white frill, I can’t remember. I said goodbye to Shunammite, and thanked her for the cookie, and said again how lovely her dress was. I went out the front door, waving cheerfully just like a real girl, and walked to our car.
After that, heart hammering, I asked our driver if he wouldn’t mind stopping by my old school, since I wished to thank my former teacher Aunt Estée for everything she had taught me.
He was standing beside the car, holding the back door open for me. He gave me a suspicious frown. “Those aren’t my instructions,” he said.
I smiled in what I hoped was a charming way. My face felt stiff, as if it was covered with hardening glue. “It’s quite safe,” I said. “Commander Kyle’s Wife won’t mind. Aunt Estée is an Aunt! It’s her job to take care of me!”
“Well, I don’t know,” he said dubiously.
I looked up at him. I’d never paid much attention to him before, since usually I had only the back view. He was a torpedo-shaped man, small at the top end, thick in the middle. He had not shaved carefully, and had bristles and a rash.
“I’ll be married soon,” I said. “To a very powerful Commander. More powerful than Paula—than Commander Kyle’s Wife.” I paused to let this sink in, and then I am ashamed to say I placed my hand lightly on top of his, where it was holding the car door. “I’ll make sure you’re rewarded,” I said.
He flinched slightly and pinkened. “Well, then,” he said, though he didn’t smile.
So this is how women get things done, I thought. If they are prepared to wheedle, and lie, and go back on their word. I was disgusted with myself, but you’ll notice this didn’t stop me. I smiled again, and pulled my skirt up just a little, displaying an ankle as I swivelled my legs into the car. “Thank you,” I said. “You won’t be sorry.”
He drove me to my old school as I’d requested, and talked to the Angels guarding it, and the double gates swung open, and I was driven inside. I told the driver to wait for me: I wouldn’t be long. Then I walked sedately into the school building, which now seemed much smaller than when I’d left it.
It was after hours; I was lucky that Aunt Estée was still there, though again it may not have been luck. She was sitting at her desk in her usual classroom, writing in her notebook. She looked up when I came in.
“Why, Agnes,” she said. “You’re all grown up!”
I hadn’t planned beyond this moment. I wanted to throw myself on the floor in front of her and burst into tears. She’d always been kind to me.
“They’re making me marry a horrible, disgusting man!” I said. “I’ll kill myself first!” Then I really did burst into tears and crumpled onto her desk. It was acting in a way, and probably bad acting, but it was real acting if you see what I mean.
Aunt Estée lifted me up and walked me to a chair. “Sit down, my dear,” she said, “and tell me all about it.”
She asked me the questions she was duty-bound to ask. Had I considered how this marriage might affect my future positively? I told her that I knew about the benefits, but I didn’t care about them because I had no future, not of that kind. What about the other candidates? she asked. Would anyone else be preferable? They were not any better, I said, and anyway Paula had made up her mind about Commander Judd. Was I in earnest about killing myself? I said I was, and that if I didn’t manage it before the wedding I would be sure to do it afterwards, and I would kill Commander Judd the first time he laid a finger on me. I would do it with a knife, I said. I would cut his throat.
I said this with conviction so she would see that I was capable of it, and for that moment I believed I was. I could almost feel the blood as it came pouring out of him. And then my own blood as well. I could almost see it: a haze of red.
Aunt Estée didn’t say I was very wicked, as Aunt Vidala might have done. Instead she said that she understood my distress. “But is there another way you feel you might contribute to the greater good? Have you perhaps had a call?”
I’d