The Testaments (33 page)

Aunt Vidala was discovered lying behind my statue in a comatose condition by elderly Aunt Clover and two of her septuagenarian gardeners. The conclusion the paramedics came to was that she’d had a stroke, a diagnosis confirmed by our doctors. Rumour sped round Ardua Hall, sad shakes of the head were exchanged, and prayers for Aunt Vidala’s recovery were promised. A broken Pearl Girls necklace was found in the vicinity: someone must have lost it at some point, a wasteful oversight. I will issue a memorandum about vigilance in regard to those material objects it is our duty to safeguard. Pearls do not grow on trees, I will say, even artificial ones; nor should they be cast before swine. Not that there are any swine at Ardua Hall, I will add coyly.

I paid Aunt Vidala a visit in the Intensive Care Unit. She was lying on her back with her eyes closed and a tube going into her nose and another one going into her arm. “How is our dear Aunt Vidala?” I asked the nursing Aunt on duty.

“I have been praying for her,” said Aunt Something. I can never remember the names of the nurses: it is their fate. “She’s in a coma: that may aid the healing process. There may be some paralysis. They’re afraid her speech might be affected.”

“If she recovers,” I said.

“When she recovers,” the nurse said reproachfully. “We don’t like to voice anything negative within the hearing of our patients. They may appear to be asleep, but frequently they are fully aware.”

I sat beside Vidala until the nurse had gone. Then I made a rapid inspection of the pharmaceutical aids available. Should I up the anaesthetic? Tamper with the tube feeding into her arm? Pinch off her oxygen supply? I did none of these. I believe in effort, but not in unnecessary effort: Aunt Vidala was most likely negotiating her exit from this world all on her own. Before leaving the Intensive Care Unit, I pocketed a small vial of morphine, foresight being a cardinal virtue.

While we were taking our lunchtime places in the Refectory, Aunt Helena commented on the absence of Aunt Victoria and Aunt Immortelle. “I believe they are fasting,” I said. “I glimpsed them in the Hildegard Library Reading Room yesterday, studying their Bibles. They are hoping for guidance during their upcoming mission.”

“Commendable,” said Aunt Helena. She continued her discreet head-counting. “Where is our new convert, Jade?”

“Perhaps she is ill,” I said. “A female complaint.”

“I will go and see,” said Aunt Helena. “Perhaps she needs a hot water bottle. Doorway C, is it?”

“How kind of you,” I said. “Yes. I believe hers is the garret room on the third floor.” I hoped Nicole had left her elopement note in a prominent location.

Aunt Helena hurried back from her visit to Doorway C, giddy with the excitement of her discovery: the girl Jade had eloped. “With a plumber named Garth,” Aunt Helena added. “She claims to be in love.”

“That is unfortunate,” I said. “We shall have to locate the pair, administer a reprimand, and make sure that the marriage has been properly performed. But Jade is very uncouth; she would not have made a reputable Aunt. Look on the bright side: the population of Gilead may well be augmented by this union.”

“But how could she have met such a plumber?” said Aunt Elizabeth.

“There was a complaint about a lack of bathwater this morning from Doorway A,” I said. “They must have called in the plumber. Clearly it was love at first sight. Young people are impetuous.”

“No one in the Hall is supposed to take baths in the morning,” said Aunt Elizabeth. “Unless someone has been breaking the rules.”

“That is not out of the question, unfortunately,” I said. “The flesh is weak.”

“Oh yes, so weak,” Aunt Helena agreed. “But how did she get out through the gate? She doesn’t have a pass, it wouldn’t have been allowed.”

“Girls of that age are very agile,” I said. “I expect she climbed over the Wall.”

We continued with lunch—dry sandwiches and something ruinous that had been done to tomatoes, and a dessert of runny blancmange—and by the end of our humble meal the girl Jade’s premature flight, her acrobatic feat of Wall-climbing, and her headstrong choice to fulfill her womanly destiny in the arms of an enterprising Economan plumber were general knowledge among us.

