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
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.