16
I went through the rest of that terrible afternoon as if sleepwalking. We were embroidering sets of petit-point handkerchiefs for the Aunts, with flowers on them to go with their names—echinacea for Elizabeth, hyacinths for Helena, violets for Vidala. I was doing lilacs for Lydia, and I stuck a needle halfway into my finger without noticing it until Shunammite said, “There’s blood on your petit point.” Gabriela—a scrawny, smart-mouthed girl who was now as popular as I had once been because her father had been promoted to three Marthas—whispered, “Maybe she’s finally getting her period, out her finger,” and everyone laughed because most of them already had theirs, even Becka. Aunt Vidala heard the laughing and looked up from her book and said, “That’s enough of that.”
Aunt Estée took me to the washroom and we rinsed off the blood on my hand, and she put a bandage on my finger, but the petit-point handkerchief had to be soaked in cold water, which is the way we’d been taught that you got out blood, especially from white cloth. Getting out blood was something we would have to know as Wives, said Aunt Vidala, as it would be part of our duties: we would have to supervise our Marthas to make sure they did it right. Cleaning up things such as blood and other substances that came out of bodies was part of women’s duty of caring for other people, especially little children and the elderly, said Aunt Estée, who always put things in a positive light. That was a talent women had because of their special brains, which were not hard and focused like the brains of men but soft and damp and warm and enveloping, like…like what? She didn’t finish the sentence.
Like mud in the sun, I thought. That’s what was inside my head: warmed-up mud.
* * *
“Is anything wrong, Agnes?” Aunt Estée asked after my finger had been cleaned up. I said no.
“Then why are you crying, my dear?” It seemed that I was: tears were coming out of my eyes, out of my damp and muddy head, despite my effort to control them.
“Because it hurts!” I said, sobbing now. She didn’t ask what hurt, though she must have known it wasn’t really my needled finger. She put her arm around me and gave me a little squeeze.
“So many things hurt,” she said. “But we must try to be cheerful. God likes cheerfulness. He likes us to appreciate the nice things in the world.” We heard a lot about the likes and dislikes of God from the Aunts who taught us, especially Aunt Vidala, who seemed to be on very close terms. Shunammite once said she was going to ask Aunt Vidala what God liked for breakfast, which scandalized the more timid girls, but she never actually did it.
I wondered what God thought about mothers, both real and unreal. But I knew there was no point in questioning Aunt Estée about my real mother and how Tabitha had chosen me, or even how old I’d been at the time. The Aunts at school avoided talking to us about our parents.
* * *
When I got home that day, I cornered Zilla in the kitchen, where she was making biscuits, and repeated everything that Shunammite had told me at lunchtime.
“Your friend has a big mouth,” was what she said. “She should keep it shut more often.” Unusually harsh words, coming from her.
“But is it true?” I said. I still half-hoped, then, that she would deny the whole story.
She sighed. “How’d you like to help me make the biscuits?”
But I was too old to be bribed with simple gifts like that. “Just tell me,” I said. “Please.”
“Well,” she said. “According to your new stepmother, yes. That story is true. Or something like it.”
“So Tabitha wasn’t my mother,” I said, holding back the fresh tears that were coming, keeping my voice steady.
“It depends what you mean by a mother,” said Zilla. “Is your mother the one who gives birth to you or the one who loves you the most?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe the one who loves you the most?”
“Then Tabitha was your mother,” said Zilla, cutting out the biscuits. “And we Marthas are your mothers too, because we love you as well. Though it may not always seem so to you.” She lifted each round biscuit with the pancake flipper and placed it onto the baking sheet. “We all have your best interests at heart.”
This made me distrust her a little because Aunt Vidala said similar things about our best interests, usually before doling out a punishment. She liked to switch us on the legs where it wouldn’t show, and sometimes higher up, making us bend over and raise our skirts. Sometimes she would do that to a girl in front of the whole class. “What happened to her?” I asked. “My other mother? The one who was running through the forest? After they took me away?”
“I don’t truly know,” said Zilla, not looking at me, sliding the biscuits into the hot oven. I wanted to ask if I could have one when they came out—I craved warm biscuits—but this seemed like a childish request to make in the middle of such a serious conversation.
“Did they shoot her? Did they kill her?”
“Oh no,” said Zilla. “They wouldn’t have done that.”
“Why?”
“Because she could have babies. She had you, didn’t she? That was proof she could. They would never kill a valuable woman like that unless they really couldn’t help it.” She paused to let this sink in. “Most likely they would see if she could be…The Aunts at the Rachel and Leah Centre would pray with her; they would talk to her at first, to see if it was possible to change her mind about things.”