We pulled up beside the ship. On the deck were three shadows; a flashlight shone briefly. We climbed up the rope ladder.

“Sit on the edge, swing your feet over,” said a voice. Someone took my arm. Then we were standing on the deck.

“Captain Mishimengo,” said the voice. “Let’s get you inside.” There was a low hum and I felt the ship moving.

We went into a little cabin with blackout curtains on the windows and some controls and what was likely a ship’s radar, though I didn’t have a chance to look at it closely.

“Glad you made it,” said Captain Mishimengo. He shook our hands; he had two fingers missing. He was stocky, about sixty, with tanned skin and a short black beard. “Now here’s our story, supposing you’re asked: this is a cod schooner, solar, with fuel backup. Flag of convenience is Lebanon. We’ve delivered a cargo of cod and lemons by special licence, which means the grey market, and now we’re heading back out. You’ll need to stay out of sight during the day: I heard from my contact, via Bert who dropped you at the dock, that they’re bound to be looking for you soon. There’s a place for you to sleep, in the hold. If there’s an inspection, coast guard, it won’t be thorough, it’s guys we know.” He rubbed his fingers together, which I knew meant money.

“Have you got any food?” I asked. “We haven’t eaten much all day.”

“Right,” he said. He told us to wait there and came back with a couple mugs of tea and some sandwiches. They were cheese, but it wasn’t Gilead cheese, it was real cheese: goat cheese with chives, a kind Melanie had liked.

“Thank you,” said Agnes. I’d started eating but I mumbled thanks with my mouth full.

“Your friend Ada says hello, and see you soon,” Captain Mishimengo said to me.

I swallowed. “How do you know Ada?”

He laughed. “Everyone’s related. Around here, anyways. We used to go deer-hunting in Nova Scotia together, back in the day.”

We reached our sleeping place by going down a ladder. Captain Mishimengo went first, turning on the lights. There were some freezers in the hold, and some big oblong metal boxes. On the side of one of the boxes was a hinged flap, and inside were two sleeping bags that didn’t look very clean: I guess we weren’t the first people to use them. The whole place smelled of fish.

“You can keep the box door open as long as there’s no problems,” said Captain Mishimengo. “Sleep tight, don’t let the bugs bite.” We heard his steps receding.

“This is kind of awful,” I whispered to Agnes. “The fish smell. These sleeping bags. I bet they have lice.”

“We should be grateful,” she said. “Let’s go to sleep.”

My
GOD/LOVE
tattoo was bothering me, and I had to lie on my right side to avoid squashing it. I wondered if I had blood poisoning. If so, I was in trouble because there was definitely not a doctor on board.

We woke up when it was still dark because the ship was rocking. Agnes climbed out of our metal box and went up the ladder to see what was happening. I wanted to go too but I really wasn’t feeling well.

She came back down with a thermos of tea and two hard-boiled eggs. We’d reached the ocean, she said, and the waves were rocking the ship. She’d never imagined waves that big, though Captain Mishimengo said they were nothing much.

“Oh God,” I said. “I hope they won’t get any bigger. I hate throwing up.”

“Please do not use the name of God as a casual swear word,” she said.

“Sorry,” I said. “But if you don’t mind me saying, supposing there is a God, he has totally effed up my life.”

I thought she’d get angry then, but all she said was, “You are not unique in the universe. No one has an easy time in life. But maybe God has effed up—as you put it—your life for a reason.”

“And I can hardly fucking wait to find out what that is,” I said. The pain in my arm was making me very irritable. I shouldn’t have been so sarcastic, and I shouldn’t have sworn at her.

“But I thought you grasped the true goal of our mission,” she said. “The salvation of Gilead. The purification. The renewal. That is the reason.”

“You think that festering shitheap can be renewed?” I said. “Burn it all down!”

“Why would you want to harm so many people?” she asked gently. “It’s my country. It’s where I grew up. It’s being ruined by the leaders. I want it to be better.”

“Yeah, okay,” I said. “I get it. Sorry. I didn’t mean you. You’re my sister.”

