Cathedrals of the Flesh (18 page)

3. Do not discuss business, politics, or malicious gossip.

4. Do not discuss your job.

5. No bottles of water or any other liquid are allowed in the sauna.

6. Herbs and essential oils may not be poured on the rocks, lest someone is allergic.

It is common for sauna sisters who have been saunaing together for years not to know one another's last names or professions.
It is even considered sacred not to know these things, because inside a sauna, profession, rank, last name, and address simply
do not matter.

I watched my sauna sisters wiggle around the rules. My presence raised their curiosity. They wondered, 'Have you ever been
inside a
real
sauna?' I could honestly answer:

'No, not like this.'

I asked someone
if sauna
is trademarked by the Finns. It is, after all, the most popular loanword from Finnish. Aside from
sauna,
the only Finnish word I knew was Nokia. One word for communing, the other for communication. A woman in her thirties told
me that it was the more market-savvy Swedes who trademarked the word
sauna
and who now run a large
kiuas
export company using this generic name.

She shook her head in dismay. 'Everyone knows the Finns are the world experts on all things sauna. And the Swedes are trying
to steal Santa Claus, too. Santa's official address is in Lapland, and now the Swedes are building a Santa's village of their
own.'

I didn't care who got credit for Santa Claus, but I thought it criminal that the Swedes would hijack sauna, and a Finnish
word to boot. The Finns lavish such unrestrained love and fanaticism on their saunas that they deserve exclusive use of the
word. Modesty and understatement don't help in global marketing.

I commiserated with an understanding nod and looked around. The savusauna was perfect — the dark wood beams, the smell of
recently departed smoke, the low-key conversation. There was no average member. The women ranged in age from their early thirties
to early seventies. They all had practical, no-nonsense haircuts. No indulgently long hair or carefully tweezed eyebrows.
This was not a culture that valued preening, manicures, pedicures, or body waxing. The bodies were different from those in
Russia, not at all what I had expected. For some reason, I visualized Swedish, Norwegian, and Finnish women as cut from the
same genetic cloth - six feet tall, thin, blond, and symmetrically featured. Walking clothes hangers. But the Finnish women
were actually quite
lumpy,
to use Reeta's word.

The sauna's grande dame ladled water onto the rocks, and the five of us inhaled the resultant wave of
l
ö
yly
while staring out the windows in silent satisfaction. Contemplating nature is a huge part of the sauna ideal, and all good
saunas have well-placed windows. When people get too hot they leave, careful to shut the door behind them, and either sit
outside in the cool, crisp air or rush down the jetty, leaving their towels on the dock, to plunge naked into the gulf. A
little while later I took the plunge, and diving off the jetty, I half expected to hear the sizzling sound of a hot pan being
rushed under cold water. It may have been August, but the water was unbearably cold, and I swam for only a few minutes. A
woman in a pink towel said that I must come back when the gulf is frozen to swim in the ice hole. Finns are universally macho
about their beloved polar swims.

I returned for round two. The number of times you go back and forth between sauna sessions and cooling off distinguishes the
Finnish sauna experience from the American gym variety. A German travel magazine explained the masochistic routine thus: 'If
you want heaven and hell at the same time, go to a Finnish sauna.' Real sauna aficionados repeat the hot-cold cycle as many
as ten times, at which point their endorphins are ricocheting off the timbered walls. When endorphin levels increase — remember,
endorphin
literally means 'the morphine within' - we feel euphoric and carefree. Endorphins flood the brain after a jog, after sex,
during daredevil stunts, and after an intense sauna cycle. That familiar postsauna glow prized by all Finns comes from the
prolonged exposure to hot, dry heat followed by a sudden plunge into cold water. The president of the Finnish Sauna Society,
a medical doctor, wrote, 'The increase of cardiac load in the sauna is similar to that seen during brisk walking.' While sweating
in sauna, the blood pressure decreases as the major flow of blood moves from the internal organs to the skin level, the capillaries.
A sudden dive into cold water reverses this cardio output, and the bather's blood pressure suddenly increases. All the while,
endorphin levels are mounting.

