The Testaments(36)

“In reality you’re about four months younger,” said Elijah.

How do you prove your birth date? There must have been a birth certificate, but where did Melanie keep it? “It’s on my health card. My birthday,” I said.

“Try again,” said Ada to Elijah. He looked down at the carpet.

“Melanie and Neil were not your parents,” he said.

“Yes they were!” I said. “Why are you saying that?” I felt tears building in my eyes. There was another void opening in reality: Neil and Melanie were fading, changing shape. I realized I didn’t know much about them really, or about their past. They hadn’t talked about it, and I hadn’t asked. Nobody ever asks their parents much about themselves, do they?

“I know this is distressing for you,” said Elijah, “but it’s important, so I’ll say it again. Neil and Melanie were not your parents. Sorry to be so blunt, but we don’t have much time.”

“Then who were they?” I said. I was blinking. One of the tears made it out; I wiped it away.

“No relation,” he said. “You were placed with them for safekeeping when you were a baby.”

“That can’t be true,” I said. But I was less convinced.

“You should’ve been told earlier,” said Ada. “They wanted to spare you the worry. They were going to tell you on the day they…” She trailed off, clamped her lips shut. She’d been so silent about Melanie dying, as if they hadn’t been friends at all, but now I could see that she was truly upset. It made me like her more.

“Part of their job was to protect you and keep you safe,” said Elijah. “I’m sorry to be the messenger.”

On top of the new-furniture smell of the room, I could smell Elijah: a sweaty, solid, practical-laundry-soap smell. Organic laundry soap. It was the kind Melanie used. Had used. “Then who were they?” I whispered.

“Neil and Melanie were very valued and experienced members of the—”

“No,” I said. “My other parents. My real ones. Who were they? Are they dead too?”

“I’ll make more coffee,” said Ada. She got up and went into the kitchen.

“They’re still alive,” said Elijah. “Or they were yesterday.”

I stared at him. I wondered if he was lying, but why would he have done that? If he’d wanted to make things up, he could have made up better things. “I don’t believe any of this,” I said. “I don’t know why you’re even saying it.”

Ada came back into the room with a mug of coffee and said did anyone else want one, help yourself, and maybe I should have some time to myself to think things over.

Think what over? What was there to think? My parents had been murdered, but they weren’t my real parents, and a different set of parents had appeared in their place.

“What things?” I said. “I don’t know enough to think anything.”

“What would you like to know?” said Elijah in a kind but tired voice.

“How did it happen?” I said. “Where are my real…my other mother and father?”

“Do you know much about Gilead?” Elijah asked.

“Of course. I watch the news. We took it in school,” I said sullenly. “I went to that protest march.” Right then I wanted Gilead to evaporate and leave us all alone.

“That’s where you were born,” he said. “In Gilead.”

“You’re joking,” I said.

“You were smuggled out by your mother and Mayday. They’d risked their lives. Gilead made a big fuss about it; they wanted you back. They said your so-called legal parents had the right to claim you. Mayday hid you; there were a lot of people looking for you, plus a media blitz.”

“Like Baby Nicole,” I said. “I wrote an essay about her at school.”

Elijah looked down at the floor again. Then he looked straight at me. “You are Baby Nicole.”





IX





Thank Tank





The Ardua Hall Holograph


24


This afternoon I had another summons from Commander Judd, brought to me in person by a junior Eye. Commander Judd could have picked up the phone himself and discussed his business that way—there is an internal hotline between his office and mine, with a red telephone—but, like me, he can’t be sure who else might be listening. In addition, I believe he enjoys our little tête-à-têtes, for reasons that are complex and perverse. He thinks of me as his handiwork: I am the embodiment of his will.

“I trust you are well, Aunt Lydia,” he said as I sat down across from him.

“Flourishing, praise be. And you?”

“I myself am in good health, but I fear my Wife is ailing. It weighs upon my soul.”

I was not surprised. The last time I saw her, Judd’s current Wife was looking shopworn. “That is sad news,” I said. “What seems to be the malady?”

“It is not clear,” he said. It never is. “An affliction of the inner organs.”

“Would you like someone at our Calm and Balm Clinic to consult?”

“Perhaps not just yet,” he said. “Most likely it is minor, or perhaps even imaginary, as so many of these female complaints prove to be.” There was a pause while we regarded each other. Soon, I feared, he would again be a widower, and in the market for another child bride.