RITA'S DIARY

I never thought it would be hard to adapt to Canada.

Ok, it is a foreign country, I get that. But they all look a lot like us. Especially Toronto. Black, white, everything inbetween. It still has its freedoms intact. Mainly. Unless you're native, or Black being questioned by police. But Canadians are so nice about their prejudice! The people here, they otherwise take their freedoms for granted, they complain about the most trivial of things. Just like we used to do in the old United States. What could be more the same than that?

I'm supposed to be writing this as therapy. Right. Tapping away at a government-issue laptop is supposed to help me sleep. Less panic attacks. By law, it has to have a French-friendly keyboard. I don't know what that means, Moira says not to worry about it. It's been weeks now up here in Toronto, and the euphoria of escape is lessening. As the euphoria abates, the nightmares at night become more real. Last week, I didn't go out for two solid days. Therapist says that's normal. Fuck normal. Normal life here makes me crazy. I cannot sleep alone, I cannot sleep with anyone in the room. I cannot sleep. This is better? This is normal? I'm here, 100s are not.

They've assigned me a lawyer. Why the fuck do I need a lawyer? I'll tell you why. The Boston commanders are blaming me for the escape of 86 children from that hellhole. The D.C. commanders are ramping up their propaganda, so says my lawyer. Against me. I'm at the centre of it. Really? I am no one. He tries to calm me down - "It will be a cold day in hell, when Canada extradites a Gileaden woman, a Martha, back to Boston." Then he'd rehearse six or seven scenarios where I could find myself driven to the border or put on an airplane in shackles headed south. Yes, he's supposed to be calming me down. He needs to work on his bedside manner.

Still, I'm pal'ing with Erin, the girl living with June's husband and daughter, as well as Moira. Erin is someone else with what they call morbid anxiety. Moira knew June and Luke in Boston before. I've been spending way too much time at their place. I'm probably unwelcome, they do all the cooking and cleaning. That used to be my job, they won't let me lift a finger. Those people at Luke's are daffy, but in a good way. Every once in a while they get on each others' nerves, and the bickering starts. Whenever someone gets too serious, or talks too much about their Gilead days, after a pause the otherwise silent Erin'll say, "Blessed are the fruitloops." Everyone but me laughs. Ya, sure. Who's fruitloops around here, people?

Erin has shown me around. Little America. God Almighty, "little" America. That huge, domineering superpower no longer exists, and here are these expat Americans in Toronto trying to hang on, act normal. Stars and Stripes everywhere. Deep dish pizza. Every ethnicity you can imagine, not that Toronto ever was monotone. Black, Chinese, White, Irish, Native American, Arab and everything in between. I mean, it's America all right. But I'm getting to the point that regardless of race or accent or headdress, that I can now spot an American against a Canadian.

Erin is good for me. If I don't spoil it. She does not wear it on her sleeve, but man oh man is she broken. Sometimes I feel if I were to say the wrong thing, she'd simply disintegrate into dust with the softest of breaths. I'm tall and Black, she's small and pasty, but when she looks at me I see my face as if in a mirror. Except she's looking at me knowingly, half fearing me but not wanting to abandon me to the nightmare. The anxiety that's hers also. She's got no words. I've got none for her. We both know that.

Luke Bankole, June's husband, is the guy for words. Moira says that to understand Luke, is to understand that, "Luke's often right, in the worst sense of the word." "Luke talks a lot. Sometimes he says something." He's a guy in a house of women. Luke is straight, Moira is gay, and Erin is, well, Erin. Oh yes, and a demanding baby. And it's not exactly a house. It's their "quarters" in little America.

My last panic attack. Spoiling it with Erin. Erin and I were at the St. Lawrence Market enjoying a breakfast, spending part of the refugee cheque we get from the Canadian government. Just about to pick up fresh produce right here in the city. Not like Loaves and Fishes, not at all. I can afford these things on the stipend the Canadians gives to all refugees and asylum seekers until our emergency visa applications get sorted. So there we were at the Market. Then I went blank, suffocating. The next thing I knew I was out on the street, Erin running after me. I couldn't breathe.

