Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale

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The Handmaid's Tale

Margaret Atwood

Night

We slept in what had once been the gymnasium. The floor was of

varnished wood, with stripes and circles painted on it, for the games

that were formerly played there; the hoops for the basketball nets

were still in place, though the nets were gone. A balcony ran around

the room, for the spectators, and I thought I could smell, faintly like

an afterimage, the pungent scent of sweat, shot through with the

sweet taint of chewing gum and perfume from the watching girls,

felt-skirted as I knew from pictures, later in miniskirts, then pants,

then in one earring, spiky green-streaked hair. Dances would have

been held there; themusic lingered, a palimpsest of unheard sound,

style upon style, an undercurrent of drums, a forlorn wail, garlands

made of tissue-paper flowers, cardboard devils, a revolving ball of

mirrors, powdering the dancers with a snow of light.

There was old sex in the room and loneliness, and expectation, of

something without a shape or name. I remember that yearning, for

something that was always about to happen and was never the same

as the hands that were on us there and then, in the small of the back,

or out back, in the parking lot, or in the television room with the

sound turned down and only the pictures flickering over lifting flesh.

We yearned for the future. How did we learn it, that talent for

insatiability? It was in the air; and it was still in the air, an

after-thought, as we tried to sleep, in the army cots that had been set

up in rows, with spaces between so we could not talk. We had

flannelette sheets, like children's, and army-issue blankets, old ones

that still said U.S. We folded our clothes neatly and laid them on the

stools at the ends of the beds. The lights were turned down but not

out. Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth patrolled; they had electric cattle

prods slung on thongs from their leather belts.

No guns though, even they could not be trustedwith guns. Guns were

for the guards, specially picked from the Angels. The guards weren't

allowed inside the building except when called, and we weren't

allowed out, except for our walks, twice daily, two by two around the

football field, which was enclosed now by a chain-link fence topped

with barbed wire. The Angels stood outside it with their backs to us.

They were objects of fear to us, but of something else as well. If only

they would look. If only we could talk to them. Something could be

exchanged,we thought, some deal made, some tradeoff, we still had

our bodies. That was our fantasy.

We learned to whisper almost without sound. In the semi-darkness

we could stretch out our arms, when the Aunts weren't looking, and

touch each other's hands across space. We learned to lip-read, our

heads flat on the beds, turned sideways, watching each other's

mouths. In this way we exchanged names, from bed to bed: Alma.

Janine. Dolores. Moira. June.

Shopping

A chair, a table, a lamp. Above, on the white ceiling, a relief ornament

in the shape of a wreath, and in the center of it a blank space,

plastered over, like the place in a face where the eye has been taken

out. There must have been a chandelier, once. They've removed

anything you could tie a rope to.

A window, two white curtains. Under the window, a window seat

with a little cushion. When the window is partly openit only opens

partlythe air can come in and make the curtains move. I can sit in the

chair,or on the window seat, hands folded, and watch this. Sunlight

comes in through the window too, ami falls on the floor, which is

made of wood, in narrow strips, highly polished. I can smell the

polish. There's a rug on the floor, oval, of braided rags. This is the

kind of touch they like: folk art, archaic, made by women, in their

spare time, from things that have no further use. A return to

traditional values. Waste not want not. I am not being wasted. Why

do 1 want?

On the wall above the chair, a picture, framed but with no glass: a

print of flowers, blue irises, watercolor. Flowers are still allowed,

Does each of us have the same print, the same chair, the same while

curtains, I wonder? Government issue?

Think of it as being in the army, said Aunt Lydia.

A bed. Single, mattress medium-hard, covered with a flocked white

spread. Nothing takes place in the bed but sleep; or no sleep. I try not

to think too much. Like other things now, thought must be rationed.

There's a lot that doesn't bear thinking about. Thinking can hurt your

chances, and I intend to last. I know why there is no glass, in front of

the watercolor picture of blue irises, and why the window opens only

partly and why the glass in it is shatterproof. It isn't running away

they're afraid of. Wewouldn't get far. It's those other escapes, the

ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge.