There were rumours about the Rachel and Leah Centre at school, but they were vague: none of us knew what went on inside it. Still, just being prayed over by a bunch of Aunts would be scary. Not all of them were as gentle as Aunt Estée. “And what if they couldn’t change her mind?” I asked. “Would they kill her then? Is she dead?”
“Oh, I’m sure they changed her mind,” said Zilla. “They’re good at that. Hearts and minds—they change them.”
“Where is she now, then?” I asked. “My mother—the real—the other one?” I wondered if that mother remembered me. She must remember me. She must have loved me or she wouldn’t have tried to take me with her when she was running away.
“None of us know that, dear,” said Zilla. “Once they become Handmaids they don’t have their old names anymore, and in those outfits they wear you can hardly see their faces. They all look the same.”
“She’s a Handmaid?” I asked. It was true, then, what Shunammite had said. “My mother?”
“That’s what they do, over at the Centre,” said Zilla. “They make them into Handmaids, one way or another. The ones they catch. Now, how about a nice hot biscuit? I don’t have any butter right now, but I can put a little honey on it for you.”
I thanked her. I ate the biscuit. My mother was a Handmaid. That’s why Shunammite insisted she was a slut. It was common knowledge that all the Handmaids had been sluts, once upon a time. And they still were, although in a different way.
* * *
From then on, our new Handmaid fascinated me. I’d ignored her when she’d first come, as instructed—it was the kindest thing for them, said Rosa, because either she would have a baby and then be moved somewhere else, or she wouldn’t have a baby and would be moved somewhere else anyway, but in any case she wouldn’t be in our house for long. So it was bad for them to form attachments, especially with any young people in the household, because they would only have to give those attachments up, and think how upsetting that would be for them.
So I’d turned away from Ofkyle and had pretended not to notice her when she’d glide into the kitchen in her red dress to pick up the shopping basket and then go for her walk. The Handmaids all went for a walk every day two by two; you could see them on the sidewalks. Nobody bothered them or spoke to them or touched them, because they were—in a sense—untouchable.
But now I gazed at Ofkyle from the sides of my eyes at every chance I got. She had a pale oval face, blank, like a gloved thumbprint. I knew how to make a blank face myself, so I didn’t believe she was really blank underneath. She’d had a whole other life. What had she looked like when she’d been a slut? Sluts went with more than one man. How many men had she gone with? What did that mean exactly, going with men, and what sort of men? Had she allowed parts of her body to stick out of her clothing? Had she worn trousers, like a man? That was so unholy it was almost unimaginable! But if she’d done that, how daring! She must have been very different from the way she was now. She must have had a lot more energy.
I would go to the window to watch her from behind as she went out for her walk, through our garden and down the path to our front gate. Then I would take off my shoes, tiptoe along the hall, and creep into her room, which was at the back of the house, on the third floor. It was a medium-sized room with its own bathroom attached. It had a braided rug; on the wall there was a picture of blue flowers in a vase that used to belong to Tabitha.
My stepmother had put the picture in there to get it out of sight, I suppose, because she was purging the visible parts of the house of anything that might remind her new husband of his first Wife. Paula wasn’t doing it openly, she was more subtle than that—she was moving or discarding one thing at a time—but I knew what she was up to. It was one more reason for me to dislike her.
Why mince words? I don’t need to do that anymore. I didn’t just dislike her, I hated her. Hatred is a very bad emotion because it curdles the soul—Aunt Estée taught us that—but, although I’m not proud to admit it and I used to pray to be forgiven for it, hatred is indeed what I felt.
Once I was inside our Handmaid’s room and had closed the door softly, I would poke around in there. Who was she really? And what if she was my missing mother? I knew this was make-believe, but I was so lonely; I liked to think of how things would be if it were true. We would fling ourselves into each other’s arms, we would hug each other, we would be so happy to have found each other again….But then what? I had no version of what might happen after that, though I had a dim idea that it would be trouble.
There was nothing in Ofkyle’s room that provided any clue about her. Her red dresses were hanging in the closet in an orderly row, her plain white underthings and her sack-like nightgowns were folded neatly on the shelves. She had a second pair of walking shoes and an extra cloak and a spare white bonnet. She had a toothbrush with a red handle. There was a suitcase she’d brought these things in, but it was empty.
