The Testaments: Parts XIII–XVIII

Such aspersions might well be used by Elizabeth to lever me off my pinnacle.

Now, having previously told me that Elizabeth was trying to incriminate me, Vidala herself was placing the evidence against me: this innocent piece of handicraft. Where had she got it? From pilfering the laundry, I suppose.

And where did Helena actually stand vis-à-vis myself? She’d go with the Zeitgeist, whatever that might prove to be.

He will be more than excited, since he has long understood the propaganda virtues of a repatriated Baby Nicole.

She had removed the ungainly babushka-like head covering we are obliged to wear in public to avoid inflaming men, although the idea of any men being inflamed either by Aunt Lise, impressive of profile but alarmingly puckered, or by me, with my greying thatchery and sack-of-potatoes body, is so ludicrous that it hardly needs articulating.

“Is it this particular candidate she objects to, or marriage in general?”
“In general,” said Aunt Lise. “Despite the benefits.”
“Flower-arranging was no inducement?”

“She is adamant. She also says she has received a calling to higher service, though as we know they often use that excuse. But I was hoping that we...that you...”

Then I launched into my spiel: Becka was being offered a second chance in life, I said, but both she and we needed to be sure that this was the right way for her, since the life of an Aunt was not for everyone.

She must promise to obey the orders of her superiors, she must apply herself to a difficult course of studies as well as to the mundane chores assigned, she must pray for guidance every night and every morning...

These girls are all like that at the beginning: limp with relief, abject, prostrate.

He had a white beard and what looked like jowls underneath it, or possibly wattles: skin folds drooping down.

Then Paula would run down the qualifications of the other two candidates, disparaging their appearances, their characters, and their positions in life. She needn’t have bothered: I detested both of them.

They’d taken to dropping aphorisms, such as “Every cloud has a silver lining” and “The harder the shell, the sweeter the nut,” and even “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.”

Unspoken: the main focus was to get the thing over with and consign me to her past, where I would be tucked away, unreactive as lead, no longer combustible.

There was something wistful in her voice—she herself would never have a house—but I paid no attention to it.

Maybe I would have to go through with the ceremony and then murder Commander Judd on the wedding night. Stick a purloined knife into his neck, then into mine.

So this is how women get things done, I thought. If they are prepared to wheedle, and lie, and go back on their word. I was disgusted with myself, but you’ll notice this didn’t stop me.

There was a picture on the wall: Aunt Lydia, smiling an inscrutable smile.

All things come to she who waits. Time wounds all heels. Patience is a virtue. Vengeance is mine.
These hoary chestnuts are not always true, but they are sometimes true.

Over the years I increased the sensitivity of my microphones, I attuned them to whispers, I held my breath to see which of our newly recruited girls would provide me with the sort of shameful information I both craved and collected. Gradually my dossiers filled up, like a hot-air balloon getting ready for liftoff.

In the matter of Becka, it took years. She’d always been so reticent about the primary cause of her distress, even to her school friend Agnes.

It was Agnes who finally broached the question.

The upshot was that Becka had decided to offer up this silent suffering of hers as a sacrifice to God.

Cat, meanwhile, has climbed a tree and is watching the scene with equanimity.

“None of us is exempt from sin. Aunt Vidala is ambitious. She may have detected that you are de facto second-in-command to me.”

Despite the shower and the food, I was wrecked. I had dark circles under my eyes; I’d lost weight. I really did look like a waif who needed to be rescued.

May I present Jade, a precious Pearl of Great Price, saved from certain destruction. May she be purified from worldly pollution, cleansed of unchaste desires, cauterized from sin, and consecrated to whatever service is allotted to her in Gilead.

Some days I see myself as the Recording Angel, collecting together all the sins of Gilead, including mine; on other days I shrug off this high moral tone. Am I not, au fond, merely a dealer in sordid gossip?

The person of an Aunt is supposed to be sacrosanct.

As he was led out to the field, arms pinioned, he screamed, “I didn’t do it!”

The Aunts and Supplicants were all present, to support the vindication of one of Ardua Hall’s revered Founders.

I knew what was truly agitating her: she’d perjured herself irrevocably; which, if discovered, would signal her end.

Some of the Aunts put this reaction down to filial love—Dr. Grove was a wicked man, but he was still a man, and a high-status man. He was also a father, to whom respect was due by an obedient daughter.

She was not like the average new convert from abroad: these were likely to be either abject or filled with zeal.

And then the shower water started smelling strange. So they had another search, and this time they opened the rooftop rainwater cistern that we use for the showers, and she was in there.

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.

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.

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.

The precious Bloodlines Genealogical Archives kept so meticulously by the senior Aunts, the Bibles, the theological discourses, the dangerous works of world literature—all were behind that locked door.

But Shunammite had said that her Martha had said there had been an unlawful and sinful liaison...