The Handmaid's Tale (26 page)

"It's a club?" I say.

"Well, that's what we call it, among ourselves. The club."

"I thought this sort of thing was strictly forbidden," I say.

"Well, officially," he says. "But everyone's human, after all."

I wait for him to elaborate on this, but he doesn't, so I say, "What does that mean?"

"It means you can't cheat Nature," he says. "Nature demands variety, for men. It stands to reason, it's part of the procreational strategy. It's Nature's plan." I don't say anything, so he goes on. "Women know that instinctively. Why did they buy so many different clothes, in the old days? To trick the men into thinking they were several different women. A new one each day."

He says this as if he believes it, but he says many things that way. Maybe he believes it, maybe he doesn't, or maybe he does both at the same time. Impossible to tell what he believes.

"So now that we don't have different clothes," I say, "you merely have different women." This is irony, but he doesn't acknowledge it.

"It solves a lot of problems," he says, without a twitch.

I don't reply to this. I am getting fed up with him. I feel like freezing on him, passing the rest of the evening in sulky wordlessness. But I can't afford that and I know it. Whatever this is, it's still an evening out.

What I'd really like to do is talk with the women, but I see scant chance of that.

"Who are these people?" I ask him.

"It's only for officers," he says. "From all branches; and senior officials. And trade delegations, of course. It stimulates trade. It's a good place to meet people. You can hardly do business without it. We try to provide at least as good as they can get elsewhere. You can overhear things too; information. A man will sometimes tell a woman things he wouldn't tell another man."

"No," I say, "I mean the women."

"Oh," he says. "Well, some of them are real pros. Working girls" — he laughs — "from the time before. They couldn't be assimilated; anyway, most of them prefer it here."

"And the others?"

"The others?" he says. "Well, we have quite a collection. That one there, the one in green, she's a sociologist. Or was. That one was a lawyer, that one was in business, an executive position; some sort of fast-food chain or maybe it was hotels. I'm told you can have quite a good conversation with her if all you feel like is talking. They prefer it here, too."

"Prefer it to what?" I say.

"To the alternatives," he says. "You might even prefer it yourself, to what you've got." He says this coyly, he's fishing, he wants to be complimented, and I know that the serious part of the conversation has come to an end.

"I don't know," I say, as if considering it. "It might be hard work."

"You'd have to watch your weight, that's for sure," he says. "They're strict about that. Gain ten pounds and they put you in Solitary." Is he joking? Most likely, but I don't want to know.

"Now," he says, "to get you into the spirit of the place, how about a little drink?"

"I'm not supposed to," I say. "As you know."

"Once won't hurt," he says. "Anyway, it wouldn't look right if you didn't. No nicotine-and-alcohol taboos here! You see, they do have some advantages here."

"All right," I say. Secretly I like the idea, I haven't had a drink for years.

"What'll it be, then?" he says. "They've got everything here. Imported."

"A gin and tonic," I say. "But weak, please. I wouldn't want to disgrace you."

"You won't do that," he says, grinning. He stands up, then, surprisingly, takes my hand and kisses it, on the palm. Then he moves off, heading for the bar. He could have called over a waitress, there are some of these, in identical black miniskirts with pompoms on their breasts, but they seem busy and hard to flag down.

Then I see her. Moira. She's standing with two other women, over near the fountain. I have to look hard, again, to make sure it's her; I do this in pulses, quick flickers of the eyes, so no one will notice. She's dressed absurdly, in a black outfit of once-shiny satin that looks the worse for wear. It's strapless, wired from the inside, pushing up the breasts, but it doesn't quite fit Moira, it's too large, so that one breast is plumped out and the other one isn't. She's tugging absent-mindedly at the top, pulling it up. There's a wad of cotton attached to the back, I can see it as she half turns; it looks like a sanitary pad that's been popped like a piece of popcorn. I realize that it's supposed to be a tail. Attached to her head are two ears, of a rabbit or deer, it's not easy to tell; one of the ears has lost its starch or wiring and is flopping halfway down. She has a black bow tie around her neck and is wearing black net stockings and black high heels. She always hated high heels.

