The Testaments(29)
I did not cry. I’d already done my crying. The truth was that they’d cut Crystal open to get the baby out, and they’d killed her by doing that. It wasn’t something she chose. She hadn’t volunteered to die with noble womanly honour or be a shining example, but nobody mentioned that.
19
At school my position was now worse than it had ever been. I had become a taboo object: our Handmaid had died, which was believed among the girls to be a sign of bad fate. They were a superstitious group. At the Vidala School there were two religions: the official one taught by the Aunts, about God and the special sphere of women, and the unofficial one, which was passed from girl to girl by means of games and songs.
The younger girls had a number of counting rhymes, such as Knit one, purl two, Here’s a husband just for you; Knit two, purl one, He got killed, here’s another one. For the small girls, husbands were not real people. They were furniture and therefore replaceable, as in my childhood dollhouse.
The most popular singing game among the younger girls was called “Hanging.” It went like this:
Who’s that hanging on the Wall? Fee Fie Fiddle-Oh!
It’s a Handmaid, what’s she called? Fee Fie Fiddle-Oh!
She was (here we would put in the name of one of us), now she’s not. Fee Fie Fiddle-Oh!
She had a baby in the pot (here we would slap our little flat stomachs). Fee Fie Fiddle-Oh!
The girls would file under the uplifted hands of two other girls while everyone chanted: One for murder, Two for kissing, Three for a baby, Four gone missing, Five for alive and Six for dead, And Seven we caught you, Red Red Red!
And the seventh girl would be caught by the two counters, and paraded around in a circle before being given a slap on the head. Now she was “dead,” and was allowed to choose the next two executioners. I realize this sounds both sinister and frivolous, but children will make games out of whatever is available to them.
The Aunts probably thought this game contained a beneficial amount of warning and threat. Why was it “One for murder,” though? Why did murder have to come before kissing? Why not after, which would seem more natural? I have often thought about that since, but I have never found any answer.
We were allowed other games inside school hours. We played Snakes and Ladders—if you landed on a Prayer you went up a ladder on the Tree of Life, but if you landed on a Sin you went down a Satanic snake. We were given colouring books, and we coloured in the signs of the shops—ALL FLESH, LOAVES AND FISHES—as a way of learning them. We coloured the clothing of people too—blue for the Wives, stripes for the Econowives, red for the Handmaids. Becka once got in trouble with Aunt Vidala for colouring a Handmaid purple.
Among the older girls the superstitions were whispered rather than sung, and they were not games. They were taken seriously. One of them went like this:
If your Handmaid dies in your bed,
Then her blood is on your head.
If your Handmaid’s baby dies,
Then your life is tears and sighs.
If your Handmaid dies in Birth,
The curse will follow you over the earth.
Ofkyle had died during a Birth, so I was viewed by the other girls as accursed; but also, since little baby Mark was alive and well and my brother, I was also viewed as unusually blessed. The other girls did not taunt me openly, but they avoided me. Huldah would squint up at the ceiling when she saw me coming; Becka would turn away, though she would slip me portions of her lunch when no one was looking. Shunammite fell away from me, whether out of fear because of the death or envy because of the Birth, or a combination of both.
At home all attention was on the baby, who demanded it. He had a loud voice. And although Paula enjoyed the prestige of having a baby—and a male one at that—she was not the motherly type at heart. Little Mark would be produced and exhibited for her friends, but a short time of that went a long way with Paula and he would soon be handed over to the wet nurse, a plump, lugubrious Handmaid who had recently been Oftucker but was now, of course, Ofkyle.
When he wasn’t eating or sleeping or being shown off, Mark passed his time in the kitchen, where he was a great favourite among the Marthas. They loved to give him his bath and exclaim over his tiny fingers, his tiny toes, his tiny dimples, and his tiny male organ, out of which he could project a truly astonishing fountain of pee. What a strong little man!
I was expected to join in the worship, and when I didn’t show enough zeal I was told to stop sulking, because soon enough I would have a baby of my own, and then I would be happy. I doubted that very much—not the baby so much as the happiness. I spent as much time in my room as possible, avoiding the cheerfulness in the kitchen and brooding on the unfairness of the universe.
VII
Stadium
The Ardua Hall Holograph
20
The crocuses have melted, the daffodils have shrivelled to paper, the tulips have performed their enticing dance, flipping their petal skirts inside out before dropping them completely. The herbs nurtured in the Ardua Hall borders by Aunt Clover and her posse of semi-vegetarian trowel-wielders are in their prime. But, Aunt Lydia, you must drink this mint tea, it will do wonders for your digestion! Keep your nose out of my digestion, I want to snap at them; but they mean well, I remind myself. Is that ever a convincing excuse when there’s blood on the carpet?