During my second of four sessions, and having absorbed all the sauna knowledge one, even very sauna-curious, person can absorb
in a day, I began to muse about Charles's arrival next week. Even though e-mail made it easy to know what he'd eaten for dinner,
I had no idea if his state of mind was as anxious and foreboding as mine. In the background, there has always been a silent
disappointment about what doesn't pass between us. The months away made me wonder if we hadn't moved in together rather too
quickly. And when I thought of playing house back in New York when I returned the felt like a hurried, forced situation.

Time-consuming activities began to take shape in my head. We would return to Lauttasaari one morning to watch the sauna major
smoke up the savusauna, we'd make that northern pilgrimage to the world's largest savusauna in Kuopio, and we'd figure out
how to finagle an invitation to an Alvar Aalto-designed sauna. I would keep us so occupied, we'd have no time to ask ourselves
whether we were in love.

On my way out, I stopped by Sinikka's office to thank her.

'Please let me know if you wish to drop by again. I might not be able to arrange another washing, but you can certainly use
the saunas.'

'Actually, I have an odd favor to ask. Could I come back one morning and watch the sauna major heat the savusaunas?'

'Yes, of course. Hanu would be delighted to teach you how to smoke up the savusauna. Try to arrive by seven-thirty. He'll
have coffee brewed.'

I stepped out into the early evening air of Helsinki to find an emissionless bus that seamlessly transported me back to city
center. Life in Finland was exceptionally easy after all the challenges of Russia, and the women of the Finnish Sauna Society
were a much tamer bunch than the Sandunovskye crowd. No one had Natasha the
banshitsa'
s verve, Gallia's candor ('Russian men are all pigs'), gold-capped teeth, or felt hats. Could a society really be this even-keeled,
or did the Finns just internalize their dysfunction, while the Russians made no attempt to hide their madness?

That evening, fresh from my excursion to Lauttasaari, I went out for a drink and dinner, on the prowl for intriguing people
watching and feeling surprisingly nostalgic for St Petersburg. I struck up a conversation with the waitress about the few
remaining public saunas in Helsinki — they are almost extinct - and a few minutes later a man approached my table and said,
'I couldn't help but overhear you asking about saunas. May I offer you some advice?'

'Yes, please,' I said. 'Have a seat.'

Bjorn had the bearings and reserved charm of a spy, though he introduced himself as a caterer. He wore a thick navy turtleneck
sweater that flattered his eyes and his torso.

'Have you heard about Sauna Island?' he asked.

'You're joking, right?' Finland was more saturated with saunas than I could ever have imagined, and the mention of a Sauna
Island stretched my credulity almost to breaking point.

'No, I'm quite serious. It's a new development started by an acquaintance of mine, Rainer Hilihatti. In fact, at this moment
he's putting the finishing touches on it, because in two weeks a huge group will be going out there for this ridiculous Sauna
of the Month program.'

'You don't sound like a supporter.'

'Another stupid marketing ploy, just like this European City of Culture business. Anyway, here's Rainer's card. You should
call him, I'm sure he'd give you a tour. What he's done is very impressive.'

'What has he done?'

'He managed to get a very cheap thirty-year lease on this island that the city of Helsinki has been trying to develop forever.
He renamed it Sauna Island and started building all different kinds of saunas. I think he has five of them, one even floating
on a boat.'

It was an odd encounter. After handing me the card, Bjorn returned to his table and companion on the other side of the dining
room. I pondered the Finnish efficiency of carrying other people's cards in your wallet to hand out — this was the third time
someone had, on the spur of the moment, pulled out a sauna-related card. Yesterday, through another random meeting, I'd learned
about SaunaBar, a nightclub with a public sauna, and about café Tin Tin Tango, a café, Laundromat, and sauna in one where
you can wash your clothes and then your body.

The next morning, I called Rainer on his cell phone. As luck would have it, Rainer was near the harbor, the unpronounceable
Eteläsatama, about to cast off and motor to Sauna Island to check construction progress, and taking me for a journalist -
I didn't correct him — he invited me along. My hair still wet, I made a mad dash to the harbor.

