40
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.”
Part XV - Fox and Cat
The Ardua Hall Holograph
41
All things come to she who waits. Time wounds all heels. Patience is a virtue. Vengeance is mine.
These hoary chestnuts are not always true, but they are sometimes true. Here’s one that is always true: everything’s in the timing. Like jokes.
Not that we have many jokes around here. We would not wish to be accused of bad taste or frivolity. In a hierarchy of the powerful, the only ones allowed to make jokes are those at the top, and they do so in private.
But to the point.
It has been so crucial for my own mental development to have had the privilege of being a fly on the wall; or, to be more exact, an ear inside the wall. So instructive, the confidences shared by young women when they believe no third party is listening. Over the years I increased the sensitivity of my microphones, I attuned them to whispers, I held my breath to see which of our newly recruited girls would provide me with the sort of shameful information I both craved and collected. Gradually my dossiers filled up, like a hot-air balloon getting ready for liftoff.
In the matter of Becka, it took years. She’d always been so reticent about the primary cause of her distress, even to her school friend Agnes. I had to wait for sufficient trust to develop.
It was Agnes who finally broached the question. I use their earlier names here—Agnes, Becka—since it was these names they used among themselves. Their transformation into perfect Aunts was far from complete, which pleased me. But then, no one’s is when push comes to shove.
“Becka, what really happened to you?” Agnes said one day when they were engaged in their Bible studies. “To make you so set against marriage.” Silence. “I know there was something. Please, wouldn’t you like to share it with me?”
“I can’t say.”
“You can trust me, I won’t tell.”
Then, in bits and pieces, it came out. The wretched Dr. Grove had not stopped at the fondling of his young patients in the dentist’s chair. I had known about this for some time. I had even collected photographic evidence, but I had passed over it, since the testimonies of young girls—if testimonies can be extracted from them, which in this case I doubted—would count for little or nothing. Even with grown women, four female witnesses are the equivalent of one male, here in Gilead.
Grove had depended on that. Also, the man had the confidence of the Commanders: he was an excellent dentist, and much latitude is given by those in power to professionals who can relieve them of pain. The doctors, the dentists, the lawyers, the accountants: in the new world of Gilead, as in the old, their sins are frequently forgiven them.
But what Grove had done to the young Becka—the very young Becka, and then the older but still young Becka—that, to my mind, demanded retribution.
Becka herself could not be relied upon to exact it. She would not testify against Grove, of that I was certain. Her conversation with Agnes confirmed this.
AGNES: We have to tell someone.
BECKA: No, there’s no one.
AGNES: We could tell Aunt Lydia.
BECKA: She’d say he was my parent and we should obey our parents, it’s God’s plan. That’s what my father said himself.
AGNES: But he isn’t your parent really. Not if he did that to you. You were stolen from your mother, you were handed over as a baby….
BECKA: He said he was set in authority over me by God.
AGNES: What about your so-called mother?
BECKA: She wouldn’t believe me. Even if she did, she’d say I led him on. They’d all say that.
AGNES: But you were four!
BECKA: They’d say it anyway. You know they would. They can’t start taking the word of…of people like me. And suppose they did believe me, he’d be killed, he’d be ripped apart by the Handmaids at a Particicution, and it would be my fault. I couldn’t live with that. It would be like murder.
* * *
I haven’t added the tears, the comfortings by Agnes, the vows of eternal friendship, the prayers. But they were there. It was enough to melt the hardest heart. It almost melted mine.
The upshot was that Becka had decided to offer up this silent suffering of hers as a sacrifice to God. I am not sure what God thought of this, but it did not do the trick for me. Once a judge, always a judge. I judged, I pronounced the sentence. But how to carry it out?
After pondering for some time, I decided last week to make my move. I invited Aunt Elizabeth for a cup of mint tea at the Schlafly Café.
