The Testaments (22 page)

Then Aunt Estée used her pager to call her own Guardian driver, and we got into her car. “I’m taking you to a safe place,” she said. “You must stay there while I talk to your parents. When we get to the safe place, you must promise me you’ll eat something. Promise?”

“I won’t be hungry,” I said. I was still holding back tears.

“You will be, once you settle in,” she said. “A glass of warm milk, at any rate.” She took my hand and squeezed it. “All will be well,” she said. “All manner of things will be well.” Then she let go of my hand and patted it lightly.

This was comforting to me as far as it went, but I was on the verge of crying again. Kindness sometimes has that effect. “How?” I said. “How can it ever be well?”

“I don’t know,” said Aunt Estée. “But it will be. I have faith.” She sighed. “Having faith is hard work sometimes.”

The sun was setting. The springtime air was filled with the golden haze that can often appear at that time of year: dust, or pollen. The leaves of the trees had that glossy sheen, so fresh and newly unfolded; as if they were gifts, each one, unwrapping itself, shaken out for the first time.
As
if God had just made them, Aunt Estée used to tell us during Nature Appreciation, conjuring up a picture of God waving his hand over the dead-looking winter trees, causing them to sprout and unfurl. Every leaf unique, Aunt Estée would add, just like you! It was a beautiful thought.

Aunt Estée and I were driven through the golden streets. Would I ever see these houses, these trees, these sidewalks again? Empty sidewalks, quiet streets. Lights were coming on in the houses; inside there must have been happy people, people who knew where they belonged. Already I felt like an outcast; but I’d cast myself out, so I had no right to feel sorry for myself.

“Where are we going?” I asked Aunt Estée.

“Ardua Hall,” she said. “You can stay there while I visit your parents.”

I’d heard Ardua Hall mentioned, always in hushed tones because it was a special place for the Aunts. Whatever the Aunts did when we weren’t looking was not our concern, said Zilla. They kept themselves to themselves and we should not poke our noses in. “But I wouldn’t want to be
them
,” Zilla would add.

“Why not?” I asked her once.

“Nasty business,” said Vera, who was running pork through the meat grinder for a pie. “They get their hands dirty.”

“So we don’t have to,” said Zilla mildly, rolling pie crust.

“They dirty up their minds too,” said Rosa. “Whether they want to or not.” She was chopping onions with a large cleaver. “Reading!” She gave an extra-loud chop. “I never liked it.”

“I didn’t either,” said Vera. “Who knows what they’re forced to dig around in! Filthiness and muck.”

“Better them than us,” said Zilla.

“They can never have husbands,” said Rosa. “Not that I’d want one myself, but still. Or babies either. They can’t have those.”

“They’re too old anyway,” said Vera. “All dried up.”

“The crust’s ready,” said Zilla. “Have we got any celery?”

Despite this discouraging view of the Aunts, I’d been intrigued by the idea of Ardua Hall. Ever since I’d learned that Tabitha wasn’t my mother, anything secret had attracted me. When I was younger I’d ornamented Ardua Hall in my mind, made it enormous, given it magic properties: surely the location of so much subterranean but ill-understood power must be an imposing construction. Was it a huge castle, or was it more like a jail? Was it like our school? Most likely it had a lot of large brass locks on the doors that only an Aunt would be able to open.

Where there is an emptiness, the mind will obligingly fill it up. Fear is always at hand to supply any vacancies, as is curiosity. I have had ample experience with both.

“Do you live there?” I asked Aunt Estée now. “Ardua Hall?”

“All the Aunts in this city live there,” she said. “Though we come and go.”

As
the streetlights began to glow, turning the air a dull orange, we reached a gateway in a high, red-brick wall. The barred iron gate was closed. Our car paused; then the gate swung open. There were floodlights; there were trees. In the distance, a group of men in the dark uniforms of the Eyes were standing on a wide stairway in front of a brightly lit brick palace with white pillars, or it looked like a palace. I was soon to learn it had once been a library.

Our car pulled in and stopped, and the driver opened the door, first for Aunt Estée, then for me.

“Thank you,” said Aunt Estée to him. “Please wait here. I’ll be back shortly.”

