—Yes.
—Okay. Then what happened?
—Well, Bekka left the home and moved into the church. Bekka’s parents had moved away, but they came back to the church one weekend. Confronted Pastor. Said they realized Pastor’s son, Rune, had fathered the baby. Pastor had hired Bekka to tutor Rune. The two were alone a lot—
—Objection. Relevance. Hearsay. Speculation.
—Overruled. But please get to the point.
—Okay. And then?
—Pastor started drinking. The church fell apart.
—Did Bekka have her baby?
—Yeah. And Pastor was helping her raise the child.
—Were you or were you not attending the Charisma Church when Rebekka gave birth?
—I was attending. I attended until Pastor Sara closed the church. I loved that church.
—How old was the baby when the church closed?
—A few weeks.
—Do you know the baby’s name?
—They named her Sofie.
—Did you ever see Aslaug at the church after Sofie was born?
—No. She wasn’t ever there.
—Objection. The witness is speculating. She has no personal knowledge regarding whether Aslaug was ever at the church.
—I’ll strike everything after the word no.
—I have no further questions, Your Honor.
GLASSWORT
2006
The flames rise like slender glasswort, streaming orange and red and hot green. The jimsonweed has taken me someplace this time; the madapple has transported me. I watch the fire gulp the church, and I feel so far away.
The glasswort spikes shoot into the air; the plant grows before my eyes. I can’t remember where I am. In a garden. A great garden, lush and warm.
And wet. Water gushes suddenly. Too much water. The glasswort wilts. People shout. They try to kill the glasswort. And then they do kill it; they drown it.
“Stop!” I scream, but my voice drowns, too.
I feel hands on my body, and on my arms, my neck. Hands on my leafless flower spikes, my stem. The hands rip me from the ground; they’ll drown me. I am the glasswort, and they’ll kill me. I ram my spikes into the pulling hands. I break free.
I wake in a ditch, in the taste of char, the smell of char. I see my scorched clothes, my burnt hands, and I remember the glasswort. Then I remember the madapple and igniting the modesty cloths. And I know which of these memories is real.
I want to dig myself back into this ditch, bury myself here. But then I remember: Phalia didn’t die.
Somewhere Phalia is alive.
I’m on Irnan Street near the corner where I first parked my car, when I first came to Bethan. The circle I’ve made in returning here stretches high and low, in and out: this malformed circle has changed me.
I remember parking here, pulling the suitcase of money from the car.
The car.
I have to get the car in order to find Phalia.
And the money, the suitcase of money. Maybe it’s still in the church; maybe it survived the fire.
SOLOMON’S SEAL
2007
—Sergeant Silja, there’s really no way you could identify the biological parents of this baby, whom you call Sofie, could you?
—Well, I guess I couldn’t know whether Pastor’s son, Rune, is actually the baby’s father, if that’s what you mean.
—And you also don’t know for sure who the baby’s biological mother is, do you?
—Well, Rebekka was pregnant, then there was a baby.
—But you are making an assumption, aren’t you?
—I guess so. But—
—You said Rebekka’s parents wanted her to give her baby up for adoption. You don’t really know whether she gave her baby up for adoption, do you?
—Of course I do. The baby was born. The baby was at the church. She wasn’t given up for adoption. I saw Rebekka nursing her—
—But the baby at the church could have been another woman’s baby, couldn’t she? Even if Rebekka nursed the child, she could have been another woman’s baby.
—I’m sorry, but that seems pretty far-fetched.
—Please just answer yes or no, Sergeant.
—Yeah, I guess the baby could have been some other anonymous woman’s baby—
—Not an anonymous woman. As far as you know, the baby could have been Aslaug’s baby, isn’t that right?
—Objection, Your Honor. Counsel is being argumentative.
—Overruled.
—Sure, why not?
FALSE SOLOMON’S SEAL
2007
They think I killed my mother.
They think I poisoned Sanne and the preacher.
They think I started the fire to kill Rune and Rebekka and Phalia.
They think I made up the story about having been pregnant.
When I failed to find the car, I went back to the church and the police arrested me. And I have spent the past months listening to the prosecutor’s version of my life, my defense counsel’s version of my life.
