Especially my heart, because the water seeps in from every side and chills me to the core.

I shout and rage at Jare. Why don't you do something? Why don't you help me? Why don't you act? Why isn't anything happening? You could at least do something!

Even though I know that there's nothing he can do.

Manna. Manna. Manna.

If I could just know what happened to her!

Or if not, at least get a fix, from somewhere.

I shout and rage at Jare in sheer powerlessness.

I wish I could harness all my intelligence, all my cleverness, to find out what happened to Manna. Or to find some dope. But I live in a glass box.

The walls of the box are transparent, the world is almost within reach-I can almost touch it. The sun is shining in the sky, trees are swaying in the wind, the horizon glimmering in the distance, but when I try to take a step in any direction my head hits a glass wall. I can pound it, kick it, try to scream through it, but it doesn't budge, doesn't even tremble. It's there to protect you, the builder of the box says. You'll never be cold, never feel the wind, never wander out and get lost in the dangerous world. Plus you'll always be handy if I happen to need you.

And all I can do is press my nose and my hands against the smooth transparence until it hurts, all I can do is bang my fists against the immovable surface, tear my own nails out against the sheet of tepid ice, shout and rage and curse and shriek, cry and berate and rebuke the smothering hothouse I'm trapped in.

Some of the people who live in the glass box don't even notice it, can't even begin to imagine life outside it.

And then there is the Cellar, where just trying to keep my nose above the water takes so much energy that every little thing that comes along almost crushes me. If a spoon falls on the floor when I'm eating my oatmeal in the morning I burst into tears. If my mascara clumps again on my lower eyelashes I slam the brush on the counter. I'm jumpy and irritable; things my classmates do make me shudder, demands crowd in on me, and there's nothing I can do about it. I've been in eloi school for a year and I should be used to certain things, but they stretch my nerves to the breaking point.

Makeup, for one thing. Of course I understand that life is full of unpleasant things that you have to do again and again. You have to get food every day, even if you ate a huge meal the day before. That's understandable. Your body needs fuel continuously.

But the way an eloi has to darken her eyelashes every morning, cover her skin with colored cream, powder her nose and forehead all day so it doesn't shine, freshen her lipstick over and over, and then take it all off at night. It's like the myth of Sisyphus in Hades, rolling the rock up the hill just to watch it roll down again.

Just for fun I once calculated that by spending an hour every day on this stuff, in two years' time I would have wasted an entire month of my life.

If the point of it is to fool mascos, the logic of it falls apart. Of course the mascos know. Cosmetics are advertised in magazines, on the radio, on television, and mascos see those same ads. They know my eyelashes aren't really thick and black and my eyelids aren't naturally blue. They can see elois going into the restroom and coming out with redder lips; they can see the traces of lipstick on the edge of a drinking glass. The same goes for hair. Curling and fluffing and spraying.

Who do the elois think they're fooling? Each other?

Of course the state cosmetics industry makes a tidy profit from this farce, but I simply can't imagine that mascos really think elois always look the way they pretend to look. Even if elois are secretive about it, even if almost every outfit has a belt or a ruffle with a hidden pocket so you can keep your makeup on hand when you don't have a purse with you.

I've tried to think of makeup as a kind of evolutionary feature. Even if the deception is obvious, maybe mascos think that the more effort an eloi makes to attract them, the more eligible she is. Like those species of birds that demand elaborate mating rituals and display behaviors from prospective mates to show that they're committed. Or birds that are influenced in their choice of mate by gender markings like larger head crests or more colorful plumage, even though those traits have nothing to do with an individual's basic fitness-like whether he can find worms for the chicks.

I guess you can't compare humans to birds. Humans are rational beings. They're not just creatures without any sense of responsibility, ruled by drives and instincts, as our teachers at eloi school keep impressing upon us. Human beings are the pinnacle of creation, able to use rational, organized methods to place themselves outside nature, to control nature. But no sooner have they said that than they start invoking what is "natural," and to whom, and how such and such is the "natural order" of things. And for some reason these definitions are almost always applied to elois.

MODERN DICTIONARY ENTRY

eusistocracy-The social order of Finland, the "reign of health." Derived from the Latin eu (good) and sistere (remain), literally "to remain in good condition." See eusistentialist, eusistence. Example: "In a eusistocratic society the government's most important task is to promote the overall health and well-being of the citizens."