Then Paula would run down the qualifications of the other two candidates, disparaging their appearances, their characters, and their positions in life. She needn’t have bothered: I detested both of them.
Meanwhile, I was pondering other actions I might take. There were the French-style flower-arranging secateurs, like the ones Becka had used—Paula had some of those—but they were in the garden shed, which was locked. I’d heard of a girl who’d hanged herself with her bathrobe sash to avoid a marriage. Vera had told the story the year before, while the other two Marthas made sad faces and shook their heads.
“Suicide is a failure of faith,” Zilla said.
“It makes a real mess,” said Rosa.
“Such a slur on the family,” said Vera.
There was bleach, but it was kept in the kitchen, as were knives; and the Marthas—being no fools and having eyes in the backs of their heads—were alert to my desperation. They’d taken to dropping aphorisms, such as “Every cloud has a silver lining” and “The harder the shell, the sweeter the nut,” and even “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.” Rosa went so far as to say, as if talking to herself, “Once you’re dead, you’re dead forever” while looking at me out of the sides of her eyes.
There was no point in asking the Marthas to help me, not even Zilla. Sorry though they might feel for me, much as they might wish me well, they had no power to affect the outcome.
At the end of the week, my engagement was announced: it was to Commander Judd, as it was always going to be. He appeared at the house in his full uniform with medals, shook hands with Commander Kyle, bowed to Paula, and smiled at the top of my head. Paula moved over to stand beside me, put her arm around my back, and rested her hand lightly on my waist: she had never done such a thing before. Did she think I would try to get away?
“Good evening, Agnes, my dear,” said Commander Judd. I focused on his medals: it was easier to look at them than at him.
“You may say good evening,” Paula said in a low voice, pinching me slightly with the hand that was behind my back. “Good evening, sir.”
“Good evening,” I managed to whisper. “Sir.”
The Commander advanced, arranged his face into a jowly smile, and stuck his mouth onto my forehead in a chaste kiss. His lips were unpleasantly warm; they made a sucking sound as they pulled away. I pictured a tiny morsel of my brain being sucked through the skin of my forehead into his mouth. A thousand such kisses later and my skull would be emptied of brain.
“I hope to make you very happy, my dear,” he said.
I could smell his breath, a blend of alcohol, mint mouthwash like that at the dentist’s, and tooth decay. I had an unbidden image of the wedding night: an enormous, opaque white blob was moving towards me through the dusk of an unknown room. It had a head, but no face: only an orifice like the mouth of a leech. From somewhere in its midsection a third tentacle was waving around in the air. It reached the bed where I was lying paralyzed with horror, and also naked—you had to be naked, or at least naked enough, said Shunammite. What came next? I shut my eyes, trying to blank out the inner scene, then opened them again.
Commander Judd drew back, regarding me shrewdly. Had I shuddered while he was kissing me? I had tried not to. Paula was pinching my waist harder. I knew I was supposed to say something, such as Thank you or I hope so too or I’m sure you will, but I could not manage it. I felt sick to my stomach: what if I threw up, right now, on the carpet? That would be shameful.
“She’s exceptionally modest,” said Paula through tight lips, glaring sideways at me.
“And that is a charming feature,” said Commander Judd.
“You may go now, Agnes Jemima,” said Paula. “Your father and the Commander have things to discuss.” So I made my way towards the door. I was feeling a little dizzy.
“She seems obedient,” I heard Commander Judd saying as I left the room.
“Oh yes,” said Paula. “She’s always been a respectful child.”
What a liar she was. She knew how much rage was seething inside me.
The three wedding arrangers, Aunt Lorna, Aunt Sara Lee, and Aunt Betty, made a return visit, this time to measure me for my wedding dress: they’d brought some sketches. I was asked to give my opinion about which dress I liked best. I pointed to one at random.
“Is she well?” Aunt Betty asked Paula in a soft voice. “She looks quite tired.”
“It’s an emotional time for them,” Paula replied.
“Oh yes,” said Aunt Betty. “So emotional!”
“You should have the Marthas make her a soothing drink,” said Aunt Lorna. “Something with chamomile. Or a sedative.”
In addition to the dress, I was to have new underclothes, and a special nightgown for the wedding night, with ribbon bows down the front—so easy to open, like a gift-wrapped package.
“I don’t know why we are bothering with the frills,” Paula said to the Aunts, talking past me. “She won’t appreciate them.”
“She won’t be the one looking at them,” said Aunt Sara Lee with unexpected bluntness. Aunt Lorna gave a suppressed snort.
As for the wedding dress itself, it was to be “classical,” said Aunt Sara Lee. Classical was the best style: the clean lines would be very elegant, in her opinion. A veil with a simple chaplet of cloth snowdrops and forget-me-nots. Artificial-flower-making was one of the handicrafts encouraged among the Econowives.
There was a subdued conversation about lace trim—to add it, as Aunt Betty advised because it would be attractive, or to omit it, which would be preferable in Paula’s view, since attractive was not the main focus. Unspoken: the main focus was to get the thing over with and consign me to her past, where I would be tucked away, unreactive as lead, no longer combustible. No one would be able to say she had not done her duty as the Wife of her Commander and as an observant citizen of Gilead.
The wedding itself would take place as soon as the dress was ready—therefore, it was safe to plan it for two weeks from this day. Did Paula have the names of the guests she would like invited? Aunt Sara Lee asked. The two of them went downstairs to compile: Paula to recite the names, Aunt Sara Lee to write them down. The Aunts would prepare and personally deliver the verbal invitations: it was one of their roles, to be the bearer of poisoned messages.
“Aren’t you excited?” said Aunt Betty as she and Aunt Lorna were packing up their sketches and I was putting my clothes back on. “In two weeks you’ll have your very own house!”
There was something wistful in her voice—she herself would never have a house—but I paid no attention to it. Two weeks, I thought. I had only fourteen scant days of life left to me on this earth. How would I spend them?
37
As the days ticked past, I became more desperate. Where was the exit? I had no gun, I had no lethal pills. I remembered a story—circulated by Shunammite at school—about someone’s Handmaid who had swallowed drain cleaner.
“The whole bottom part of her face came off,” Shunammite had whispered with delight. “It just…dissolved! It was, like, fizzing!” I hadn’t believed her at the time, though now I did.