STARCHED COLLARS

Eleanor and I went down for breakfast. This must have been a full week after my little trip to the stadium. I'd not yet told Eleanor what had happened, nor why I'd vomited. By now I had three sets of these natty black suits. Daily laundered and starched shirts. Not a collar out of place.

At our table at the restaurant, there he was. Sitting alone. Not really a smile on his face, but he was cordial. He'd been the toast of the fraternity with that charming ambiance, back in the day.

"Eleanor, Joe, good to see you. I hope you don't mind me joining you. I have a proposal for you."

Eleanor piped up, "I get the feeling this is not a proposal for me. But I do want to know - when are we going home?"

My frat brother was nothing if not honest. "No, Eleanor, it's not exactly for you. You can appreciate that Gilead has no place for female art professors. However, if you play your cards right, we can see to it that you get the benefit of some of the stuff we've confiscated from some institutions."

There it was. He'd said "we've". Ah, okay.

All Eleanor said was, "I don't want it." She then repeated more forcefully, "When are we going home?"

We sat, and he said, "Well, we'll see about a new and better home. But I'm here with a proposal for Joe. He's the economist here. He's written about basing currency on labour, rather than on debt or even gold reserves. Radical stuff. It's caught the attention of the Sons of Jacob. No one has a clue on how to operationalize that kind of thing."

I said, "Really? Ideologues need economists?"

My brother said, "Everyone needs at least one, dude." He then explained that sooner or later it would be too late. "They're killing women, Joe." I noted that he's switched from 'We're' to 'they're'. Noted. "Some of us see our labour supply being buried."

IDEOLOGUES NEED ECONOMISTS

"No, no, no, no, no. You have to quit with the salvagings. I don't care what they've done. This economy is based on labour! Quit killing off the labour!"

Of course, there was no one in the room except for me to my rant. I had in front of me a labour report, showing how short of female labour we were.

Yes, I had said, 'we'.

Add to that, the geniuses in Gilead were sending women with amputated hands off to be marthas. I shouted to no one, "how do you iron with one hand?" Back at the university, the feminists would be all over this - but then again, the feminists were not exactly fans of Sons of Jacob to begin with.

Me, I'd got this gig soon after being released from the hotel. They'd taken me to the Chancery building and Eleanor was taken house hunting. We couldn't return to our old house, that house was now deemed what would eventually be called "econo", and could only accommodate a suitable working class family. I wish I'd known that we'd been living a working class life while both of us were at the university. Hah!

I was given an office here in the basement, the bowels of Chancery. I was also given the rank of Commander, with the requisite ornaments on my shoulders and sleeves. I have been referred to as such ever since. Yet I was told in no uncertain terms by no less than High Commander Pryce, that I was not to show up for Chancery meetings. I was to consider myself a Commander in name only, and would function more like an advisor. "You'll live as one, but don't push your luck. You never were a Son of Jacob," he'd said.

Boy oh boy, did those Commanders in the Chancery need advising. The ideologs were going to crash this state. Just when Gilead needed to delineate more succinctly the roles of a Commander's Wife, martha, Handmaid, Aunt and unwoman, etc., etc., there'd be another salvaging and one of those categories would experience a shortage. Like the aforementioned amputations of women's hands, those tagged as marthas. Gilead was a death-state. I was going to put a stop to it. Somehow.

It was my idea that women tagged as 'unwomen' not be salvaged, but sent to the colonies for much needed radioactive soil clean-up. Lesbians could do that! It was best done by hand anyway. I mean, get some productive labour out of them before their dispatch - let the radiation take them and save a bullet.

Harsh, I know. But these were harsh times. All of us needed to keep our eyes on the prize of fertility and the birth rate, which was otherwise plummeting. I wrote and rewrote the policy on Handmaids five or six times, until the morons in the Chancery would accept that a one-eyed Handmaid should not be judged on her facial appearance, but on her fertility.

One again, no less than High Commander Pryce would come down to my office to ask that I write yet another policy that split the difference on issues like that. Eventually I found my footing by risking with him, "Ok, let's split the difference and do it my way." It took a good five seconds before he started to laugh, and in those five seconds I imagined myself being salvaged.

That was all well and good to risk that kind of confrontation for myself, but I should dial it back for Eleanor's sake. I'd still not secured adequate medication for her.