So. Apart from these details, this could be a college guest room, for

the less distinguished visitors; or a room in a rooming house, of

former times, for ladies in reduced circumstances. That is what we

are now. The circumstances have been reduced; for those of us who

still have circumstances.

But a chair, sunlight, flowers: these are not to be dismissed. I am

alive, I live, I breathe, I put my hand out, unfolded, into the sunlight.

Where I am is not a prison but a privilege, as Aunt Lydia said, who

was in love with either/or.

The bell that measures time is ringing. Time here is measured by

bells, as once in nunneries. As in a nunnery too, there are few

mirrors.

I get up out of the chair, advance my feet into the sunlight, in their

red shoes, flat-heeled to save the spine and not for dancing. The red

gloves are lying on the bed. I pick them up, pull them onto my hands,

finger by finger. Everything except the wings around my face is red:

the color of blood, which defines us. The skirt is ankle-length, full,

gathered to a flat yoke that extends over the breasts, the sleeves are

full. The white wings too are prescribed issue; they are to keep us

from seeing, but also from being seen. I never looked good in red, it's

not my color. I pick up the shopping basket, put it over my arm.

The door of the roomnot my room, I refuse to say myis not locked. In

fact it doesn't shut properly. I go out into the polished hallway,which

has a runner down the center, dusty pink. Like a path through the

forest, like a carpet for royalty, it shows me the way.

The carpet bends and goes down the front staircase and I go with it,

one hand on the banister, once a tree, turned in another century,

rubbed to a warm gloss. Late Victorian, the house is, a family house,

built for a large rich family. There's a grandfather clock in the

hallway, which doles out time, and then the door to the motherly

front sitting room, with its flesh tones and hints. A sitting room in

which I never sit, but stand or kneel only. At the end of the hallway,

above the front door, is a fanlight of colored glass: flowers, red and

blue.

There remains a mirror, on the hall wall. If I turn my head so that the

white wings framing my face direct my vision towards it, I can see it

as I go down the stairs, round, convex, a pier glass, like the eye of a

fish, and myself in it like a distorted shadow, a parody of something,

some fairy-tale figure in a red cloak, descending towards a moment

of carelessness that is the same as danger. A Sister, dipped in blood.

At the bottom of the stairs there's a hat-and-umbrella stand, the

bentwood kind, long rounded rungs of wood curving gently up into

hooks shaped like the opening fronds of a fern. There are several

umbrellas in it: black, for the Commander, blue, for the

Commander's Wife, and the one assigned to me, which is red. I leave

the red umbrella where it is, because I know from the window that

the day is sunny. I wonder whether or notthe Commander's Wile-is

in the sitting room. She doesn't always sit. Sometimes 1 can hear her

pacing back and forth, a heavy step and then a light one, anil the soft

tap of her cane on the dusty-rose carpet.

I walk along the hallway, past the sitting room door and the door that

leads into the dining room, and open the door at the end of the hall

and go through into the kitchen. Here the smell is no longer of

furniture polish. Rita is in here, standing at the kitchen table, which

has a top of chipped white enamel. She's in her usual Martha's dress,

which is dull green, like a surgeon's gown of the time before. The

dress is much like mine in shape, long and concealing, but with a bib

apron over it and without the white wings and the veil. She puts on

the veilto go outside, but nobody much cares who sees the face of a

Martha. Her sleeves are rolled in the elbow, showing her brown arms.

She's making bread, thowing the loaves for the final brief kneading

and then the shaping.

Rita sees me and nods, whether in greeting or in simple acknowl

edgment of my presence it's hard to say, and wipes her floury hands

on her apron and rummages in the kitchen drawer for the token

book. Frowning, she tears out three tokens and hands them to me.

Her face might be kindly if she would smile. But the frown isn't

personal: it's the red dress she disapproves of, and what it stands for.

She thinks I may be catching, like a disease or any form of bad luck.

Sometimes I listen outside closed doors, a thing I never would have

done in the time before. I don't listen long, because I don't want to be

caught doing it. Once, though, I heard Rita say to Cora I hat she

wouldn't debase herself like that.

Nobody asking you, Cora said. Anyways, what could you do,

supposing?

Go to the Colonies, Rita said. They have the choice.

