not considered useful to the regime, whereas I was.
* * *
—
This morning I got up an hour early to steal a few moments before breakfast with you, my reader. You’ve become somewhat of an obsession—my sole confidant, my only friend—for to whom can I tell the truth besides you? Who else can I trust?
Not that I can trust you either. Who is more likely to betray me in the end? I will lie neglected in some spidery corner or under a bed while you go off to picnics and dances—yes, dancing will return, it’s hard to suppress it forever—or to trysts with a warm body, so much more attractive than the wad of crumbling paper I will have become. But I forgive you in advance. I, too, was once like you: fatally hooked on life.
Why am I taking your existence for granted? Perhaps you will never materialize: you’re only a wish, a possibility, a phantom. Dare I say a hope? I am allowed to hope, surely. It’s not yet the midnight of my life; the bell has not yet tolled, and Mephistopheles has not yet turned up to collect the price I must pay for our bargain.
For there was a bargain. Of course there was. Though I didn’t make it with the Devil: I made it with Commander Judd.
* * *
—
My first meeting with Elizabeth, Helena, and Vidala took place the day after my trial by murder in the stadium. The four of us were ushered into one of the hotel boardrooms. We all looked different then: younger, trimmer, less gnarled. Elizabeth, Helena, and I were wearing the brown sack-like garments I’ve described, but Vidala already had on a proper uniform: not the Aunts’ uniform later devised, but a black one.
Commander Judd was awaiting us. He sat at the head of the boardroom table, naturally. Before him was a tray with a coffee pot and cups. He poured ceremoniously, smiling.
“Congratulations,” he began. “You have passed the test. You are brands snatched from the burning.” He poured his own coffee, added creamer, sipped. “You may have been wondering why a person such as myself, successful enough under the previous corrupt dispensation, has acted in the way I have. Don’t think I don’t realize the gravity of my behaviour. Some might call the overthrowing of an illegitimate government an act of treason; without a doubt, many have had this thought about me. Now that you have joined us, it is the same thought that others will have about you. But loyalty to a higher truth is not treason, for the ways of God are not the ways of man, and they are most emphatically not the ways of woman.”
Vidala watched us being lectured by him, smiling a tiny smile: whatever he was persuading us about was already an accepted creed to her.
I took care not to react. It’s a skill, not reacting. He looked from one blank face to another. “You may drink your coffee,” he said. “A valuable commodity that is increasingly difficult to obtain. It would be a sin to reject what God has provided to his favoured ones through his bounty.” At this we picked up our cups, as if at a ceremonial communion.
He continued: “We have seen the results of too much laxity, too much hunger for material luxuries, and the absence of the meaningful structures that lead to a balanced and stable society. Our birth rate—for various reasons, but most significantly through the selfish choices of women—is in free fall. You do agree that human beings are at their most unhappy when in the midst of chaos? That rules and boundaries promote stability and thus happiness? You follow me so far?”
We nodded.
“Is that a yes?” He pointed at Elizabeth.
“Yes,” she said in a voice squeaky with fright. She was younger and still attractive then; she hadn’t yet allowed her body to engorge. I have noted since that some kinds of men like to bully beautiful women.
“Yes, Commander Judd,” he admonished. “Titles must be respected.”
“Yes, Commander Judd.” I could smell her fear from across the table; I wondered if she could smell mine. It has an acid smell, fear. It’s corrosive.
She, too, has been alone in the dark, I thought. She has been tested in the stadium. She, too, has gazed into herself, and has seen the void.
“Society is best served by separate spheres for men and women,” Commander Judd continued in a sterner voice. “We have seen the disastrous results of the attempt to meld