The Testaments (19 page)

I somehow agreed to go to Gilead without ever definitely agreeing. I’d said I’d think about it, and then the next morning everyone acted as if I’d said yes, and Elijah said how brave I was and what a difference I would make, and that I would bring hope to a lot of trapped people; so then I more or less couldn’t go back on it. Anyway, I felt that I owed Neil and Melanie, and the other dead people. If I was the only person the so-called source would accept, then I would have to try.

Ada and Elijah said they wanted to prepare me as much as they could in the short time they had. They set up a little gym in one of the cubicles, with a punching bag, a skipping rope, and a leather medicine ball. Garth did that part of the training. At first he didn’t talk to me much except about what we were doing: the skipping, the punching, tossing the ball back and forth. But after a while he did thaw a little. He told me he was from the Republic of Texas. They’d declared independence at the beginning of Gilead, and Gilead resented that; there had been a war, which had ended in a draw and a new border.

So right now Texas was officially neutral, and any actions against Gilead by its citizens were illegal. Not that Canada wasn’t neutral too, he said, but it was neutral in a sloppier way.
Sloppier
was his word, not mine, and I found it insulting until he said that Canada was sloppy in a good way. So he and some of his friends had come to Canada to join the Mayday Lincoln Brigade, for foreign freedom fighters. He’d been too young to be in the actual Gilead War with Texas, he’d only been seven. But his two older brothers had been killed in it, and a cousin of his had been grabbed and taken into Gilead, and they hadn’t heard from her since.

I was adding in my head to figure out exactly how old he was. Older than me, but not too much older. Did he think of me as more than an assignment? Why was I even spending time on that? I needed to concentrate on what I was supposed to be doing.

At first I worked out twice a day for two hours, to build stamina. Garth said I wasn’t in bad shape, which was true—I’d been good at sports in school, a time that seemed long ago. Then he showed me some blocks and kicks, and how to knee someone in the groin, and how to throw a heartstopper punch—by making a fist, wrapping your thumb across the second knuckles of your middle and index fingers, then punching while keeping your arm straight. We practised that one a lot: you should strike first if you had the chance, he said, because you’d benefit from the surprise.

“Hit me,” he’d say. Then he would brush me aside and punch me in the stomach—not too hard, but hard enough so I could feel it. “Tighten your muscles,” he’d say. “You want a ruptured spleen?” If I cried—either in pain or in frustration—he would not be sympathetic, he would be disgusted. “You want to do this or not?” he’d say.

Ada brought in a dummy head made of moulded plastic, with gel eyes, and Garth tried to teach me how to poke somebody’s eyes out; but the idea of squishing eyeballs with my thumbs gave me the shudders. It would be like stepping on worms in your bare feet.

“Shit. That would really hurt them,” I said. “Thumbs in their eyes.”

“You
need
to hurt them,” said Garth. “You need to
want
to hurt them. They’ll be wanting to hurt you, bet on that.”

“Gross,” I said to Garth when he wanted me to practise the eye-poke. I could picture them too clearly, those eyes. Like peeled grapes.

“You want a panel discussion on whether you should be dead?” said Ada, who was sitting in on the session. “It’s not a real head. Now,
stab!
”

“Yuck.”

“Yuck won’t change the world. You need to get your hands dirty. Add some guts and grit. Now, try again. Like this.” She herself had no scruples.

“Don’t give up. You have potential,” said Garth.

“Thanks a bundle,” I said. I was using my sarcastic voice, but I meant it: I did want him to think I had potential. I had a crush on him, in a hopeless, puppyish way. But no matter how much I might fantasize, in the realistic part of my head I didn’t see any future in it. Once I’d gone into Gilead, I would most likely never see him again.

“How’s it going?” Ada would ask Garth every day after our workout.

“Better.”

“Can she kill with her thumbs yet?”

“She’s getting there.”

The other part of their training plan was the praying. Ada tried to teach me that. She was quite good at it, I thought. But I was hopeless.

“How do you know this?” I asked her.

“Where I grew up, everyone knew this,” she said.

“Where?”

“In Gilead. Before it was Gilead,” she said. “I saw it coming and got out in time. A lot of people I knew didn’t.”

“So that’s why you work with Mayday?” I said. “It’s personal?”

“Everything’s personal, when you come right down to it,” she said.

“How about Elijah?” I asked. “Was it personal for him too?”

“He taught in a law school,” she said. “He was on a list. Someone tipped him off. He made it over the border with nothing but his clothes. Now let’s try this again.
Heavenly Father, forgive my sins, and bless
…please stop giggling.”

