Therefore we learned how to poach an egg properly, and at what temperature a quiche ought to be served, and the difference between a bisque and a potage. I can’t say I remember much about these lessons now, as I never was in a position to put them into practice.
She reviewed with us the proper prayers to say before meals too. Our husbands would recite the prayers when they were present, as heads of the household, but when they were absent—as they would be often, since they would have to work late hours, nor should we ever criticize their lateness—then it would be our duty to say these prayers on behalf of what Aunt Lise hoped would be our numerous children. Here she gave a tight little smile.
Through my head was running the pretend prayer that Shunammite and I used to amuse ourselves with when we were best friends at the Vidala School:
Bless my overflowing cup,
It flowed upon the floor:
That’s because I threw it up,
Now Lord I’m back for more.
The sound of our giggling receded into the distance. How badly we’d thought we were behaving then! How innocent and ineffectual these tiny rebellions seemed to me now that I was preparing for marriage.
* * *
—
As the summer wore on, Aunt Lise taught us the basics of interior decorating, though the final choices about the style of our homes would of course be made by our husbands. She then taught us flower arrangement, the Japanese style and the French style.
By the time we got to the French style, Becka was deeply dejected. Her wedding was planned for November. The man selected for her had paid his first visit to her family. He’d been received in their living room, and had made small talk with her father while she’d sat there silently—this was the protocol, and I would be expected to do the same—and she said he’d made her flesh crawl. He had pimples and a scraggly little moustache, and his tongue was white.
Shunammite laughed and said it was probably toothpaste, he must have brushed his teeth just before coming because he wanted to make a good impression on her, and wasn’t that sweet? But Becka said she wished she was ill, severely ill with something not only prolonged but catching, because then any proposed wedding would have to be called off.
On the fourth day of French-style flower-arranging, when we were learning to do symmetrical formal vases with contrasting but complementary textures, Becka slashed her left wrist with the secateurs and had to be taken to the hospital. The cut wasn’t fatally deep, but a lot of blood came out nonetheless. It ruined the white Shasta daisies.
I’d been watching when she did it. I could not forget her expression: it had a ferocity I had never seen in her before, and which I found very disturbing. It was as if she’d turned into a different person—a much wilder one—though only for a moment. By the time the paramedics had come and were taking her away, she’d looked serene.
“Goodbye, Agnes,” she’d said to me, but I hadn’t known how to answer.
“That girl is immature,” said Aunt Lise. She wore her hair in a chignon, which was quite elegant. She looked at us sideways, down her long patrician nose. “Unlike you girls,” she added.
Shunammite beamed—she was all set to be mature—and I managed a little smile. I thought I was learning how to act; or rather, how to be an actress. Or how to be a better actress than before.
XI
Sackcloth
The Ardua Hall Holograph
29
Last night I had a nightmare. I have had it before.
Earlier in this account I said that I would not try your patience with a recital of my dreams. But as this one has a bearing on what I am about to tell you, I will make an exception. You are of course fully in control of what you choose to read, and may pass over this dream of mine at will.
I am standing in the stadium, wearing the brown dressing-gown-like garment that was issued to me in the repurposed hotel during my recovery from the Thank Tank. Standing in a line with me are several other women in the same penitential garb, and several men in black uniforms. Each of us has a rifle. We know that some of these rifles contain blanks, some not; but we will all be killers nonetheless, because it’s the thought that counts.
Facing us are two rows of women: one standing, one kneeling. They are not wearing blindfolds. I can see their faces. I recognize them, each and every one. Former friends, former clients, former colleagues; and, more recently, women and girls who have passed through my hands. Wives, daughters, Handmaids. Some have missing fingers, some have one foot, some have one eye. Some have ropes around their necks. I have judged them, I have passed sentence: once a judge, always a judge. But they are all smiling. What do I see in their eyes? Fear, contempt, defiance? Pity? It’s impossible to tell.
Those of us with rifles raise them. We fire. Something enters my lungs. I can’t breathe. I choke, I fall.
I wake up in a cold sweat, heart pounding. They say that a nightmare can frighten you to death, that your heart can literally stop. Will this bad dream kill me, one of these nights? Surely it will take more than that.
* * *
—
I was telling you about my seclusion in the Thank Tank and the luxurious experience in the hotel room that followed. It was like a recipe for tough steak: hammer it with a mallet, then marinate and tenderize.
An hour after I’d put on the penitential garb provided for me there was a knock at the door; a two-man escort was waiting. I was conducted along the corridor to another room. My white-bearded interlocutor from the time before was there, not behind a desk this time but seated comfortably in an armchair.
“You may sit down,” said Commander Judd. This time I was not forced into the chair: I sat down in it of my own accord.