I sit in this courtroom now, and I hear the upheaval: the door shoved open, the startled guard, the shuffled bodies. I turn; I see Rune. But this Rune is too thin: his cheeks sink to deep vales and his eyes show prominent, more like black-eyed-Susan eyes than soft blackberry eyes. Yet for the first time in years, I recognize this person, as if that sticky weight that coated him has peeled away and left him raw. I see that beautiful power surging: I feel it slipping around me and in me. My body remembers his embrace. I’ve risen from my seat without realizing and moved toward him, as if he has embraced me, drawn me closer. But then my attorney’s grip on my arm stops me; I see myself standing, and I sit back down.
“Aslaug!” someone says. But it’s not Rune. And then she runs through the courtroom; Phalia runs through the courtroom. “Aslaug!” She scales my knees, rides my thighs, presses herself into my stomach, my rib cage. But her body is too big, too bony. She nuzzles her nose and moist mouth into my neck. I smell her thin hair, her warm skin; I remember this buttered-toast smell. And the courtroom falls away. The world falls away. I feel suspended, and yet I feel submerged, too. As if buoyant in a saltwater sea.
I hear a woman’s voice. “Sofie, come here!” But Phalia doesn’t let go.
“Aslaug,” Phalia says again. Her legs pinch my waist, her too-long arms squeeze. Her tiny chest expands and collapses against me. I want to say something, and yet it seems there is nothing I can say. Words can’t encompass what I feel; no mold could hold this. I close my eyes. I feel and smell.
And when I open my eyes, I see Rebekka: her lighter hair, her darker skin, her eyes that seem deeper set. She kneels behind Phalia; she wears her hair bound caterpillar-like, tied at the base of her neck and again near its fraying tips. Her sweater is rose-purple, and fuzzy, and blanketed in pale pollen-like lint; its color clashes with her hair; her breath is stale.
“Sofie,” Rebekka says. “Let go. Let her go.”
“Rebekka?” I say. She doesn’t respond. “Bekka?” Part of me wants to enfold her, too. To pull her into this circle of limbs, as if that could pull us all into the past, when Sanne lived and loved and Sara lived and loved and Phalia was the root that held us all together, not the strangling vine that divided us, kept us apart.
Keeps us apart. For I don’t enfold Rebekka, even though I understand, now, the pain she must have felt when she lost her baby, the pain she must feel: that bottomless pit. Did she fool herself? I wonder. Trick herself into believing Phalia was genetically her own in a futile attempt to fill that pit of pain? She grips Phalia’s taut arms and tugs. And I feel the strength in Phalia’s small body. Never again, I think. Never again will you take my baby away.
“What’s going on here?” the judge says. “Who are these people?”
Phalia doesn’t move, but Rebekka does. She releases Phalia, rises, looks around. In this room of people dressed in blacks and blues and grays, she stands colorful and fuzzy. The garish
purple passionflower that doesn’t belong here.
Rune’s gaze hovers, not on me, not on Phalia. On Rebekka. In this moment I see she is not garish to him; that, to him, she does belong here. I sense the caring he feels for her, how sorry he is. She came here because of him, I expect—because he wanted her to come, not because she wanted to come. And now she stands in the courtroom, a spectacle. And Phalia holds me, not her.
I reach out to Rebekka now. With one hand I hold Phalia; with one hand I reach. But she looks at it—my hand—as if it were the hand of a murderer, as if I did kill Sanne and Sara, as if she knows I killed them. She backs away.
“I apologize, Judge,” Rune says. The judge’s attention shifts from Rebekka to Rune. Rune walks through the gallery, toward Rebekka, toward the judge. I recall these elegant lines, this body. And his scent. “We learned of Aslaug’s trial. In the paper. The newspaper.” His voice is the voice I remember: the voice of many colors, the voice of my dream. And I feel myself wanting to run to him as Phalia ran to me. And I think of his asking me to run away with him, with Phalia. I wish we could run away—the three of us. Yet I don’t want to run; I don’t want to have to leave to grow free. I want the sunlight to shine here, in this place. “My mother died in the fire,” he says. “And my sister.”