The whole costume, antique and bizarre, reminds me of something from the past, but I can't think what. A stage play, a musical comedy? Girls dressed for Easter, in rabbit suits. What is the significance of it here, why are rabbits supposed to be sexually attractive to men? How can this bedraggled costume appeal?

Moira is smoking a cigarette. She takes a drag, passes it to the woman on her left, who's in red spangles with a long pointed tail attached, and silver horns; a devil outfit. Now she has her arms folded across her front, under her wired-up breasts. She stands on one foot, then the other, her feet must hurt; her spine sags slightly. She gazes without interest or speculation around the room. This must be familiar scenery.

I will her to look at me, to see me, but her eyes slide over me as if I'm just another palm tree, another chair. Surely she must turn, I'm willing so hard, she must look at me, before one of the men comes over to her, before she disappears. Already the other women with her, the blonde in the short pink bed jacket with the tatty fur trim, has been appropriated, has entered the glass elevator, has ascended out of sight. Moira swivels her head around again, checking perhaps for prospects. It must be hard to stand there unclaimed, as if she's at a high school dance, being looked over. This time her eyes snag on me. She sees me. She knows enough not to react.

We stare at one another, keeping our faces blank, apathetic. Then she makes a small motion of her head, a slight jerk to the right. She takes the cigarette back from the woman in red, holds it to her mouth, lets her hand rest in the air a moment, all five fingers outspread. Then she turns her back on me.

Our old signal. I have five minutes to get to the women's wash room, which must be somewhere to her right. I look around: no sign of it. Nor can I risk getting up and walking anywhere, without the Commander. I don't know enough, I don't know the ropes, I might be challenged.

A minute, two. Moira begins to saunter off, not glancing around. She can only hope I've understood her and will follow.

The Commander comes back, with two drinks. He smiles down at me, places the drinks on the long black coffee table in front of the sofa, sits. "Enjoying yourself?" he says. He wants me to. This after all is a treat.

I smile at him. "Is there a washroom?" I say.

"Of course," he says. He sips at his drink. He does not volunteer directions.

"I need to go to it." I am counting in my head now, seconds, not minutes.

"It's over there." He nods.

"What if someone stops me?"

"Just show them your tag," he says. "It'll be all right. They'll know you're taken."

I get up, wobble across the room. I lurch a little, near the fountain, almost fall. It's the heels. Without the Commander's arm to steady me I'm off balance. Several of the men look at me, with surprise I think rather than lust. I feel like a fool. I hold my left arm conspicuously in front of me, bent at the elbow, with the tag turned outward. Nobody says anything.

CHAPTER 38

I find the entrance to the women's washroom. It still says
Ladies
, in scrolly gold script. There's a corridor leading in to the door, and a woman seated at a table beside it, supervising the entrances and exits. She's an older woman, wearing a purple caftan and gold eyeshadow, but I can tell she is nevertheless an Aunt. The cattle prod's on the table, its thong around her wrist. No nonsense here.

"Fifteen minutes," she says to me. She gives me an oblong of purple cardboard from a stack of them on the table. It's like a fitting room, in the department stores of the time before. To the woman behind me I hear her say, "You were just here."

"I need to go again," the woman says.

"Rest break once an hour," says the Aunt. "You know the rules."

The woman begins to protest, in a whiny desperate voice. I push open the door.

I remember this. There's a rest area, gently lit in pinkish tones, with several easy chairs and a sofa, in a lime-green bamboo-shoot print, with a wall clock above it in a gold filigree frame. Here they haven't removed the mirror, there's a long one opposite the sofa. You need to know, here, what you look like. Through an archway beyond there's the row of toilet cubicles, also pink, and washbasins and more mirrors.

Several women are sitting in the chairs and on the sofa, with their shoes off, smoking. They stare at me as I come in. There's perfume in the air and stale smoke, and the scent of working flesh.

"You new?" one of them says.

"Yes," I say, looking around for Moira, who is nowhere in sight.

The women don't smile. They return to their smoking as if it's serious business. In the room beyond, a woman in a cat suit with a tail made of orange fake fur is redoing her make-up. This is like backstage: grease paint, smoke, the materials of illusion.