“I hope our little regimen was not too strenuous for you,” he said. “You were treated only to Level One.” There was nothing to be said to this, so I said nothing. “Was it enlightening?”
“How do you mean?”
“Did you see the light? The Divine Light?” What was the right answer to this? He would know if I were lying.
“It was enlightening,” I said. This seemed to be sufficient.
“Fifty-three?”
“You mean my age? Yes,” I said.
“You’ve had lovers,” he said. I wondered how he had found that out, and was slightly flattered that he’d bothered.
“Briefly,” I said. “Several. No long-term successes.” Had I ever been in love? I didn’t think so. My experience with the men in my family had not encouraged trust. But the body has its twitches, which it can be humiliating as well as rewarding to obey. No lasting harm was done to me, some pleasure was both given and received, and none of these individuals took their swift dismissal from my life as a personal affront. Why expect more?
“You had an abortion,” he said. So they’d been rifling through some records.
“Only one,” I said fatuously. “I was very young.”
He made a disapproving grunt. “You are aware that this form of person-murder is now punishable by death? The law is retroactive.”
“I was not aware of that.” I felt cold. But if they were going to shoot me, why this interrogation?
“One marriage?”
“A brief one. It was a mistake.”
“Divorce is now a crime,” he said. I said nothing.
“Never blessed with children?”
“No.”
“Wasted your woman’s body? Denied its natural function?”
“It didn’t happen,” I said, keeping the edge out of my voice as much as I could.
“Pity,” he said. “Under us, every virtuous woman may have a child, one way or another, as God intended. But I expect you were fully occupied in your, ah, so-called career.”
I ignored the slight. “I had a demanding schedule, yes.”
“Two terms as a schoolteacher?”
“Yes. But I went back to law.”
“Domestic cases? Sexual assault? Female criminals? Sex workers suing for enhanced protection? Property rights in divorces? Medical malpractice, especially by gynecologists? Removal of children from unfit mothers?” He had taken out a list and was reading from it.
“When necessary, yes,” I said.
“Short stint as a volunteer at a rape crisis centre?”
“When I was a student,” I said.
“The South Street Sanctuary, yes? You stopped because…?”
“I got too busy,” I said. Then I added another truth, as there was no point in not being frank: “Also it wore me down.”
“Yes,” he said, twinkling. “It wears you down. All that needless suffering of women. We intend to eliminate that. I am sure you approve.” He paused, as if giving me a moment to ponder this. Then he smiled anew. “So. Which is it to be?”
My old self would have said, “Which of what?” or something similarly casual. Instead I said, “You mean yes or no?”
“Correct. You have experienced the consequences of no, or some of them. Whereas yes…let me just say that those who are not with us are against us.”
“I see,” I said. “Then it’s yes.”
“You will have to prove,” he said, “that you mean it. Are you prepared to do that?”
“Yes,” I said again. “How?”
* * *
—
There was an ordeal. You have most likely suspected what it was. It was like my nightmare, except that the women were blindfolded and when I shot I did not fall. This was Commander Judd’s test: fail it, and your commitment to the one true way would be voided. Pass it, and blood was on your hands. As someone once said, We must all hang together or we will all hang separately.
I did show some weakness: I threw up afterwards.
One of the targets was Anita. Why had she been singled out to die? Even after the Thank Tank, she must have said no instead of yes. She must have chosen a quick exit. But in fact I have no idea why. Perhaps it was very simple: she was not considered useful to the regime, whereas I was.
* * *
—
This morning I got up an hour early to steal a few moments before breakfast with you, my reader. You’ve become somewhat of an obsession—my sole confidant, my only friend—for to whom can I tell the truth besides you? Who else can I trust?
Not that I can trust you either. Who is more likely to betray me in the end? I will lie neglected in some spidery corner or under a bed while you go off to picnics and dances—yes, dancing will return, it’s hard to suppress it forever—or to trysts with a warm body, so much more attractive than the wad of crumbling paper I will have become. But I forgive you in advance. I, too, was once like you: fatally hooked on life.
Why am I taking your existence for granted? Perhaps you will never materialize: you’re only a wish, a possibility, a phantom. Dare I say a hope? I am allowed to hope, surely. It’s not yet the midnight of my life; the bell has not yet tolled, and Mephistopheles has not yet turned up to collect the price I must pay for our bargain.
For there was a bargain. Of course there was. Though I didn’t make it with the Devil: I made it with Commander Judd.
* * *
—
My first meeting with Elizabeth, Helena, and Vidala took place the day after my trial by murder in the stadium. The four of us were ushered into one of the hotel boardrooms. We all looked different then: younger, trimmer, less gnarled. Elizabeth, Helena, and I were wearing the brown sack-like garments I’ve described, but Vidala already had on a proper uniform: not the Aunts’ uniform later devised, but a black one.