17
Finally our Handmaid managed to get pregnant. I knew this before I was told, because instead of treating her as if she were a stray dog they were putting up with out of pity, the Marthas began fussing over her and giving her bigger meals, and placing flowers in little vases on her breakfast trays. Because of my obsession with her, I kept track of details like that as much as I could.
I would listen to the Marthas talking excitedly in the kitchen when they thought I wasn’t there, though I couldn’t always hear what they said. When I was with them Zilla smiled to herself a lot, and Vera lowered her harsh voice as if she was in church. Even Rosa had a smug expression, as if she’d eaten a particularly delicious orange but was not telling anyone about it.
As for Paula, my stepmother, she was glowing. She was nicer to me on those occasions when we were together in the same room, which were not frequent if I could help it. I snatched breakfast in the kitchen before being driven to school, and I left the dinner table as quickly as I could, pleading homework: some piece of petit point or knitting or sewing, a drawing I had to finish, a watercolour I needed to paint. Paula never objected: she didn’t want to see me any more than I wanted to see her.
“Ofkyle’s pregnant, isn’t she?” I asked Zilla one morning. I tried to be casual about it in case I was wrong. Zilla was caught off guard.
“How did you know?” she asked.
“I’m not blind,” I said in a superior voice that must have been irritating. I was at that age.
“We aren’t supposed to say anything about it,” said Zilla, “until after the third month. The first three months are the danger time.”
“Why?” I said. I didn’t really know much after all, despite Aunt Vidala’s runny-nosed slideshow about fetuses.
“Because if it’s an Unbaby, that’s when it might…that’s when it might get born too early,” said Zilla. “And it would die.” I knew about Unbabies: they were not taught, but they were whispered about. There were said to be a lot of them. Becka’s Handmaid had given birth to a baby girl: it didn’t have a brain. Poor Becka had been very upset because she’d wanted a sister. “We’re praying for it. For her,” Zilla had said then. I’d noticed the it.
Paula must have dropped a hint among the other Wives about Ofkyle being pregnant, though, because my status at school suddenly shot upwards again. Shunammite and Becka competed for my attention, as before, and the other girls deferred to me as if I had an invisible aura.
A coming baby shed lustre on everyone connected with it. It was as if a golden haze had enveloped our house, and the haze got brighter and more golden as time passed. When the three-month mark was reached, there was an unofficial party in the kitchen and Zilla made a cake. As for Ofkyle, her expression was not so much joyful as relieved, from what I could glimpse of her face.
In the midst of this repressed jubilation, I myself was a dark cloud. This unknown baby inside Ofkyle was taking up all the love: there seemed to be none left anywhere for me. I was all alone. And I was jealous: that baby would have a mother, and I would never have one. Even the Marthas were turning away from me towards the light shining out of Ofkyle’s belly. I am ashamed to admit it—jealous of a baby!—but that was the truth.
* * *
It was at this time that an event took place that I should pass over because it’s better forgotten, but it had a bearing on the choice I was soon to make. Now that I am older and have seen more of the outside world, I can see that it might not seem that significant to some, but I was a young girl from Gilead, and I had not been exposed to these kinds of situations, so this event was not trivial to me. Instead it was horrifying. It was also shameful: when a shameful thing is done to you, the shamefulness rubs off on you. You feel dirtied.
The prelude was minor: I needed to go to the dentist for my yearly checkup. The dentist was Becka’s father, and his name was Dr. Grove. He was the best dentist, said Vera: all the top Commanders and their families went to him. His office was in the Blessings of Health Building, which was for doctors and dentists. It had a picture of a smiling heart and a smiling tooth on the outside.
One of the Marthas always used to go with me to the doctor or the dentist and sit in the waiting room, as it was more proper that way, Tabitha used to say without explaining why, but Paula said the Guardian could just drive me there, since there was too much work to be done in the house considering the changes that had to be prepared for—by which she meant the baby—and it would be a waste of time to send a Martha.
I did not mind. In fact, going by myself made me feel very grown up. I sat up straight in the back seat of the car behind our Guardian. Then I went into the building and pressed the elevator button that had three teeth on it, and found the right floor and the right door, and sat in the waiting room looking at the pictures of transparent teeth on the wall. When it was my turn I went into the inner room, as the assistant, Mr. William, asked me to do, and sat down in the dentist chair. Dr. Grove came in and Mr. William brought my chart and then went out and closed the door, and Dr. Grove looked at my chart, and asked if I had any problems with my teeth, and I said no.
He poked around in my mouth with his picks and probes and his little mirror, as usual. As usual, I saw his eyes up close, magnified by his glasses—blue and bloodshot, with elephant-knee eyelids—and tried not to breathe in when he was breathing out because his breath smelled—as usual—of onions. He was a middle-aged man with no distinguishing features.
