The Testaments (14 page)

The same man in a black uniform exhorting into a microphone:
God will prevail!

Then the shots, the toppling, the limp bodies. Then the cleanup. There was a truck for the corpses. Were they buried? Were they burned? Or was that too much trouble? Perhaps they were simply taken to a dumpsite and left for crows.

On the fourth day there was a variation: three of the shooters were women. They weren’t in business suits, but in long brown garments like bathrobes, with scarves tied under their chins. That got our attention.

“Monsters!” I whispered to Anita.

“How could they?” she whispered back.

On the fifth day there were six women in brown among the shooters. There was also an uproar, as one of them, instead of aiming at the blindfolded ones, pivoted and shot one of the men in black uniforms. She was immediately bludgeoned to the ground and riddled with bullets. There was a collective gasp from the bleachers.

So, I thought. That’s one way out.

During the days new women would be added to our group of lawyers and judges. It stayed the same size, however, since every night some were removed. They left singly, between two guards. We did not know where they were being taken, or why. None came back.

On the sixth night Anita was spirited away. It happened very quietly. Sometimes the targeted ones would shout and resist, but Anita did not, and I am ashamed to say that I was asleep when she was deleted. I woke up when the morning siren went off and she was simply not there.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” one kind soul whispered to me as we stood in line for the pullulating toilets.

“I’m sorry too,” I whispered back. But I was already hardening myself for what was almost surely to come. Sorry solves nothing, I told myself. Over the years—the many years—how true I have found that to be.

On the seventh night, it was me. Anita had been noiselessly abstracted—that silence had had a demoralizing effect all its own, since one could vanish, it seemed, with nobody noticing and not even a ripple of sound—but it was not intended that I should go quietly.

I was wakened by a boot applied to the hip. “Shut up and get up,” said one of the barking voices. Before I was properly awake I was being yanked upright and set in motion. All around there were murmurs, and one voice said, “No,” and another said, “Fuck,” and another said, “God bless,” and another said, “Cuídate mucho.”

“I can walk by myself!” I said, but this made no difference to the hands on my upper arms, one on either side. This is it, I thought: they’re going to shoot me. But no, I corrected myself: that’s an afternoon thing. Idiot, I countered: shooting can happen anywhere at any time, and anyway shooting is not the only method.

All this time I was quite calm, which seems hard to believe, and in fact I no longer believe it: I was not quite calm, I was dead calm.
As
long as I thought of myself as already dead, untroubled by future cares, things would go easier for me.

I was steered through the corridors, then out of a back entrance and into a car. It was not a van this time but a Volvo. The back-seat upholstery was soft but firm, the air conditioning was like a breath of paradise. Unfortunately the freshness of the air reminded me of my own accumulated odours. Nevertheless I relished the luxury, despite the fact that I was squashed in between my two guards, both of them bulky. Neither said anything. I was simply a bundle to be transported.

The car stopped outside a police station. It was no longer a police station, however: the lettering had been covered over, and on the front door there was an image: an eye with wings. The logo of the Eyes, though I did not yet know that.

Up the front steps we went, my two companions striding, me stumbling. My feet hurt: I realized how out of practice they had become, and also how wrecked and filthy my shoes were, after the drenching, the baking, and the various substances to which they had been subjected.

We went along the corridor. Baritone rumblings came from behind doors; men in outfits like the ones beside me hurried past, their eyes gleaming with purpose, their voices staccato. There’s something spine-stiffening about uniforms, about insignia, about shiny lapel pins. No slouchers here!

We turned into one of the rooms. There, behind a large desk, sat a man who looked faintly like Santa Claus: plump, white beard, rosy cheeks, cherry nose. He beamed at me. “You may sit down,” he said.

“Thank you,” I replied. Not that I had a choice: my two travel buddies were inserting me into a chair and attaching me to it with plastic straps, arms to arms. Then they left the room, closing the door softly behind them. I had the impression that they went out backwards as if in the presence of some ancient god-king, but I couldn’t see behind me.

“I should introduce myself,” he said. “I am Commander Judd, of the Sons of Jacob.” This was our first meeting.

“I suppose you know who I am,” I replied.

“That is correct,” he said, smiling blandly. “I apologize for the inconveniences you have been exposed to.”

“It was nothing,” I said, straight-faced.

