The Testaments(87)

It was a double execution: two men literally torn apart by a mob of frenzied women. There was screaming, there was kicking, there was biting, there was blood everywhere, on the Handmaids especially: they were covered in it. Some of them held up parts—clumps of hair, what looked like a finger—and then the others yelled and cheered.

It was gruesome; it was terrifying. It added a whole new dimension to my picture of Handmaids. Maybe my mother had been like that, I thought: feral.





Transcript of Witness Testimony 369A


54


Becka and I did our best to instruct the new Pearl, Jade, as Aunt Lydia had requested, but it was like talking to the air. She did not know how to sit patiently, with her back straight and her hands folded in her lap; she twisted, squirmed, fidgeted with her feet. “This is how women sit,” Becka would tell her, demonstrating.

“Yes, Aunt Immortelle,” she would say, and she would make a show of trying. But these attempts did not last long, and soon she was slouching again and crossing her ankles over her knees.

At Jade’s first evening meal at Ardua Hall, we sat her between us for her own protection, because she was so heedless. Nonetheless, she behaved most unwisely. It was bread and an indeterminate soup—on Mondays they often mixed up the leftovers and added some onions—and a salad of pea vines and white turnip. “The soup,” she said. “It’s like mouldy dishwater. I’m not eating it.”

“Shhh….Be thankful for what you are given,” I whispered back to her. “I’m sure it’s nutritious.”

The dessert was tapioca, again. “I can’t handle this.” She dropped her spoon with a clatter. “Fish eyes in glue.”

“It’s disrespectful not to finish,” said Becka. “Unless you’re fasting.”

“You can have mine,” said Jade.

“People are looking,” I said.

When she’d first arrived, her hair was greenish—that was the sort of mutilation they went in for in Canada, it seemed—but outside our apartment she had to keep her hair covered, so this had not been generally noticed. Then she began pulling hairs out of the back of her neck. She said this helped her think.

“You’ll make a bald spot if you keep on doing that,” Becka said to her. Aunt Estée had taught us that when we were in the Rubies Premarital Preparatory classes: if you remove hairs frequently, they will not grow back. It is the same with eyebrows and eyelashes.

“I know,” said Jade. “But nobody sees your hair around here anyway.” She smiled at us confidingly. “One day I’m going to shave my head.”

“You can’t do that! A woman’s hair is her glory,” said Becka. “It’s been given to you as a covering. That’s in Corinthians I.”

“Only one glory? Hair?” Jade said. Her tone was abrupt, but I don’t think she meant to be rude.

“Why would you want to shame yourself by shaving your head?” I asked as gently as I could. If you were a woman, having no hair was a mark of disgrace: sometimes, after a complaint by a husband, the Aunts would cut off a disobedient or scolding Econowife’s hair before locking her into the public stocks.

“To see what it’s like to be bald,” said Jade. “It’s on my bucket list.”

“You must be careful what you say to others,” I told her. “Becka—Aunt Immortelle and I are forgiving, and we understand that you are newly arrived from a degenerate culture; we are trying to help you. But other Aunts—especially the older ones such as Aunt Vidala—are constantly on the lookout for faults.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” said Jade. “I mean, Yes, Aunt Victoria.”

“What is a bucket list?” Becka asked.

“Stuff I want to do before I die.”

“Why is it called that?”

“It’s from ‘kick the bucket,’?” said Jade. “It’s just a saying.” Then, seeing our puzzled looks, she continued. “I think it’s from when they used to hang people from trees. They’d make them stand on a bucket and then hang them, and their feet would kick, and naturally they would kick the bucket. Just my guess.”

“That’s not how we hang people here,” said Becka.





Transcript of Witness Testimony 369B


55


I quickly realized that the two young Aunts in Doorway C didn’t approve of me; but they were all I had because I wasn’t on talking terms with anyone else. Aunt Beatrice had been kind when she’d been converting me, back in Toronto, but now that I was here I was no longer any concern of hers. She smiled at me in a distant way when I passed her, but that was all.

When I paused to think about it I was afraid, but I tried not to let fear control me. I was also feeling very lonely. I didn’t have any friends here, and I couldn’t contact anyone back there. Ada and Elijah were far away. There was no one I could ask for guidance; I was on my own, with no instruction book. I really missed Garth. I daydreamed about the things we’d done together: sleeping in the cemetery, panhandling on the street. I even missed the junk food we’d eaten. Would I ever get back there, and if I did, what would happen then? Garth probably had a girlfriend. How could he not have one? I’d never asked him because I didn’t want to hear the answer.