“I accept your apology,” she said. “Thank you for understanding.”

We sat in the dark silence for a few minutes. I could hear her breathing, and a few sighs.

“You think this is going to work?” I asked finally. “Will we get there?”

“It’s not in our hands,” she said.

By the beginning of our second day, I was very worried about Nicole. She claimed she wasn’t ill, but she had a fever. I recalled what we’d been taught at Ardua Hall about caring for the sick, and I attempted to keep her hydrated. There were some lemons on board, and I was able to mix some of their juice with tea and salt and a little sugar. I was finding it easier now to go up and down the ladder that led to our sleeping quarters, and reflected that it would have been much harder in a long skirt.

It was quite foggy. We were still in Gileadean waters, and around noon there was a coast guard inspection. Nicole and I shut the door of our metal box from the inside. She took hold of my hand and I squeezed it hard, and we stayed absolutely quiet. We heard footsteps tramping around, and voices, but the sounds dwindled and my heart stopped beating so quickly.

Later that day there was engine trouble, which I discovered when I went up for more lemon juice. Captain Mishimengo seemed worried: the tides in this region were very high and fast, he said, and without power we’d be swept out to sea, or else we’d be drawn into the Bay of Fundy and wrecked on the Canadian shore, and the ship would be impounded and the crew arrested. The ship was drifting south; did this mean we would be taken right back into Gilead?

I wondered if Captain Mishimengo was wishing he hadn’t agreed to take us. He’d told me that if the ship should be pursued and captured, and we were found, he’d be accused of woman-smuggling. His ship would be seized, and since he himself was originally from Gilead and had escaped from the Gilead National Homelands via the Canadian border, they’d claim him as a citizen and put him on trial as a smuggler, and that would be the end of him.

“We’re putting you in too much danger,” I said when I heard this. “Don’t you have an arrangement with the coast guard? About the grey market?”

“They’d deny it, there’s nothing in writing,” he said. “Who wants to be shot for taking bribes?”

For supper there were chicken sandwiches, but Nicole wasn’t hungry and wanted to sleep.

“Are you very ill? May I feel your forehead?” Her skin was burning hot. “I would just like to say that I’m grateful for you in my life,” I told her. “I’m happy you are my sister.”

“I am too,” she said. After a minute she asked, “Do you think we’ll ever see our mother?”

“I have faith that we will.”

“Do you think she’ll like us?”

“She will love us,” I said to soothe her. “And we will love her.”

“Just because people are related to you doesn’t mean you love them,” she murmured.

“Love is a discipline, like prayer,” I said. “I’d like to pray for you, so you’ll feel better. Would you mind?”

“It won’t work. I won’t feel any better.”

“But I will feel better,” I said. So she said yes.

“Dear God,” I said, “may we accept the past with all its flaws, may we move forward into a better future in forgiveness and loving kindness. And may we each be thankful for our sister, and may we both see our mother again, and our two different fathers as well. And may we remember Aunt Lydia, and may she be forgiven for her sins and faults, as we hope we may be forgiven for ours. And may we always feel gratitude to our sister Becka, wherever she may be. Please bless all of them. Amen.”

By the time I’d finished, Nicole was asleep.

I tried to sleep myself, but it was stuffier than ever in the hold. Then I heard footsteps coming down the metal ladder. It was Captain Mishimengo. “Sorry about this, but we need to offload you,” he said.

“Now?” I said. “But it’s night.”

“Sorry,” Captain Mishimengo said again. “We got the motor going, but we’re low on power. We’re now in Canadian waters but nowhere close to where we were supposed to take you. We can’t get to a harbour, it’s too dangerous for us. The tide is against us.”

He said we were off the east shore of the Bay of Fundy. All Nicole and I had to do was reach that shore and we’d be fine; whereas he couldn’t risk his ship and crew.

Nicole was sound asleep; I had to shake her awake.

“It’s me,” I said. “It’s your sister.”

Captain Mishimengo repeated the same story to her: we had to leave the
Nellie J. Banks
right now.

