The Testaments(90)

By this time I knew that the person leaving these files for me must be Aunt Lydia. But why was she doing it? And how did she want me to react? My mother was alive, but she was also under sentence of death. She’d been deemed a criminal; worse, a terrorist. How much of her was in me? Was I tainted in some way? Was that the message? Gilead had tried to kill my renegade mother and had failed. Should I be glad about this, or sorry? Where should my loyalties lie?

Then, on impulse, I did a very dangerous thing. Making sure no one was watching, I slipped the two pages with their glued-on pictures out of the Bloodlines file, then folded them several times and hid them in my sleeve. Somehow I could not bear to be parted with them. It was foolish and headstrong, but it was not the only foolish and headstrong thing I have ever done.





Transcript of Witness Testimony 369B


57


It was a Wednesday, the woe day. After the usual putrid breakfast, I received a message to go immediately to Aunt Lydia’s office. “What does it mean?” I asked Aunt Victoria.

“Nobody ever knows what Aunt Lydia might have in mind,” she said.

“Have I done something bad?” There was a big choice of bad things, that was for sure.

“Not necessarily,” she said. “You might have done something good.”

Aunt Lydia was waiting for me in her office. The door was ajar, and she told me to come in even before I’d knocked. “Close the door behind you and sit down,” she said.

I sat down. She looked at me. I looked at her. It’s strange, because I knew she was supposed to be the powerful, mean old queen bee of Ardua Hall, but right then I didn’t find her scary. She had a big mole on her chin: I tried not to stare at it. I wondered why she hadn’t had it taken off.

“How are you enjoying it here, Jade?” she said. “Are you adjusting?”

I should have said yes, or fine, or something, the way I’d been trained. Instead I blurted, “Not well.”

She smiled, showing her yellowy teeth. “Many have regrets at first,” she said. “Would you like to go back?”

“Like, how?” I said. “Flying monkeys?”

“I suggest you refrain from making that kind of flippant remark in public. It could have painful repercussions for you. Do you have something to show me?”

I was puzzled. “Like what?” I asked. “No, I didn’t bring—”

“On your arm, for instance. Under your sleeve.”

“Oh,” I said. “My arm.” I rolled up the sleeve: there was GOD/LOVE, not looking very pretty.

She peered at it. “Thank you for doing as I requested,” she said.

She was the one who’d requested it? “Are you the source?” I asked.

“The what?”

Was I in trouble? “You know, the one—I mean—”

She cut me off. “You must learn to edit your thoughts,” she said. “Unthink them. Now, next steps. You are Baby Nicole, as you must have been told in Canada.”

“Yeah, but I’d rather not be,” I said. “I’m not happy about it.”

“I’m sure that is true,” she said. “But many of us would rather not be who we are. We don’t have unlimited choices in that department. Now, are you ready to help your friends back in Canada?”

“What do I have to do?” I asked.

“Come over here and place your arm on the desk,” she said. “This won’t hurt.”

She took a thin blade and made a nick in my tattoo, at the base of the O. Then, using a magnifying glass and a minute pair of tweezers, she slid something very small into my arm. She was wrong about it not hurting.

“No one would think of looking inside GOD. Now you’re a carrier pigeon, and all we have to do is transport you. It’s harder than it would have been once, but we’ll manage it. Oh, and don’t tell anyone about this until granted permission. Loose lips sink ships, and sinking ships kill people. Yes?”

“Yes,” I said. Now I had a lethal weapon in my arm.

“Yes, Aunt Lydia. Don’t slip up on manners here, ever. You could trigger a denunciation, even for something so minor. Aunt Vidala loves her Corrections.”





Transcript of Witness Testimony 369A


58


Two mornings after I’d read my Bloodlines file I received a summons to Aunt Lydia’s office. Becka had also been ordered to attend; we walked over together. We thought we were going to be asked again how Jade was getting along, whether she was happy with us, whether she was ready for her literacy test, whether she was firm in her faith. Becka said she was going to request that Jade be moved elsewhere because we’d been unable to teach her anything. She simply didn’t listen.

But Jade was already in Aunt Lydia’s office when we got there, sitting on a chair. She smiled at us, an apprehensive smile.

Aunt Lydia let us in, then looked up and down the corridor before closing the door. “Thank you for coming,” she said to us. “You may sit down.” We sat in the two chairs provided, one on either side of Jade. Aunt Lydia herself sat down, placing her hands on her desk to lower herself. Her hands were slightly tremulous. I found myself thinking, She’s getting old. But that did not seem possible: surely Aunt Lydia was ageless.