The Testaments(81)

“I received a call to higher service,” I said as primly as I could.

She giggled. “Did you really? Well, I received a call to a lower one. I have four Marthas! I wish you could see my house!”

“I’m sure it’s lovely,” I said.

“But you really are all right?” Her anxiety on my behalf may have been partly genuine. “Doesn’t this place wear you down? It’s so bleak.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “I wish you every happiness.”

“Becka’s in this dungeon too, isn’t she?”

“It’s not a dungeon,” I said. “Yes. We share an apartment.”

“Aren’t you afraid she’ll attack you with the secateurs? Is she still insane?”

“She was never insane,” I said, “just unhappy. It’s been wonderful to see you, Shunammite, but I must return to my duties.”

“You don’t like me anymore,” she said half seriously.

“I’m training to be an Aunt,” I said. “I’m not really supposed to like anyone.”





49


My reading abilities progressed slowly and with many stumbles. Becka helped me a lot. We used Bible verses to practise, from the approved selection that was available to Supplicants. With my very own eyes I was able to read portions of Scripture that I had until then only heard. Becka helped me find the passage that I’d thought of so often at the time Tabitha died:

    For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep; in the morning they are like grass which groweth up. In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.



Laboriously I spelled out the words. They seemed different when they were on the page: not flowing and sonorous, as I had recited them in my head, but flatter, drier.

Becka said that spelling was not reading: reading, she said, was when you could hear the words as if they were a song.

“Maybe I won’t ever get it right,” I said.

“You will,” said Becka. “Let’s try reading some real songs.”

She went to the library—I wasn’t allowed in there as yet—and brought back one of our Ardua Hall hymn books. In it was the childhood nighttime song that Tabitha used to sing to me in her voice like silver bells:

    Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord my soul to keep…



I sang it to Becka, and then after a while I was able to read it to her. “That’s so hopeful,” she said. “I would like to think that there are two angels always waiting to fly away with me.” Then she said, “I never had anyone sing to me at night. You were so lucky.”



* * *



—

Along with reading, I had to learn to write. That was harder in some ways, though less hard in others. We used drawing ink and straight pens with metal nibs, or sometimes pencils. It depended on what had been recently allocated to Ardua Hall from the storehouses reserved for imports.

Writing materials were the prerogative of the Commanders and the Aunts. Otherwise they were not generally available in Gilead; women had no use for them, and most men didn’t either, except for reports and inventories. What else would most people be writing about?

We’d learned to embroider and paint at the Vidala School, and Becka said that writing was almost the same as that—each letter was like a picture or a row of stitching, and it was also like a musical note; you just had to learn how to form the letters, and then how to attach them together, like pearls on a string.

She herself had beautiful handwriting. She showed me how, often and with patience; then, once I could write, however awkwardly, she selected a series of Biblical mottoes for me to copy.

    And now abideth Faith, Hope, Charity, these three; but the greatest of these is Charity.

Love is as strong as Death.

A bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.



I wrote them over and over. By comparing the different written versions of the same sentence, I could see how much I had improved, said Becka.

I wondered about the words I was writing. Was Charity really greater than Faith, and did I have either? Was Love as strong as Death? Whose was the voice that the bird was going to carry?

Being able to read and write did not provide the answers to all questions. It led to other questions, and then to others.



* * *



—

In addition to learning to read, I managed to successfully perform the other tasks assigned to me during those first months. Some of these tasks were not onerous: I enjoyed painting the skirts and sleeves and head coverings on the little girls in the Dick and Jane books, and I did not mind working in the kitchen, chopping up turnips and onions for the cooks and washing dishes. Everyone at Ardua Hall had to contribute to the general welfare, and manual labour was not to be sneered at. No Aunt was considered above it, though in practice the Supplicants did most of the heavy hauling. But why not? We were younger.

Scrubbing the toilets was not enjoyable, however, especially when you had to scrub them again even when they were perfectly clean the first time, and then again for a third time. Becka had warned me that the Aunts would demand this repetition—it wasn’t about the state of the toilets, she said. It was a test of obedience.