The Handmaid's Tale Read Free

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 posting 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 front doors or all back.
    Aunt Lydia said she was lobbying for the front. Yours is a position of honour, she said.
    The Guardian rang the doorbell for me, but before there was time for someone to hear and walk quickly to answer, the dooropened inwards. She must have been waiting behind it. I was expecting a Martha, but it was her instead, in her long powder-blue robe, unmistakeable.
    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 such toeholds.
    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behind me, going back down the walk, and the click of the front gate, and I felt as if a protective arm were being withdrawn.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 been fine 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 the 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-coloured. The cigarettes must have come from the black market, I thought, and this gave me hope. Even now that there is no real money any more, there’s still a black market. There’s always a black market, there’s always something that can be exchanged. She then was a woman who might bend the rules. But what did I have, to trade?
    I looked at the cigarette with longing. For me, like liquor and coffee, cigarettes are forbidden.
    So old what’s-his-face didn’t work out, she said.
    No, Ma’am, I said.
    She gave what might have been a laugh, then coughed. Tough luck on him, she said. This is your second, isn’t it?
    Third, Ma’am, I said.
    Not so good for you either, she said. There was another coughing laugh. You can sit down. I don’t