“The same thing you’re going to do, s ans beer.”
We go inside to the front desk. They know me here. I’m a regular, like to come here after lifting weights in the gym. Our little electric sauna at home does its job, but their big wood-fired sauna is a special experience. It generates a wonderful soft heat.
I pay our admission, get us towels and a vihta -a bundle of leafcovered birch branches tied together at one end. “My brother-in-law, John, needs the full treatment, a wash and a kuppaus ,” I say. “Is there somebody still here to give it to him?”
The cashier is a friendly young guy. “Ellu was about to go home,” he says. “John looks like he should go home, too.”
“That’s the point, I don’t want him there yet. Tell her I’ll tip her an extra fifty if she stays.”
He checks it out, Ellu agrees. We go to a room that looks like a little operating theater. I tell John to take his clothes off. He protests. I stare at him. He peels down to his underwear and stops. I keep staring. He takes off his briefs and stands there embarrassed and naked. Ellu waits, impatient. I tell him to lie down on the table. He does it. Ellu proceeds to give him a good scrubbing while I watch. Usually, kuppaus is done after spending some time in sauna, because the raised body temperature enhances bleeding. But I figure what the hell, John can bleed slow.
After a few minutes, John relaxes. “Thanks Kari,” he says, “this is nice.”
Ellu finishes washing him and starts taking out the plastic bubbles used for sucking blood in kuppaus. “You sure about this?” she asks me.
I answer, “I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.”
She brings over to the table the clear suction bottles with short hypodermic needles extending from them.
John gets suspicious. “What are those? They look like they hurt.”
“It’s an old Finnish folk remedy,” I say. “It gets the poisons out of your system.”
“I don’t want it.” He starts to sit up.
I shove him back down. “Sure you do. Don’t be a *.”
He understands I won’t take no for an answer. Ellu attaches the first bottle to his back. He grunts, but doesn’t complain. Ellu attaches six bubbles. John looks over his shoulder and watches them fill with blood. “It doesn’t hurt much,” he says, “but what the hell is the point.”
“They’re like plastic leeches,” I say. “Now you can tell your buddies that you’re a true-blue Finn and got your blood sucked.”
He manages a laugh. “Most of their stories are about getting their dicks sucked. I think this story is better.”
I thought John would piss and moan. He’s impressed me, if only slightly. I get undressed in the locker room. We rinse off in the shower room and I take him into the sauna. It’s a Tuesday, so the crowd is small, maybe fifteen men. On weekends, the place gets packed and rowdy. Friends come here to drink and sweat together.
The iron stove is massive. Logs heat it. The sauna is hotter or cooler, depending on where you sit in relation to the stove. John and I take a spot almost behind it, on the third and top seating tier. John has sobered up somewhat, his humiliation from Roskapankki faded, his courage bolstered by a successful engagement with kuppaus.
“This feels great,” he says. “You know Kari, I had my doubts about you, but you’re all right.”
“Wow,” I say. “Thanks. I was worried you didn’t like me.”
I wet the vihta and start smacking my back with it. It occurs to me that I’m employing much the same motion that Iisa Filippov’s murderer used while torturing her with a riding crop.
“What’s that for?” John asks.
“Being hit with the branches makes you sweat more, and the birch leaves are curatives, help get the toxins out of you.”
“Finns must be chock-full of poisons,” he says. “You go to a lot of work to get them out of you.”
“Believe me,” I say, “we are. Try it. I’ll help you, teach you the technique.”