I was gasping, doubled over. I'd wet myself. Fuck, I didn't even know what it was about. It was that woman. Not Erin, it was the tall white woman. I just needed to get back to the apartment in Little America. Tout suite. Close and lock the fucking door.

What had happened back at St. Lawrence Market? The tall woman who sat at the next table, a statuesque white woman, with posture and pulled back tight, severe dirty-blond hair. A bag of knitting. I thought it was Mrs. Waterford. Of course, it wasn't. I mean, Mrs Waterford was a prisoner somewhere else in the city. She was locked up. She was also locked up in my head, badly. Out on the sidewalk, Erin got a hold of me, said, "Let's just take a minute and go back in. Luke says it's best just to go back in. I have a lady holding our table for us."

I told Erin, sweet Erin, to go fuck herself. She, gentle as a butterfly, took my arm. I almost snapped hers off. I think I hurt her, giving her a major league shove away. From me. I mean, she's so small. She almost went down. One guy on the street said, "Hey bitch, what the fuck is wrong with you?" Jesus save me, if I broke that girl. She followed me at a distance all the way back, never said a word about it to Moira or Luke. That evening I tried a weak apology. I can never apologize to the people I want to. She did not speak for the rest of the next day, to me or anyone. Neither did I when Luke had asked, "What gives with Erin?"

So, how's it going in Canada? Seeing the sights? Sending postcards back to the relatives? Yup, that's what we do. All these weeks, and I've not been up the CN Tower. Never been to a Leafs game. I mean, typical Canadian name, "Leafs". That's not even a word. My refugee I.D. would get me up the CN Tower and into Scotiabank Arena for free, as long as I reserved on-line. Canada had a "Celebrate Asylum Seekers Day"? Who does that? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what's with these Canadians? They put us refugees at the front of the line. That's not normal. Toto, this is not Kansas anymore.

So how's it going? Ask me in a year. Where will any of us be next year? Me, my lawyer tells me I'll be a primary witness in both Commander and Mrs Waterford's trials. I gather they've turned on each other. That's rich. If that had happened back at their house, none of us would have been safe. Like I told June, I lived in a house where an 18-year old had a gun, and he could break my jaw on a whim. If the Lady and Lord started brawling, none of us would survive. Mrs. Waterford had whacked me more than once, for nothing, not really.

There were many terrifying times there. Strangely, the handmaid's suicide had not been one of them. Well, it had; it's all relative I guess. Just not adrenalin-terrifying. Not fight or flight, freeze or fold terrifying. It was me, I'd found her. I'd screamed for Nick, the driver, fearing the Waterfords on this one. You don't think it through, not really. Both the Waterfords were monsters. The Commander had been seeing the handmaid after hours. I knew it, Nick knew it, Mrs Waterford knew it. The Commander knew we knew it. I'm ashamed to say that the first coherent thought I'd had after yelling for Nick was, "This is going to end badly," only later did I acknowledge that it had already ended badly for someone. It was not adrenalin, I consciously turned on my survival navigation system, with malice aforethought. It was survival radar.

I was right to call for Nick. He'd brought me into the Waterford household, to help Sarah, their former Martha, as her assistant. When Sarah left (kicked out? fired?), I stayed as the only domestic on the premises, lucky me, throwing myself into it. That was the way to forget and survive. Do things perfectly, and on time. Even before they asked. I had deserved a couple of those slaps, I knew I was doing some things second rate. Nick that day, he went into crisis mode, started handling things, beginning with cutting down that poor girl. He just seemed to know how to steer things. The Commander called him a natural field commander. Ice water in his veins. He knew things. My panic settled when I'd overheard Mrs Waterford telling her husband, "What did you think was going to happen?" I mean, here I am implying that she had been callous, and there was I with issue number one - how was this going to end for me?

