The Testaments (30 page)

It was a Wednesday, the woe day. After the usual putrid breakfast, I received a message to go immediately to Aunt Lydia’s office. “What does it mean?” I asked Aunt Victoria.

“Nobody ever knows what Aunt Lydia might have in mind,” she said.

“Have I done something bad?” There was a big choice of bad things, that was for sure.

“Not necessarily,” she said. “You might have done something good.”

Aunt Lydia was waiting for me in her office. The door was ajar, and she told me to come in even before I’d knocked. “Close the door behind you and sit down,” she said.

I sat down. She looked at me. I looked at her. It’s strange, because I knew she was supposed to be the powerful, mean old queen bee of Ardua Hall, but right then I didn’t find her scary. She had a big mole on her chin: I tried not to stare at it. I wondered why she hadn’t had it taken off.

“How are you enjoying it here, Jade?” she said. “Are you adjusting?”

I should have said yes, or fine, or something, the way I’d been trained. Instead I blurted, “Not well.”

She smiled, showing her yellowy teeth. “Many have regrets at first,” she said. “Would you like to go back?”

“Like, how?” I said. “Flying monkeys?”

“I suggest you refrain from making that kind of flippant remark in public. It could have painful repercussions for you. Do you have something to show me?”

I was puzzled. “Like what?” I asked. “No, I didn’t bring—”

“On your arm, for instance. Under your sleeve.”

“Oh,” I said. “My arm.” I rolled up the sleeve: there was
GOD/LOVE
, not looking very pretty.

She peered at it. “Thank you for doing as I requested,” she said.

She was the one who’d requested it? “Are you the source?” I asked.

“The what?”

Was I in trouble? “You know, the one—I mean—”

She cut me off. “You must learn to edit your thoughts,” she said. “Unthink them. Now, next steps. You are Baby Nicole, as you must have been told in Canada.”

“Yeah, but I’d rather not be,” I said. “I’m not happy about it.”

“I’m sure that is true,” she said. “But many of us would rather not be who we are. We don’t have unlimited choices in that department. Now, are you ready to help your friends back in Canada?”

“What do I have to do?” I asked.

“Come over here and place your arm on the desk,” she said. “This won’t hurt.”

She took a thin blade and made a nick in my tattoo, at the base of the
O
. Then, using a magnifying glass and a minute pair of tweezers, she slid something very small into my arm. She was wrong about it not hurting.

“No one would think of looking inside
GOD
. Now you’re a carrier pigeon, and all we have to do is transport you. It’s harder than it would have been once, but we’ll manage it. Oh, and don’t tell anyone about this until granted permission. Loose lips sink ships, and sinking ships kill people. Yes?”

“Yes,” I said. Now I had a lethal weapon in my arm.

“Yes,
Aunt Lydia
. Don’t slip up on manners here, ever. You could trigger a denunciation, even for something so minor. Aunt Vidala loves her Corrections.”

Two mornings after I’d read my Bloodlines file I received a summons to Aunt Lydia’s office. Becka had also been ordered to attend; we walked over together. We thought we were going to be asked again how Jade was getting along, whether she was happy with us, whether she was ready for her literacy test, whether she was firm in her faith. Becka said she was going to request that Jade be moved elsewhere because we’d been unable to teach her anything. She simply didn’t listen.

But Jade was already in Aunt Lydia’s office when we got there, sitting on a chair. She smiled at us, an apprehensive smile.

Aunt Lydia let us in, then looked up and down the corridor before closing the door. “Thank you for coming,” she said to us. “You may sit down.” We sat in the two chairs provided, one on either side of Jade. Aunt Lydia herself sat down, placing her hands on her desk to lower herself. Her hands were slightly tremulous. I found myself thinking, She’s getting old. But that did not seem possible: surely Aunt Lydia was ageless.

“I have some information to share with you that will materially affect the future of Gilead,” Aunt Lydia said. “You yourselves will have a crucial part to play. Are you brave enough? Do you stand ready?”

“Yes, Aunt Lydia,” I said, and Becka repeated the same words. The younger Supplicants were always being told they had a crucial part to play, and that bravery was required of them. Usually it meant giving up something, like time or food.

“Good. I will be brief. First, I must inform you, Aunt Immortelle, of something that the other two already know. Baby Nicole is here in Gilead.”

