My knees shake as she recites this prayer. Is it possible? I think. Is it possible God impregnated my soul?
After Sanne leaves, I pick up one of the books she left, Chuang Tzu. I open to a passage and I read:
“Once upon a time, I, Chuang Tzu, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of following my fancies as a butterfly, and was unconscious of my individuality as a man. Suddenly, I awaked, and there I lay, myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.”
I think of the hairstreak for the first time in so long. I remember taking the butterfly in my mouth that day when collecting plants with Mother; I remember thinking of it as a butterfly soul; I remember wanting it to find a new mother—wanting to be its mother.
Is that how I became pregnant? I think. Was the hairstreak really a butterfly soul? But then I stop myself. Maybe Rune was right: maybe I am going mad. Mother used to mock me, offer me watercress, claim it was used to treat insanity. She’d call the plant nasus tortus, “convulsed nose,” because of its pungency. I wanted to tell her at the time it was she who needed the convulsed nose, not me—it was she who was not sane. Yet I’m beginning to wonder. I’ve spent so much time in this room, staring at these walls, thinking of gods and goddesses, of Rune and Mother, and now of an impregnating God and butterfly souls. I can’t help but question what’s real, what could be real. I’m not sure anymore if I know.
I pray as I fall asleep this night, but I’m not sure which god I’m seeking. So I retreat to the crones, and again I ask them for understanding; I ask them to show me a glimmer of my fate.
In the morning I begin reading all the books Sanne’s left for me. Really reading them, expecting for the first time they truly may be the only way for me to understand what’s happened to me—what’s happening to me. The more I read, the more interested I become; the more I start to believe there may be an answer hidden somewhere in one of these books. And Sanne senses the change in me, and she and I start to discuss what I’ve read, what she’s reading. And I find myself feeling almost excited. I find myself believing this baby I’m carrying may actually be a prophet, some sort of messiah. The Essenes’ “custodian of the divine on earth.” And as more months pass, I wonder almost daily whether this is what Mother felt when she was carrying me. Only to find I was a disappointment.
According to Mother’s notes, the Essenes believed the human mind is incapable of understanding the divine in any rational way; they believed the world as humans perceive it is essentially what Hindus call maya, or illusion.
“In certain mystery faiths ma meant ‘soul,’” Sanne says. “And woman symbolized the soul. Woman also symbolized the earth. And the earth was thought to mirror the universal soul.”
Sanne sits across the bed from me; a plate of rugbrød and blue castello teeters between us. She and the preacher no longer tape my mouth when we walk outside, and sometimes Sanne leaves me alone with the door unlocked for several minutes at a time. “I remember Mother paraphrasing a passage from one of her books,” I say. “She hardly ever shared what she was reading with me, but one day she said something like, ‘Regard this phantom world as a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, a flickering lamp, a phantom and a dream.’ It was beautiful, I remember. Poetic. But I didn’t think much of it at the time. But now it seems it’s like this concept of the Essenes’. Like she was speaking of maya.”
“That passage comes from Buddha,” Sanne says. “That’s something Buddha said. But the Essenes studied Buddhism. They studied whatever they could get their hands on. And that’s what Maren did. That’s what we should do. Because many of these concepts, like maya, cross many religions. The Gnostics, for instance, also believed in a form of maya they called Docetism.”
“Meaning illusionism,” I say.
“In Gnosticism the idea is that each human being is divided into two essential parts. A physical being, the eidolon, that suffers and eventually dies, and a spiritual being, the Daemon, that is utterly free from suffering and understands that the world is ephemeral, illusory. The Gnostics believed that the story of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection was a symbolic story: it represents the death of the eidolon and the resurrection of the Daemon. Through this death and resurrection, Gnostics believed each person can become a Christ.”
“The stories you told me of Dionysus, Attis, Mithra, Adonis—they all involved death and resurrection,” I say.