With the Unwomen, and starve to death and Lord knows what all?

said Cora. Catch you.

They were shelling peas; even through the almost-closed door I could

hear the light clink of the hard peas falling into the metal howl. I

heard Rita, a grunt or a sigh, of protest or agreement.

Anyways, they're doing it for us all, said Cora, or so they say. If I

hadn't of got my tubes tied, it could of been me, say I was ten years

younger. It's not that bad. It's not what you'd call hard work.

Better her than me, Rita said, and I opened the door. Their faces were

the way women's faces are when they've been talking about you

behind your back and they think you've heard: embarrassed, but also

a little defiant, as if it were their right. That day, Cora was more

pleasant to me than usual, Rita more surly.

Today, despite Rita's closed face and pressed lips, I would like to stay

here, in the kitchen. Cora might come in, from somewhere else in the

house, carrying her bottle of lemon oil and her duster, and Rita

would make coffeein the houses of the Commanders there is still real

coffeeand we would sit at Rita's kitchen table, which is not Rita's any

more than my table is mine, and we would talk, about aches and

pains, illnesses, our feet, our backs, all the different kinds of mischief

that our bodies, like unruly children, can get into. We would nod our

heads as punctuation to each other's voices, signaling that yes, we

know all about it. We would exchange remedies and try to outdo each

other in the recital of our physical miseries; gently we would

complain, our voices soft and minor key and mournful as pigeons in

the eaves troughs. / know what you mean, we'd say. Or, a quaint

expression you sometimes hear, still, from older people: / hear where

you're coming from, as if the voice itself were a traveler, arriving from

a distant place. Which it would be, which it is.

How I used to despise such talk. Now I long for it. At least it was talk.

An exchange, of sorts.

Or we would gossip. The Marthas know things, they talk among

themselves, passing the unofficial news from house to house. Like

me, they listen at doors, no doubt, and see things even with their eyes

averted. I've heard them at it sometimes, caught whiffs of their

private conversations. Stillborn, it was. Or, Stabbed her with a

knitting needle, right in the belly. Jealousy, it must have been, eating

her up. Or, tantalizingly, It was toilet cleaner she used. Worked like a

charm, though you'd think he'd of tasted it. Must've been that drunk;

but they found her out all right.

Or I would help Rita make the bread, sinking my hands into that soft

resistant warmth which is so much like flesh. I hunger to touch

something, other than cloth or wood. I hunger to commit the act of

touch.

But even if I were to ask, even if I were to violate decorum to that

extent, Rita would not allow it. She would he too alr?d. T Marthas are

not supposed to fraternize with us.

Fraternize means to behave like a brother. Luke told me that. He said

there was no corresponding word thathat meant to behave like a

sister. Sororize, it would have to be, he said. From the Latin. He liked

knowing about such details. The derivations of words, curious

usages. I used to tease him about being pedantic,

I take the tokens from Rita's outstretched hand. They have pictures

on them, of the things they can be exchanged for tweleve eggs, a piece

of cheese, a brown thing that's supposed to be a steak. I place them in

the zippered pocket in my sleeve, where 1 keep my pass.

"Tell them fresh, for the eggs," she any. "Not like the last time. And a

chicken, tell them, not a hen. Tell them who It's for and then they

won't mess around."

"All right," I say. I don't smile. Why tempt her to friendship?

I go out by the back door, into the garden, which is large and tidy: a

lawn in the middle, a willow, weeping catkins; around the edges, the

flower borders, in which the daffodils are now fading and the tulips

are opening their cups, spilling out color. The tulips are red, a darker

crimson towards the stem, as if they have been cut and are beginning

to heal there.

This garden is the domain of the Commander's Wife. Looking out

through my shatterproof window I've often seen her in it, her knees

on a cushion, a light blue veil thrown over her wide gardening hat, a

basket at her side with shears in it and pieces of string for lying the

flowers into place. A Guardian detailed to the Commander does the

heavy digging; the Commander's Wife directs, pointing with her

stick. Many of the Wives have such gardens, it's something for them

to order and maintain and care for.

1 once had a garden. I can remember the smell of the turned earth,

the plump shapes of bulbs held in the hands, fullness, the dry rustle

of seeds through the fingers. Time could pass more swiftly thai way.