She was all smiles: she had been singled out for my favour. “Aunt Lydia,” she said. “This is an unexpected pleasure!” She had very good manners when she chose to use them. Once a Vassar girl, always a Vassar girl, as I sometimes said snidely to myself while watching her beating to a pulp the feet of some recalcitrant Handmaid prospect in the Rachel and Leah Centre.
“I thought we should have a confidential talk,” I said. She leaned forward, expecting gossip.
“I’m all ears,” she said. An untruth—her ears were a small part of her—but I let that pass.
“I’ve often wondered,” I said. “If you were an animal, what animal would you be?”
She leaned back, puzzled. “I can’t say I’ve given it any thought,” she said. “Since God did not make me an animal.”
“Indulge me,” I said. “For instance: fox or cat?”
* * *
Here, my reader, I owe you an explanation. As a child I’d read a book called Aesop’s Fables. I’d got it from the school library: my family did not spend money on books. In this book was a story I have often meditated upon. Here it is.
Fox and Cat were discussing their respective ways of evading the hunters and their dogs. Fox said he had a whole bag of tricks, and if the hunters came with their dogs he would employ them one by one—doubling back on his own tracks, running through water to destroy his scent, diving into a den with several exits. The hunters would be worn out by Fox’s cleverness and would give up, leaving Fox to continue his career of theft and barnyard muggings. “And what about you, dear Cat?” he asked. “What are your tricks?”
“I have only one trick,” Cat replied. “When in extremis, I know how to climb a tree.”
Fox thanked Cat for the entertaining pre-prandial conversation and declared that it was now dinnertime and Cat was on the menu. Snapping of fox teeth, clumps of cat fur. A name tag was spat out. Posters of missing Cat were stapled to telephone poles, with heartfelt pleas from woebegone children.
Sorry. I get carried away. The fable continues as follows:
The hunters and their dogs arrive on the scene. Fox tries all his tricks, but he runs out of ruses and is killed. Cat, meanwhile, has climbed a tree and is watching the scene with equanimity. “Not so clever after all!” she jeers. Or some such mean-spirited remark.
In the early days of Gilead, I used to ask myself whether I was Fox or Cat. Should I twist and turn, using the secrets in my possession to manipulate others, or should I zip my lip and rejoice as others outsmarted themselves? Obviously I was both, since—unlike many—here I still am. I still have a bag of tricks. And I’m still high in the tree.
* * *
But Aunt Elizabeth knew nothing of my private musings. “I honestly don’t know,” she said. “Maybe a cat.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’d have pegged you as a cat. But now perhaps you must draw upon your inner fox.” I paused.
“Aunt Vidala is attempting to incriminate you,” I continued. “She claims that you are accusing me of heresy and idolatry by planting eggs and oranges on my own statue.”
Aunt Elizabeth was distraught. “That is untrue! Why would Vidala say that? I have never harmed her!”
“Who can fathom the secrets of the human soul?” I said. “None of us is exempt from sin. Aunt Vidala is ambitious. She may have detected that you are de facto second-in-command to me.” Here Elizabeth brightened, as this was news to her. “She will have deduced that you are thus next in the line of succession here at Ardua Hall. She must resent this, as she considers herself your senior, and indeed mine, having been an early believer in Gilead. I am not young, nor in the best of health; she must feel that, in order to claim her rightful position, it is necessary to eliminate you. Hence her desire for new rules outlawing the offerings at my statue. With punishments,” I added. “She must be angling for my expulsion from the Aunts and for yours as well.”
Elizabeth was weeping by now. “How could she be so vindictive?” she sobbed. “I thought we were friends.”
“Friendship, alas, can be skin deep. Don’t worry. I will protect you.”
“I’m immensely grateful, Aunt Lydia. You have such integrity!”
“Thank you,” I said. “But there is one little thing I want you to do for me in return.”
“Oh yes! Of course,” she said. “What is it?”
“I want you to bear false witness,” I said.
This was not a trivial request: Elizabeth would be risking much. Gilead takes a stern view of bearing false witness, though it is nonetheless done frequently.