Erin, sweet Erin. She said that that soldier, Zoe, had once told her, "That's what Gilead does to you." Those words fall flat, though. Because still, it was me choosing survival. Erin's two catchphrases: "Gilead does that to you," and "Blessed are the fruitloops." And that handmaiden had paid the price. As did Eden. I was a bitch to Eden, and she was 15. Fifteen. It's just not that simple to say that I hate Gilead, or that it was "done" to me. I could have chosen differently so many times and I did not. I hate that I was not the Che Guevera Gildead now claims I am.

There were a lot of Marthas who chose differently back then. Jeezuz, they were running a smuggling operation out of Jezebels, something that even Nick had been in on. That's where Mrs Waterford got her alcohol and smokes. Through the Martha-network. Marthas ran an underground femaleroad, as they called it. I'd wanted so much to be a badass in that, I was mainly a self-serving coward. There are so many others who deserve to go up the CN Tower for free, not me. And it's me who can. And I've not.

Mrs Waterford's trial will be first hurdle, so says the lawyer. I'll be asked what I'd directly observed in the Waterford house. Because this is a war-crimes trial - Jeez-louise! war crimes - there will be opportunity for me to be deemed something like an "expert witness", so I'll be able to comment on stuff that I thought had been happening without directly observing it.

The lawyer said that it will be perhaps tougher on me than on even Mrs. Waterford. Strangely, it will be rougher because I'm not the one on trial. She has rights, I don't. They can cut into me on cross-examination because I'm free afterwards anyway. Mrs. Waterford's lawyer does not have to disclose to the prosecutors her plan for defending her, or attacking/questioning me. So I'll have to prepare for anything, I'll have to sit through a mock cross-examination. He tells me that he'll get my words on to the record, but when the Waterford lawyer takes over, all he says is to "fasten your seatbelt, Lassie, it gets bumpy from here." He says that with a mock Scottish accent. That was his bedside manner. Great.

Once when Emily and Syl came over, it was awkward, because we weren't to talk about them as a couple. I avoided them, anyway. Syl particularly. She scared me. Emily and Syl's marriage was a taboo subject. I don't get that. They're married. They have each other, and should take advantage. They don't. They're still living apart, and they have a son! Some of us don't have sons, not any more. But they will judge me. Syl kept saying, "Rita, no one is making you testify. They'll burn the Waterfords without you." I don't know about that. Part of me wants to be a part of what burns them. I'm the only one who knows some stuff. The lawyer says that the prosecutor plans to put the Commander in the witness box after me, anyways.

Me, I'm a minor cause célèbre. Me! Apparently my profile is inflated way beyond what is real. Not as big as the Commander's, even here he's still Le Grand Fromage. The big catch. But they're giving me profile in both the Waterford's capture as well as the escape of the kids. WTF!? And Mrs Waterford's lawyer will probably use me, me!, to blunt the Commander's damage against his wife. Short story: Gilead is pinning the rescue of those children on me. According to them, I'm the genius who'd engineered Baby Nicole's kidnapping. Me! I'm fucking Che Guevara. My lawyer says that I'll be cross-examined in how I'd betrayed the Waterford's into their stupid trip to Canada, depriving them of "de facto diplomatic protection." I'd coerced them. Me. I'd engineered baby Nichole's rescue. Me. I'd done what!? Right, coerced the Commander. There's a few Marthas down south I'd love to throw that in their face!

Although it's technically possible to visit, I'm also supposed to stay away from the Waterfords. No sir, this is not Kansas anymore. I could pay them a visit, them in their jails. Even before testifying, but I won't. I can't even have coffee next to a Serena look-a-like without pee'ing myself. Luke says it's not much of a jail, each of them separately has the same room-size that Luke, Erin, and Moira have combined. And they have Nichole. Then there's me on their couch, too afraid to sleep at my place. Mrs Waterford gets newspapers and pizza delivered. Do Canadians know they're paying for those monsters?

Erin is talking to me, though. Just started again. Out of the blue. Now she won't shut up. But she won't go out with me. Not alone. I deserve that.

I hope never to adapt to this place. I hate normal. Welcome to Canada.