“Sorry. Neil always said God was an imaginary friend, and you might as well believe in the fucking Tooth Fairy. Except he didn’t say
fucking
.”

“You need to take this seriously,” said Ada, “because Gilead sure does. And another thing: drop the swearing.”

“I don’t swear hardly at all,” I said.

The next stage, they told me, was that I should dress up like a street person and panhandle somewhere where the Pearl Girls would see me. When they started to talk with me, I should let them persuade me to go with them.

“How do you know the Pearl Girls will want to take me?” I asked.

“It’s likely,” Garth said. “That’s what they do.”

“I can’t be a street person, I won’t know how to act,” I said.

“Just act natural,” said Ada.

“The other street people will see I’m a fraud—what if they ask me how I got there, where are my parents—what am I supposed to say?”

“Garth will be there with you. He’ll say you don’t talk much because you’ve been traumatized,” said Ada. “Say there was violence at home. Everyone will get that.” I thought about Melanie and Neil being violent: it was ridiculous.

“What if they don’t like me? The other street people?”

“What if?” said Ada. “Tough bananas. Not everybody in your life is going to like you.”

Tough bananas. Where did she get these expressions? “But aren’t some of them…aren’t they criminals?”

“Dealing drugs, shooting up, drinking,” said Ada. “All of that. But Garth will keep an eye on you. He’ll say he’s your boyfriend, and he’ll run interference if anyone tries to mess with you. He’ll stay right with you until the Pearl Girls pick you up.”

“How long will that be?” I asked.

“My guess is not long,” said Ada. “After the Pearl Girls scoop you, Garth can’t go along. But they’ll coddle you like an egg. You’ll be one more precious Pearl on their string.”

“But once you get to Gilead, it might be different,” said Elijah. “You’ll have to wear what they tell you to wear, watch what you say, and be alert to their customs.”

“If you know too much to begin with, though,” Ada said, “they’ll suspect us of training you. So it’ll need to be a fine balance.”

I thought about this: was I clever enough?

“I don’t know if I can do that.”

“If in doubt, play dumb,” said Ada.

“Have you sent any pretend converts in there before?”

“A couple,” said Elijah. “With mixed results. But they didn’t have the protection you’ll have.”

“You mean from the source?”
The source
—all I could picture was a person with a bag over their head. Who were they really? The more I heard about the source, the weirder they sounded.

“Guesswork, but we think it’s one of the Aunts,” said Ada. Mayday didn’t know much about the Aunts: they weren’t in the news, not even the Gilead news; it was the Commanders who gave the orders, made the laws, and did the talking. The Aunts worked behind the scenes. That’s all we were told at school.

“They’re said to be very powerful,” said Elijah. “But that’s hearsay. We don’t have a lot of details.”

Ada had a few pictures of them, but only a few. Aunt Lydia, Aunt Elizabeth, Aunt Vidala, Aunt Helena: these were their so-called Founders. “Pack of evil harpies,” she said.

“Great,” I said. “Sounds like fun.”

Garth said that once we were on the street I needed to follow orders, because he was the one with the street smarts. I wouldn’t want to provoke other people into fighting with him, so saying things like “Who was your slave last year” and “You’re not the boss of me” would not be good.

“I haven’t said stuff like that since I was eight,” I said.

“You said both of them yesterday,” said Garth. I should choose another name, he said. People might be looking for a Daisy, and I certainly couldn’t be Nicole. So I said I’d be Jade. I wanted something harder than a flower.

“The source said she needs to get a tattoo on her left forearm,” Ada said. “It’s always been a non-negotiable demand.”

I’d tried for a tattoo when I was thirteen, but Melanie and Neil had been strongly against it. “Cool, but why?” I asked now. “There’s no bare arms in Gilead, so who’s going to see it?”

“We think it’s for the Pearl Girls,” said Ada. “When they pick you up. They’ll be directed to look specially for it.”

“Will they know who I am, like, the Nicole thing?” I asked.

“They just follow instructions,” said Ada. “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

“What tattoo should I get, a butterfly?” That was a joke, but nobody laughed.

“The source said it should look like this,” said Ada. She sketched it:

“I can’t have that on my arm,” I said. “It’s wrong for me to have it.” It was so hypocritical: Neil would have been shocked.

“Maybe it’s wrong for you,” said Ada. “But it’s right for the situation.”