She took me by the arm, and we walked along the side of a large grey stonework building, then past a statue of a woman with some other women posed around her. You didn’t usually see statues of women in Gilead, only of men.

“That is Aunt Lydia,” said Aunt Estée. “Or a statue of her.” Was it my imagination, or did Aunt Estée give a little curtsy?

“She’s different from real life,” I said. I didn’t know if Aunt Lydia’s visit to me was supposed to be a secret, so I added, “I saw her at a funeral. She’s not that big.” Aunt Estée did not answer for a moment. I see in retrospect that it was a difficult question: you don’t want to be caught saying that a powerful person is small.

“No,” she said. “But statues aren’t real people.”

We turned onto a paved pathway. Along one side of it was a long three-storey building of red brick punctuated by a number of identical doorways, each with a few steps going up to it and a white triangle over the top. Inside the triangle was some writing, which I could not yet read. Nonetheless I was surprised to see writing in such a public place.

“This is Ardua Hall,” said Aunt Estée. I was disappointed: I’d been expecting something much grander. “Come in. You will be safe here.”

“Safe?” I said.

“For the moment,” she said. “And, I hope, for some time.” She smiled gently. “No man is allowed inside without the permission of the Aunts. It’s a law. You can rest here until I come back.” I might be safe from men, I thought, but what about women? Paula could barge in and drag me out, back into a place where there were husbands.

Aunt Estée led me through a medium-sized room with a sofa. “This is the common sitting area. There’s a bathroom through that door.” She ushered me up a flight of stairs and into a little room with a single bed and a desk. “One of the other Aunts will bring you a cup of warm milk. Then you should have a nap. Please don’t worry. God has told me it will be all right.” I didn’t have as much confidence in this as she appeared to, but I felt reassured.

She waited until the warm milk arrived, carried in by a silent Aunt. “Thank you, Aunt Silhouette,” she said. The other one nodded and glided out. Aunt Estée patted my arm, then left, closing the door behind her.

I had only a sip of the milk: I didn’t trust it. Would the Aunts give me drugs before kidnapping me and delivering me back into Paula’s hands? I didn’t think Aunt Estée would do that, though Aunt Silhouette looked as if she might. The Aunts were on the side of the Wives, or that’s what the girls had said at school.

I paced around the small room; then I lay down on the narrow bed. But I was too overwrought to go to sleep, so I got up again. There was a picture on the wall: Aunt Lydia, smiling an inscrutable smile. On the opposite wall was a picture of Baby Nicole. They were the same familiar pictures that had been in the classrooms at the Vidala School, and I found them oddly comforting.

On the desk there was a book.

I’d thought and done so many forbidden things that day that I was ready to do one more. I went over to the desk and stared down at the book. What was inside it that made it so dangerous to girls like me? So flammable? So ruinous?

I reached out my hand. I picked up the book.

I opened the front cover. No flames shot out.

There were many white pages inside, with a lot of marks on them. They looked like small insects, black broken insects arranged in lines, like ants. I seemed to know that the marks contained sounds and meaning, but I couldn’t remember how.

“It’s really hard at first,” said a voice behind me.

I hadn’t heard the door open. I startled and turned. “Becka!” I said. I’d last seen her at Aunt Lise’s flower-arranging class with blood spurting out of her cut wrist. Her face had been very pale then, and resolved, and forlorn. She looked much better now. She was wearing a brown dress, loose on top, belted at the waist; her hair was parted in the middle and pulled back.

“My name isn’t Becka anymore,” she said. “I’m Aunt Immortelle now; I’m a Supplicant. But you can call me Becka when we’re alone.”

“So you didn’t get married after all,” I said. “Aunt Lydia told me you have a higher calling.”

“Yes,” she said. “I won’t have to marry any man, ever. But what about you? I heard you’re going to marry someone highly important.”

“I’m supposed to,” I said. I started to cry. “But I can’t. I just can’t!” I wiped my nose on my sleeve.

“I know,” she said. “I told them I’d rather die. You must have said the same thing.” I nodded. “Did you say you had a calling? To be an Aunt?” I nodded again. “Do you really have one?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Neither do I,” said Becka. “But I passed the six-month trial period. After nine years—when I’m old enough—I can apply for Pearl Girls missionary work, and once I’ve done that I’ll be a full Aunt. Then maybe I’ll get a real calling. I’m praying for one.”

