but changed them each time, and we needed to incorporate her handwritten notes into a legible typescript. By now I had learned how to type, although slowly.
While I was at my desk, Aunt Lydia would sometimes pass me going through the Reading Room on her way to her own special room, where she was said to be doing important research that would make Gilead a better place: that was Aunt Lydia’s lifetime mission, said the senior Aunts. 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. We would be granted access only when our minds were sufficiently strengthened.
The months and years went by, and Becka and I became close friends, and told each other many things about ourselves and our families that we’d never told anyone else. I confessed how much I’d hated my stepmother, Paula, although I’d tried to overcome that feeling. I described the tragic death of our Handmaid, Crystal, and how upset I’d been. And she told me about Dr. Grove and what he’d done, and I’d told her my own story about him, which upset her on my behalf. We talked about our real mothers and how we wanted to know who they’d been. Perhaps we ought not to have shared so much, but it was very comforting.
“I wish I had a sister,” she said to me one day. “And if I did, that person would be you.”
50
I’ve described our life as peaceful, and to the outward eye it was; but there were inner storms and turmoils that I have since come to learn are not uncommon among those seeking to dedicate themselves to a higher cause. The first of my inner storms came about when, after four years of reading more elementary texts, I was finally granted reading access to the full Bible. Our Bibles were kept locked up, as elsewhere in Gilead: only those of strong mind and steadfast character could be trusted with them, and that ruled out women, except for the Aunts.
Becka had begun her own Bible reading earlier—she was ahead of me, in priority as well as in proficiency—but those already initiated into these mysteries were not allowed to talk about their sacred reading experiences, so we had not discussed what she had learned.
The day came when the locked wooden Bible box reserved for me would be brought out to the Reading Room and I would finally open this most forbidden of books. I was very excited about it, but that morning Becka said, “I need to warn you.”
“Warn me?” I said. “But it’s holy.”
“It doesn’t say what they say it says.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I don’t want you to be too disappointed.” She paused. “I’m sure Aunt Estée meant well.” Then she said, “Judges 19 to 21.”
That was all she would tell me. But when I got to the Reading Room and opened the wooden box and then the Bible, that was the first place I turned to. It was the Concubine Cut into Twelve Pieces, the same story that Aunt Vidala had told us so long ago at school—the one that had disturbed Becka so much when she was little.
I remembered it well. And I remembered, too, the explanation that Aunt Estée had given us. She’d said that the reason the concubine had got killed was that she was sorry for having been disobedient, so she sacrificed herself rather than allowing her owner to be raped by the wicked Benjaminites. Aunt Estée had said the concubine was brave and noble. She’d said the concubine had made a choice.
But now I was reading the whole story. I looked for the brave and noble part, I looked for the choice, but none of that was there. The girl was simply shoved out the door and raped to death, then cut up like a cow by a man who’d treated her like a purchased animal when she’d been alive. No wonder she’d run away in the first place.
It came as a painful shock: kind, helpful Aunt Estée had lied to us. The truth was not noble, it was horrible. This was what the Aunts meant, then, when they said women’s minds were too weak for reading. We would crumble, we would fall apart under the contradictions, we would not be able to hold firm.
Up until that time I had not seriously doubted the rightness and especially the truthfulness of Gilead’s