Sometimes the Commander's Wife has a chair brought out, and just

sits in it, in her garden. From a distance it looks like peace.

She isn't here now, and I start to wonder where she is: I don't like to

come upon the Commander's Wife unexpectedly. Perhaps she's

sewing, in the sitting room, with her left foot on the footstool,

because of her arthritis. Or knitting scarves, for the Angels at the

front lines. I can hardly believe the Angels have a need for such

scarves; anyway, the ones made by the Commander's Wife are too

elaborate. She doesn't bother with the cross-and-star pattern used by

many of the other Wives, it's not a challenge. Fir trees march across

the ends of her scarves, or eagles, or stiff humanoid figures, boy and

girl, boy and girl. They aren't scarves for grown men but for children.

Sometimes I think these scarves aren't sent to the Angels at all, but

unraveled and turned back into balls of yarn, to be knitted again in

their turn. Maybe it's just something to keep the Wives busy, to give

them a sense of purpose. But I envy the Commander's Wife her

knitting. It's good to have small goals that can be easily attained.

What does she envy me?

She doesn't speak to me, unless she can't avoid it. I am a reproach to

her; and a necessity.

We stood face to face for the first time five weeks ago, when I arrived

at this posting. The Guardian from the previous pos?g brought me to

the front door. On first days we are permitted front doors, but after

that we're supposed to use the back. Things haven't settled down, it's

too soon, everyone is unsure about our exact status. After a while it

will be either all from doors or all back.

Aunt Lydia said she was lobbying for the front. Your in a position of

honor, she said.

The Guardianrang the doorbell for me, but before there was time for

someone to hear and walk quickly to answer, the door opened

inward. She must have been waiting behind it, I was expecting a

Martha, but it was her instead, in her long powder-blue robe,

unmistakable.

So, you're the new one, she said. She didn't step aside to let me in,

she just stood there in the doorway, blocking the entrance. She

wanted me to feel that I could not come into the house unless she

said so. There is push and shove, these days, over suchtoeholds.

Yes, I said.

Leave it on the porch. She said this to the Guardian, who was

carrying my bag. The bag was red vinyl and not large. There was

another bag, with the winter cloak and heavier dresses, but that

would be coming later.

The Guardian set down the bag and saluted her. Then I could hear

his footsteps behind me, going back down the walk, and the click of

the front gate, and I felt as if a protective arm were being withdrawn.

The threshold of a new house is a lonely place.

She waited until the car started up and pulled away. I wasn't looking

at her face, but at the part of her I could see with my head lowered:

her blue waist, thickened, her left hand on the ivory head of her cane,

the large diamonds on the ring finger, which must once have

beenfine and was still finely kept, the fingernail at the end of the

knuckly finger filed to a gentle curving point. It was like an ironic

smile, on that finger; like something mocking her.

You might as well come in, she said. She turned her back on me and

limped down the hall. Shut the door behind you.

I lifted my red bag inside, as she'd no doubt intended, then closed the

door. I didn't say anything to her. Aunt Lydia said it was best not to

speak unless they asked you a direct question. Try to think of it from

their point of view, she said, her hands clasped and wrung together,

her nervous pleading smile. It isn't easy for them.

In here, said the Commander's Wife. When I went into the sitting

room she was already in her chair, her left foot on the footstool, with

its petit point cushion, roses in a basket. Her knitting was on the floor

beside the chair, the needles stuck through it.

I stood in front of her, hands folded. So, she said. She had a cigarette,

and she put it between her lips and gripped it there while she lit it.

Her lips were thin, held that way, with the small vertical lines around

them you used to see in advertisements for lip cosmetics. The lighter

was ivory-colored. The cigarettes must have come from the black

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TheHandmaid'sTaleMargaretAtwoodINight1Wesleptinwhathadoncebeenthegymnasium.Thefloorwasofvarnishedwood,withstripesandcirclespaintedonit,forthegamesthatwereformerlyplayedthere;thehoopsforthebasketballnetswerestillinplace,thoughthenetsweregone.Abalconyranaroundtheroom,forthespectators,andIthoughtIcould...

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Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale

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