“The baby.”
“Whose baby? Her baby?”
“No,” Sanne says. “Her baby is gone.”
“Gone? It died?”
“No. No,” Sanne says. “Mor helped Bekka find the baby a home. A couple who couldn’t have children—”
“You can’t give my baby away—”
“Give Sofie away? Of course we wouldn’t give her away.”
“Then why are you calling her Sofie? And why isn’t she here with me? Why would you ask that girl to nurse my baby?”
I see a tightening in the skin around Sanne’s nose, and a flaring of her nose. “Because Sofie is not your baby,” she says.
And I think, Why didn’t I leave? I knew this was going to happen, that my baby would pass from my body to their hands. Why didn’t I hurry like Rebekka prodded me? Why didn’t I listen to her, and leave? If I’d moved more quickly, I could have escaped before Sanne arrived. “I can nurse the baby,” I say. “I don’t need Rebekka to nurse her. I’m not that weak.”
“It’s not up to you, Aslaug,” she says. “It’s not up to you who nurses Sofie. This has always been the plan. Even before you became sick. It’s better this way. We’ll all have our roles in raising Sofie. You, Bekka, Mor, me. And Rune? I don’t know what Rune will do. First he’ll have to get the stick out of his ass.”
Split the baby, I think. But I say, “Wisdom,” and I try to conceal the flood in me. This has always been their plan? And yet I know, as Mother would say, I made this bed: the baby is in their hands now. “Sophia means ‘wisdom.’ You named her Wisdom.”
“The Gnostic gospels characterize wisdom as a woman. The woman, Sophia,” Sanne says. “And they refer to Sophia as the Mother of the Logos, the Word of God.”
SOLOMON’S SEAL
2007
—Cross-examination?
—Dr. Gunnlod, you don’t know for a fact whether Aslaug gave birth or not, do you?
—She said she’d never been intimate with a man—
—But you don’t really know whether she ever had a baby? Please just answer yes or no.
—I know if she’s never been with a man she couldn’t have had a baby.
—Dr. Gunnlod, you’re a psychiatrist, not a gynecologist. You didn’t examine Aslaug physically to determine whether she’d ever been pregnant, did you?
—Of course not.
—So you don’t know whether she did in fact have a baby, do you?
—No.
—Thank you. And you don’t have any direct knowledge regarding Aslaug’s childhood, do you?
—I know what she told me about her childhood, and I know the types of things she described as happening are unlikely to have happened.
—But you are not sure what happened to Aslaug when she was a child, are you, because you weren’t there?
—I’m trained to be able to distinguish fact from fiction. That’s part of my job. It’s my expert opinion that Ms. Hellig fictionalized her childhood. I don’t think she necessarily did this intentionally, but, nevertheless, I think her view of the past is a distorted one.
—But you can’t be one hundred percent sure of that, can you?
—I can be ninety-nine percent sure. Ms. Hellig described outlandish events. People don’t get pregnant supernaturally—that happens in books and myths. It doesn’t happen in real life. She described having been caged up throughout her childhood, but her neighbor would see her running about their yard, climbing trees. Alone. She claims to have been caged up in this church that burned down. But people were attending church there at the time. And no one saw any sign of her being locked up. I could go on.
—Her neighbor was a drunk—
—Objection, Your Honor. Move to strike. Argumentative.
—Sustained. No more of that, Counsel.
—Dr. Gunnlod, you did not know Aslaug when she was a child, did you?
—No.
—And so you have no choice but to speculate regarding what did or did not happen to her when she was a child, correct?
—I’m trained—
—Please just answer by saying “correct” or “incorrect.”
—Correct, I have to speculate, but I—
—Thank you. You said in your earlier testimony that Ms. Hellig was traumatized by the death of the two women in the fire and by the death of her mother, right?
—Yes, that’s right.
—And you also described Aslaug as having, and I quote, “a strong moral compass,” did you not?
—Yes.
—It’s not your experience, is it, that a premeditated killer would have a so-called strong moral compass?
