The Handmaid's Tale (20 page)

But I also felt guilty about her. I felt I was an intruder, in a territory that ought to have been hers. Now that I was seeing the Commander on the sly, if only to play his games and listen to him talk, our functions were no longer as separate as they should have
been in theory. I was taking something away from her, although she didn't know it. I was filching. Never mind that it was something she apparently didn't want or had no use for, had rejected even; still, it was hers, and if I took it away, this mysterious “it” I couldn't quite define – for the Commander wasn't in love with me, I refused to believe he felt anything for me as extreme as that – what would be left for her?

Why should I care? I told myself. She's nothing to me, she dislikes me, she'd have me out of the house in a minute, or worse, if she could think up any excuse at all. If she were to find out, for instance. He wouldn't be able to intervene, to save me; the transgressions of women in the household, whether Martha or Handmaid, are supposed to be under the jurisdiction of the Wives alone. She was a malicious and vengeful woman, I knew that. Nevertheless I couldn't shake it, that small compunction towards her.

Also: I now had power over her, of a kind, although she didn't know it. And I enjoyed that. Why pretend? I enjoyed it a lot.

But the Commander could give me away so easily, by a look, by a gesture, some tiny slip that would reveal to anyone watching that there was something between us now. He almost did it the night of the Ceremony. He reached his hand up as if to touch my face; I moved my head to the side, to warn him away, hoping Serena Joy hadn't noticed, and he withdrew his hand again, withdrew into himself and his single-minded journey.

Don't do that again, I said to him the next time we were alone.

Do what? he said.

Try to touch me like that, when we're … when she's there.

Did I? he said.

You could get me transferred, I said. To the Colonies. You know that. Or worse. I thought he should continue to act, in public, as if I were a large vase or a window: part of the background, inanimate or transparent.

I'm sorry, he said. I didn't mean to. But I find it…

What? I said, when he didn't go on.

Impersonal, he said.

How long did it take you to find that out? I said. You can see from the way I was speaking to him that we were already on different terms.

For the generations that come after, Aunt Lydia said, it will be so much better. The women will live in harmony together, all in one family; you will be like daughters to them, and when the population level is up to scratch again we'll no longer have to transfer you from one house to another because there will be enough to go round. There can be bonds of real affection, she said, blinking at us ingratiatingly, under such conditions. Women united for a common end! Helping one another in their daily chores as they walk the path of life together, each performing her appointed task. Why expect one woman to carry out all the functions necessary to the serene running of a household? It isn't reasonable or humane. Your daughters will have greater freedom. We are working towards the goal of a little garden for each one, each one of you – the clasped hands again, the breathy voice – and that's just one
for instance
. The raised finger, wagging at us. But we can't be greedy pigs and demand too much before it's ready, now can we?

The fact is that I'm his mistress. Men at the top have always had mistresses, why should things be any different now? The arrangements aren't quite the same, granted. The mistress used to be kept in a minor house or apartment of her own, and now they've amalgamated things. But underneath it's the same. More or less.
Outside woman
, they used to be called, in some countries. I am the outside woman. It's my job to provide what is otherwise lacking. Even the Scrabble. It's an absurd as well as an ignominious position.

Sometimes I think she knows. Sometimes I think they're in collusion. Sometimes I think she put him up to it, and is laughing at me; as I laugh, from time to time and with irony, at myself. Let her take the weight, she can say to herself. Maybe she's withdrawn from him, almost completely; maybe that's her version of freedom.

But even so, and stupidly enough, I'm happier than I was before. It's something to do, for one thing. Something to fill the time, at night, instead of sitting alone in my room. It's something else to think about. I don't love the Commander or anything like it, but he's of interest to me, he occupies space, he is more than a shadow.

And I for him. To him I'm no longer merely a usable body. To him I'm not just a boat with no cargo, a chalice with no wine in it, an oven – to be crude – minus the bun. To him I am not merely empty.

