The Handmaid's Tale(45)

“It’s fine,” I say. “A keeper. A girl.”

Cora smiles at me, a smile which includes. These are the moments that must make what she is doing seem worthwhile to her.

“That’s good,” she says. Her voice is almost wistful, and I think: of course. She would have liked to have been there. It’s like a party she couldn’t go to.

“Maybe we have one, soon,” she says, shyly. By we she means me. It’s up to me to repay the team, justify my food and keep, like a queen ant with eggs. Rita may disapprove of me, but Cora does not. Instead she depends on me. She hopes, and I am the vehicle for her hope.

Her hope is of the simplest kind. She wants a Birth Day, here, with guests and food and presents, she wants a little child to spoil in the kitchen, to iron clothes for, to slip cookies into when no one’s watching. I am to provide these joys for her. I would rather have the disapproval, I feel more worthy of it.

The dinner is beef stew. I have some trouble finishing it, because halfway through it I remember what the day has erased right out of my head. It’s true what they say, it’s a trance state, giving birth or being there, you lose track of the rest of your life, you focus only on that one instant. But now it comes back to me, and I know I’m not prepared.


The clock in the hall downstairs strikes nine. I press my hands against the sides of my thighs, breath in, set out along the hall and softly down the stairs. Serena Joy may still be at the house where the Birth took place; that’s lucky, he couldn’t have foreseen it. On these days the Wives hang around for hours, helping to open the presents, gossiping, getting drunk. Something has to be done to dispel their envy. I follow the downstairs corridor back, past the door that leads into the kitchen, along to the next door, his. I stand outside it, feeling like a child who’s been summoned, at school, to the principal’s office. What have I done wrong?

My presence here is illegal. It’s forbidden for us to be alone with the Commanders. We are for breeding purposes: we aren’t concubines, geisha girls, courtesans. On the contrary: everything possible has been done to remove us from that category. There is supposed to be nothing entertaining about us, no room is to be permitted for the flowering of secret lusts; no special favours are to be wheedled, by them or us, there are to be no toeholds for love. We are two-legged wombs, that’s all: sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices.

So why does he want to see me, at night, alone?

If I’m caught, it’s to Serena’s tender mercies I’ll be delivered. He isn’t supposed to meddle in such household discipline, that’s women’s business. After that, reclassification. I could become an Unwoman.

But to refuse to see him could be worse. There’s no doubt about who holds the real power.

But there must be something he wants, from me. To want is to have a weakness. It’s this weakness, whatever it is, that entices me. It’s like a small crack in a wall, before now impenetrable. If I press my eye to it, this weakness of his, I may be able to see my way clear.

I want to know what he wants.

I raise my hand, knock, on the door of this forbidden room where I have never been, where women do not go. Not even Serena Joy comes here, and the cleaning is done by Guardians. What secrets, what male totems are kept in here?

I’m told to enter. I open the door, step in.


What is on the other side is normal life. I should say: what is on the other side looks like normal life. There is a desk, of course, with a Computalk on it, and a black leather chair behind it. There’s a potted plant on the desk, a pen-holder set, papers. There’s an oriental rug on the floor, and a fireplace without a fire in it. There’s a small sofa, covered in brown plush, a television set, an end table, a couple of chairs.

But all around the walls there are bookcases. They’re filled with books. Books and books and books, right out in plain view, no locks, no boxes. No wonder we can’t come in here. It’s an oasis of the forbidden. I try not to stare.

The Commander is standing in front of the fireless fireplace, back to it, one elbow on the carved wooden overmantel, other hand in his pocket. It’s such a studied pose, something of the country squire, some old come-on from a glossy men’s mag. He probably decided ahead of time that he’d be standing like that when I came in. When I knocked he probably rushed over to the fireplace and propped himself up. He should have a black patch, over one eye, a cravat with horseshoes on it.

It’s all very well for me to think these things, quick as staccato, a jittering of the brain. An inner jeering. But it’s panic. The fact is I’m terrified.

I don’t say anything.