—It really depends on the situation.
—Does it?
—Yes. It’s actually not all that unusual for a premeditated killer to have a strong sense of right and wrong. People who commit crimes like murder often know that what they’re doing is wrong—
—But you have no evidence Aslaug actually killed or tried to kill anyone, do you?
—No, I don’t.
—Thank you. I have no further questions.
MILKWORT
2004
“Purple milkwort is useless,” Mother told me as we walked through the tiny rose-colored flowers. She grabbed a fistful and crushed them; I remember the escape of their odor, like wintergreen.
“Why is it called milkwort?” I asked. I loved hearing Mother’s descriptions, her explanation for plants’ names—and the names she herself would give to plants. Because she’d often plummet back into her child’s mind—a mind that swirled in angels and devils and witches and kings. And snakes and robins and bees.
“People thought nursing mothers and cows that consumed it produced more milk, but that’s hogwash,” Mother said. “It doesn’t work.”
I remember wondering how she knew it didn’t work. And now I wonder whether the milkwort could work, because I’ve not nursed my baby—and the milk’s not come. I’ve remained locked in this guest room that is not green, and in this body that lacks its guest. I hear the baby cry at night; the first few nights I heard the cry, I felt a tingling in my breasts I hoped would turn to milk. But it didn’t. And now the tingling has stopped. I’m not that feral cat: no baby will find nourishment in me.
They named my baby Sofie, but that’s not her name. No matter what Sanne says, no matter the voice, that’s not her name.
Her name is Gnaphalium, like Mother. I think of her as Phalia. Although I can’t remember what she looked like during those few minutes she was with me, Sara said she looks like me and Mother. And I see her in my mind’s eye: I see the golden-petal hair of Gnaphalium. And I see the shimmering-pollen eyes. I see myself holding this child that is Mother, that is me. That is Gnaphalium, this life everlasting.
When they let me out, I will hold her close, I think. Mother never held me. I will tell her I love her. Mother never told me. I’ll never hurt her. She will never be afraid of me. I will be for her the love Rune spoke of: this love without bounds. And she will grow with the security of knowing she will be cared for, protected and loved.
Rebekka needed money and a place to stay. Her parents had sent her to stay in a home for unwed mothers and moved away. But Rebekka kept running from the home, arriving at the church. Sara would return her, and she’d run again. Finally the home refused to take Rebekka back, and Sara agreed to take her in. “Mor told Rebekka she could live with us until she gave birth, and after if need be, if she agreed to give the baby up for adoption.” Sanne explains this to me the tenth morning after Phalia’s birth. She sits on the stone floor; she hugs her knees. The shoulder of her white blouse is splotched in creamy rings, and she smells like milk curdled by wild madder. “And then it occurred to me,” she says, “Rebekka could nurse Sofie. It made so much sense. So after Rebekka delivered her baby, after the couple from Michigan arrived and took the baby, I gave you the snakeroot. It all just came together like it was destined.”
I feel like strangling Sanne; I feel like wrapping my hands around that neck that
looks so much like Mother’s neck and squeezing until she can’t talk anymore. I hate her in this moment, more than I’ve ever hated anything. And I feel, almost, that I could kill her. And not just in my mind.
“I’d like to see Sofie,” I say, as I do every day, yet the name feels so wrong in my mouth. “Why are you keeping her from me?”
“You’ll see her when you’re ready.”
“She is ready.” I hear Rune’s voice, then I see him in the doorway, and I see the bundle in his arms. And I feel again like the two-eyed berry: both the surprise of the new, of the not remembering; and the recognition of the old, of the remembering.
“You have no right, Rune,” Sanne says.
“Shut the fuck up, Sanne,” Rune says.
“Don’t talk that way while you’re holding Sofie.”
“I’ll talk any damn way I want to, Sanne. You may be able to manipulate everyone else around you, but I’m done letting you manipulate me. Now get the hell out of here. Let Aslaug have some peace with her baby.”
