The Testaments (29 page)

Becka and I did our best to instruct the new Pearl, Jade, as Aunt Lydia had requested, but it was like talking to the air. She did not know how to sit patiently, with her back straight and her hands folded in her lap; she twisted, squirmed, fidgeted with her feet. “This is how women sit,” Becka would tell her, demonstrating.

“Yes, Aunt Immortelle,” she would say, and she would make a show of trying. But these attempts did not last long, and soon she was slouching again and crossing her ankles over her knees.

At Jade’s first evening meal at Ardua Hall, we sat her between us for her own protection, because she was so heedless. Nonetheless, she behaved most unwisely. It was bread and an indeterminate soup—on Mondays they often mixed up the leftovers and added some onions—and a salad of pea vines and white turnip. “The soup,” she said. “It’s like mouldy dishwater. I’m not eating it.”

“Shhh….Be thankful for what you are given,” I whispered back to her. “I’m sure it’s nutritious.”

The dessert was tapioca, again. “I can’t handle this.” She dropped her spoon with a clatter. “Fish eyes in glue.”

“It’s disrespectful not to finish,” said Becka. “Unless you’re fasting.”

“You can have mine,” said Jade.

“People are looking,” I said.

When she’d first arrived, her hair was greenish—that was the sort of mutilation they went in for in Canada, it seemed—but outside our apartment she had to keep her hair covered, so this had not been generally noticed. Then she began pulling hairs out of the back of her neck. She said this helped her think.

“You’ll make a bald spot if you keep on doing that,” Becka said to her. Aunt Estée had taught us that when we were in the Rubies Premarital Preparatory classes: if you remove hairs frequently, they will not grow back. It is the same with eyebrows and eyelashes.

“I know,” said Jade. “But nobody sees your hair around here anyway.” She smiled at us confidingly. “One day I’m going to shave my head.”

“You can’t do that! A woman’s hair is her glory,” said Becka. “It’s been given to you as a covering. That’s in Corinthians I.”

“Only one glory? Hair?” Jade said. Her tone was abrupt, but I don’t think she meant to be rude.

“Why would you want to shame yourself by shaving your head?” I asked as gently as I could. If you were a woman, having no hair was a mark of disgrace: sometimes, after a complaint by a husband, the Aunts would cut off a disobedient or scolding Econowife’s hair before locking her into the public stocks.

“To see what it’s like to be bald,” said Jade. “It’s on my bucket list.”

“You must be careful what you say to others,” I told her. “Becka—Aunt Immortelle and I are forgiving, and we understand that you are newly arrived from a degenerate culture; we are trying to help you. But other Aunts—especially the older ones such as Aunt Vidala—are constantly on the lookout for faults.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” said Jade. “I mean, Yes, Aunt Victoria.”

“What is a bucket list?” Becka asked.

“Stuff I want to do before I die.”

“Why is it called that?”

“It’s from ‘kick the bucket,’ ” said Jade. “It’s just a saying.” Then, seeing our puzzled looks, she continued. “I think it’s from when they used to hang people from trees. They’d make them stand on a bucket and then hang them, and their feet would kick, and naturally they would kick the bucket. Just my guess.”

“That’s not how we hang people here,” said Becka.

I quickly realized that the two young Aunts in Doorway C didn’t approve of me; but they were all I had because I wasn’t on talking terms with anyone else. Aunt Beatrice had been kind when she’d been converting me, back in Toronto, but now that I was here I was no longer any concern of hers. She smiled at me in a distant way when I passed her, but that was all.

When I paused to think about it I was afraid, but I tried not to let fear control me. I was also feeling very lonely. I didn’t have any friends here, and I couldn’t contact anyone back there. Ada and Elijah were far away. There was no one I could ask for guidance; I was on my own, with no instruction book. I really missed Garth. I daydreamed about the things we’d done together: sleeping in the cemetery, panhandling on the street. I even missed the junk food we’d eaten. Would I ever get back there, and if I did, what would happen then? Garth probably had a girlfriend. How could he not have one? I’d never asked him because I didn’t want to hear the answer.

But one of my biggest anxieties was about the person Ada and Elijah called the source—their contact inside Gilead. When would this person show up in my life? What if they didn’t exist? If there was no “source,” I’d be stuck here in Gilead because there wouldn’t be anyone to get me out.

Jade was very untidy. She left her items in our common room—her stockings, the belt of her new Supplicants probationer uniform, sometimes even her shoes. She didn’t always flush the toilet. We’d find her hair combings blowing around on the bathroom floor, her toothpaste in the sink. She took showers at unauthorized hours until firmly told not to, several times. I know these are trivial things, but they can add up in close quarters.