Ada brought in a woman she knew to do the tattoo and the rest of my street makeover. She had pastel green hair, and the first thing she did was tint my hair the same shade. I was pleased: I thought I looked like some dangerous avatar from a video game.

“It’s a start,” said Ada, evaluating the results.

The tattoo wasn’t just a tattoo, it was a scarification: raised lettering. It hurt like shit. But I tried to act as if it didn’t because I wanted to show Garth that I was up to it.

In the middle of the night I had a bad thought. What if the source was only a decoy, meant to deceive Mayday? What if there was no important document cache? Or what if the source was evil? What if the whole story was a trap—a clever way of luring me into Gilead? I’d go in, and I wouldn’t be able to get out. Then there would be a lot of marching, with flags and choir singing and praying, and giant rallies like the ones we’d seen on
TV
, and I would be the centrepiece. Baby Nicole, back where she belonged, hallelujah. Smile for Gilead
TV
.

In the morning, while I was eating my greasy breakfast with Ada, Elijah, and Garth, I told them about this fear.

“We’ve considered the possibility,” said Elijah. “It’s a gamble.”

“It’s a gamble every time you get up in the morning,” said Ada.

“This is a more serious gamble,” Elijah said.

“I’m betting on you,” Garth said. “It’ll be so amazing if you win.”

My reader, I have a surprise for you. It was also a surprise for me.

Under cover of darkness, and with the aid of a stone drill, some pliers, and a little mortar patching, I installed two battery-run surveillance cameras in the base of my statue. I have always been good with tools. I replaced the moss carefully, reflecting that I should really get my replica cleaned. Moss adds respectability only up to a point. I was beginning to look furry.

I waited with some impatience for the results. It would be a fine thing to have a stash of irrefutable pictures of Aunt Elizabeth planting evidence in the form of hard-boiled eggs and oranges at my stone feet in an effort to discredit me. Even though I myself was not performing these acts of idolatry, the fact that others were performing them would reflect badly on me: it would be said that I had tolerated these acts, and I might even have encouraged them. Such aspersions might well be used by Elizabeth to lever me off my pinnacle. I was under no illusions as to Commander Judd’s loyalty to me: if a safe means could be found—safe for him—he would not hesitate to denounce me. He’s had a lot of practice in the denouncing business.

But here is the surprise. There were several days of no activity—or none to speak of, since I discount the three tearful young Wives, granted access to the grounds because they were married to prominent Eyes, who offered
in toto
a muffin, a small loaf of cornmeal bread, and two lemons—like gold these days, lemons, considering the disasters in Florida and our inability to gain ground in California. I am glad to have them, and shall make good use of them: if life gives you lemons, make lemonade. I shall also determine how these lemons were come by. It is ineffectual to try to clamp down on all grey market activities—the Commanders must have their little perks—but I naturally wish to know who is selling what, and how it is smuggled in. Women are only one of the commodities—I hesitate to call them commodities, but when money is in the picture, such they are—that are being relocated under cover. Is it lemons in and women out? I shall consult my grey market sources: they don’t like competition.

These tearful Wives wished to enlist my arcane powers in their quest for fertility, poor things.
Per Ardua Cum Estrus
, they intoned, as if Latin could have more effect than English. I will see what can be done for them, or rather who can be done—their husbands having proven so singularly feeble in that respect.

But back to my surprise. On the fourth day, what should loom into the camera’s field of vision just as dawn was breaking but the large red nose of Aunt Vidala, followed by her eyes and mouth. The second camera provided a longer shot: she was wearing gloves—cunning of her—and from a pocket she produced an egg, followed by an orange. Having looked about her to make sure no one was watching, she placed these votive offerings at my feet, along with a small plastic baby. Then, on the ground beside the statue, she dropped a handkerchief embroidered with lilacs: a well-known prop of mine, from Aunt Vidala’s school project some years ago in which the girls embroidered sets of handkerchiefs for the senior Aunts with flowers signalling their names. I have lilacs, Elizabeth has echinacea, Helena has hyacinths, Vidala herself has violets; five for each of us—such a lot of embroidery. But this idea was thought to skirt dangerously close to reading and was discontinued.

Now, having previously told me that Elizabeth was trying to incriminate me, Vidala herself was placing the evidence against me: this innocent piece of handicraft. Where had she got it? From pilfering the laundry, I suppose. Facilitating the heretical worship of myself. What a stellar denunciation! You can imagine my delight. Any false step by my main challenger was a gift from destiny. I filed away the photos for possible future use—it is always desirable to save whatever scraps may come to hand, in kitchens as elsewhere—and determined to await developments.

