The Testaments

41

All things come to she who waits. Time wounds all heels. Patience is a virtue. Vengeance is mine.

These hoary chestnuts are not always true, but they are sometimes true. Here’s one that is always true: everything’s in the timing. Like jokes.

Not that we have many jokes around here. We would not wish to be accused of bad taste or frivolity. In a hierarchy of the powerful, the only ones allowed to make jokes are those at the top, and they do so in private.

But to the point.

It has been so crucial for my own mental development to have had the privilege of being a fly on the wall; or, to be more exact, an ear inside the wall. So instructive, the confidences shared by young women when they believe no third party is listening. Over the years I increased the sensitivity of my microphones, I attuned them to whispers, I held my breath to see which of our newly recruited girls would provide me with the sort of shameful information I both craved and collected. Gradually my dossiers filled up, like a hot-air balloon getting ready for liftoff.

In the matter of Becka, it took years. She’d always been so reticent about the primary cause of her distress, even to her school friend Agnes. I had to wait for sufficient trust to develop.

It was Agnes who finally broached the question. I use their earlier names here—Agnes, Becka—since it was these names they used among themselves. Their transformation into perfect Aunts was far from complete, which pleased me. But then, no one’s is when push comes to shove.

“Becka, what really happened to you?” Agnes said one day when they were engaged in their Bible studies. “To make you so set against marriage.” Silence. “I know there was something. Please, wouldn’t you like to share it with me?”

“I can’t say.”

“You can trust me, I won’t tell.”

Then, in bits and pieces, it came out. The wretched Dr. Grove had not stopped at the fondling of his young patients in the dentist’s chair. I had known about this for some time. I had even collected photographic evidence, but I had passed over it, since the testimonies of young girls—if testimonies can be extracted from them, which in this case I doubted—would count for little or nothing. Even with grown women, four female witnesses are the equivalent of one male, here in Gilead.

Grove had depended on that. Also, the man had the confidence of the Commanders: he was an excellent dentist, and much latitude is given by those in power to professionals who can relieve them of pain. The doctors, the dentists, the lawyers, the accountants: in the new world of Gilead, as in the old, their sins are frequently forgiven them.

But what Grove had done to the young Becka—the very young Becka, and then the older but still young Becka—that, to my mind, demanded retribution.

Becka herself could not be relied upon to exact it. She would not testify against Grove, of that I was certain. Her conversation with Agnes confirmed this.

I haven’t added the tears, the comfortings by Agnes, the vows of eternal friendship, the prayers. But they were there. It was enough to melt the hardest heart. It almost melted mine.

The upshot was that Becka had decided to offer up this silent suffering of hers as a sacrifice to God. I am not sure what God thought of this, but it did not do the trick for me. Once a judge, always a judge. I judged, I pronounced the sentence. But how to carry it out?

After pondering for some time, I decided last week to make my move. I invited Aunt Elizabeth for a cup of mint tea at the Schlafly Café.

She was all smiles: she had been singled out for my favour. “Aunt Lydia,” she said. “This is an unexpected pleasure!” She had very good manners when she chose to use them. Once a Vassar girl, always a Vassar girl, as I sometimes said snidely to myself while watching her beating to a pulp the feet of some recalcitrant Handmaid prospect in the Rachel and Leah Centre.

“I thought we should have a confidential talk,” I said. She leaned forward, expecting gossip.

“I’m all ears,” she said. An untruth—her ears were a small part of her—but I let that pass.

“I’ve often wondered,” I said. “If you were an animal, what animal would you be?”

She leaned back, puzzled. “I can’t say I’ve given it any thought,” she said. “Since God did not make me an animal.”

“Indulge me,” I said. “For instance: fox or cat?”

Here, my reader, I owe you an explanation. As a child I’d read a book called Aesop’s Fables. I’d got it from the school library: my family did not spend money on books. In this book was a story I have often meditated upon. Here it is.

Fox and Cat were discussing their respective ways of evading the hunters and their dogs. Fox said he had a whole bag of tricks, and if the hunters came with their dogs he would employ them one by one—doubling back on his own tracks, running through water to destroy his scent, diving into a den with several exits. The hunters would be worn out by Fox’s cleverness and would give up, leaving Fox to continue his career of theft and barnyard muggings. “And what about you, dear Cat?” he asked. “What are your tricks?”

“I have only one trick,” Cat replied. “When in extremis, I know how to climb a tree.”

Fox thanked Cat for the entertaining pre-prandial conversation and declared that it was now dinnertime and Cat was on the menu. Snapping of fox teeth, clumps of cat fur. A name tag was spat out. Posters of missing Cat were stapled to telephone poles, with heartfelt pleas from woebegone children.

Sorry. I get carried away. The fable continues as follows:

The hunters and their dogs arrive on the scene. Fox tries all his tricks, but he runs out of ruses and is killed. Cat, meanwhile, has climbed a tree and is watching the scene with equanimity. “Not so clever after all!” she jeers. Or some such mean-spirited remark.

In the early days of Gilead, I used to ask myself whether I was Fox or Cat. Should I twist and turn, using the secrets in my possession to manipulate others, or should I zip my lip and rejoice as others outsmarted themselves? Obviously I was both, since—unlike many—here I still am. I still have a bag of tricks. And I’m still high in the tree.

But Aunt Elizabeth knew nothing of my private musings. “I honestly don’t know,” she said. “Maybe a cat.”

“Yes,” I said. “I’d have pegged you as a cat. But now perhaps you must draw upon your inner fox.” I paused.

“Aunt Vidala is attempting to incriminate you,” I continued. “She claims that you are accusing me of heresy and idolatry by planting eggs and oranges on my own statue.”

Aunt Elizabeth was distraught. “That is untrue! Why would Vidala say that? I have never harmed her!”

“Who can fathom the secrets of the human soul?” I said. “None of us is exempt from sin. Aunt Vidala is ambitious. She may have detected that you are de facto second-in-command to me.” Here Elizabeth brightened, as this was news to her. “She will have deduced that you are thus next in the line of succession here at Ardua Hall. She must resent this, as she considers herself your senior, and indeed mine, having been an early believer in Gilead. I am not young, nor in the best of health; she must feel that, in order to claim her rightful position, it is necessary to eliminate you. Hence her desire for new rules outlawing the offerings at my statue. With punishments,” I added. “She must be angling for my expulsion from the Aunts and for yours as well.”

Elizabeth was weeping by now. “How could she be so vindictive?” she sobbed. “I thought we were friends.”

“Friendship, alas, can be skin deep. Don’t worry. I will protect you.”

“I’m immensely grateful, Aunt Lydia. You have such integrity!”

“Thank you,” I said. “But there is one little thing I want you to do for me in return.”

“Oh yes! Of course,” she said. “What is it?”

“I want you to bear false witness,” I said.

This was not a trivial request: Elizabeth would be risking much. Gilead takes a stern view of bearing false witness, though it is nonetheless done frequently.