The Testaments(26)

He snapped off his white stretchy sanitary gloves and washed his hands at the sink, which was behind my back.

He said, “Perfect teeth. Perfect.” Then he said, “You’re getting to be a big girl, Agnes.”

Then he put his hand on my small but growing breast. It was summer, so I was wearing the summer school uniform, which was pink and made of light cotton.

I froze, in shock. So it was all true then, about men and their rampaging, fiery urges, and merely by sitting in the dentist chair I was the cause. I was horribly embarrassed—what was I supposed to say? I didn’t know, so I simply pretended it wasn’t happening.

Dr. Grove was standing behind me, so it was his left hand on my left breast. I couldn’t see the rest of him, only his hand, which was large and had reddish hairs on the back. It was warm. It sat there on my breast like a large hot crab. I didn’t know what to do. Should I take hold of his hand and move it off my breast? Would that cause even more burning lust to break forth? Should I try to get away? Then the hand squeezed my breast. The fingers found my nipple and pinched. It was like having a thumbtack stuck into me. I moved the upper part of my body forward—I needed to get out of that dentist chair as fast as I could—but the hand was locking me in. Suddenly it lifted, and then some of the rest of Dr. Grove moved into sight.

“About time you saw one of these,” he said in the normal voice in which he said everything. “You’ll have one of them inside you soon enough.” He took hold of my right hand and positioned it on this part of himself.

I don’t think I need to tell you what happened next. He had a towel handy. He wiped himself off and tucked his appendage back into his trousers.

“There,” he said. “Good girl. I didn’t hurt you.” He gave me a fatherly pat on the shoulder. “Don’t forget to brush twice a day, and floss afterwards. Mr. William will give you a new toothbrush.”

I walked out of the room, feeling sick to my stomach. Mr. William was in the waiting room, his unobtrusive thirty-year-old face impassive. He held out a bowl with new pink and blue toothbrushes in it. I knew enough to take a pink one.

“Thank you,” I said.

“You’re welcome,” said Mr. William. “Any cavities?”

“No,” I said. “Not this time.”

“Good,” said Mr. William. “Keep away from the sweet things and maybe you’ll never have any. Any decay. Are you all right?”

“Yes,” I said. Where was the door?

“You look pale. Some people have a fear of dentists.” Was that a smirk? Did he know what had just happened?

“I’m not pale,” I said stupidly—how could I tell I wasn’t pale? I found the door handle and blundered out, reached the elevator, pressed the down button.

Was this now going to happen every time I went to the dentist? I couldn’t say I didn’t want to go back to Dr. Grove without saying why, and if I said why I knew I would be in trouble. The Aunts at school taught us that you should tell someone in authority—meaning them—if any man touched you inappropriately, but we knew not to be so dumb as to make a fuss, especially if it was a well-respected man like Dr. Grove. Also, what would it do to Becka if I said that about her father? She would be humiliated, she would be devastated. It would be a terrible betrayal.

Some girls had reported such things. One had claimed their Guardian had run his hands over her legs. Another had said that an Econo trash collector had unzipped his trousers in front of her. The first girl had had the backs of her legs whipped for lying, the second had been told that nice girls did not notice the minor antics of men, they simply looked the other way.

But I could not have looked the other way. There had been no other way to look.

“I don’t want any dinner,” I said to Zilla in the kitchen. She gave me a sharp glance.

“Did your dentist appointment go all right, dear?” she said. “Any cavities?”

“No,” I said. I tried a wan smile. “I have perfect teeth.”

“Are you ill?”

“Maybe I’m catching a cold,” I said. “I just need to lie down.”

Zilla made me a hot drink with lemon and honey in it and brought it up to my room on a tray. “I should have gone with you,” she said. “But he’s the best dentist. Everyone agrees.”

She knew. Or she suspected. She was warning me not to say anything. That was the kind of coded language they used. Or I should say: that we all used. Did Paula know too? Did she foresee that such a thing would happen to me at Dr. Grove’s? Is that why she sent me by myself?

It must have been so, I decided. She’d done it on purpose so I would have my breast pinched and that polluting item thrust in front of me. She’d wanted me to be defiled. That was a word from the Bible: defiled. She was probably having a malicious laugh about it—about the nasty joke she’d played on me, for I could see that in her eyes it would be viewed as a joke.

After that I stopped praying for forgiveness about the hatred I felt towards her. I was right to hate her. I was prepared to think the very worst of her, and I did.





18


The months passed; my life of tiptoeing and eavesdropping continued. I worked hard at seeing without being seen and hearing without being heard. I discovered the cracks between doorframes and nearly closed doors, the listening posts in hallways and on stairs, the thin places in walls. Most of what I heard came in fragments and even silences, but I was becoming good at fitting these fragments together and filling in the unsaid parts of sentences.