It’s foolish to joke with those who have absolute control over you. They don’t like it; they think you don’t appreciate the full extent of their power. Now that I have power myself, I do not encourage flippancy among subordinates. But I was careless back then. I have learned better.

His smile vanished. “Are you thankful to be alive?” he said.

“Well, yes,” I said.

“Are you thankful that God made you in a woman’s body?”

“I suppose so,” I said. “I’ve never thought about it.”

“I am not sure you are thankful enough,” he said.

“What would thankful enough be like?” I said.

“Thankful enough to co-operate with us,” he said.

Have I mentioned that he had little oblong half-glasses? He took these off now and contemplated them. His eyes without the glasses were less twinkly.

“What do you mean by ‘co-operate’?” I said.

“It’s a yes or a no.”

“I was trained as a lawyer,” I said. “I’m a judge. I don’t sign blank contracts.”

“You are not a judge,” he said, “anymore.” He pressed a button on an intercom. “Thank Tank,” he said. Then, to me: “Let us hope you will learn to be more thankful. I will pray for that result.”

And that is how I found myself in the Thank Tank. It was a repurposed police-station isolation cell, approximately four paces by four. It had a bed shelf, though there was no mattress. It had a bucket, which I swiftly concluded was for human food by-products, as there were still some of those in it, as witnessed by the smell. It had once had a light, but no more: now it had only a socket, and this was not live. (Of course I stuck my finger into it after a while. You would have too.) Any light I had would come from the corridor outside, through the slot by which the inevitable sandwiches would shortly arrive. Gnawing in the dark, that was the plan for me.

I groped around in the dusk, found the bed slab, sat down on it. I can do this, I thought. I can get through.

I was right, but only just. You’d be surprised how quickly the mind goes soggy in the absence of other people. One person alone is not a full person: we exist in relation to others. I was one person: I risked becoming no person.

I was in the Thank Tank for some time. I don’t know how long. Every once in a while an eye would view me through the sliding shutter that was there for viewing purposes. Every once in a while there would be a scream or a series of shrieks from nearby: brutalization on parade. Sometimes there would be a prolonged moaning; sometimes a series of grunts and breathy gasps that sounded sexual, and probably were. The powerless are so tempting.

I had no way of knowing whether or not these noises were real or merely recordings, intended to shatter my nerves and wear away my resolve. Whatever my resolve might be: after some days I lost track of that plotline. The plotline of my resolve.

I was parked inside my twilit cell for an unknown length of time, but it couldn’t really have been that long judging from the length of my fingernails when I was brought out of it. Time, however, is different when you’re shut up in the dark alone. It’s longer. Nor do you know when you’re asleep and when awake.

Were there insects? Yes, there were insects. They did not bite me, so I expect they were cockroaches. I could feel their tiny feet tiptoeing across my face, tenderly, tentatively, as if my skin were thin ice. I did not slap them. After a while you welcome any kind of touch.

One day, if it was a day, three men came into my cell without warning, shone a glaring light into my blinking purblind eyes, threw me onto the floor, and administered a precise kicking, and other attentions. The noises I emitted were familiar to me: I had heard them nearby. I won’t go into any further details, except to say that Tasers were also involved.

No, I was not raped. I suppose I was already too old and tough for the purpose. Or it may be that they were priding themselves on their high moral standards, but I doubt this very much.

This kicking and tasing procedure was repeated two more times. Three is a magic number.

Did I weep? Yes: tears came out of my two visible eyes, my moist weeping human eyes. But I had a third eye, in the middle of my forehead. I could feel it: it was cold, like a stone. It did not weep: it saw. And behind it someone was thinking:
I will get you back for this. I don’t care how long it takes or how much shit I have to eat in the meantime, but I will do it.

Then, after an indefinite period and without warning, the door to my Thank Tank cell clanged open, light flooded in, and two black uniforms hauled me out. No words were spoken. I—by this time a shambling wreck, and even smellier than before—was marched or dragged down the corridor by which I had arrived, and out the front door by which I had entered, and into an air-conditioned van.

Next thing I knew I was in a hotel—yes, a hotel! It was not one of the grand hotels, more like a Holiday Inn, if that name will mean anything to you, though I suppose it will not. Where are the brands of yesteryear? Gone with the wind. Or rather gone with the paintbrush and the demolition team, because as I was being hauled into the lobby there were workmen overhead, obliterating the lettering.