My esteemed Founder colleague Elizabeth must soon be told that Vidala was accusing her of treachery. Should I add Helena as well? Who was the more dispensable if a sacrifice must be made? Who might be the most easily co-opted if the need arose? How might I best set the members of the triumvirate eager to overthrow me against one another, all the better to pick them off one by one? And where did Helena actually stand vis-à-vis myself? She’d go with the zeitgeist, whatever that might prove to be. She was always the weakest of the three.

I approach a turning point. The Wheel of Fortune rotates, fickle as the moon. Soon those who were down will move upwards. And vice versa, of course.

I will inform Commander Judd that Baby Nicole—now a young girl—is finally almost within my grasp, and may shortly be enticed to Gilead. I will say
almost
and
may
to keep him in suspense. He will be more than excited, since he has long understood the propaganda virtues of a repatriated Baby Nicole. I will say that my plans are well under way, but that I would prefer not to share them at present: it is a delicate calculation, and a careless word in the wrong place could ruin all. The Pearl Girls are involved, and they are under my supervision; they are part of the special women’s sphere, in which heavy-handed men should not meddle, I will say, wagging a finger at him roguishly. “Soon the prize will be yours. Trust me on this,” I will warble.

“Aunt Lydia, you are too good,” he will beam.

Too good to be true, I will think. Too good for this earth. Good, be thou my evil.

For you to understand how matters are currently developing, I will now provide you with a little history. An incident that passed almost unnoticed at the time.

Nine years ago or thereabouts—it was the same year my statue was unveiled, though not in the same season—I was in my office, tracing the Bloodlines for a proposed marriage, when I was interrupted by the appearance of Aunt Lise, she of the fluttering eyelashes and the pretentious hairstyle—a modified French roll.
As
she was ushered into my office, she was nervously wringing her hands; I was ashamed of her for being so novelistic.

“Aunt Lydia, I am truly sorry for taking up your valuable time,” she began. They all say that, but it never stops them. I smiled in what I hoped was not a forbidding manner.

“What is the problem?” I said. There is a standard repertoire of problems: Wives at war with one another, daughters in rebellion, Commanders dissatisfied with the Wife selection proposed, Handmaids on the run, Births gone wrong. The occasional rape, which we punish severely if we choose to make it public. Or a murder: he kills her, she kills him, she kills her, and, once in a while, he kills him. Among the Econoclasses, jealous rage can take over and knives can be wielded, but among the elect, male-on-male murders are metaphorical: a stab in the back.

On slow days I catch myself longing for something really original—a case of cannibalism, for instance—but then I reprimand myself:
Be careful what you wish for.
I have wished for various things in the past and have received them. If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans, as used to be said; though in the present day the idea of God laughing is next door to blasphemy. An ultra-serious fellow, God is now.

“We’ve had another suicide attempt among the Premarital Preparatory students at Rubies,” said Aunt Lise, tucking back a wandering strand of hair. She had removed the ungainly babushka-like head covering we are obliged to wear in public to avoid inflaming men, although the idea of any men being inflamed either by Aunt Lise, impressive of profile but alarmingly puckered, or by me, with my greying thatchery and sack-of-potatoes body, is so ludicrous that it hardly needs articulating.

Not a suicide; not again, I thought. But Aunt Lise had said
attempt
, which meant that the suicide had not succeeded. There is always an inquiry when they do succeed, and fingers are pointed at Ardua Hall. Inappropriate mate selection is the usual accusation—we at the Hall being responsible for making the first cut, since we hold the Bloodlines information. Opinions vary, however, as to what is in fact appropriate.

“What was it this time? Anti-anxiety medication overdose? I wish the Wives wouldn’t leave those pills strewn around where anyone can get hold of them. Those, and the opiates: such a temptation. Or did she try to hang herself?”

“Not hanging,” said Aunt Lise. “She attempted to slash her wrists with the secateurs. The ones I use for the flower-arranging.”

“That’s direct, at any rate,” I said. “What happened then?”

“Well, she didn’t slash very deeply. Though there was a lot of blood, and a certain amount of…noise.”

“Ah.” By noise, she meant screaming: so unladylike. “And then?”

“I called in the paramedics, and they sedated her and took her to the hospital. Then I notified the proper authorities.”

“Quite right. Guardians or Eyes?”

“Some of each.”

I nodded. “You seem to have handled it in the best way possible. What is there left to consult me about?” Aunt Lise looked happy because I’d praised her, but she quickly changed her facial expression to deeply concerned.