“So, you want us to swim?” said Nicole.

“We’ll put you in an inflatable,” he said. “I’ve called ahead, they’ll be expecting you.”

“She’s not well,” I said. “Can’t it be tomorrow?”

“Nope,” said Captain Mishimengo. “The tide’s turning. Miss this window and you’ll be swept out to sea. Warmest clothes, be on deck in ten minutes.”

“Warmest clothes?” said Nicole. “Like we brought an Arctic wardrobe.”

We put on all the clothes we had. Boots, fleece hats, our waterproofs. Nicole went up the ladder first: she wasn’t very steady, and she was using only her right arm.

On deck Captain Mishimengo was waiting for us with one of the crew members. They had some life jackets and a thermos for us. On the left side of the ship a wall of fog was rolling towards us.

“Thank you,” I said to Captain Mishimengo. “For everything you’ve done for us.”

“Sorry it’s not as planned,” he said. “Godspeed.”

“Thank you,” I said again. “And Godspeed to you.”

“Keep out of the fog if you can.”

“Great,” said Nicole. “Fog. That’s all we need.”

“It may be a blessing,” I said.

They lowered us down in the inflatable. There was a little solar motor: it was really simple to operate, Captain Mishimengo said: Power, Idle, Forward, Reverse. There were two oars.

“Shove off,” said Nicole.

“Pardon?”

“Push our boat away from the
Nellie
. Not with your hands! Here—use an oar.”

I did manage to push, but not very well. I’d never held an oar. I felt very clumsy. “Goodbye,
Nellie J. Banks
,” I said. “God bless!”

“Don’t bother waving, they can’t see you,” said Nicole. “They must be glad to be rid of us, we’re toxic cargo.”

“They were nice,” I said.

“You think they’re not making big piles of money?”

The
Nellie J. Banks
was moving away from us. I hoped they’d have good luck.

I could feel the tide gripping the inflatable. Head in at an angle, Captain Mishimengo had said: cutting straight across the tide was dangerous, the inflatable could flip.

“Hold my flashlight,” Nicole said. She was fiddling with the buttons on the motor, using her right hand. The motor started. “This tide’s like a river.” We were indeed moving quickly. There were some lights on the shore to our left, very far away. It was cold, the kind of cold that goes right through all your clothing.

“Are we getting there?” I said after a while. “To the shore?”

“I hope so,” said Nicole. “Because if not, we’ll soon be back in Gilead.”

“We could jump overboard,” I said. We could not go back to Gilead, no matter what: they must have discovered by now that Nicole was missing, and had not gone with an Economan. We couldn’t betray Becka and all she had done for us. It would be better to die.

“Fucking hell,” said Nicole. “The motor just kakked.”

“Oh no,” I said. “Can you…”

“I’m trying. Shit and fuck!”

“What? What is it?” I had to raise my voice: the fog was all around us, and the sound of the water.

“Electrical short, I think,” said Nicole. “Or low battery.”

“Did they do that on purpose?” I said. “Maybe they want us to die.”

“No way!” said Nicole. “Why would they kill the customers? Now we have to row.”

“Row?” I said.

“Yeah, with the oars,” said Nicole. “I can only use my good arm, the other one’s like a puffball, and don’t fucking ask me what a puffball is!”

“It’s not my fault I don’t know such things,” I said.

“You want to have this conversation right now? I am fucking sorry, but we are in a hot mess emergency here! Now, grab the oar!”

“All right,” I said. “There. I have hold of it.”

“Put it in the oarlock. The oarlock! This thing! Now, use both hands. Okay, now watch me! When I say go, put the oar in the water and pull,” said Nicole. She was shouting.

“I don’t know how. I feel so useless.”

“Stop crying,” said Nicole. “I don’t care how you feel! Just do it! Now! When I say go, pull the oar towards you! See the light? It’s nearer!”

“I don’t think it is,” I said. “We’re so far out. We’ll be swept away.”

“No we won’t,” said Nicole. “Not if you try. Now, go! And, go! That’s it! Go! Go! Go!”