I was confused: why would the girl Jade have been told such an important piece of news? She could have no idea of what an impact the appearance of such an iconic figure would have among us.

“Really? Oh, praise be, Aunt Lydia!” said Becka. “That is such wonderful news. Here? In Gilead? But why have we not all been told? It’s like a miracle!”

“Control yourself, please, Aunt Immortelle. I must now add that Baby Nicole is the half-sister of Aunt Victoria.”

“No shit!” Jade exclaimed. “I don’t believe this!”

“Jade, I did not hear that,” said Aunt Lydia. “Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control.”

“Sorry,” Jade mumbled.

“Agnes! I mean, Aunt Victoria!” Becka said. “You have a sister! That is so joyful!! And it’s Baby Nicole! You are so lucky, Baby Nicole is so adorable.” There was the standard picture of Baby Nicole on Aunt Lydia’s wall: she was indeed adorable, but then, all babies are adorable. “May I hug you?” Becka said to me. She was fighting hard to be positive. It must have been sad for her that I had a known relative but she did not have any: even her pretend father had just been shamefully executed.

“Calm, please,” said Aunt Lydia. “Time has passed since Baby Nicole was a baby. She is now grown up.”

“Of course, Aunt Lydia,” said Becka. She sat down, folded her hands in her lap.

“But if she is here in Gilead, Aunt Lydia,” I said, “where is she, exactly?”

Jade laughed. It was more like a bark.

“She is at Ardua Hall,” said Aunt Lydia, smiling. It was like a guessing game: she was enjoying herself. We must have looked mystified. We knew everyone at Ardua Hall, so where was Baby Nicole?

“She is in this room,” Aunt Lydia announced. She waved a hand. “Jade here is Baby Nicole.”

“It can’t be!” I said. Jade was Baby Nicole? Therefore Jade was my sister?

Becka sat with her mouth open, staring at Jade. “No,” she whispered. Her face was woeful.

“Sorry about not being adorable,” Jade said. “I tried, but I’m terrible at it.” I believe she meant it as a joke, to lighten the atmosphere.

“Oh—I didn’t mean…” I said. “It’s just…you don’t look like Baby Nicole.”

“No she does not,” said Aunt Lydia. “But she does look like you.” It was true, up to a point: the eyes yes, but not the nose. I glanced down at Jade’s hands, folded for once in her lap. I wanted to ask her to stretch out her fingers so I could compare them to mine, but I felt that might be offensive. I didn’t wish her to think I was demanding too much evidence of her genuineness, or else rejecting her.

“I’m very happy to have a sister,” I said to her politely, now that I was overcoming the shock. This awkward girl shared a mother with me. I’d have to try my best.

“You’re both so lucky,” said Becka. Her voice was wistful.

“And you’re like my sister,” I told her, “so Jade is like your sister too.” I didn’t want Becka to feel left out.

“May I hug you?” Becka said to Jade; or, as I suppose I should now call her in this account, Nicole.

“Yeah, I guess,” said Nicole. She then received a little hug from Becka. I followed suit. “Thanks,” she said.

“Thank you, Aunts Immortelle and Victoria,” said Aunt Lydia. “You are demonstrating an admirable spirit of acceptance and inclusion. Now I must trouble you for your full attention.”

We turned our faces towards her. “Nicole will not be with us for long,” said Aunt Lydia. “She will be leaving Ardua Hall shortly, and travelling back to Canada. She will be taking an important message with her. I want you both to help her.”

I was astonished. Why was Aunt Lydia letting her go back? No convert ever went back—it was treason—and if that person was Baby Nicole, it was treason ten times over.

“But, Aunt Lydia,” I said. “That is against the law, and also God’s will as proclaimed by the Commanders.”

“Indeed, Aunt Victoria. But as you and Aunt Immortelle have now read a good many of the secret files I have been placing in your way, are you not aware of the deplorable degree of corruption that currently exists in Gilead?”

“Yes, Aunt Lydia, but surely…” I had not been certain that Becka, too, had been treated to the crime files. Both of us had obeyed the
TOP SECRET
classification; but more importantly, each of us had wished to spare the other.