I
walk with Ofglen along the summer street. It's warm, humid; this would have been sundress-and-sandals weather, once. In each of our baskets are strawberries – the strawberries are in season now, so we'll eat them and eat them until we're sick of them – and some wrapped fish. We got the fish at Loaves and Fishes, with its wooden sign, a fish with a smile and eyelashes. It doesn't sell loaves though. Most households bake their own, though you can get dried-up rolls and wizened doughnuts at Daily Bread, if you run short. Loaves and Fishes is hardly ever open. Why bother opening when there's nothing to sell? The sea fisheries were defunct several years ago; the few fish they have now are from fish farms, and taste muddy. The news says the coastal areas are being “rested.” Sole, I remember, and haddock, swordfish, scallops, tuna; lobsters, stuffed and baked, salmon, pink and fat, grilled in steaks. Could they all be extinct, like the whales? I've heard that rumour, passed on to me in soundless words, the lips hardly moving, as we stood in line outside, waiting for the store to open, lured by the picture of succulent white fillets
in the window. They put the picture in the window when they have something, take it away when they don't. Sign language.

Ofglen and I walk slowly today; we are hot in our long dresses, wet under the arms, tired. At least in this heat we don't wear gloves. There used to be an ice-cream store, somewhere in this block. I can't remember the name. Things can change so quickly, buildings can be torn down or turned into something else, it's hard to keep them straight in your mind the way they used to be. You could get double scoops, and if you wanted they would put chocolate sprinkles on the top. These had the name of a man. Johnnies? Jackies? I can't remember.

We would go there, when she was little, and I'd hold her up so she could see through the glass side of the counter, where the vats of ice cream were on display, coloured so delicately, pale orange, pale green, pale pink, and I'd read the names to her so she could choose. She wouldn't choose by the name, though, but by the colour. Her dresses and overalls were those colours too. Ice cream pastels.

Jimmies, that was the name.

Ofglen and I are more comfortable with one another now, we're used to each other. Siamese twins. We don't bother much with the formalities any more when we greet each other; we smile and move off, in tandem, travelling smoothly along our daily track. Now and again we vary the route; there's nothing against it, as long as we stay within the barriers. A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze.

We've been to the stores already, and the church; now we're at the Wall. Nothing on it today, they don't leave the bodies hanging as long in summer as they do in winter, because of the flies and the smell. This was once the land of air sprays, Pine and Floral, and people retain the taste; especially the Commanders, who preach purity in all things.

“You have everything on your list?” Ofglen says to me now, though she knows I do. Our lists are never long. She's given up some of her passivity lately, some of her melancholy. Often she speaks to me first.

“Yes,” I say.

“Let's go around,” she says. She means down, towards the river. We haven't been that way for a while.

“Fine,” I say. I don't turn at once, though, but remain standing where I am, taking a last look at the Wall. There are the red bricks, there are the searchlights, there's the barbed wire, there are the hooks. Somehow the Wall is even more foreboding when it's empty like this. When there's someone hanging on it at least you know the worst. But vacant, it is also potential, like a storm approaching. When I can see the bodies, the actual bodies, when I can guess from the sizes and shapes that none of them is Luke, I can believe also that he is still alive.

I don't know why I expect him to appear on this wall. There are hundreds of other places they could have killed him. But I can't shake the idea that he's in there, at this moment, behind the blank red bricks.

I try to imagine which building he's in. I can remember where the buildings are, inside the Wall; we used to be able to walk freely there, when it was a university. We still go in there once in a while, for Women's Salvagings. Most of the buildings are red brick too; some have arched doorways, a Romanesque effect, from the nineteenth century. We aren't allowed inside the buildings any more; but who would want to go in? Those buildings belong to the Eyes.

Maybe he's in the Library. Somewhere in the vaults. The stacks.