“That’s enough,” the judge says, and he holds up his hand. “Please.”
Rune stops, stands still; I feel he’s trying not to look at me.
The judge turns to the jury, instructs them to step out of the courtroom.
“Your mother was Sara Lerner?” the judge says to Rune after the last of the jury members leaves.
Rune nods his head. “I’m Rune Lerner.”
“I’m sorry for you, son.” For the first time since the trial began, I see a softening, a sort of drooping, around the judge’s keen eyes: he’s imagining Rune’s sadness, I think—the sadness of losing one’s mother. And I realize: he’s not looked at me that way; he thinks I’m guilty. “I expect these attorneys here may want a word with you.” The judge looks at the prosecutor, my defense counsel. “I’m calling a recess to give you all some time to sort this out.”
Rune turns toward me now, and his eyes meet mine. I feel this lightning. I feel this love. And I see his regret—that he left me—and I know why he couldn’t look at me before. Yet I see his longing, too. To understand what neither of us may ever understand.
“I have something to say,” Rebekka says.
“What?” Rune says.
“I need to testify,” Rebekka says, “about what I saw at the church.” The girl once so comfortable with her magnified voice now seems unsure of her voice. Her lower lip quivers; it seems she’s trying not to cry. She rocks her body forward and back as if preparing to leap. “About Aslaug’s behavior after I had my baby. Sofie. This little girl, here.”
“Rebekka?” Rune says, and I think: Did I misread him again? See what I wanted to see, not what was real? Did they come not to help me but to ensure I’d be locked away, so they’d never have to worry about my trying to find Phalia, take her back?
“Whether you testify is up to the attorneys here,” the judge says. “It’s not up to me.”
False Solomon’s seal has an arching stem, its tip a pyramid of milky white flowers. It is this mass of flowers that betrays the plant, for true Solomon’s seal has bell-shaped flowers that hang loose. I wish there were a sign like this for Rebekka, for me. I wish a mass of creamy white flowers could betray her, let the judge know, the attorneys know: this bundle of child still heaving in my arms is my baby.
Rebekka is the false Solomon’s seal.
SOLOMON’S SEAL
2007
—Please state your name for the record.
—Rebekka Grass.
—Do you know the defendant, Aslaug Hellig?
—Yes.
—Under what circumstances did you come to know her?
—I used to attend the Charisma Pentecostal Church. I first met Aslaug when she came to visit the church about four years ago. She stayed at the church for a while, with Pastor Sara and her kids, Susanne and Rune.
—Okay. Did you spend time with Aslaug?
—Not a lot.
—Why?
—Because she was smitten with my boyfriend, Rune. Rune Lerner. Rune told me, and even Rune was grossed out by it, about her infatuation with him. They were cousins, Aslaug and Rune. Rune said they may even be siblings.
—Objection. Move to strike. Hearsay. Relevance. Speculation.
—Sustained.
—Ms. Grass, how well do you know Rune Lerner?
—We’ve been in a romantic relationship for over four years. We had a child together. The little girl who was in the courtroom earlier. Sofie.
—Aslaug Hellig seems to think that little girl is her child. Says her name is Phalia.
—That’s a lie. But that’s what I wanted to explain. Aslaug wanted Sofie to be her baby. She pretended like Sofie was her baby. But ask Sofie who nurses her. She’ll tell you it’s me. Sofie’s three—I’ve been nursing her for three years. Aslaug’s jealous I had Sofie, that Rune and I had a baby. She wanted Rune to be hers, too. I think she’d kill to get what she wants.
—Objection, Your Honor. Speculation. Move to strike.
—Objection sustained. The jury should disregard Ms. Grass’s last statement.
VIRGIN’S BOWER
2007
Bromegrass and canary grass and orchard grass and timothy all live in Maine. Which Grass is this now? I wonder. Which Rebekka is this?