In the lobby there was no sweetly smiling reception staff to welcome me. Instead there was a man with a list. A conversation took place between him and my two tour guides, and I was propelled into an elevator, then along a carpeted corridor that was only beginning to show signs of an absence of maids. A couple more months and they’ll have a serious mildew issue, I thought with my mushy brain as a door was carded open.

“Enjoy your stay,” said one of my minders. I don’t believe he was being ironic.

“Three days R & R,” said the second one. “Anything you need, phone the front desk.”

The door locked behind them. On the small table there was a tray with orange juice and a banana, and a green salad, and a serving of poached salmon! A bed with sheets! Several towels, more or less white! A shower! Above all, a beautiful ceramic toilet! I fell to my knees and uttered, yes, a heartfelt prayer, but to whom or what I could not tell you.

After I’d eaten all the food—I didn’t care if it was poisoned, I was so overjoyed by it—I spent the next few hours taking showers. Just one shower was not enough: there were so many layers of accumulated grime I had to wash off. I inspected my healing abrasions, my yellowing and purpling bruises. I’d lost weight: I could see my ribs, which had reappeared after a decades-long absence due to fast-food lunches. During my legal career my body had been merely a vehicle for propelling me from one achievement to the next, but now I had a newfound tenderness for it. How pink were my toenails! How intricate the vein patterns on my hands! I could not get a good fix on my face in the bathroom mirror, however. Who was that person? The features seemed blurred.

Then I slept for a long time. When I woke up, there was another delicious meal, beef stroganoff with a side of asparagus, and peach Melba for dessert, and, Oh joy! A cup of coffee! I would have liked a martini, but I guessed that alcohol was not going to be on the women’s menu in this new era.

My stinking former clothes had been removed by unseen hands: it seemed I was to live in the white terry cloth hotel bathrobe.

I was still in a state of mental disarray. I was a jigsaw puzzle thrown onto the floor. But on the third morning, or was it an afternoon, I woke in an improved state of coherence. It seemed I could think again; it seemed I could think the word
I
.

In addition to that, and as if in acknowledgement of it, there was a fresh garment laid out for me. It was not quite a cowl and it was not quite made of brown sackcloth, but close. I had seen it before, in the stadium, worn by the female shooters. I felt a chill.

I put it on. What else should I have done?

I will now describe the preparations leading up to my proposed marriage, as there has been some interest expressed in the way such things were conducted in Gilead. Due to the twist my life took, I was able to observe the marriage process from both sides: that of the bride being prepared, and that of the Aunts responsible for the preparing.

The arrangement of my own wedding was standard. The temperaments of the parties involved, as well as their respective positions in Gilead society, were supposed to have some influence on the choices made available. But the goal in every instance was the same: girls of all kinds—those from good families as well as the less favoured—were to be married early, before any chance encounter with an unsuitable man might occur that would lead to what used to be called falling in love or, worse, to loss of virginity. This latter disgrace was to be avoided at all costs, as the consequences could be severe. Death by stoning was not a fate anyone wanted for their children, and the stain of it on a family could be next to indelible.

One evening Paula called me into the living room—she’d sent Rosa to pry me out of my shell, as she put it—and told me to stand in front of her. I did as required, as there was no point in not doing it. Commander Kyle was there, and so was Aunt Vidala. There was another Aunt there as well—one I had never seen—who was introduced to me as Aunt Gabbana. I said I was pleased to meet her, but I must have said it in a surly voice because Paula said, “You see what I mean?”

“It is her age,” said Aunt Gabbana. “Even formerly sweet and tractable girls go through this stage.”

“She’s certainly old enough,” said Aunt Vidala. “We have taught her all we can. If they stay in school too long, they become disruptive.”

“She’s truly a woman?” said Aunt Gabbana, eyeing me shrewdly.

“Of course,” said Paula.

“None of that’s padding?” said Aunt Gabbana, nodding towards my chest.

“Certainly not!” said Paula.

“You’d be amazed at what some families try. She has nice wide hips, none of these narrow pelvises. Let me see your teeth, Agnes.”

How was I supposed to do that? Open my mouth wide, as at the dentist? Paula saw I was confused. “Smile,” she said. “For once.” I drew back my lips in a grimace.