I stand hesitant, not knowing what to do. I don't want to ask about Moira, I don't know whether it's safe. Then a toilet flushes and Moira comes out of a pink cubicle. She teeters towards me; I wait for a sign.

"It's all right," she says, to me and to the other women. "I know her." The others smile now, and Moira hugs me. My arms go around her, the wires propping up her breasts dig into my chest. We kiss each other, on one cheek, then the other. Then we stand back.

"Godawful," she says. She grins at me. "You look like the Whore of Babylon."

"Isn't that what I'm supposed to look like?" I say. "You look like something the cat dragged in."

"Yes," she says, pulling up her front, "not my style and this thing is about to fall to shreds. I wish they'd dredge up someone who still knows how to make them. Then I could get something halfway decent."

"You pick that out?" I say. I wonder if maybe she'd chosen it, out of the others, because it was less garish. At least it's only black and white.

"Hell no," she says. "Government issue. I guess they thought it was me."

I still can't believe it's her. I touch her arm again. Then I begin to cry.

"Don't do that," she says. "Your eyes'll run. Anyway there isn't time. Shove over." This she says to the two women on the sofa, her usual peremptory rough-cut slapdash manner, and as usual she gets away with it.

"My break's up anyway," says one woman, who's wearing a baby-blue laced-up Merry Widow and white stockings. She stands up, shakes my hand. "Welcome," she says.

The other woman obligingly moves over, and Moira and I sit down. The first thing we do is take off our shoes.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Moira says then. "Not that it isn't great to see you. But it's not so great for you. What'd you do wrong? Laugh at his dick?"

I look up at the ceiling. "Is it bugged?" I say. I wipe around my eyes, gingerly, with my fingertips. Black comes off.

"Probably," says Moira. "You want a cig?"

"I'd love one," I say.

"Here," she says to the woman next to her. "Lend me one, will you?"

The woman hands over, ungrudging. Moira is still a skillful borrower. I smile at that.

"On the other hand, it might not be," says Moira. "I can't imagine they'd care about anything we have to say. They've already heard most of it, and anyway nobody gets out of here except in a black van. But you must know that, if you're here."

I pull her head over so I can whisper in her ear. "I'm temporary," I tell her. "It's just tonight. I'm not supposed to be here at all. He smuggled me in."

"Who?" she whispers back. "That shit you're with? I've had him, he's the pits."

"He's my Commander," I say.

She nods. "Some of them do that, they get a kick out of it. It's like screwing on the altar or something: your gang are supposed to be such chaste vessels. They like to see you all painted up. Just another crummy power trip."

This interpretation hasn't occurred to me. I apply it to the Commander, but it seems too simple for him, too crude. Surely his motivations are more delicate than that. But it may only be vanity that prompts me to think so.

"We don't have much time left," I say. "Tell me everything."

Moira shrugs. "What's the point?" she says. But she knows there is a point, so she does.

This is what she says, whispers, more or less. I can't remember exactly, because I had no way of writing it down. I've filled it out for her as much as I can: we didn't have much time so she just gave the outlines. Also she told me this in two sessions, we managed a second break together. I've tried to make it sound as much like her as I can. It's a way of keeping her alive.

"I left that old hag Aunt Elizabeth tied up like a Christmas turkey behind the furnace. I wanted to kill her, I really felt like it, but now I'm just as glad I didn't or things would be a lot worse for me. I couldn't believe how easy it was to get out of the Center. In that brown outfit I just walked right through. I kept on going as if I knew where I was heading, till I was out of sight. I didn't have any great plan; it wasn't an organized thing, like they thought, though when they were trying to get it out of me I made up a lot of stuff. You do that, when they use the electrodes and the other things. You don't care what you say.

"I kept my shoulders back and chin up and marched along, trying to think of what to do next. When they busted the press they'd picked up a lot of the women I knew, and I thought they'd most likely have the rest by now. I was sure they had a list. We were dumb to think we could keep it going the way we did, even underground, even when we'd moved everything out of the office and into people's cellars and back rooms. So I knew better than to try any of those houses.