Part XVI - PEARL GIRLS
Transcript of Witness Testimony 369B
42
My first day as the runaway Jade was a Thursday. Melanie used to say that I was born on a Thursday and that meant I had far to go—this was an old nursery rhyme that also says Wednesday’s child is full of woe, so when I was feeling grumpy I’d say she got the day wrong and it was really Wednesday, and she would say no, of course not, she knew exactly when I was born, how could she ever forget it?
Anyway, it was a Thursday. I was sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk with Garth, wearing black tights with a rip in them—Ada had supplied them, but I had made the rip myself—and magenta shorts over them, and worn-out silver gel shoes that looked as if they’d been through the digestive system of a raccoon. I had a dingy pink top—it was sleeveless because Ada said I should display my new tattoo. I had a grey hoodie tied around my waist and a black baseball cap. None of the clothes fit: they had to look as if I’d grabbed them out of dump bins. I’d dirtied up my new green hair to give the impression that I’d been sleeping rough. The green was already fading.
“You look amazing,” said Garth once he saw me in the full costume and ready to go.
“Amazingly like shit,” I said.
“Great shit,” said Garth. I thought he was only trying to be nice to me, and I resented that. I wanted him to actually mean it. “But once you’re in Gilead, you’ll really have to cut the swearing. Maybe even let them convert you out of it.”
There were a lot of instructions to remember. I was feeling nervous—I was sure I would mess up—but Garth said just act stupid, and I’d said thanks for saying act.
I wasn’t very good at flirting. I’d never done it before.
* * *
The two of us were set up outside a bank, which Garth said was a prime location if you were angling for free cash: people coming out of banks are more likely to give you some. Another person—a woman in a wheelchair—usually had this space, but Mayday had paid her to relocate for as long as we needed it: the Pearl Girls had a route they followed, and our spot was on it.
The sun was blazing so we were backed against the wall, in a little slice of shade. I had an old straw hat in front of me with a cardboard sign in crayon: HOMELESS PLEASE HELP. There were a few coins in the hat: Garth said that if people saw someone else had put money in they’d be more likely to do it themselves. I was supposed to be acting lost and disoriented, which wasn’t hard to do, since I really felt that way.
A block to the east, George was set up on another corner. He’d call Ada and Elijah if there was any trouble, either with the Pearl Girls or the police. They were in a van, cruising the area.
Garth didn’t talk much. I decided he was a cross between a babysitter and a bodyguard, so he wasn’t there to make conversation and there was no rule that said he had to be nice to me. He was wearing a black sleeveless T-shirt that showed his own tattoos—a squid on one biceps, a bat on the other, both of them in black. He had one of those knitted caps, also in black.
“Smile at the people if they toss in,” he said after I’d failed to do this for a white-haired old lady. “Say something.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Some people say ‘God bless you.’ ”
Neil would’ve been shocked if I’d ever said such a thing. “That would be a lie. If I don’t believe in God.”
“Okay then. ‘Thanks’ will do,” he said patiently. “Or ‘Have a nice day.’ ”
“I can’t say those,” I said. “It’s hypocritical. I don’t feel thankful, and I don’t care what kind of an asshole day they have.”
He laughed. “Now you’re worried about lying? Then why not change your name back to Nicole?”
“It’s not my name of choice. It’s bottom of the freaking list, you know that.” I crossed my arms on my knees and turned away from him. I was getting more childish by the minute: he brought it out in me.
“Don’t waste your anger on me,” said Garth. “I’m just furniture. Save it for Gilead.”
“You all said I had to have attitude. So, this is my attitude.”
“Here come the Pearl Girls,” he said. “Don’t stare at them. Don’t even see them. Act like you’re stoned.”
I don’t know how he’d spotted them without seeming to look, they were way down the street. But soon they were level with us: two of them, in their silvery grey dresses with long skirts, their white collars, their white hats. A redhead, from the wisps of her hair that were showing, and a brunette, judging from the eyebrows. They smiled down on me where I sat against the wall.