There was also the matter of the tattoo on her left arm. It said
GOD
and
LOVE
, made into a cross. She claimed it was a token of her conversion to the true belief, but I doubted that, as she’d let slip on one occasion that she thought God was “an imaginary friend.”

“God is a real friend, not an imaginary one,” said Becka. There was as much anger in her voice as she was capable of revealing.

“Sorry if I disrespected your cultural belief,” Jade said, which did not improve things in the eyes of Becka: saying God was a cultural belief was even worse than saying he was an imaginary friend. We realized that Jade thought we were stupid; certainly she thought we were superstitious.

“You should have that tattoo removed,” Becka said. “It’s blasphemous.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” said Jade. “I mean, Yes, Aunt Immortelle, thank you for telling me. Anyway, it’s itchy as hell.”

“Hell is more than itchy,” said Becka. “I will pray for your redemption.”

When Jade was upstairs in her room, we would often hear thumping noises and muffled shouts. Was it a barbarian form of prayer? I finally had to ask her what she was doing in there.

“Working out,” she said. “It’s like exercising. You have to keep strong.”

“Men are strong in body,” said Becka. “And in mind. Women are strong in spirit. Though moderate exercise is allowed, such as walking, if a woman is of child-bearing age.”

“Why do you think you need to be strong in body?” I asked her. I was becoming more and more curious about her pagan beliefs.

“In case some guy aggresses you. You need to know how to stick your thumbs in their eyes, knee them in the balls, throw a heartstopper punch. I can show you. Here’s how to make a fist—curl your fingers, wrap your thumb across your knuckles, keep your arm straight. Aim for the heart.” She slammed her fist into the sofa.

Becka was so astonished that she had to sit down. “Women don’t hit men,” she said. “Or anyone, except when it’s required by law, such as in Particicutions.”

“Well, that’s convenient!” said Jade. “So you should just let them do whatever?”

“You shouldn’t entice men,” said Becka. “What happens if you do is partly your fault.”

Jade looked from one to the other of us. “Victim-blaming?” she said. “Really?”

“Pardon?” said Becka.

“Never mind. So you’re telling me it’s a lose-lose,” Jade said. “We’re screwed whatever we do.” The two of us gazed at her in silence; no answer is an answer, as Aunt Lise used to say.

“Okay,” she said. “But I’m doing my workouts anyway.”

Four days after Jade’s arrival, Aunt Lydia called Becka and me to her office. “How is the new Pearl getting along?” she asked. When I hesitated, she said, “Speak up!”

“She doesn’t know how to behave,” I said.

Aunt Lydia smiled her wrinkly old-turnip smile. “Remember, she is freshly come from Canada,” she said, “so she doesn’t know any better. Foreign converts are often like that when they arrive. It is your duty, for the moment, to teach her safer ways.”

“We’ve been trying, Aunt Lydia,” said Becka. “But she’s very—”

“Stubborn,” said Aunt Lydia. “I am not surprised. Time will cure it. Do the best you can. You may go.” We went out of the office in the sideways manner we all used when leaving Aunt Lydia’s office: it was impolite to turn your back on her.

The crime files continued to appear on my desk at the Hildegard Library. I could not decide what to think: one day I felt it would be a blessed state to be a full Aunt—knowing all the Aunts’ carefully hoarded secrets, wielding hidden powers, doling out retributions. The next day I would consider my soul—because I did believe I had one—and how twisted and corrupted it would become if I were to act in that way. Was my soft, muddy brain hardening? Was I becoming stony, steely, pitiless? Was I exchanging my caring and pliable woman’s nature for an imperfect copy of a sharp-edged and ruthless man’s nature? I didn’t want that, but how to avoid it if I aspired to be an Aunt?

Then something happened that changed my view of my position in the universe and caused me to give thanks anew for the workings of benign Providence.

Although I’d been granted access to the Bible and had been shown a number of dangerous crime files, I hadn’t yet been given permission to access the Bloodlines Genealogical Archives, which were kept in a locked room. Those who’d been in there said this room contained aisles and aisles of folders. They were arranged on the shelves according to rank, men only: Economen, Guardians, Angels, Eyes, Commanders. Within those categories, the Bloodlines were filed by location, then by last name. The women were inside the folders of the men. The Aunts didn’t have folders; their Bloodlines weren’t recorded because they wouldn’t be having any children. That was a secret sadness for me: I liked children, I’d always wanted children, I just hadn’t wanted what came with them.