“Perfect teeth,” said Aunt Gabbana. “Very healthy. Well then, we will start looking.”

“Only among the Commander families,” said Paula. “Nothing lower.”

“That is understood,” said Aunt Gabbana. She was making some notations on a clipboard. I watched in awe as she moved her fingers, which held a pencil. What potent symbols was she inscribing?

“She’s a little young,” said Commander Kyle, whom I no longer thought of as my father. “Possibly.” I was grateful to him for the first time in a long while.

“Thirteen is not too young. It all depends,” said Aunt Gabbana. “It does wonders for them if we can find the proper match. They settle right down.” She stood. “Don’t worry, Agnes,” she said to me. “You’ll have a choice among at least three candidates. They will consider it an honour,” she said to Commander Kyle.

“Let us know if there’s anything else you need,” said Paula graciously. “And sooner is better.”

“Understood,” said Aunt Gabbana. “There will be the usual donation to Ardua Hall, once there are satisfactory results?”

“Of course,” said Paula. “We’ll pray for your success. May the Lord open.”

“Under His Eye,” said Aunt Gabbana. The two Aunts left, exchanging smiles and nods with my non-parents.

“You may go, Agnes,” said Paula. “We’ll keep you informed as matters develop. Entering into the blessed state of married womanhood must be done with every precaution, and your father and I will take those precautions for you. You are a very privileged girl. I hope you appreciate that.” She gave me a malicious little smirk: she knew she was talking froth. In reality I was an inconvenient lump that had to be disposed of in a socially acceptable manner.

I went back up to my room. I should have seen this coming: such things had happened to girls who’d not been much older than me. A girl would be present at school and then one day not present: the Aunts didn’t like a lot of fuss and sentiment, with tearful goodbyes. Then there would be rumours of an engagement, then of a wedding. We were never allowed to go to these weddings even if the girl had been our close friend. When you were being readied for marriage, you disappeared from your former life. The next time you were seen, you’d be wearing the dignified blue dress of a Wife, and unmarried girls would have to let you go first through doorways.

This was now going to be my reality. I was to be ejected from my own house—from Tabitha’s house, from the house of Zilla and Vera and Rosa—because Paula had had enough of me.

“You won’t go to school today,” said Paula one morning, and that was that. Then nothing much happened for a week except some moping and fretting on my part, though since I pursued these activities alone in my room they had no influence.

I was supposed to be finishing a hateful petit-point project, to keep my mind occupied—the design was a bowl of fruit suitable for being made into a footstool, intended for my future husband, whoever he might be. In one corner of the footstool square I embroidered a small skull: it represented the skull of my stepmother, Paula, but if anyone asked me about it I planned to say that it was a
memento mori
, a reminder of the fact that we must all die someday.

This could hardly be objected to, as it was a pious motif: there were skulls like that on the gravestones of the old churchyard near our school. We were not supposed to go in there except to attend funerals: the names of the dead were on the stones, and that might lead to reading, and then to depravity. Reading was not for girls: only men were strong enough to deal with the force of it; and the Aunts, of course, because they weren’t like us.

I had begun to wonder how a woman changed into an Aunt. Aunt Estée had said once that you needed to have a calling that told you God wanted you to help all women and not just a single family; but how did the Aunts get that calling? How had they received their strength? Did they have special brains, neither female nor male? Were they even women at all underneath their uniforms? Could they possibly be men in disguise? Even to suspect such a thing was unthinkable, but what a scandal if so! I wondered what the Aunts would look like if you made them wear pink.

On the third day of my idleness, Paula had the Marthas bring several cardboard boxes to my room. It was time to put away childish things, she said. My belongings could go into storage as very soon I would not be living here anymore. Then, once I was ordering my new household, I could decide which of these belongings should be donated to the poor. A less privileged girl from an Econofamily would take great joy in my old dollhouse, for instance; although it was not top quality and was in a shoddy state, some paint here and there would do wonders.

The dollhouse had stood near my window for many years. The happy hours I’d spent with Tabitha were still contained within it. There was the Wife doll, sitting at the dining table; there were the little girls, behaving themselves; there were the Marthas in the kitchen, making bread; there was the Commander, safely locked into his study. After Paula had left, I plucked the Wife doll out of her chair and threw her across the room.