The Testaments (20 page)

A shake of the head, a single tear, which she did not brush away. Was it a display tear, was she trying to impress me?

I asked Aunt Lise to wait outside. Then I launched into my spiel: Becka was being offered a second chance in life, I said, but both she and we needed to be sure that this was the right way for her, since the life of an Aunt was not for everyone. She must promise to obey the orders of her superiors, she must apply herself to a difficult course of studies as well as to the mundane chores assigned, she must pray for guidance every night and every morning; then, after six months, if this was indeed her true choice and if we ourselves were satisfied with her progress, she would take the Ardua Hall vow and renounce all other possible paths, and even then she would be only a Supplicant Aunt until the successful completion of her Pearl Girls missionary work abroad, which would not happen for many years. Was she willing to do all these things?

Oh yes, said Becka. She was so grateful! She would do anything that was required. We had saved her from, from…She stumbled to a halt, blushing.

“Did something unfortunate happen to you in your earlier life, my child?” I asked. “Something involving a man?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said. She was paler than ever.

“You’re afraid you’ll be punished?” A nod from her. “You can tell me,” I said. “I have heard many disagreeable stories. I do understand some of what you may have been through.” But she was still reluctant, so I did not push it. “The mills of the gods grind slowly,” I said, “but they grind exceeding small.”

“Pardon?” She looked puzzled.

“I mean that whoever it was, his behaviour will be punished in time. Put it out of your mind. You will be safe with us here. You will never be troubled by him again.” We Aunts do not work openly in such cases, but we work. “Now, I hope you’ll prove that you are deserving of the trust I have placed in you,” I said.

“Oh yes,” she said. “I will be deserving!” These girls are all like that at the beginning: limp with relief, abject, prostrate. That can change over time, of course: we’ve had renegades, we’ve had backdoor sneakings to meet ill-advised Romeos, we’ve had disobedient flights. The endings of such stories have not usually been happy.

“Aunt Lise will take you to get your uniform,” I said. “Tomorrow you will have your initial reading lesson, and you will begin to learn our rules. But now you should select your new name. There is a list of suitable names available. Off you go. Today is the first day of the rest of your life,” I said as cheerfully as I could.

“I can’t thank you enough, Aunt Lydia!” said Becka. Her eyes were shining. “I’m so grateful!”

I smiled my wintry smile. “I’m pleased to hear that,” I said, and I was indeed pleased. Gratitude is valuable to me: I like to bank it for a rainy day. You never know when it may come in handy.

Many are called but few are chosen, I thought. Though that was not true at Ardua Hall: only a handful of the called have had to be discarded. Surely the girl Becka would be one of our keepers. She was a damaged houseplant, but cared for properly she would bloom.

“Close the door after you,” I said. She almost skipped out of the room. How young they are, how frisky! I thought. How touchingly innocent! Was I ever like that? I could not remember.

After Becka cut her wrist with the secateurs and bled on the Shasta daisies and was taken to the hospital, I was very worried about her: would she recover, would she be punished? But as the autumn and then the winter seasons came and went, there was still no news. Even our Marthas did not hear anything about what might have happened to her.

Shunammite said Becka was just trying to get attention. I disagreed, and I am afraid there was a coolness between us for the remainder of the classes.

As
the spring weather set in, Aunt Gabbana announced that the Aunts had come up with three candidates for Paula and Commander Kyle to consider. She visited us at our house and showed us their photographs and recited their biographies and qualifications, reading from her notebook, and Paula and Commander Kyle listened and nodded. I was expected to look at the pictures and listen to the recital, but not to say anything at present. I could have a week to consider. My own inclinations would naturally be taken into account, said Aunt Gabbana. Paula smiled at this.

“Of course,” she said. I said nothing.

The first candidate was a full Commander, and was even older than Commander Kyle. He was red-nosed, with slightly bulbous eyes—the mark, said Aunt Gabbana, of a strong personality, one who would be a reliable defender and sustainer of his Wife. He had a white beard and what looked like jowls underneath it, or possibly wattles: skin folds drooping down. He was one of the first Sons of Jacob and so was exceptionally godly, and had been essential in the early struggle to establish the Republic of Gilead. In fact, it was rumoured that he had been part of the group that had masterminded the attack on the morally bankrupt Congress of the former United States. He’d already had several Wives—dead, unhappily—and had been assigned five Handmaids but had not yet been gifted with children.

His name was Commander Judd, though I’m not sure this information is of much use if you are attempting to establish his true identity, since the leading Sons of Jacob had changed their names frequently when they were in the secret planning stages of Gilead. I knew nothing of these name changes at the time: I learned about them later, thanks to my excursions through the Bloodlines Genealogical Archives at Ardua Hall. But even there, Judd’s original name had been obliterated.

