At the front of the stage there is a microphone; the television camera is discreetly off to the side.
I’ve only been to one of these before, two years ago. Women’s Salvagings are not frequent. There is less need for them. These days we are so well behaved.
I don’t want to be telling this story.
We take our places in the standard order: Wives and daughters on the folding wooden chairs placed towards the back, Econowives and Marthas around the edges and on the library steps, and Handmaids at the front, where everyone can keep an eye on us. We don’t sit on chairs, but kneel, and this time we have cushions, small red velvet ones with nothing written on them, not even Faith.
Luckily the weather is all right: not too hot, cloudy-bright. It would be miserable kneeling here in the rain. Maybe that’s why they leave it so late to tell us: so they’ll know what the weather will be like. That’s as good as reason as any.
I kneel on my red velvet cushion. I try to think about tonight, about making love, in the dark, in the light reflected off the white walls. I remember being held.
There’s a long piece of rope which winds like a snake in front of the first row of cushions, along the second, and back through the lines of chairs, bending like a very old, very slow river viewed from the air, down to the back. The rope is thick and brown and smells of tar. The front end of the rope runs up onto the stage. It’s like a fuse, or the string of a balloon.
On stage, to the left, are those who are to be salvaged: two Handmaids, one Wife. Wives are unusual, and despite myself I look at this one with interest. I want to know what she has done.
They have been placed here before the gates were opened. All of them sit on folding wooden chairs, like graduating students who are about to be given prizes. Their hands rest in their laps, looking as if they are folded sedately. They sway a little, they’ve probably been given injections or pills, so they won’t make a fuss. It’s better if things go smoothly. Are they attached to their chairs? Impossible to say, under all that drapery.
Now the official procession is approaching the stage, mounting the steps at the right: three women, one Aunt in front, two Salvagers in their black hoods and cloaks a pace behind her. Behind them are the other Aunts. The whisperings among us hush. The three arrange themselves, turn towards us, the Aunt flanked by the two black-robed Salvagers.
It’s Aunt Lydia. How many years since I’ve seen her? I’d begun to think she existed only in my head, but here she is, a little older. I have a good view, I can see the deepening furrows to either side of her nose, the engraved frown. Her eyes blink, she smiles nervously, peering to left and right, checking out the audience, and lifts a hand to fidget with her headdress. An odd strangling sound comes over the P.A. system: she is clearing her throat.
I’ve begun to shiver. Hatred fills my mouth like spit.
The sun comes out, and the stage and its occupants light up like a Christmas crèche. I can see the wrinkles under Aunt Lydia’s eyes, the pallor of the seated women, the hairs on the rope in front of me on the grass, the blades of grass. There is a dandelion, right in front of me, the colour of egg yolk. I feel hungry. The bell stops tolling.
Aunt Lydia stands up, smooths down her skirt with both hands, and steps forward to the mike. “Good afternoon, ladies,” she says, and there is an instant and ear-splitting feedback whine from the P.A. system. From among us, incredibly, there is laughter. It’s hard not to laugh, it’s the tension, and the look of irritation on Aunt Lydia’s face as she adjusts the sound. This is supposed to be dignified.
“Good afternoon, ladies,” she says again, her voice now tinny and flattened. It’s ladies instead of girls because of the Wives. “I’m sure we are all aware of the unfortunate circumstances that bring us all here together on this beautiful morning, when I am certain we would all rather be doing something else, at least I speak for myself, but duty is a hard taskmaster, or may I say on this occasion task-mistress, and it is in the name of duty that we are here today.”
She goes on like this for some minutes, but I don’t listen. I’ve heard this speech, or one like it, often enough before: the same platitudes, the same slogans, the same phrases: the torch of the future, the cradle of the race, the task before us. It’s hard to believe there will not be polite clapping after this speech, and tea and cookies served on the lawn.
That was the prologue, I think. Now she’ll get down to it.
Aunt Lydia rummages in her pocket, produces a crumpled piece of paper. This she takes an undue length of time to unfold and scan. She’s rubbing our noses in it, letting us know exactly who she is, making us watch her as she silently reads, flaunting her prerogative. Obscene, I think. Let’s get this over with.