“Good morning, dear,” the redhead said. “What’s your name?”
“We can help you,” said the brunette. “No homeless in Gilead.” I gazed up at her, hoping I looked as woeful as I felt. They both were so prim and groomed; they made me feel triple grubby.
Garth put his hand on my right arm, gripped it possessively. “She’s not talking to you,” he said.
“Isn’t that up to her?” said the redhead. I looked sideways at Garth as if asking for permission.
“What’s that on your arm?” said the taller one, the brunette. She peered down.
“Is he abusing you, dear?” the redhead asked.
The other one smiled. “Is he selling you? We can make things so much better for you.”
“Fuck off, Gilead bitches,” Garth said with impressive savagery. I looked up at the two of them, neat and clean in their pearly dresses and their white necklaces, and, believe it or not, a tear rolled down my cheek. I knew they had an agenda and didn’t give a shit about me—they just wanted to collect me and add me to their quota—but their kindness made me go a little wobbly. I wanted to have someone lift me up, then tuck me in.
“Oh my,” said the redhead. “A real hero. At least let her take this.” She thrust a brochure at me. It said “There Is a Home in Gilead for You!” “God bless.” The two of them left, glancing back once.
“Wasn’t I supposed to let them pick me up?” I said. “Shouldn’t I go with them?”
“Not the first time. We can’t make it too easy for them,” said Garth. “If anyone’s watching from Gilead—it would be too suspicious. Don’t worry, they’ll be back.”
43
That night we slept under a bridge. It crossed a ravine, with a creek at the bottom. A mist was rising: after the hot day, it was chilly and damp. The earth stank of cat piss, or maybe a skunk. I put on the grey hoodie, easing the arm down over my tattoo scar. It was still a little painful.
There were four or five others under the bridge with us, three men and two women, I think, though it was dark and it was hard to tell. George was one of the men; he acted as if he didn’t know us. One of the women offered cigarettes, but I knew better than to try to smoke one—I would cough and give myself away. A bottle was being passed around too. Garth had told me not to smoke or drink anything, because who knew what might be in it?
He’d also told me not to talk to anyone: any of these people could be a Gilead plant, and if they tried to ferret out my story and I slipped up, they’d smell a rat and warn the Pearl Girls. He did the talking, which was mostly grunts. He seemed to know a couple of them. One of them said, “What is she, retarded? How come she doesn’t talk?” and Garth said, “She only talks to me,” and the other one said, “Nice work, what’s your secret?”
We had several green plastic garbage bags to lie down on. Garth wrapped his arms around me, which made it warmer. At first I pushed his top arm away, but he whispered into my ear, “Remember, you’re my girlfriend,” so I stopped wriggling. I knew his hug was acting, but at that moment I didn’t care. I really did feel almost as if he was my first boyfriend. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
The next night Garth got into a fight with one of the men under the bridge. It was a quick fight and Garth won. I didn’t see how—it was a short, swift move. Then he said we should relocate, so the next night we slept inside a downtown church. He had a key; I don’t know where he got it. We weren’t the only people sleeping in there, judging by the junk and crap under the pews: discarded backpacks, empty bottles, the odd needle.
We ate in fast-food places, which cured me of junk food. I used to think it was slightly glamorous, probably because Melanie disapproved of it, but if you eat it all the time you get a sickly bloated feeling. That’s also where I went to the washroom, in the daytime, when I wasn’t squatting in one of the ravines.
The fourth night was a cemetery. Cemeteries were good, said Garth, but there were often too many people in them. Some of them thought it was entertaining to jump up at you from behind a tombstone, but those were just kids running away from home for the weekend. The street people knew that scaring someone like that in the dark was likely to get you knifed, because not everyone roaming in cemeteries was completely stable.
“Such as you,” I said. He didn’t react. I was probably getting on his nerves.
I should mention here that Garth didn’t take advantage, even though he must have realized that I had a puppy-love crush on him. He was there to protect me, and he did, including protecting me from himself. I like to think he found that hard.