I’d finished crying. “What do I have to do? To pass the trial?”

“At first you have to wash dishes and scrub floors and clean toilets and help with the laundry and cooking, just like Marthas,” said Becka. “And you have to start learning how to read. Reading’s way harder than cleaning toilets. But I can read some now.”

I handed her the book. “Show me!” I said. “Is this book evil? Is it full of forbidden things, the way Aunt Vidala said?”

“This?” said Becka. She smiled. “Not this one. It’s only the
Ardua Hall Rule Book
, with the history, the vows, and the hymns. Plus the weekly schedule for the laundry.”

“Go on! Read it!” I wanted to see if she could really translate the black insect marks into words. Though how would I know they were the right words, since I couldn’t read them myself?

She opened the book. “Here it is, on the first page. ‘Ardua Hall. Theory and Practice, Protocols and Procedures,
Per Ardua Cum Estrus
.’ ” She showed me. “See this? It’s an
A
.”

“What’s an
A
?”

She sighed. “We can’t do this today because I have to go to the Hildegard Library, I’m on night duty, but I promise I’ll help you later if they let you stay. We can ask Aunt Lydia if you can live here, with me. There are two bedrooms empty.”

“Do you think she’ll allow it?”

“I’m not sure,” said Becka, lowering her voice. “But don’t ever say anything bad about her, even if you think you’re in a safe place such as here. She has ways of knowing about it.” She whispered, “She is truly the scariest one, of all the Aunts!”

“Scarier than Aunt Vidala?” I whispered back.

“Aunt Vidala wants you to make mistakes,” said Becka. “But Aunt Lydia…it’s hard to describe. You get the feeling she wants you to be better than you are.”

“That sounds inspirational,” I said.
Inspirational
was a favourite word of Aunt Lise’s: she used it for flower arrangements.

“She looks at you as if she really sees you.”

So many people had looked past me. “I think I’d like that,” I said.

“No,” said Becka. “That’s why she’s so scary.”

Paula came to Ardua Hall to try to get me to change my mind. Aunt Lydia said it was only proper that I should meet with her and assure her in person of the rightness and holiness of my decision, so I did.

Paula was waiting for me at a pink table in the Schlafly Café, where we at Ardua Hall were permitted to receive visitors. She was very angry.

“Have you no idea of the trouble your father and I went to in order to secure the connection with Commander Judd?” she said. “You have dishonoured your father.”

“Membership in the Aunts is far from dishonourable,” I said piously. “I had a call to higher service. I could not refuse it.”

“You’re lying,” said Paula. “You are not the kind of girl God would ever single out. I demand that you return home immediately.”

I stood up suddenly and smashed my teacup on the floor. “How dare you question the Divine Will?” I said. I was almost shouting. “Your sin will find you out!” I didn’t know what sin I meant, but everyone has a sin of some kind.

“Act crazy,” Becka had told me. “Then they won’t want you marrying anyone: it will be their responsibility if you do anything violent.”

Paula was taken aback. For a moment she had no answer, but then she said, “The Aunts need Commander Kyle’s agreement, and he will never give it. So pack up because you’re leaving, now.”

At that moment, however, Aunt Lydia came into the café. “May I have a word with you?” she said to Paula. The two of them moved to a table at some distance from me. I strained to hear what Aunt Lydia was saying, but I could not. When Paula stood up, however, she looked sick. She left the café without a word to me, and later that afternoon Commander Kyle signed the formal permission granting authority over me to the Aunts. It was many years before I was to learn what Aunt Lydia had said to Paula to force her to relinquish me.

Next I had to go through the interviews with the Founding Aunts. Becka had advised me on the best way to behave with each of them: Aunt Elizabeth went in for dedication to the greater good, Aunt Helena would want to get it over quickly, but Aunt Vidala liked grovelling and self-humiliation, so I was prepared.

The first interview was with Aunt Elizabeth. She asked whether I was against marriage, or just against marriage to Commander Judd? I said I was against it in general, which seemed to please her. Had I considered how my decision might hurt Commander Judd—hurt his feelings? I almost said that Commander Judd didn’t seem to have any feelings, but Becka had warned me not to say anything disrespectful because the Aunts wouldn’t put up with it.