Eleanor was just as vocal. She found fault with every home she'd been shown. So, how did they silence her? Well, she had been an art professor at a major university - and the museums and galleries were being emptied as Gilead enforced the new Puritan ideology. Some of the works of 'the masters' were themselves purged in well televised mass burnings - but Commander Pryce saw to it that a few made it to one of the houses Eleanor was shown. Not surprisingly, she warmed to it. Pryce was trying to buy her off. For the most part, it had worked - except that at the oddest of times, Eleanor would sound off on some sin Gilead was committing. I don't know how we stayed off the wall.

Like I wrote, I was a Commander in name only, and it was not lost on the other Wives that Eleanor was similarly a Commander's Wife in name only. As she felt alienated from them, she retreated more and more into our house. The artwork coming into our house was frequent, and as the weeks went on she threw herself into its appreciation. I know not how, nor did I want to - how she amassed books on the art. She threw herself into its study. She started writing papers on it that no one would read. Me, I had to come up to speed on it all when questioned as to why so many books. One Guardian had asked, "Mrs Lawrence isn't reading this stuff, is she?"

MISSED A CALL BY 30 SECONDS

Then the pivotal day. When it all changed. On two fronts.

#1 - I missed the call from home by 30 seconds.

But #2 - I'd been called upstairs to a Chancery meeting to explain my latest policy document, the one about replacing salvaging as a punishment with ever increasing unpleasant labour assignments. Create negative incentives, rather than the heavy hammer of punishment.

Particularly troubling to the Puritans upstairs was my section on incentivising work, meaning rewarding good work. The concept seemed to escape those punitive bastards. I spent the rest of the afternoon listening to them question me on issues they couldn't possibly understand - but they certainly seemed intent on reminding me that I was an "acting-Commander" or some such thing. That 'taunt' did not go away even after high Commander Pryce had stopped the meeting to remind the Chancery that they had to treat people like me with respect.

Then the surprise. As I was collecting my things to depart the Chancery, High Commander Pryce simply announced to the gathered: "Commander Joseph Lawrence - I hereby appoint you to this august chamber. Do you accept the privileges and responsibilities of this action?" Before I could answer, an objection was raised. If this appointment went ahead, I'd be the first Commander who'd not been an original.

High Commander Pryce said calmly, "It's a bridge we are going to have to eventually cross. Some of us are long in the tooth. We need a policy on orderly transition of leadership. We've not got one yet. My brothers: today we take the first step in the inevitable. I remind you of Paul the Apostle - him not being one of the original Twelve. Yet after the Road to Damascus, even after persecuting our Lord, he became the chief disciple."

As it was, I was assigned a much needed assistant. I got an office. Upstairs. Yet beware what you wish for, it was not too long before I clutched on to any excuse to miss Chancery meetings. Dull, dull, dull. Pompous speeches. My Lord above, **these** were the vanguard of the righteous revolution?

Okay, that was the #2 change.

#1

Returning to the first item on that pivotal day. The earlier call from home. It had been from a Guardian who'd been patrolling. Eleanor had had a break-down. That's what I'd missed by 30 seconds as I was upstairs being promoted to full Commander. For Eleanor, those geniuses upstairs had done away with psychiatry and psychotropic drugs. People like Eleanor suffered as a result.

My driver got me to our new Commander's house in record time, I did not wait for him to open my door, I jumped out and up and into the house. I was met by our martha, Cora. Cora said, "Mrs. Lawrence is upstairs, but you should come into the parlour first."

I had given Cora wide latitude, the kind of latitude I hoped that marthas could earn for exceptional service. Way too much latitude, as witnessed by what I write below. But even I got a little irritated when she grabbed my arm and pulled me into the parlour.

Standing behind the settee was a young woman in a red robe with white 'wings' atop her head. Her eyes were demurely pointed at the floor. What? I knew exactly what was wrong with this picture.

I bolted upstairs knowing immediately the damage control I was going to have to do with my beloved. She was facedown on the bed, weeping quite severely. I sat down on the bed beside her, but she pulled away when I rested my hand on her shoulder.

"Don't you touch me," she barked. "You told me we weren't going to do… that." I promised her that I would take care of it.

Downstairs I went into the kitchen. Cora asked, "What could I do? The girl just arrived. In the birthmobile. The Aunt stayed as long as she could, she left about an hour ago. The girl's been standing there immobile ever since. What's going on? I've not made up the extra room across from the master bedroom. I assume that's about the only space for the handmaid." First, I told Cora to shut up. She hissed at me, "I'm not going to shut up!" I told Cora to make up the room for only one night and to tell the girl not to unpack. Take her upstairs and tell her not to come out of her room.

I planned to deal with this in the morning, back in my basement office at the Chancery - I didn't dare address this in my new office upstairs.

Yes, a pivotal day.