“I’m not leaving,” Sanne says. “You can’t make me leave.”
“Either get the hell out, or I’ll go to the police, like I should have long ago. And leave the door unlocked. No one’s locking this door again.”
As I watch Sanne move past Rune and into the hall, I think, Rune still cares for me, despite what I did, what I said. I feel so much longing, for the baby or Rune; it’s hard for me to separate the feelings.
Phalia doesn’t have syndactyly. This is my first thought when Rune unravels the blanket and I see Phalia’s small fists stretching to the sky. And I wonder, Why did I think that? And then I see her pink skin and bald head and her mouth open, and searching, and I know I’m feeling something neither the preacher nor Sanne nor Rune can feel.
“May I hold her?” I say.
He laughs. “Of course you can hold her. She’s your baby.”
She’s my baby.
I don’t take her from Rune’s arms. I run my hands across the rings of her, on her legs and fat arms. I remember the picture of me and Rune with these same rings, separating the plump from the plump. And I feel that love without bounds, and yet I feel she is a stranger, too.
Rune moves her from his arms to my arms. It feels awkward to hold her. I feel I might drop her. She arches her small back; she cries out.
“What am I doing wrong?” I say.
“You’re not doing anything wrong. I think she’s hungry. Sit down. Try to nurse her.”
“But I don’t know how,” I say. And I think what I can’t say: I’ve squeezed my breasts in search of milk. And there’s no milk. The milkwort, I think again. Perhaps the milkwort.
“Try,” Rune says. “At first, no one knows how. Rebekka didn’t….” And then he stops, realizes what he’s said.
Phalia starts to cry louder. My hands are slick on her body.
“Nurse her.” Rune raises his voice above Phalia’s raised voice.
And Phalia raises her voice further. And now she sounds like the squealing springs of the bed, but magnified, sharpened. And her pale skin is no longer pale, but purplish red; she looks near bursting. She pulls her plump thighs to her chest, arches her back more.
“I can’t hold her,” I say. “I’m going to drop her.”
“You’re going to drop her?”
I push her back into Rune’s arms. “Take her. Please. I can’t hold her. Take her to Rebekka.”
“But you wanted to hold her—”
“I don’t want to,” I say.
SOLOMON’S SEAL
2007
—Ms. Hellig, during the period of time when you claim you became pregnant, you were infatuated with your cousin Rune Lerner, were you not?
—Objection. Relevance.
—I’ll allow the question, but please get to the point, Counsel.
—I don’t understand what you mean.
—I think you do, Ms. Hellig.
—Objection, Your Honor. Counsel is badgering the witness.
—Sustained.
—During the period of time when you claim you became pregnant, you were attracted to your cousin Rune, were you not?
—I don’t know.
—You don’t know?
—I’d never been around a teenage boy before.
—A simple yes or no answer, please.
—Yes, I was, but—
—But he was in love with another young woman, wasn’t he?
—Objection. Speculation.
—Sustained.
—It’s your belief Rune Lerner fathered another woman’s child, isn’t that right?
—Yes.
—You were jealous of this other woman, weren’t you?
—I didn’t know about her until later.
—Ms. Hellig, were you or were you not jealous when you learned Rune Lerner had fathered another woman’s child?
—I was jealous.
—So jealous you made up some cockamamy story about having a baby yourself?
—No.
—Objection, Your Honor. Move to strike. Argumentative.
—Sustained.
—Ms. Hellig, it’s true, isn’t it, that you sometimes have difficulty distinguishing reality from fantasy?
—I’m not sure.
—You’re not sure what is reality and what is fantasy?
—No, it’s just that there have been times when I thought my dreams were real, but otherwise—
—So you’d agree, then, that you sometimes confuse fantasy with reality?
—Not about this, though. Not about being pregnant, having the baby. I mean, there’s a child.
—But you have no idea where this supposed child is, isn’t that right?
—I don’t know where she is.
—So how can you be sure she is not just a figment of your imagination?