“She says she will try it again, if…unless there’s a change in plan.”

“Change in plan?” I knew what she meant, but it’s best to require clarity.

“Unless the wedding is called off,” said Aunt Lise.

“We have counsellors,” I said. “They’ve done their job?”

“They’ve tried all the usual methods, with no success.”

“You threatened her with the ultimate?”

“She says she’s not afraid of dying. It’s living she objects to. Under the circumstances.”

“Is it this particular candidate she objects to, or marriage in general?”

“In general,” said Aunt Lise. “Despite the benefits.”

“Flower-arranging was no inducement?” I said drily. Aunt Lise sets great store by it.

“It was not.”

“Was it the prospect of childbirth?” I could understand that, the mortality rate being what it is; of newborns primarily, but also of mothers. Complications set in, especially when the infants are not normally shaped. We had one the other day with no arms, which was interpreted as a negative comment by God upon the mother.

“No, not childbirth,” said Aunt Lise. “She says she likes babies.”

“What, then?” I liked to make her blurt it out: it’s good for Aunt Lise to confront reality once in a while. She spends too much time diddling around among the petals.

She fiddled with the hair strand again. “I don’t like to say it.” She looked down at the floor.

“Go ahead,” I said. “You won’t shock me.”

She paused, flushed, cleared her throat. “Well. It’s the penises. It’s like a phobia.”

“Penises,” I said thoughtfully. “Them again.” In attempted suicides of young girls, this is often the case. Perhaps we need to change our educational curriculum, I thought: less fear-mongering, fewer centaur-like ravishers and male genitalia bursting into flame. But if we were to put too much emphasis on the theoretical delights of sex, the result would almost certainly be curiosity and experimentation, followed by moral degeneracy and public stonings. “No chance she might be brought to see the item in question as a means to an end?
As
a prelude to babies?”

“None whatever,” said Aunt Lise firmly. “That has been tried.”

“Submission of women as ordained from the moment of Creation?”

“Everything we could think of.”

“You tried the sleep deprivation and twenty-hour prayer sessions, with relays of supervisors?”

“She is adamant. She also says she has received a calling to higher service, though as we know they often use that excuse. But I was hoping that we…that you…”

I sighed. “There is little point in the destruction of a young female life for no reason,” I said. “Will she be able to learn the reading and writing? Is she intelligent enough?”

“Oh yes. Slightly too intelligent,” said Aunt Lise. “Too much imagination. I believe that’s what happened, concerning the…those things.”

“Yes, the thought-experiment penises can get out of control,” I said. “They take on a life of their own.” I paused; Aunt Lise fidgeted.

“We’ll admit her on probation,” I said finally. “Give her six months and see if she can learn.
As
you know, we need to replenish our numbers here at Ardua Hall. We of the older generation cannot live forever. But we must proceed carefully. One weak link…” I am familiar with these exceptionally squeamish girls. It’s no use forcing them: they can’t accept bodily reality. Even if the wedding night is accomplished, they will soon be found swinging from a light fixture or in a coma under a rose bush, having swallowed every pill in the house.

“Thank you,” said Aunt Lise. “It would have been such a shame.”

“To lose her, you mean?”

“Yes,” said Aunt Lise. She has a soft heart; that is why she is assigned to the flower-arranging and so forth. In her past life she was a professor of French literature of the eighteenth century, pre-Revolution. Teaching the Rubies Premarital Preparatory students is the closest she will ever come to having a salon.

I try to suit the occupations to the qualifications. It’s better that way, and I am a great proponent of
better
. In the absence of
best
.

Which is how we live now.

And so I had to involve myself in the case of the girl Becka. It’s always advisable for me to take a personal interest at the beginning with these suicidal girls who claim they wish to join us.

Aunt Lise brought her to my office: a thin girl, pretty in a delicate way, with large luminous eyes and her left wrist in a bandage. She was still wearing the green outfit of a bride-to-be. “Come in,” I said to her. “I won’t bite.”

She flinched as if she doubted this. “You may take that chair,” I said. “Aunt Lise will be right beside you.” Hesitantly she sat down, knees together modestly, hands folded in her lap. She gazed at me mistrustfully.

“So you want to become an Aunt,” I said. She nodded. “It’s a privilege, not an entitlement. I assume you understand that. And it’s not a reward for your silly attempt to end your own life. That was a mistake, as well as an affront to God. I trust it won’t happen again, supposing we take you in.”