“Those stories were symbolic, too, obviously. The physical dies in a sense, so the spirit can live.”
And then it strikes me: if death and resurrection are symbolic, is virgin birth as well? The doubt I’d managed to bury is again breaking ground. “Maybe the stories about virgin birth were just as symbolic?”
Sanne holds her arms out wide, mimicking my roundness. “So your pregnancy is symbolic?” she says. “An illusion?” I’m over eight months pregnant now, maybe close to nine; my whole body looks swollen. “I’d say that’s wishful thinking, Aslaug.” And she laughs.
But I don’t laugh. These stories are myths. Like the story of Yggdrasil. They’re meant to represent spiritual teachings. They’re not meant to be taken literally.
She pushes the plate to the side and rolls across the bed toward me. I couldn’t do that, I think. Roll my body that way. My stomach is so round, and hard as an apple; the sack-like dresses Sanne gives me barely stretch across. And when the baby moves, the apple deforms and my torso juts to one side, but then the baby settles in and the apple re-forms, as hard and firm as it was at the start.
Sanne rests her head in my lap—her hair is thick like Rune’s. She positions her webbed fingers on my middle. “Is the baby moving?”
Although Sanne and the preacher have controlled my movements and my diet and what I could read and do, they haven’t taken the baby from me. They couldn’t. They couldn’t feel the baby move; they couldn’t sense its life.
“A little,” I say. And I move her hand to the spot where one tiny limb forms a knot. We sit without speaking for a minute, then two. Sanne closes her eyes; I have the impulse to run my fingers through her hair the way Rune ran his fingers through mine—make her an angel.
“I can feel it,” Sanne says. She opens her eyes, and her pale cheeks flush some; she raises her eyebrows, giggles like I expect a child would. It feels good to share this with her. I hadn’t realized how good it would feel to share the baby. And I realize the baby seems more mine suddenly, now that I’ve shared it. I feel more connected to the baby, now that I’ve opened its life beyond mine.
“I knew something like this was going to come into my life,” Sanne says. She sits up, lifts her hand from my dress. “I can’t explain it, but I knew. Something exceptional was going to happen in my life. The life I was leading before, it just didn’t fit. And now Mor believes it, too.”
“Sara? What does she believe?” The preacher treats me like a caged animal, but an animal she cares for. She speaks to me only about practicalities, but, since I retracted my accusation of Rune, she’s been far more gentle. She asks whether I’m too hot, too cold, hungry, thirsty. She even rubs my feet when they swell, and my lower back when she sees my discomfort. And she tries to be less rough when she ties my hands, stuffs in the cloth.
“When you accused Rune, it was terrible for Mor,” Sanne says. “Mor didn’t know what to believe. Rune denied he’d raped you, but she wasn’t sure. She wanted to believe him, but…she had reasons not to believe him, obviously. I mean, you’re pregnant, and Rune…well, let’s just say impulse control is not his forte. And we both could see he was taken with you. And he doesn’t always have the best judgment—he’s proved that. So you can imagine how relieved Mor was when you said you lied about Rune. And now she’s come around. She believes this is a virgin birth. She thinks you became pregnant because she laid hands on you. Do you remember that? When you were slai
n in the spirit? Mor thinks God touched you, and you became pregnant then. Leave it to Gudinden to find a way to pay tribute to herself in all of this. It doesn’t matter, though, what she believes. Let her believe it’s about her. That you got pregnant because of her. Maybe it will sober her up.”
I’ve barely thought of my being “slain in the spirit” since it happened. But I remember it now, the way I felt filled up. I’d never made any connection between the pregnancy and that experience. But maybe the preacher is right; maybe I got filled up with this baby.
“Sober her up?” I say. “You mean literally? From drinking?”
