The Testaments(99)

We went through the door. It wasn’t a washroom, it was an outside shed with old fishnets, a broken axe, a stack of buckets, and a back door. “Don’t know what took you so long,” said the man. “Fucking bus, it’s always late. Here’s your new stuff. There’s flashlights. Put your dresses in those backpacks, I’ll dump them later. I’ll be outside. We need to get a move on.”

The clothes were jeans and long T-shirts and wool socks and hiking boots. Plaid jackets, fleece pull-on hats, waterproof jackets. I had a little trouble with the left T-shirt sleeve—something caught on the O. I said, “Fucking shit” and then, “Sorry.” I don’t think I’ve ever changed clothes so fast in my life, but once I got the silver dress off and those clothes on I began to feel more like myself.





Transcript of Witness Testimony 369A


63


I found the clothing provided for us disagreeable in the extreme. The underwear was very different from the plain, sturdy variety worn at Ardua Hall: to me it felt slippery and depraved. Over that there were male garments. It was disturbing to feel that rough cloth touching the skin of my legs, with no intervening petticoat. Wearing such clothing was gender treachery and against God’s law: last year a man had been hanged on the Wall for dressing in his Wife’s undergarments. She’d discovered him and turned him in, as was her duty.

“I have to take these off,” I said to Nicole. “They’re men’s garments.”

“No, they’re not,” she said. “Those are girls’ jeans. They’re cut differently, and look at the little silver Cupids. Definitely girls’.”

“They’d never believe that in Gilead,” I said. “I’d be flogged or worse.”

“Gilead,” said Nicole, “is not where we’re going. We’ve got two minutes to join our buddy outside. So suck it up.”

“Pardon?” Sometimes I could not make out what my sister was saying.

She laughed a little. “It means ‘be brave,’?” she said.

We are going to a place where she will understand the language, I thought. And I will not.



* * *



—

The man had a battered pickup. The three of us squashed into the front seat. It was beginning to drizzle.

“Thank you for all you are doing for us,” I said. The man grunted.

“I get paid,” he said. “For putting my neck in the noose. I’m too old for this.”

The driver must have been drinking while we were changing our clothes: I could smell the alcohol. I remembered that smell from the dinner parties Commander Kyle would have when I was young. Rosa and Vera used to finish up what was left in the glasses sometimes. Zilla, not as much.

Now that I was about to leave Gilead forever, I was feeling homesick for Zilla and Rosa and Vera, and for my former home, and for Tabitha. In those early times I was not motherless, but now I felt that I was. Aunt Lydia had been a mother of sorts, although a harsh one, and I would not see her again. Aunt Lydia had told Nicole and me that our real mother was alive and waiting for us in Canada, but I wondered if I would die on the way there. If so, I would never meet her at all in this life. Right then she was only a torn-up picture. She was an absence, a gap inside me.

Despite the alcohol, the man drove well and quickly. The road was winding, and slick because of the drizzle. The miles went by; the moon had risen above the clouds, silvering the black outlines of the treetops. There was the occasional house, either dark or with only a few lights on. I made a conscious effort to quell my anxieties; then I fell asleep.

I dreamed of Becka. She was there beside me in the front of the truck. I couldn’t see her, though I knew she was there. I said to her in the dream, “So you came with us after all. I’m so happy.” But she didn’t answer.





Transcript of Witness Testimony 369B


64


The night slid by in silence. Agnes was asleep, and the guy driving was not what you’d call talkative. I guess he thought of us as cargo to be delivered, and who ever talked to the cargo?

After a while we turned down a narrow side road; water glinted ahead. We pulled in beside what looked like a private dock. There was a motorboat with someone sitting in it.

“Wake her up,” the driver said. “Take your stuff, there’s your boat.”

I poked Agnes in the ribs and she started awake.

“Rise and shine,” I said.

“What time is it?”

“Boat time. Let’s go.”

“Have a good trip,” said our driver. Agnes started thanking him some more, but he cut her off. He tossed our new backpacks out of the truck and was gone before we were halfway to the boat. I was using my flashlight so we could see the path.

“Turn out the light,” the person in the boat called softly. It was a man, wearing a waterproof with the hood up, but the voice sounded young. “You can see okay. Take it slow. Sit on the middle seat.”

“Is this the ocean?” Agnes asked.

He laughed. “Not yet,” he said. “This is the Penobscot River. You’ll get to the ocean soon enough.”

The motor was electric and very quiet. The boat went right down the middle of the river; there was a crescent moon, and the water was reflecting it.