Bear Witness

Based on Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich

(Lights up on a desk upstage center. A JUDGE stands behind the desk. A COURT MARSHALL stands rigidly upstage left of the desk, against a wall, with her hands behind her back like a well-trained officer in the army. After a moment of silence, MARSHALL reaches and picks up a gavel from the floor, and raps it once against the wall before addressing the audience directly). 

MARSHALL: All rise and give your attention. (Beat) The Honorable Judge Strayson. (JUDGE sits down at her desk and dons a pair of spectacles). The court is now in session. 

(There is a moment of silence before LULU enters from SL in a billowing blue dress, swaying as she walks. Trailing behind her is a DEAD MAN in tattered clothing. Both LULU and the DEAD MAN have wind-tangled hair and warm, cunning eyes). 

LULU: May it please the court. My name is Lulu Lamartine. Standing to my right is my co-counsel. Your Honor, the day my house was burnt down I was out in the woods visiting an old friend of mine (DEAD MAN steps out from behind LULU) beneath a tall and matronly sycamore tree. This is a ritual of mine; it was a day like any other. It smelled of maple. There were dew drops suspended on the leaves and in the air. After walking several miles, we sat down in a small patch where the grass met the sand. We were hardly settled when a pother of smoke snuck its way in and led us, coughing, through the forest and back to the ashen remains of my home. My boys hurried through the soot to tell me how they’d leapt from the lower windows to escape the flames. 

JUDGE: (Addressing DEAD MAN) Step forward. (DEAD MAN steps forward)

DEAD MAN: May it please the court. (Beat) Although I am dead, I assure you that I am a credible witness.  

JUDGE:  Is it true that you and Ms. Lamartine were out beneath a tall and matronly sycamore tree, at midday on the first of May? 

DEAD MAN: Yes; we were on the far side of the woods near the creek. We had to cross the stone bridge coming back. 

JUDGE: And is it true about the dew drops? That they hung on the leaves and in the air?

DEAD MAN: Unmistakably. 

JUDGE: Ms. Lamartine. (LULU steps forward) What is your relationship to the defendant?

LULU: Marie Kashpaw and I have long been silent rivals. When we, by chance, cross paths on the reservation, her lips part and her pupils dilate. Then she mutters under her breath so that I’m almost convinced she has the devil on her side. 

She claims Nector Kashpaw for her own. He loves me and meant to leave her for my sake, though I bade him not. I love him, sure, among others. I cannot help that I love men no differently than I love the branches on the deciduous trees, with distance and passion in equal measure.

I bear no malice towards Marie Kashpaw. I have no desire to tarnish her public image, integrity, or criminal record, which she has, up until this moment, kept as spotless as her kitchen floor. My demands are simple. I ask only for the necessary funds to restore my house, and I am more than amenable to turning over Nector Kashpaw to Marie. Thank you. 

JUDGE: You may be seated. (LULU and DEAD MAN crouch beneath the JUDGE’S desk. JUDGE, facing out, addresses COURT MARSHALL). Bring in the defendant. (MARSHALL exits SR. LULU and the DEAD MAN peer out from under the desk to see the MARSHALL reenter, dragging in MARIE. LULU quickly retreats, but the DEAD MAN is distracted, fixated on a fuming MARIE). 

MARIE: I will not stand for this! (MARIE breaks free and storms downstage center. DEAD MAN retreats beneath the desk. While MARIE composes herself and organizes her papers, the JUDGE steps up on top of her desk and stands up to her full height, staring icily down at MARIE. 

MARSHALL slinks back to her perch against the wall upstage right). 

MARSHALL: Order! (MARSHALL raps the gavel against the wall. MARIE looks up to find the JUDGE towering over her. Her affect changes visibly). 

MARIE: May it please the court. (Beat) My name is Marie Kashpaw. My co-counsel is absent today. 

JUDGE: Does the defendant understand that she faces up to sixty years in prison, and eternal damnation in hell, for intended murder?

MARIE: I’m well aware, thank you. 

JUDGE: And what have you to say in your defense?

MARIE: I’m a Saint. (Beat) And Saints, so I’ve heard, get a free ride into heaven. All expenses paid. So damn me all you like. I’ve got God on my side. (She raises her scarred palm as evidence). 

JUDGE: Will that be all, Ms. Kashpaw?

MARIE: No. I’d also like to add that on Tuesday, May first, I was out of town with my own children. I left Nector Kashpaw, my legal husband, alone that morning. When I returned some hours later, Nector was nowhere in sight and the house appeared to have been ransacked. Most notably, the salt shaker was missing. 

JUDGE: Will that be all, Ms. Kashpaw?

MARIE: No. I’d also like to add that beneath that salt shaker was a very important document. A number of weeks prior to May first, my legal husband had jotted down on a piece of scrap paper that he intended to leave his family for his paramour, Lulu Lamartine, who is, if I may speak so frankly, everybody’s paramour. He left this document beneath the sugar jar, where my daughter Zelda found it before bringing it to me.  After careful thought and consideration, I sent Zelda to retrieve Nector Kashpaw from Lulu Lamartine’s den. I artfully placed Nector’s note beneath the salt shaker. Minutes later, Zelda returned home with Nector. I embraced him casually and made no mention of his note. In fact, I’ve never made any mention of it. I changed its location to keep him wondering. But I never made any mention of it. That day, May first, he must have searched our house for it. I suspect that when he found it and put the pieces together, he felt compelled to destroy the woman who might further tempt him to infidelity.