Rainer was an ageing matinee idol: brushed-back brownish red hair, a tanned face with character-enhancing wrinkles, and quiet
blue eyes. To smooth over my own jitters, and out of fear that he might realize I was not, in fact, a journalist, I immediately
started plying him with questions in my aggressive American way; then I gave up and just enjoyed the private three-kilometer
boat ride across the sun-kissed waves in the gulf, with the breeze lifting my hair. I wore sunglasses. I didn't need coffee
to feel good. This was my wake-up call. In his small silver motorboat, we buzzed past the huge Silja and Viking ocean liners
standing guard in the gulf. They were so massive with their fifteen floors of cabins, casinos, and bars that they dwarfed
the city behind it, sending Helsinki into dollhouse relief.

Sauna Island took the Finnish Sauna Society fantasy one step further. In Finnish sauna hierarchy, the more remote the sauna
the better, and Sauna Island's boat-only access elevated it to the height of sauna chic. As we neared the small dock, I heard
the sound of chain saws and hammering. All I could see through the woods were several outcroppings of log cabins and a huge
Japanese soaking tub right next to the waterline.

Four of the five saunas were completed and had already been used for parties and events. In fact, Sauna Island's main business
would come from corporations and groups that came out here for retreats. The masterpiece, the forty-person savusauna with
an octagonal stove, had yet to be finished.

'This savusauna had one hundred kilos of rocks - imagine! — and will seat forty,' Rainer said proudly, 'but we have to have
it ready in two weeks. We already have over one hundred bookings for Sauna of the Month.' I am no expert in construction,
but judging from the fact that the structure was still being erected, a ribbon cutting just two weeks away struck me as a
tad optimistic.

Rainer showed me around the island. He had colonized a small nook of the island with his sauna village, and he was the reigning
king, his daughter and son-in-law the administrators who kept the saunas warm. It was a little Club Med devoted to the sole
activity of sauna. The view was of Helsinki, scarred by oil drums and a refinery that were supposed to disappear within the
next ten years; hence the cheap rent.

'I'm looking forward to coming back for your grand opening,' I said. 'Do you really think the savusauna will be finished?'

'It has to be.'

• • •

I heard Reeta before I saw her. 'Axel, Anders, Axel, Anders,' then faster like the firing of artillery: 'Axel, Anders, Axel,
Anders . . .' The staccato homing pattern of a mother goose. Axel and Anders were her six- and four-year-old sons, mischievous
little rays of sunshine running around the ice-cream parlor.

I approached them. 'Reeta? Hello.'

'Oh, you found us,' she said, sounding surprised. I'd never met Reeta or even seen a picture of her. She was about thirty,
with short bobbed blond hair, wide-set blue eyes, a small, freckled nose, and a clear, pink-cheeked complexion. Her clothes
were tidy and practical. She was what the world expected of a Finnish woman.

'I followed the Axel, Anders refrain,' I joked, and hugged her in what seemed like excessive affection for Finland; but my
parents were Axel's godparents, so it seemed to me an appropriate gesture. I was reminded of a cartoon that depicts a Finn
in eight different emotional states from exhilaration to utter despair. The expression in all eight frames is identical. Reeta
returned my hug awkwardly and then quickly suggested the most efficient way to get ice cream. 'You watch the boys at that
table over there and I'll get the ice cream.'

Axel and Anders danced around the ice-cream shop, their blond hair flying, button noses upturned, making silly faces. I almost
found myself saying, 'Axel, Anders, Axel, Anders,' in an attempt to control them. Their mother might have the one-note emotional
range of a Finn, but their father, who was a close friend of my family's in Vermont, was an Italian American. Their dance
around the ice-cream shop would have gone over better in Naples than in Helsinki. Reeta arrived carrying a tray of ice cream
and two coffees. The Finns practically mainline coffee, drinking 9.2 cups a day on average.

'I invite you and your boyfriend out to the country with me and the boys,' she said, getting right to the point. Chitchat
is not a Finnish art. 'My mother's house is in southern Karelia and you can experience a real Finnish country sauna. Would
you like that?' I accepted her offer gratefully, and we set a date for next weekend, the day after Charles arrived from New
York. Charles would enjoy a weekend in the country, I thought, and he could stare across the border into Russia. Reeta suggested
that I come out to her house in Espoo - a separate municipality, but as far as I could tell, a suburb of Helsinki — to have
a little dinner with her and the boys.