He snapped off his white stretchy sanitary gloves and washed his hands at the sink, which was behind my back.
He said, “Perfect teeth. Perfect.” Then he said, “You’re getting to be a big girl, Agnes.”
Then he put his hand on my small but growing breast. It was summer, so I was wearing the summer school uniform, which was pink and made of light cotton.
I froze, in shock. So it was all true then, about men and their rampaging, fiery urges, and merely by sitting in the dentist chair I was the cause. I was horribly embarrassed—what was I supposed to say? I didn’t know, so I simply pretended it wasn’t happening.
Dr. Grove was standing behind me, so it was his left hand on my left breast. I couldn’t see the rest of him, only his hand, which was large and had reddish hairs on the back. It was warm. It sat there on my breast like a large hot crab. I didn’t know what to do. Should I take hold of his hand and move it off my breast? Would that cause even more burning lust to break forth? Should I try to get away? Then the hand squeezed my breast. The fingers found my nipple and pinched. It was like having a thumbtack stuck into me. I moved the upper part of my body forward—I needed to get out of that dentist chair as fast as I could—but the hand was locking me in. Suddenly it lifted, and then some of the rest of Dr. Grove moved into sight.
“About time you saw one of these,” he said in the normal voice in which he said everything. “You’ll have one of them inside you soon enough.” He took hold of my right hand and positioned it on this part of himself.
I don’t think I need to tell you what happened next. He had a towel handy. He wiped himself off and tucked his appendage back into his trousers.
“There,” he said. “Good girl. I didn’t hurt you.” He gave me a fatherly pat on the shoulder. “Don’t forget to brush twice a day, and floss afterwards. Mr. William will give you a new toothbrush.”
I walked out of the room, feeling sick to my stomach. Mr. William was in the waiting room, his unobtrusive thirty-year-old face impassive. He held out a bowl with new pink and blue toothbrushes in it. I knew enough to take a pink one.
“Thank you,” I said.
“You’re welcome,” said Mr. William. “Any cavities?”
“No,” I said. “Not this time.”
“Good,” said Mr. William. “Keep away from the sweet things and maybe you’ll never have any. Any decay. Are you all right?”
“Yes,” I said. Where was the door?
“You look pale. Some people have a fear of dentists.” Was that a smirk? Did he know what had just happened?
“I’m not pale,” I said stupidly—how could I tell I wasn’t pale? I found the door handle and blundered out, reached the elevator, pressed the down button.
Was this now going to happen every time I went to the dentist? I couldn’t say I didn’t want to go back to Dr. Grove without saying why, and if I said why I knew I would be in trouble. The Aunts at school taught us that you should tell someone in authority—meaning them—if any man touched you inappropriately, but we knew not to be so dumb as to make a fuss, especially if it was a well-respected man like Dr. Grove. Also, what would it do to Becka if I said that about her father? She would be humiliated, she would be devastated. It would be a terrible betrayal.
Some girls had reported such things. One had claimed their Guardian had run his hands over her legs. Another had said that an Econo trash collector had unzipped his trousers in front of her. The first girl had had the backs of her legs whipped for lying, the second had been told that nice girls did not notice the minor antics of men, they simply looked the other way.
But I could not have looked the other way. There had been no other way to look.
“I don’t want any dinner,” I said to Zilla in the kitchen. She gave me a sharp glance.
“Did your dentist appointment go all right, dear?” she said. “Any cavities?”
“No,” I said. I tried a wan smile. “I have perfect teeth.”
“Are you ill?”
“Maybe I’m catching a cold,” I said. “I just need to lie down.”
Zilla made me a hot drink with lemon and honey in it and brought it up to my room on a tray. “I should have gone with you,” she said. “But he’s the best dentist. Everyone agrees.”
She knew. Or she suspected. She was warning me not to say anything. That was the kind of coded language they used. Or I should say: that we all used. Did Paula know too? Did she foresee that such a thing would happen to me at Dr. Grove’s? Is that why she sent me by myself?
It must have been so, I decided. She’d done it on purpose so I would have my breast pinched and that polluting item thrust in front of me. She’d wanted me to be defiled. That was a word from the Bible: defiled. She was probably having a malicious laugh about it—about the nasty joke she’d played on me, for I could see that in her eyes it would be viewed as a joke.
After that I stopped praying for forgiveness about the hatred I felt towards her. I was right to hate her. I was prepared to think the very worst of her, and I did.