“No,” Sanne says. “And yes. It’s not what I thought I meant.” She looks at me now with an expression similar to her expression when the lights went out, then back on, when she saw my hand propped in the air. “People in the congregation don’t know about Mor’s drinking. Pentecostals don’t drink, right? It’s not something I’m used to talking about. You know, Mor had mostly stopped drinking. She’d started when I was little. I remember her stumbling around, passing out. According to Mikkel, she even drank when she was pregnant with Rune. And the drinking continued after Maren left. Then when Rune started school, it wasn’t easy for him. He had difficulty learning. He was diagnosed with a whole slew of problems. Mor blamed herself. She took us both out of school, started homeschooling us. And she started her church, and things got better—in a sense, anyway. She became addicted to God. Got drunk on God. She went from getting drunk on Mikkel to schnapps to God. She did fall back into drinking once in a while after she started the church—mostly when Mikkel would call, after he’d call, or when there was some new issue with Rune—but for the most part she had the drinking under control. But she’s drinking now again. Dulling herself. Trying to drown all the guilt she feels about Maren, it seems. Trying to bury the shit with Rune.”
“You mean his learning problems? He seems so bright—”
“I never said he’s not bright. He has an amazing memory. But he processes the world differently. And he sure doesn’t think he’s smart…. And he’s impulsive, like I said. It gets him in trouble. And when he screws up, Mor’s reminded of how she screwed up.”
“But he didn’t screw up this time. She knows that—”
“Oh, but he did.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Listen, it’s not that easy for Mor to stop once she gets started, okay? And there are always setbacks with Rune. And there’s always Mikkel—that hurt never completely left. And she doesn’t like keeping you locked up like this. But she knows we did what we had to do. You didn’t understand—”
“No,” I say. “I didn’t.” And I don’t.
“And, of course,” Sanne says, “Mor feels the burden of what lies ahead.”
“Of raising the child, you mean? She doesn’t have to feel the burden of that. I know I’m young, but I don’t expect anything from her.”
Sanne’s forehead creases; she straightens her back. “You don’t get it, do you?”
“Don’t get what?”
“You think you’re going to raise this baby once it’s born?” She shakes her head, and the pink strands fly. “This baby’s not yours, Aslaug. You’re just the vessel. This baby belongs to God.”
SOLOMON’S SEAL
2007
—Dr. Hoenir, you do have records of treating Aslaug’s cousin Susanne Lerner, don’t you?
—I’m not at liberty to reveal that.
—In fact, you have records of having diagnosed Susanne Lerner as pregnant right at the time Aslaug says she became pregnant, don’t you?
—Like I said, I’m not at liberty to reveal that information.
—Dr. Hoenir, when a patient arrives at your office, you don’t check the person’s identification, do you?
—You mean, do we check IDs? No.
—So someone could come in claiming he or she was one person and in fact be someone else entirely, isn’t that right?
—I don’t know why anyone would do that, other than for insurance fraud, maybe.
—But someone could do that, couldn’t she?
—I suppose.
—It’s possible, then, isn’t it, that when Aslaug came in and you diagnosed her as pregnant, you thought she was her cousin Susanne Lerner?
—I never said I diagnosed Aslaug as pregnant.
—But it’s possible you believed Aslaug was her cousin Susanne Lerner when she arrived at your office. If Aslaug told you she was Susanne, you wouldn’t have known otherwise, isn’t that right?
—So what you’re saying is Aslaug is a liar? That she lied to me?
—Dr. Hoenir, I’m asking you a simple question, and I would appreciate a simple yes or no answer. You believe patients are who they say they are, right?
—Yes.
—You don’t question patients about their identities, do you?
—No.
—So if Aslaug told you her name was Susanne Lerner, you would assume her name was Susanne Lerner, right?
—Yes.
—Thank you. I have no further questions.
SNAKEROOT
2004
This baby belongs to God.
But it doesn’t, I think. This baby is part of me. No matter the father, I’m this baby’s mother.
