Ofkyle had died during a Birth, so I was viewed by the other girls as accursed; but also, since little baby Mark was alive and well and my brother, I was also viewed as unusually blessed. The other girls did not taunt me openly, but they avoided me. Huldah would squint up at the ceiling when she saw me coming; Becka would turn away, though she would slip me portions of her lunch when no one was looking. Shunammite fell away from me, whether out of fear because of the death or envy because of the Birth, or a combination of both.
At home all attention was on the baby, who demanded it. He had a loud voice. And although Paula enjoyed the prestige of having a baby—and a male one at that—she was not the motherly type at heart. Little Mark would be produced and exhibited for her friends, but a short time of that went a long way with Paula and he would soon be handed over to the wet nurse, a plump, lugubrious Handmaid who had recently been Oftucker but was now, of course, Ofkyle.
When he wasn’t eating or sleeping or being shown off, Mark passed his time in the kitchen, where he was a great favourite among the Marthas. They loved to give him his bath and exclaim over his tiny fingers, his tiny toes, his tiny dimples, and his tiny male organ, out of which he could project a truly astonishing fountain of pee. What a strong little man!
I was expected to join in the worship, and when I didn’t show enough zeal I was told to stop sulking, because soon enough I would have a baby of my own, and then I would be happy. I doubted that very much—not the baby so much as the happiness. I spent as much time in my room as possible, avoiding the cheerfulness in the kitchen and brooding on the unfairness of the universe.
VII
Stadium
The Ardua Hall Holograph
20
The crocuses have melted, the daffodils have shrivelled to paper, the tulips have performed their enticing dance, flipping their petal skirts inside out before dropping them completely. The herbs nurtured in the Ardua Hall borders by Aunt Clover and her posse of semi-vegetarian trowel-wielders are in their prime. But, Aunt Lydia, you must drink this mint tea, it will do wonders for your digestion! Keep your nose out of my digestion, I want to snap at them; but they mean well, I remind myself. Is that ever a convincing excuse when there’s blood on the carpet?
I meant well too, I sometimes mumble silently. I meant it for the best, or for the best available, which is not the same thing. Still, think how much worse it could have been if not for me.
Bullshit, I reply on some days. Though on other days I pat myself on the back. Whoever said consistency is a virtue?
What’s next in the waltz of the flowers? Lilacs. So dependable. So frilly. So aromatic. Soon my old enemy, Aunt Vidala, will be sneezing. Maybe her eyes will swell up and she won’t be able to peer at me out of their corners, hoping to detect some slippage, some weakness, some lapse in theological correctness that can be leveraged into my downfall.
Hope on, I whisper to her. I pride myself on the fact that I can keep one jump ahead of you. But why only one? Several. Topple me and I’ll pull down the temple.
* * *
—
Gilead has a long-standing problem, my reader: for God’s kingdom on earth, it’s had an embarrassingly high emigration rate. The seepage of our Handmaids, for instance: too many have been slipping away. As Commander Judd’s analysis of escapes has revealed, no sooner is an exit route discovered by us and blocked than another opens up.
Our buffer zones are too permeable. The wilder patches of Maine and Vermont are a liminal space not fully controlled by us, where the natives are, if not overtly hostile, prone to heresies. They are also, as I know from my own experience, densely interconnected by a network of marriages that resembles a piece of surreal knitting, and they are prone to vendettas if crossed. For this reason it’s difficult to get them to betray one another. It’s been suspected for some time there are guides among them, acting either from a desire to outsmart Gilead or from simple cupidity, for Mayday has been known to pay. One Vermonter who