Commander Judd was awaiting us. He sat at the head of the boardroom table, naturally. Before him was a tray with a coffee pot and cups. He poured ceremoniously, smiling.
“Congratulations,” he began. “You have passed the test. You are brands snatched from the burning.” He poured his own coffee, added creamer, sipped. “You may have been wondering why a person such as myself, successful enough under the previous corrupt dispensation, has acted in the way I have. Don’t think I don’t realize the gravity of my behaviour. Some might call the overthrowing of an illegitimate government an act of treason; without a doubt, many have had this thought about me. Now that you have joined us, it is the same thought that others will have about you. But loyalty to a higher truth is not treason, for the ways of God are not the ways of man, and they are most emphatically not the ways of woman.”
Vidala watched us being lectured by him, smiling a tiny smile: whatever he was persuading us about was already an accepted creed to her.
I took care not to react. It’s a skill, not reacting. He looked from one blank face to another. “You may drink your coffee,” he said. “A valuable commodity that is increasingly difficult to obtain. It would be a sin to reject what God has provided to his favoured ones through his bounty.” At this we picked up our cups, as if at a ceremonial communion.
He continued: “We have seen the results of too much laxity, too much hunger for material luxuries, and the absence of the meaningful structures that lead to a balanced and stable society. Our birth rate—for various reasons, but most significantly through the selfish choices of women—is in free fall. You do agree that human beings are at their most unhappy when in the midst of chaos? That rules and boundaries promote stability and thus happiness? You follow me so far?”
We nodded.
“Is that a yes?” He pointed at Elizabeth.
“Yes,” she said in a voice squeaky with fright. She was younger and still attractive then; she hadn’t yet allowed her body to engorge. I have noted since that some kinds of men like to bully beautiful women.
“Yes, Commander Judd,” he admonished. “Titles must be respected.”
“Yes, Commander Judd.” I could smell her fear from across the table; I wondered if she could smell mine. It has an acid smell, fear. It’s corrosive.
She, too, has been alone in the dark, I thought. She has been tested in the stadium. She, too, has gazed into herself, and has seen the void.
“Society is best served by separate spheres for men and women,” Commander Judd continued in a sterner voice. “We have seen the disastrous results of the attempt to meld those spheres. Any questions so far?”
“Yes, Commander Judd,” I said. “I have a question.”
He smiled, though not warmly. “Proceed.”
“What do you want?”
He smiled again. “Thank you. What do we want from you in particular? We’re building a society congruent with the Divine Order—a city upon a hill, a light to all nations—and we are acting out of charitable care and concern. We believe that you, with your privileged training, are well qualified to aid us in ameliorating the distressing lot of women that has been caused by the decadent and corrupt society we are now abolishing.” He paused. “You wish to help?” This time the pointing finger singled out Helena.
“Yes, Commander Judd.” Almost a whisper.
“Good. You are all intelligent women. Through your former…” He did not want to say professions. “Through your former experiences, you are familiar with the lives of women. You know how they are likely to think, or let me rephrase that—how they are likely to react to stimuli, both positive and less positive. You can therefore be of service—a service that will qualify you for certain advantages. We would expect you to be spiritual guides and mentors—leaders, so to speak—within your own womanly sphere. More coffee?” He poured. We stirred, sipped, waited.
“Simply put,” he continued, “we want you to help us to organize the separate sphere—the sphere for women. With, as its goal, the optimal amount of harmony, both civic and domestic, and the optimal number of offspring. Other questions?” Elizabeth put up her hand.
“Yes?” he said.
“Will we
have to…pray, and so forth?” she asked.
“Prayer is cumulative,” he said. “You’ll come to understand what a lot of reasons you’ll have to give thanks to a power greater than yourselves. My, ah, colleague”—he indicated Vidala—“has volunteered to be your spiritual instructor, having been part of our movement since its inception.”
There was a pause while Elizabeth, Helena, and I absorbed this information. By this greater power, did he mean himself? “I am sure we can help,” I said finally. “But it will take a considerable amount of work. Women have been told for so long that they can achieve equality in the professional and public spheres. They will not welcome the…” I sought for a word. “The segregation.”
“It was always a cruelty to promise them equality,” he said, “since by their nature they can never achieve it. We have already begun the merciful task of lowering their expectations.”
I did not want to inquire about the means being used. Were they similar to those that had been applied to me? We waited while he poured more coffee for himself.
“Of course you will need to create laws and all of that,” he said. “You’ll be given a budget, a base of operations, and a dormitory. We’ve set aside a student residential complex for you, within the walled compound of one of the former universities we have requisitioned. It will not need much alteration. I am sure it will be comfortable enough.”
The Testaments Page 15