All Supplicants were given a briefing about the Archives’ existence and purposes. They contained the knowledge of who the Handmaids had been before they were Handmaids, and who their children were, and who the fathers were: not only the declared fathers, but the illegal fathers also, since there were many women—both Wives and Handmaids—who were desperate to have babies in any way they could. But in all cases the Aunts recorded the Bloodlines: with so many older men marrying such young girls, Gilead could not risk the dangerous and sinful father-daughter inbreeding that might result if no one was keeping track.

But it was only after I’d done my Pearl Girls missionary work that I would have access to the Archives. I’d longed for the moment when I’d be able to trace my own mother—not Tabitha, but the mother who’d been a Handmaid. In those secret files, I’d be able to find out who she was, or had been—was she even still alive? I knew it was a risk—I might not like what I discovered—but I needed to try anyway. I might even be able to trace my real father, though that was less likely since he had not been a Commander. If I could find my mother, I would have a story instead of a zero. I would have a past beyond my own past, though I would not necessarily have a future with this unknown mother inside it.

One morning I found a file from the Archives on my desk. There was a small handwritten note paper-clipped to the front:
Agnes Jemima’s Bloodline
. I held my breath as I opened the file. Inside was the Bloodlines record for Commander Kyle. Paula was in the folder, and their son, Mark. I wasn’t part of that Bloodline, so I wasn’t listed as Mark’s sister. But through Commander Kyle’s line I was able to discover the true name of poor Crystal—of Ofkyle, who’d died in childbirth—since little Mark was part of her Bloodline too. I wondered whether he would ever be told about her. Not if they could help it, was my guess.

At last I found the Bloodline on myself. It was not where it should have been—inside Commander Kyle’s folder, in the time period relating to his first Wife, Tabitha. Instead it was at the back of the file in a sub-file of its own.

There was my mother’s picture. It was a double picture, like the kind we’d see on Wanted posters for runaway Handmaids: the full face, the profile. She had light hair, pulled back; she was young. She was staring right into my own eyes: what was she trying to tell me? She wasn’t smiling, but why would she smile? Her picture must have been taken by the Aunts, or else by the Eyes.

The name underneath had been blanked out, using heavy blue ink. There was an updated notation, however:
Mother of Agnes Jemima, now Aunt Victoria. Escaped to Canada. Currently working for Mayday terrorist intelligence. Two elimination attempts made (failed). Location currently unknown.

Underneath that, it said
Biological Father
, but his name, too, had been redacted. There was no picture. The notation said:
Currently in Canada. Said to be a Mayday operative. Location unknown.

Did I look like my mother? I wished to think so.

Did I remember her? I tried to. I knew I should be able to, but the past was too dark.

Such a cruel thing, memory. We can’t remember what it is that we’ve forgotten. That we have been made to forget. That we’ve had to forget, in order to pretend to live here in any normal way.

I’m sorry, I whispered. I can’t bring you back. Not yet.

I placed my hand on top of my mother’s picture. Did it feel warm? I wanted that. I wanted to think that love and warmth were radiating out of this picture—not a flattering picture, but that didn’t matter. I wanted to think that this love was flowing into my hand. Childish make-believe, I know that. But it was comforting nonetheless.

I turned the page: there was another document. My mother had had a second child. That child had been smuggled into Canada as an infant. Her name was Nicole. There was a baby picture.

Baby Nicole.

Baby Nicole, whom we prayed for on every solemn occasion at Ardua Hall. Baby Nicole, whose sunny cherubic face appeared on Gilead television so often as a symbol of the unfairness being shown to Gilead on the international stage. Baby Nicole, who was practically a saint and martyr, and was certainly an icon—that Baby Nicole was my sister.

Underneath the last paragraph of text there was a line of wavery handwriting in blue ink:
Top Secret.
Baby Nicole is here in Gilead.

It seemed impossible.

I felt a rush of gratitude—I had a younger sister! But I also felt frightened: if Baby Nicole was here in Gilead, why hadn’t everyone been told? There would have been widespread rejoicing and a huge celebration. Why had I myself been told? I felt entangled, though the nets around me were invisible. Was my sister in danger? Who else knew she was here, and what would they do to her?

By this time I knew that the person leaving these files for me must be Aunt Lydia. But why was she doing it? And how did she want me to react? My mother was alive, but she was also under sentence of death. She’d been deemed a criminal; worse, a terrorist. How much of her was in me? Was I tainted in some way? Was that the message? Gilead had tried to kill my renegade mother and had failed. Should I be glad about this, or sorry? Where should my loyalties lie?

Then, on impulse, I did a very dangerous thing. Making sure no one was watching, I slipped the two pages with their glued-on pictures out of the Bloodlines file, then folded them several times and hid them in my sleeve. Somehow I could not bear to be parted with them. It was foolish and headstrong, but it was not the only foolish and headstrong thing I have ever done.