As I watch Sanne walk from the room, as I hear the door close and the lock snap, I realize I’ve allowed this baby’s context to become its prison. The circumstances of my conception defined so much of my life; it seems the circumstances of Rune’s defined much of his. And now I’ve allowed this baby’s origin to define its life, even before its birth. And yet, the baby’s origin hasn’t changed the feeling of its life—its weight in my body, its prodding and flipping and pushing. It hasn’t changed the sensation of running my hands across the pink mountain of baby after I’ve drunk a glass of juice and feel the kicking, this expression of joy in sweetness. It hasn’t changed the intimacy, this sharing of life. It hasn’t changed my desire to give this child what I didn’t have: love without guilt; love without bounds.
Love without Sanne’s bounds.
Yet I see now what I should have seen before: when this baby is born, I will lose control. The baby will pass from my body to Sanne’s hands, or the preacher’s hands. Not my hands. If I’m still here. If I’m still here…
I can’t still be here.
But how can I not be here?
The thought of escaping began as a torrent, and yet it’s trickled away. And now, it seems, the torrent is flowing upside down, mixing me up, making me think I want to stay. Despite the reality that I’ve been caged here, I’ve felt less caged during this past month than I’ve felt my whole life. It seemed I was finding my place in the world, as if this baby and Sanne and the research were being woven together to form a tapestry even more beautiful than freedom: a tapestry of roots and purpose and relationships; a tapestry of meaning.
There is a sadness that comes over me now, that seems to push out what felt like meaning, push in the meaningless. Where will I go? How will I raise this baby? Is it wrong to deprive it of family, as I was deprived of family?
I’m getting close to the time the baby will be born—I sense this. I’m experiencing this tightening, and releasing, and tightening around the baby—as if my body’s preparing itself for labor, giving itself trial runs. If I’m going to leave, I don’t have much time.
Rebekka is not pregnant.
“You have to leave,” she says. I open my eyes. It’s night, dark, and yet I see: her face inches from mine. And I hear: a voice I barely recognize. For a second I can’t connect this faint voice with this faint face, but then I remember: these angel’s tresses, and a voice magnified in the microphone, praising God.
Rebekka stands upright now, moves her face farther from mine. I see she grips a suitcase in one hand, a kerosene lamp in the other. The lamp rocks as she moves; the light jerks.
“Rebekka?”
“You have to leave,” she says. “Get up. Hurry. Get up.” She sets
the suitcase down and tugs at my body with her body, and I remember being drawn to her body, to the baby in her body. My hand finds the baby in mine. And I realize I’m sitting up in bed—I don’t remember pulling up. The light illuminates the ball of baby on my thighs; it illuminates Rebekka, flings her shadow to the wall. And I see her shadow: this large and dark mass, nondescript, and yet, something is wrong.
“Come on,” she says, and she pulls harder. Her hand on my skin is tiny; she is tiny. My arm flails, slams into her middle, but the mound it strikes is not firm and round. She is deflated, fleshy.
“Where is your baby?” The large mass on the wall was not large enough. “You had your baby?”
“There’s no baby,” she says. The light from the lamp settles brighter on her face, and I see her eyes are smudged black and dark lines streak her cheeks. She tugs free her left hand, smears its back along her cheekbone and across one eye, and the black thins and spreads.
“What are you talking about? You were pregnant—”
“Stop,” she says. “Shut up.”
“Rebekka?”
“They told me I couldn’t speak to you, even look at you. They said they’d send me away. My family left me. I had nowhere to go. I had to leave the program—”
“What are you talking about?”
“They took my baby,” she says. “They made me give her away. They’re evil, Aslaug. They’re awful. They’re going to take your baby…. There’s this place. This home for girls. Pregnant girls. You can go there.”
She turns from me; she yanks open the suitcase and the bureau drawer; she heaves clothes into the case.
And I realize: she’s helping me escape.
“What happened to you?” I say. “Please. What happened to your baby?” I climb from the bed. The baby is silent within me. Can I trust Rebekka? Do I want to trust her?
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