“The aims of Gilead at the outset were pure and noble, we all agree,” she said. “But they have been subverted and sullied by the selfish and the power-mad, as so often happens in the course of history. You must wish to see that set right.”

“Yes,” said Becka, nodding. “We do wish it.”

“Remember, too, your vows. You pledged yourselves to help women and girls. I trust you meant that.”

“Yes, Aunt Lydia,” I said. “We did.”

“This will be helping them. Now, I don’t want to force you to do anything against your will, but I must state the position clearly. Now that I have told you this secret—that Baby Nicole is here, and that she will soon be acting as a courier for me—every minute that passes in which you do not divulge this secret to the Eyes will count as treachery. But even if you do divulge it, you may still be severely punished, perhaps even terminated for having held back, even for an instant. Needless to say, I myself will be executed, and Nicole will soon be no better than a caged parrot. If she won’t comply, they’ll kill her, one way or another. They won’t hesitate: you’ve read the crime files.”

“You can’t do that to them!” Nicole said. “That’s not fair, it’s emotional blackmail!”

“I appreciate your views, Nicole,” said Aunt Lydia, “but your juvenile notions of fairness do not apply here. Keep your sentiments to yourself, and if you wish to see Canada again it would be wise to consider that a command.”

She turned to the two of us. “You are, of course, free to make your own decisions. I will leave the room; Nicole, come with me. We wish to give your sister and her friend a little privacy in which to consider the possibilities. We will return in five minutes. At that time, I shall simply require a yes or a no from you. Other details regarding your mission will be supplied in good time. Come, Nicole.” She took Nicole by the arm and steered her out of the room.

Becka’s eyes were wide and frightened, as mine must have been. “We have to do it,” Becka said. “We can’t let them die. Nicole is your sister, and Aunt Lydia…”

“Do what?” I said. “We don’t know what she’s asking for.”

“She’s asking for obedience and loyalty,” said Becka. “Remember how she rescued us—both of us? We have to say yes.”

After leaving Aunt Lydia’s office, Becka went to the library for her day shift, and Nicole and I walked back to our apartment together.

“Now that we’re sisters,” I said, “you can call me Agnes when we’re alone.”

“Okay, I’ll try,” Nicole said.

We went into the main room. “I have something I want to share with you,” I said. “Just a minute.” I went upstairs. I’d been keeping the two pages from the Bloodlines files under my mattress, folded up small. When I returned, I unfolded them carefully and flattened them out. Once I’d laid them out on the table, Nicole—like me—couldn’t resist placing her hand on the picture of our mother.

“This is amazing,” she said. She took her hand off, studied the picture again. “Do you think she looks like me?”

“I wondered the same thing,” I said.

“Can you remember her at all? I must’ve been too young.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Sometimes I think I can. I do seem to remember something. Was there a different house? Did I travel somewhere? But maybe it’s wishful thinking.”

“What about our fathers?” she said. “And why did they blank out the names?”

“Maybe they were trying to protect us in some way,” I said.

“Thanks for showing me,” said Nicole. “But I don’t think you should keep these around. What if you get caught with them?”

“I know. I tried to put the pages back, but the file wasn’t there anymore.”

In the end, we decided to tear the pages up into small pieces and flush them down the toilet.

Aunt Lydia had told us we should strengthen our minds for the mission ahead of us. Meanwhile, we should continue on with life as usual, and not do anything to call attention to Nicole, or arouse suspicion. That was difficult, as we were anxious; I for one lived with a sense of dread: if Nicole were to be discovered, would Becka and I be accused?

Becka and I were due to leave on our Pearl Girls mission very soon. Would we even go, or did Aunt Lydia have some other destination in mind? We could only wait and see. Becka had studied the Pearl Girls standard guide of Canada, with the currency, the customs, and the methods of purchasing, including credit cards. She was much better prepared than I was.

When the Thanks Giving ceremony was less than a week away, Aunt Lydia called us to her office again. “This is what you must do,” she said. “I have arranged a room for Nicole at one of our country Retreat Houses. The papers are in order. But it is you, Aunt Immortelle, who will be going in Nicole’s stead. She herself will take your place, and will travel as a Pearl Girl to Canada.”

“Then I won’t be going?” said Becka, dismayed.

“You will go later,” said Aunt Lydia.

I suspected it was a lie, even then.