I recall the first time I saw Rebekka, her heavenly voice praising the God who would later betray her. And I recall listening to that same voice humming and humming through the locked door, when she was pregnant, carrying her baby, before she knew God would betray her, not protect her from losing the child. Even now I can feel that magnet-pull, so strong, I felt drawing me to her, when my belly was round and her belly was round, before I knew her baby was Rune’s and my baby was not. She seemed to have little interest in me then. Only later did I learn she was deprived of her interest, threatened with her interest: she wasn’t to talk to me, look at me. But she did anyway, eventually. She tried to free me, to give me the gift of life that she herself had been denied: my baby. But now, now…Now she has deprived me herself: of experiencing my baby’s life. And now she wants to deprive me of my own life: my freedom. The hurt she suffered has encircled her, it seems: it is the virgin’s bower, that vine that cannot bear its own weight but lives by twining itself around another, making its host unrecognizable.
“She’s lying.” Rebekka sits in the witness box wetting her bottom lip, wetting her top lip, but Rune has risen to his feet and stepped into the well that separates the judge and Rebekka from the attorneys, from me. It takes a moment before I connect Rune’s words to their meaning. “She’s lying.”
“Mr. Lerner, you’ll have your chance to testify. Sit down. Please.”
“But she’s lying,” Rune says. “Bekka’s lying.”
“Bailiff…,” the judge says. The judge’s nose colors, his fist thumps the bench, and his eyes look at Rune no longer with the droopy kindness, the sympathy. I see the sharpness now in his eyes I saw before, each time he looked at me.
The bailiff seems stuck between the jury box and Rune. “Get them out…,” the judge says, and the bailiff jerks to face the jury box. The jury members scurry out then, but with reluctance, it seems. Several hesitate, look back as they leave.
“Aslaug would never…,” Rune says.
The bailiff moves now toward Rune. Don’t take him away, I think. Please don’t take him away. I remember the feeling I had the first time the preacher spoke of my father. And the feeling I had later, when she mentioned my father shortly after I learned I was pregnant. How I wanted to beg her to stop speaking, take back her words, not take my father away: for my father couldn’t be my savior if my father was Mikkel, or her father. Now it is Rune who seems my savior. Our savior: mine and Phalia’s. Rune did come here fo
r me, to return Phalia to me, to help me save myself. But he can’t be the redeemer if he’s not allowed to stay.
“I didn’t say Aslaug grossed me out,” Rune says. “I never said that. Rebekka did. I was in love with Aslaug and Bekka knew it. She told me I was disgusting—that Aslaug was disgusting.”
“Mr. Lerner, unless you sit down, you will be removed from this courtroom….”
But Rune looks at me now, not the judge. I’m not sure he hears the judge; I barely hear the judge. Phalia no longer sits in my lap—the judge insisted she leave the courtroom—but I still feel her body, the memory of it. It seems as real as Rune’s words: “I was in love with Aslaug.” I used to imagine Phalia’s body—the feel of it—in the months after they left, just as I imagined these words, Rune’s love, when I was locked away. And now both her body and his words are real. And I realize how much of myself I locked up. It wasn’t only Sanne and Sara who locked me from Rune, from Phalia; it wasn’t only Rebekka and Rune who stole Phalia from me.
“The child’s name isn’t even Sofie,” Rune says. “Her name is Phalia.”
“Don’t, Rune!” Rebekka says.
The bailiff grabs Rune: first one arm, then the other. But I see something new in the judge’s eyes: not sympathy or kindness; not frustration or anger. Interest. I see interest.
Rune sits. The bailiff releases his grip. And I remember to breathe. “Any more outbursts, and you’re done in here,” the judge says, but I sense he’s relieved Rune sat—that Rune can stay. “No more speaking out of turn from you either, Ms. Grass.” And then: “What does the child say her name is?”
“Sofie Phalia,” the prosecutor says.
The judge makes a sound I don’t recognize: a sort of grunt, laugh, sigh, growl. He takes off his glasses, kneads his eyes, as if to merge the competing emotions packed in there. “Who does the child say her mother is?”
“First she said Susanne,” my attorney says. “Then she said Aslaug.”
“She changed her mind?” the judge says.
“But Rebekka does nurse her,” the prosecutor says. “The child said so. Said Aslaug didn’t nurse her. That Rebekka did. Does. Sure seems Rebekka’s the mother—”
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