In answer to a question, 'would Naomi Putnam really call a handmaid a slut?'
THE DEAD WRONG MISCALCULATION
"I'm telling you, Commander Lawrence," Danielle said, "the only thing I will do if I ever make it back to your fucked up country, is stick a shiv into Mrs. Radcliff's neck." Mrs. Radcliff had once held down Danielle, while her husband, The Commander, raped her.
Vicky, she was also with Danielle at this little tête-à-tête with Joseph Lawrence, at the Gilead Information Centre in Toronto. Danielle smiled an unfriendly smile at him, "but I will give you something, Commander, you have a lot of balls seeing us, especially here in your sanitized version of Gilead in Canada."
Lawrence raised his eyebrows, then said, "that's what I have, all right. Balls. I've been known for them, I'll give you that."
"Fuck you, you sick pervert," Danielle spat.
"Hey, hey, hey!" Lawrence stopped them, "I called you here, for a friendly visit! There's no harm for you here, and I can guarantee," he said pointing to the armed Guardians to the side, "there is no harm to me either. So can we get to it?"
Vicky said, "well, it's your meeting, Commander."
Lawrence held up a picture of Commander Frederick Waterford, then said, "a while ago, we were such friends. Maybe you've forgotten." Lawrence then held up a picture of Commander Warren Putnam's body, with fresh blood still surrounding his head. He said, "you may not know this man, he was a colleague of mine. Now this guy," Lawrence said pointing to the body in the picture, "he had balls. He took them out on Handmaids. For such, he was tried, and convicted. You may not appreciate it, I'm just asking you to withhold judgment and listen. He'd been tried and executed for abusing….. handmaids."
"Fuck you, Lawrence," Danielle said, "The Ceremony is rape, state-sanctioned."
"Okay," Lawrence said putting the pictures away. "I'm here in Toronto as a bit of a salesman, I'll give you that. What would you say about a region of Gilead, within Gilead - a Hong Kong-like place where the laws of Gilead did not apply? Where you could live a normal, American life? A region designed for people like you - yes, with a gripe against us, but who can help with the change we all agree needs to happen."
He leaned forward, "you two women," Lawrence said, purposely avoiding calling them 'girls', "you could be part of the vanguard of change, living near your loved ones, but where you could live in peace and contribute to your community."
"Do you really think we're dumb, Commander?" Vicky asked.
"No, I don't." Lawrence pulled out a world-map, showing the overlay of the multitude of various international organizations. For the U.N., NATO, Norad, The World Bank, the IMF, all the arrows about them pointed to Anchorage, Alaska. It was stark the visual, none of the arrows pointed anywhere near what used to be, 'the lower 48'.
He said, "this is what is at stake. I'll be upfront with you, why will New Bethlehem work? Because we need you, more than you need us." He leaned back. "Would you at least think about it."
Their silence, at least it was something.
Then came Lawrence's awkward miscalculation. His first of two for the day.
He said, "what would you say if I said that I had June Osborne signed up for this?"
What took him by surprise was seeing something in former Gilead Handmaids, something that he'd not ever seen before in that demographic.
A belly laugh! They roared! Vicky and Danielle had laughed so hard, that the Guardians had clutched their weapons just a little tighter.
"THIS is what you want us to sign-up for?" Vicky said when her uncontrolled outburst had subsided.
Lawrence reminded the women, that the two of them, they had been with Osborne the night of Waterford's salvaging, the salvaging in No Mans Land. Danielle was then the one who spilled the beans, something that had never even occurred to Lawrence.
Not in a million years.
She said, "Osborne? When we told her, the next morning, we literally told her that it was now our turn. I showed her my only picture of Mrs. Radcliff, I told her it was now time to have Radcliff smuggled up to the border, where we could reprise Waterford's reception."
Danielle put the picture away, "you now what Osborne said? She said 'no'. That it was 'too dangerous'. 'Too dangerous'. Then it became clear. Osborne had the likes of you on her side. She was a hypocrite of major proportions."
Vicky stood, collected her things, and said, "I'm going. I can't stand the smell in here. There ain't nothin' more powerful than the odour of mendacity. You can smell it. It smells like death."
When she stood, Danielle said, "want to guarantee the failure of your repatriation scheme? Get June Osborne involved."
WELCOME HOME, HON
She wasn't Eleanor, she was not someone who Lawrence would put together mix-tapes for.
But in returning from Canada, at least Joseph was not returning to an empty house. There she was, Naomi Putnam, in Lawrence's kitchen.