The second candidate was younger and thinner. His head was pointed at the top and he had oddly large ears. He was good with numbers, said Aunt Gabbana, and intellectual, not always a desirable thing—especially not for women—but in a husband it could be tolerated. He had managed to have one child by his former Wife, who had died in an asylum for mental sufferers, but the poor infant had expired before the age of one.

No, said Aunt Gabbana, it had not been an Unbaby. There was nothing wrong with it at birth. The cause was juvenile cancer, alarmingly on the rise.

The third man, the younger son of a lower-ranking Commander, was only twenty-five. He had a lot of hair but a thick neck, and eyes that were close together. Not as excellent a prospect as the other two, said Aunt Gabbana, but the family was highly enthusiastic about the match, which meant I would be properly appreciated by the in-laws. This was not to be discounted, since hostile in-laws could make a girl’s life miserable: they would criticize, and always side with the husband.

“Don’t jump to any conclusions yet, Agnes,” Aunt Gabbana said. “Take your time. Your parents want you to be happy.” This was a kind thought, but a lie: they didn’t want me to be happy, they wanted me to be elsewhere.

I lay in bed that night with the three photographs of the eligible men floating in the darkness before my eyes. I pictured each one of them on top of me—for that is where they would be—trying to shove his loathsome appendage into my stone-cold body.

Why was I thinking of my body as stone cold? I wondered. Then I saw: it would be stone cold because I would be dead. I would be as wan and bloodless as poor Ofkyle had been—cut open to get her baby out, then lying still, wrapped in a sheet, staring at me with her silent eyes. There was a certain power in it, silence and stillness.

I considered running away from home, but how would I do that and where could I go? I had no notion of geography: we did not study it in school, since our own neighbourhood should be enough for us, and what Wife needed more? I did not even know how big Gilead was. How far did it go, where did it end? More practically, how would I travel, what would I eat, where would I sleep? And if I did run away, would God hate me? Surely I would be pursued? Would I cause a lot of suffering to others, like the Concubine Cut into Twelve Pieces?

The world was infested with men who were certain to be tempted by girls who’d strayed out of bounds: such girls would be viewed as loose in their morals. I might not get any farther than the next block before being ripped to shreds, polluted, and reduced to a pile of wilting green petals.

The week I’d been granted in which to choose my husband wore on. Paula and Commander Kyle favoured Commander Judd: he had the most power. They put on a show of persuading me, since it was better if the bride was willing. There had been gossip about high-level weddings that had gone off badly—wailing, fainting, slaps administered by the mother of the bride. I’d overheard the Marthas saying that before some weddings tranquilizing drugs had been administered, with needles. They had to be careful with the dose: mild staggering and slurred speech could be put down to emotion, a wedding being a hugely important moment in a girl’s life, but a ceremony at which the bride was unconscious did not count.

It was clear that I would be married to Commander Judd whether I liked it or not. Whether I hated it or not. But I kept my aversion to myself and pretended to be deciding.
As
I say, I had learned how to act.

“Think what your position will be,” Paula would say. “You couldn’t ask for better.” Commander Judd was not young and would not live forever, and far though she was from wishing it, I would most likely survive much longer than he would, she said, and after he died I would be a widow, with more leeway to choose my next husband. Think what a benefit that would be! Naturally, any male relatives, including those by marriage, would play a role in my choice of second husband.

Then Paula would run down the qualifications of the other two candidates, disparaging their appearances, their characters, and their positions in life. She needn’t have bothered: I detested both of them.

Meanwhile, I was pondering other actions I might take. There were the French-style flower-arranging secateurs, like the ones Becka had used—Paula had some of those—but they were in the garden shed, which was locked. I’d heard of a girl who’d hanged herself with her bathrobe sash to avoid a marriage. Vera had told the story the year before, while the other two Marthas made sad faces and shook their heads.

“Suicide is a failure of faith,” Zilla said.

“It makes a real mess,” said Rosa.

“Such a slur on the family,” said Vera.

There was bleach, but it was kept in the kitchen, as were knives; and the Marthas—being no fools and having eyes in the backs of their heads—were alert to my desperation. They’d taken to dropping aphorisms, such as “Every cloud has a silver lining” and “The harder the shell, the sweeter the nut,” and even “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.” Rosa went so far as to say, as if talking to herself, “Once you’re dead, you’re dead forever” while looking at me out of the sides of her eyes.

There was no point in asking the Marthas to help me, not even Zilla. Sorry though they might feel for me, much as they might wish me well, they had no power to affect the outcome.