The Library is like a temple. There's a long flight of white steps, leading to the rank of doors. Then, inside, another white staircase going up. To either side of it, on the wall, there are angels. Also there are men fighting, or about to fight, looking clean and noble,
not dirty and blood-stained and smelly the way they must have looked. Victory is on one side of the inner doorway, leading them on, and Death is on the other. It's a mural in honour of some war or other. The men on the side of Death are still alive. They're going to Heaven. Death is a beautiful woman, with wings and one breast almost bare; or is that Victory? I can't remember.

They won't have destroyed that.

We turn our backs to the Wall, head left. Here there are several empty storefronts, their glass windows scrawled with soap. I try to remember what was sold in them, once. Cosmetics? Jewellery? Most of the stores carrying things for men are still open; it's just the ones dealing in what they call vanities that have been shut down.

At the corner is the store known as Soul Scrolls. It's a franchise: there are Soul Scrolls in every city centre, in every suburb, or so they say. It must make a lot of profit.

The window of Soul Scrolls is shatterproof. Behind it are printout machines, row on row of them; these machines are known as Holy Rollers, but only among us, it's a disrespectful nickname. What the machines print is prayers, roll upon roll, prayers going out endlessly. They're ordered by Compuphone, I've overheard the Commander's Wife doing it. Ordering prayers from Soul Scrolls is supposed to be a sign of piety and faithfulness to the regime, so of course the Commanders' Wives do it a lot. It helps their husbands' careers.

There are five different prayers: for health, wealth, a death, a birth, a sin. You pick the one you want, punch in the number, then punch in your own number so your account will be debited, and punch in the number of times you want the prayer repeated.

The machines talk as they print out the prayers; if you like, you can go inside and listen to them, the toneless metallic voices
repeating the same thing over and over. Once the prayers have been printed out and said, the paper rolls back through another slot and is recycled into fresh paper again. There are no people inside the building: the machines run by themselves. You can't hear the voices from outside; only a murmur, a hum, like a devout crowd, on its knees. Each machine has an eye painted in gold on the side, flanked by two small golden wings.

I try to remember what this place sold when it was a store, before it was turned into Soul Scrolls. I think it was lingerie. Pink and silver boxes, coloured pantyhose, brassieres with lace, silk scarves? Something lost.

Ofglen and I stand outside Soul Scrolls, looking through the shatterproof windows, watching the prayers well out from the machines and disappear again through the slot, back to the realm of the unsaid. Now I shift my gaze. What I see is not the machines, but Ofglen, reflected in the glass of the window. She's looking straight at me.

We can see into each other's eyes. This is the first time I've ever seen Ofglen's eyes, directly, steadily, not aslant. Her face is oval pink, plump but not fat, her eyes roundish.

She holds my stare in the glass, level, unwavering. Now it's hard to look away. There's a shock in this seeing; it's like seeing somebody naked, for the first time. There is risk, suddenly, in the air between us, where there was none before. Even this meeting of eyes holds danger. Though there's nobody near.

At last Ofglen speaks. “Do you think God listens,” she says, “to these machines?” She is whispering: our habit at the Centre.

In the past this would have been a trivial enough remark, a kind of scholarly speculation. Right now it's treason.

I could scream. I could run away. I could turn from her silently, to show her I won't tolerate this kind of talk in my presence. Subversion, sedition, blasphemy, heresy, all rolled into one.

I steel myself. “No,” I say.

She lets out her breath, in a long sigh of relief. We have crossed the invisible line together. “Neither do I,” she says.

“Though I suppose it's faith, of a kind,” I say. “Like Tibetan prayer wheels.”

“What are those?” she asks.

“I only read about them,” I say. “They were moved around by the wind. They're all gone now.”

“Like everything,” she says. Only now do we stop looking at one another.

“Is it safe here?” I whisper.

“I figure it's the safest place,” she says. “We look like we're praying, is all.”

“What about them?”

“Them?” she says, still whispering. “You're always safest out of doors, no mikes, and why would they put one here? They'd think nobody would dare. But we've stayed long enough. There's no sense in being late getting back.” We turn away together. “Keep your head down as we walk,” she says, “and lean just a little towards me. That way I can hear you better. Don't talk when there's anyone coming.”