I said I’d prayed for the emotional well-being of Commander Judd and he deserved every happiness, which I was positive some other Wife would bring him, but Divine Guidance had told me I would not be able to provide that sort of happiness for him, or indeed for any man, and I wanted to consecrate myself in service to all the women of Gilead rather than to one man and one family.

“If you really mean that, you are well positioned, spiritually, to get on very well here at Ardua Hall,” she said. “I will vote for your conditional acceptance. After six months we will see whether this life is truly the path you have been chosen to follow.” I thanked her repeatedly, and said how grateful I was, and she appeared to be pleased.

My interview with Aunt Helena was nothing much. She was writing in her notebook and did not look up. She said that Aunt Lydia had already made up her mind, so of course she would have to agree. She implied I was boring and a waste of her time.

My interview with Aunt Vidala was the most difficult. She’d been one of my teachers, and she hadn’t liked me then. She said I was shirking my duty, and any girl who’d been gifted with a woman’s body was obligated to offer this body up in holy sacrifice to God and for the glory of Gilead and mankind, and also to fulfill the function that such bodies had inherited from the moment of Creation, and that was nature’s law.

I said that God had given women other gifts as well, such as the ones he had bestowed on her. She said what might those be? I said the gift of being able to read, since all Aunts were gifted in that way. She said that the reading the Aunts did was holy reading and in the service of all the things she had said before—she said them over again—and did I presume to be sufficiently sanctified myself?

I said I was willing to do any kind of hard work in order to become an Aunt like her, because she was a shining example, and I wasn’t yet sanctified at all, but perhaps through grace and prayer I would receive enough sanctification, though I could never hope to achieve the level of sanctification that she herself had reached.

Aunt Vidala said I was displaying an appropriate meekness, which boded well for a successful integration into the service community of Ardua Hall. She even gave me one of her pinched-in smiles before I left.

My final interview was with Aunt Lydia. I’d been anxious about the others, but as I stood outside the door to Aunt Lydia’s office I was terrified. What if she’d thought better of it? She had a reputation for being not only fearsome but unpredictable. While I was lifting my hand to knock, her voice came from inside: “Don’t stand there all day. Come in.”

Was she looking at me through a miniature hidden camera? Becka had told me that she deployed a lot of those, or that was the rumour.
As
I was soon to discover, Ardua Hall was an echo chamber: the rumours fed back into one another so you could never be certain where they had come from.

I entered the office. Aunt Lydia was sitting behind her desk, which was stacked high with file folders. “Agnes,” she said. “I must congratulate you. Despite many obstacles, you have succeeded in making your way here, and have answered the call to join us.” I nodded. I was afraid she would ask me what that call had been like—had I heard a voice?—but she did not.

“You are very positive that you do not wish to marry Commander Judd?” I shook my head for no.

“Wise choice,” she said.

“What?” I was surprised: I’d thought she might give me a moral lecturing about the true duties of women or something of the sort. “I mean, pardon?”

“I am sure you would not have made him a fitting Wife.”

I breathed out in relief. “No, Aunt Lydia,” I said. “I would not. I hope he will not be too disappointed.”

“I have already proposed a more appropriate choice for him,” she said. “Your former schoolmate Shunammite.”

“Shunammite?” I said. “But she’s going to marry someone else!”

“These arrangements can always be altered. Would Shunammite welcome the change of husbands, do you think?”

I remembered Shunammite’s barely concealed envy of me and her excitement over the material advantages her wedding would bring. Commander Judd would confer ten times as many of those. “I am sure she would be deeply grateful,” I said.

“I agree.” She smiled. It was like an old turnip smiling: the dried-up kind our Marthas used to put in soup stock. “Welcome to Ardua Hall,” she continued. “You have been accepted. I hope you are grateful for the opportunity, and for the help I have given you.”

“I am, Aunt Lydia,” I managed to get out. “I am truly grateful.”

“I am glad to hear it,” she said. “Perhaps one day you will be able to help me as you yourself have been helped. Good should be repaid with good. That is one of our rules of thumb, here at Ardua Hall.”