At the end of the week, my engagement was announced: it was to Commander Judd, as it was always going to be. He appeared at the house in his full uniform with medals, shook hands with Commander Kyle, bowed to Paula, and smiled at the top of my head. Paula moved over to stand beside me, put her arm around my back, and rested her hand lightly on my waist: she had never done such a thing before. Did she think I would try to get away?

“Good evening, Agnes, my dear,” said Commander Judd. I focused on his medals: it was easier to look at them than at him.

“You may say good evening,” Paula said in a low voice, pinching me slightly with the hand that was behind my back. “Good evening,
sir
.”

“Good evening,” I managed to whisper. “Sir.”

The Commander advanced, arranged his face into a jowly smile, and stuck his mouth onto my forehead in a chaste kiss. His lips were unpleasantly warm; they made a sucking sound as they pulled away. I pictured a tiny morsel of my brain being sucked through the skin of my forehead into his mouth. A thousand such kisses later and my skull would be emptied of brain.

“I hope to make you very happy, my dear,” he said.

I could smell his breath, a blend of alcohol, mint mouthwash like that at the dentist’s, and tooth decay. I had an unbidden image of the wedding night: an enormous, opaque white blob was moving towards me through the dusk of an unknown room. It had a head, but no face: only an orifice like the mouth of a leech. From somewhere in its midsection a third tentacle was waving around in the air. It reached the bed where I was lying paralyzed with horror, and also naked—you had to be naked, or at least naked enough, said Shunammite. What came next? I shut my eyes, trying to blank out the inner scene, then opened them again.

Commander Judd drew back, regarding me shrewdly. Had I shuddered while he was kissing me? I had tried not to. Paula was pinching my waist harder. I knew I was supposed to say something, such as
Thank you
or
I hope so too
or
I’m sure you will
, but I could not manage it. I felt sick to my stomach: what if I threw up, right now, on the carpet? That would be shameful.

“She’s exceptionally modest,” said Paula through tight lips, glaring sideways at me.

“And that is a charming feature,” said Commander Judd.

“You may go now, Agnes Jemima,” said Paula. “Your father and the Commander have things to discuss.” So I made my way towards the door. I was feeling a little dizzy.

“She seems obedient,” I heard Commander Judd saying as I left the room.

“Oh yes,” said Paula. “She’s always been a respectful child.”

What a liar she was. She knew how much rage was seething inside me.

The three wedding arrangers, Aunt Lorna, Aunt Sara Lee, and Aunt Betty, made a return visit, this time to measure me for my wedding dress: they’d brought some sketches. I was asked to give my opinion about which dress I liked best. I pointed to one at random.

“Is she well?” Aunt Betty asked Paula in a soft voice. “She looks quite tired.”

“It’s an emotional time for them,” Paula replied.

“Oh yes,” said Aunt Betty. “So emotional!”

“You should have the Marthas make her a soothing drink,” said Aunt Lorna. “Something with chamomile. Or a sedative.”

In addition to the dress, I was to have new underclothes, and a special nightgown for the wedding night, with ribbon bows down the front—so easy to open, like a gift-wrapped package.

“I don’t know why we are bothering with the frills,” Paula said to the Aunts, talking past me. “She won’t appreciate them.”

“She won’t be the one looking at them,” said Aunt Sara Lee with unexpected bluntness. Aunt Lorna gave a suppressed snort.

As
for the wedding dress itself, it was to be “classical,” said Aunt Sara Lee. Classical was the best style: the clean lines would be very elegant, in her opinion. A veil with a simple chaplet of cloth snowdrops and forget-me-nots. Artificial-flower-making was one of the handicrafts encouraged among the Econowives.

There was a subdued conversation about lace trim—to add it, as Aunt Betty advised because it would be attractive, or to omit it, which would be preferable in Paula’s view, since attractive was not the main focus. Unspoken: the main focus was to get the thing over with and consign me to her past, where I would be tucked away, unreactive as lead, no longer combustible. No one would be able to say she had not done her duty as the Wife of her Commander and as an observant citizen of Gilead.

The wedding itself would take place as soon as the dress was ready—therefore, it was safe to plan it for two weeks from this day. Did Paula have the names of the guests she would like invited? Aunt Sara Lee asked. The two of them went downstairs to compile: Paula to recite the names, Aunt Sara Lee to write them down. The Aunts would prepare and personally deliver the verbal invitations: it was one of their roles, to be the bearer of poisoned messages.

“Aren’t you excited?” said Aunt Betty as she and Aunt Lorna were packing up their sketches and I was putting my clothes back on. “In two weeks you’ll have your very own house!”

There was something wistful in her voice—she herself would never have a house—but I paid no attention to it. Two weeks, I thought. I had only fourteen scant days of life left to me on this earth. How would I spend them?