The Handmaid's Tale(88)

Just don’t, is what he said.


Your mother’s neat, Moira would say, when we were at college.

Later: she’s got pizzazz. Later still: she’s cute.

She’s not cute, I would say. She’s my mother.

Jeez, said Moira, you ought to see mine.

I think of my mother, sweeping up deadly toxins; the way they used to use up old women, in Russia, sweeping dirt. Only this dirt will kill her. I can’t quite believe it. Surely her cockiness, her optimism and energy, her pizzazz, will get her out of this. She will think of something.

But I know this isn’t true. It is just passing the buck, as children do, to mothers.

I’ve mourned for her already. But I will do it again, and again.


I bring myself back, to the here, to the hotel. This is where I need to be. Now, in this ample mirror under the white light, I take a look at myself.

It’s a good look, slow and level. I’m a wreck. The mascara has smudged again, despite Moira’s repairs, the purplish lipstick has bled, hair trails aimlessly. The moulting pink feathers are tawdry as carnival dolls and some of the starry sequins have come off. Probably they were off to begin with and I didn’t notice. I am a travesty, in bad makeup and someone else’s clothes, used glitz.

I wish I had a toothbrush.

I could stand here and think about it, but time is passing.

I must be back at the house before midnight; otherwise I’ll turn into a pumpkin, or was that the coach? Tomorrow’s the Ceremony, according to the calendar, so tonight Serena wants me serviced, and if I’m not there she’ll find out why, and then what?

And the Commander, for a change, is waiting; I can hear him pacing in the main room. Now he pauses outside the bathroom door, clears his throat, a stagy ahem. I turn on the hot water tap, to signify readiness or something approaching it. I should get this over with. I wash my hands. I must beware of inertia.

When I come out he’s lying down on the king-sized bed, with, I note, his shoes off. I lie down beside him, I don’t have to be told. I would rather not; but it’s good to lie down, I am so tired.

Alone at last, I think. The fact is that I don’t want to be alone with him, not on a bed. I’d rather have Serena there too. I’d rather play Scrabble.

But my silence does not deter him. “Tomorrow, isn’t it?” he says softly. “I thought we could jump the gun.” He turns towards me.

“Why did you bring me here?” I say coldly.

He’s stroking my body now, from stem as they say to stern, cat-stroke along the left flank, down the left leg. He stops at the foot, his fingers encircling the ankle, briefly, like a bracelet, where the tattoo is, a Braille he can read, a cattle-brand. It means ownership.

I remind myself that he is not an unkind man; that, under other circumstances, I even like him.

His hand pauses. “I thought you might enjoy it for a change.” He knows that isn’t enough. “I guess it was a sort of experiment.” That isn’t enough either. “You said you wanted to know.”

He sits up, begins to unbutton. Will this be worse, to have him denuded, of all his cloth power? He’s down to the shirt; then, under it, sadly, a little belly. Wisps of hair.

He pulls down one of my straps, slides his other hand in among the feathers, but it’s no good, I lie there like a dead bird. He is not a monster, I think. I can’t afford pride or aversion, there are all kinds of things that have to be discarded, under the circumstances.

“Maybe I should turn the lights out,” says the Commander, dismayed and no doubt disappointed. I see him for a moment before he does this. Without his uniform he looks smaller, older, like something being dried. The trouble is that I can’t be, with him, any different from the way I usually am with him. Usually I’m inert. Surely there must be something here for us, other than this futility and bathos.

Fake it, I scream at myself inside my head. You must remember how. Let’s get this over with or you’ll be here all night. Bestir yourself. Move your flesh around, breathe audibly. It’s the least you can do.





XIII

NIGHT





CHAPTER FORTY


The heat at night is worse than the heat in daytime. Even with the fan on, nothing moves, and the walls store up warmth, give it out like a used oven. Surely it will rain soon. Why do I want it? It will only mean more dampness. There’s lightning far away but no thunder. Looking out the window I can see it, a glimmer, like the phosphorescence you get in stirred seawater, behind the sky, which is overcast and too low and a dull grey infra-red. The searchlights are off, which is not usual. A power failure. Or else Serena Joy has arranged it.

I sit in the darkness; no point in having the light on, to advertise the fact that I’m still awake. I’m fully dressed in my red habit again, having shed the spangles, scraped off the lipstick with toilet paper. I hope nothing shows, I hope I don’t smell of it, or of him either.