—She’s not—
—How can you be sure you didn’t dream you gave birth to a baby because you were so jealous of Rune’s having a child with another woman?
—No, it wasn’t a dream. Phalia was real.
—Phalia?
—The baby. But she’s not a baby anymore. She’s a little girl.
WATER LILY
2006
She looks just like me.
Phalia is over two years old now, and she looks just like me; she looks just like Mother. And yet, she is not like me; she is not like Mother. Phalia is the girl I was supposed to be; she’s the girl Mother was longing for. Phalia is a child not of this earth; yet she is a child very much of this earth. As I’ve come to know her, I’ve come to realize Sanne was right: by some miracle I’ve not even begun to understand, God chose Mother, God chose me, to deliver this wonder into the world. The voice I heard when I was giving birth was not my imagination: it was the voice of God.
After Rune unlocked my door, Sanne told me I could stay or go. “But Sofie stays.”
I thought of leaving; I thought of trying to steal Phalia away. But I knew I’d never leave. How could I leave? The responsibility of raising Phalia had become too real. I couldn’t even meet her basic needs.
And over time I’ve come to see what Sanne saw from the start: Phalia is a gift from God. I realize now it truly was God’s plan that Phalia be raised in this church, with Sanne and the preacher and Rune, and Rebekka, too. We all have something to offer her, something she needs. No one of us could nourish her alone.
I’ve had opportunity to read Mother’s notes, and I’ve found Sanne was telling me the truth: Mother wrote of bloodroot and madapple and snakeroot, and the two-eyed berry; but she also wrote of Dionysus and Attis and Mithra and Adonis—of their virgin births, their miracles. And she wrote of the Essenes.
And I understand, now, why Mother was drawn to the Essenes. The Essenes’ teachings must have felt to Mother as they do to me: like going home, to Hartswell, to Denmark, to Bedstefar, to Yggdrasil. The natural world, so central to Mother’s understanding of life, was vital to the Essenes’ understanding of the divine. And the Essene tree of
life is Yggdrasil, slightly changed.
The lower branches of the tree of life contain earthly forces: the earthly mother, and the angels of sun, water, air, earth, life and joy. Its upper branches contain heavenly forces: the heavenly father, and the angels of eternal life, creativity, peace, power, love and wisdom. Humans live in the center of the tree, halfway between the angels of earth and heaven.
Mother’s notes intimate the Essenes believed no one religion could embody the sacred—that all religious faiths seek to bridge the heavenly realm with the earthly. And, as Sanne said, Mother wrote of consecrated individuals, like Phalia: individuals sent to earth to help illuminate the commonalities among different faiths, to bridge this divide.
Phalia sits in my lap now, the soft and spongy leafstalk of the water lily in her grip. Sanne made a straw for her from the water lily’s stalk, and Phalia sucks it now, dragging sweet liquid into her mouth that is my mouth, that is Mother’s mouth. I think of the first time I saw that mouth as my mouth—that time so long ago when I was little more than a child, my childlike body stretching to see. It must have been torment for my mother to look at my face that was her face day after day. I wish she could be here now. I wish she could see that all was not for naught: God did have a plan.
“Aslaug?” Phalia says, and she plants her moist lips on mine, and I want to drink her in. And then I don’t: as much as I love her, she makes me uneasy. It seems she should be knowable to me because she was part of me, because she looks so like me, because she is two. And yet, she is a mystery that only deepens as days pass.
Phalia peeks through the straw into my eye. “Your eye is a wantern,” she says.
“A lantern?” I say. “How do you know what a lantern is?” But it is an inane question. How does she know half of what she knows? She imbibes the world around her as if through the water lily; she forgets nothing, it seems. Languages and stories and images and concepts race into her mind, take root, blossom. Yet it is less what she takes in, more what is just in her—what sprouts there without ever having been planted—that makes us all realize that little in the world is as we expected it to be. Including ourselves. For Phalia has changed everyone here: the preacher and Rebekka and Rune and Sanne. And me.
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