Then there was Aunt Lydia. Now a 24/7 presence in the Lawrence house, at least until Naomi made up her PTSD-addled mind. Still with no martha, Lawrence had come up from the basement garage, and had to put away his own coat and hat, and would have to lug his own suitcase up the stairs.
In the kitchen, there was Naomi at the sink. He did not know the woman well, but in that context he knew what she was thinking. It was her own hands in dishwater, wrinkling her own fingertips. She was probably thinking, 'where are marthas when you need one?'
He put down his suitcase, said, "Hey, Naomi, I can help once I've put my stuff away."
Without turning, she replied, "that's what Warren used to say. Then he'd time his arrival to when the work was done."
Now wanting to reverse track, he asked, "where's Lydia?"
Still without turning, she said, "well, she's still here. She's in your office. Probably still on the phone."
On the phone!
Getting there, he saw her in his chair, telephone receiver in her hand, intent on getting something straight down at the Red Centre, Ardua Hall. There he was, standing tall like an idiot on the civilian side of his own desk.
When she was finished she hung up, he asked, "hey Lydia, how's the chair?"
She looked at each arm-rest, then said, "we have good, rustic ones at the Red Centre. Wooden and hard. More pure."
She started to get up, but he put his hand out, palm up and out. "No don't," he said stopping her. "I don't often get this view, especially the window behind. You know that that glass is not bulletproof?"
Now leaning back in the chair, she said, "I never occupy myself with such things."
"Can I ask you a question, Aunt Lydia?" he said.
"My word, Commander Lawrence," she said clasping her hands on to her lap, "this is your house. You command this house, as an example to Gilead."
"How serious are you about this Handmaid's Bill of Rights stuff?"
Lydia looked at him, "very, very serious. They very thing which made poor, poor Naomi Putnam a widow, it is endemic to Gilead. God means for us to root that depravity out. You Commanders will eventually agree, that all Ceremonies will happen under supervision at the Red Centre. It simply is too tempting to have handmaids on site."
Lawrence asked, "like here?"
"Yes, like here," she confirmed.
"Why the change of view?" Lawrence asked. "Not the change of venue, Aunt Lydia, I get that. But does not The Red Centre regard the women who they're training to be 'sluts', the lot of them?"
"What do you mean?" Lydia asked, genuinely perplexed.
"It was something Naomi said, before I went to Canada this time." He said, "we were talking expectations about handmaids…. if….. if, she agreed to 'the plan'."
"That's solely your purview, Commander," Lydia said.
"No, I know." He paused, then said, "even Naomi referred to them as 'sluts'. I was just thinking, 'all of them?' Naomi! She said that! What are the odds that every fertile, unassigned woman in Gilead is a slut?"
Lydia looked down at the desk in front of her, "I must admit, that my own thinking is changing. I believe that to be because of God's leading, a merciful God."
"Well, that's what I'd thought about Naomi with Ofwarren, when she was Of….. Ofsomethingorother. She showed the girl mercy. Now, Naomi is using 'slut' language. What gives?"
Once again, Lawrence had uncharacteristically misread the room. His second misstep of the day. One of those times when Naomi had shown the girl mercy, Aunt Lydia had ended up beating her in front of Gilead's elite families!
Trying to recover, Lawrence asked, "why would someone like Naomi, the second nicest woman in Gilead - behind Eleanor - why would she call even an unknown, theoretical handmaid, a 'slut'?"
"It's their training," Lydia answered. "The new ones, the new Wives, they go to Wives' school. The Americans, they just targeted one such school, the one in Colorado Springs."
Lydia then continued, "what we ask of Wives is not natural, not even I believe it is. So they have to be trained, trained in the language. I mean, if Naomi Putnam is as nice as you say she is - which I am glad to hear, by the way! - it's what she's been trained to think."
Lawrence stood on the civilian side of his desk with his hands in his pockets. He then said, "Gilead needs changing."
Lydia said, "why do you think I'm pushing a Handmaids Bill of Rights, as you put it?"
Lawrence said, "but it would still be The Ceremony, just there, not here."
Lydia said, "that's in the Commander's hands, sir."
THE HANDMAID'S SONG
If the American raid on the Wives School in Colorado Springs had been successful, 12-year-old Agnes Mackenzie would never have had the chance.
As it was, that very afternoon, she made her premiere to her class, recited what she had spent the last week memorizing. She recited it for her class….. The Handmaid's Song.
As it was, Agnes now had the chance to stand tall, in front of her peers and recite:
Handmaids fell with Lucifer's fall
If not for babies they're on the Wall
The Wifely soul by God is bought
They are sluts and we are not.