The Testaments (The Handmaid's Tale #2) - Margaret Atwood Page 0,74

circumstances.”

“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?” I said drily. Aunt Lise sets great store by it.

“It was not.”

“Was it the prospect of childbirth?” I could understand that, the mortality rate being what it is; of newborns primarily, but also of mothers. Complications set in, especially when the infants are not normally shaped. We had one the other day with no arms, which was interpreted as a negative comment by God upon the mother.

“No, not childbirth,” said Aunt Lise. “She says she likes babies.”

“What, then?” I liked to make her blurt it out: it’s good for Aunt Lise to confront reality once in a while. She spends too much time diddling around among the petals.

She fiddled with the hair strand again. “I don’t like to say it.” She looked down at the floor.

“Go ahead,” I said. “You won’t shock me.”

She paused, flushed, cleared her throat. “Well. It’s the penises. It’s like a phobia.”

“Penises,” I said thoughtfully. “Them again.” In attempted suicides of young girls, this is often the case. Perhaps we need to change our educational curriculum, I thought: less fear-mongering, fewer centaur-like ravishers and male genitalia bursting into flame. But if we were to put too much emphasis on the theoretical delights of sex, the result would almost certainly be curiosity and experimentation, followed by moral degeneracy and public stonings. “No chance she might be brought to see the item in question as a means to an end? As a prelude to babies?”

“None whatever,” said Aunt Lise firmly. “That has been tried.”

“Submission of women as ordained from the moment of Creation?”

“Everything we could think of.”

“You tried the sleep deprivation and twenty-hour prayer sessions, with relays of supervisors?”

“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…”

I sighed. “There is little point in the destruction of a young female life for no reason,” I said. “Will she be able to learn the reading and writing? Is she intelligent enough?”

“Oh yes. Slightly too intelligent,” said Aunt Lise. “Too much imagination. I believe that’s what happened, concerning the…those things.”

“Yes, the thought-experiment penises can get out of control,” I said. “They take on a life of their own.” I paused; Aunt Lise fidgeted.

“We’ll admit her on probation,” I said finally. “Give her six months and see if she can learn. As you know, we need to replenish our numbers here at Ardua Hall. We of the older generation cannot live forever. But we must proceed carefully. One weak link…” I am familiar with these exceptionally squeamish girls. It’s no use forcing them: they can’t accept bodily reality. Even if the wedding night is accomplished, they will soon be found swinging from a light fixture or in a coma under a rose bush, having swallowed every pill in the house.

“Thank you,” said Aunt Lise. “It would have been such a shame.”

“To lose her, you mean?”

“Yes,” said Aunt Lise. She has a soft heart; that is why she is assigned to the flower-arranging and so forth. In her past life she was a professor of French literature of the eighteenth century, pre-Revolution. Teaching the Rubies Premarital Preparatory students is the closest she will ever come to having a salon.

I try to suit the occupations to the qualifications. It’s better that way, and I am a great proponent of better. In the absence of best.

Which is how we live now.

* * *

—

And so I had to involve myself in the case of the girl Becka. It’s always advisable for me to take a personal interest at the beginning with these suicidal girls who claim they wish to join us.

Aunt Lise brought her to my office: a thin girl, pretty in a delicate way, with large luminous eyes and her left wrist in a bandage. She was still wearing the green outfit of a bride-to-be. “Come in,” I said to her. “I won’t bite.”

She flinched as if she doubted this. “You may take that chair,” I said. “Aunt Lise will be right beside you.” Hesitantly she sat down, knees together modestly, hands folded in her lap. She gazed at me mistrustfully.

“So you want to become an Aunt,” I said. She nodded. “It’s a privilege, not an entitlement. I assume you understand that. And it’s not a reward for your silly attempt to end your own life. That was a