THE LEGAL CALM BEFORE THE RELATIONAL STORM

"The thing my client doesn't want, is a return to Gilead."

The prosecutor looked at Commander Blaine's lawyer, wondering why she was now belabouring the obvious. The prosecutor said to her, "I'd not been involved in Commander Waterford's deportation, but that had had a regretful outcome." Canada had suffered a diplomatic black-eye for allowing that to proceed, even though the actual mechanics of escorting Waterford to the border had been farmed out to the American-government-in-exile.

Namely, Mark Tuello.

The PMO had farmed that out, precisely to avoid that kind of scandal. It hadn't worked. Usually the Canadian PM had been quite adroit at distancing himself from scandal.

Not with Waterford. Either Waterford.

Continuing, the prosecutor said, "I suppose there is a reason why Commander Blaine does not want June Osborne within 100 miles of his case."

The lawyer said, "Between you and me? And I didn't tell you this…. the real problem with Blaine? Unlike his brother Commanders, particularly in New Gilead, he's not an asshole. Between you and me? So far, I'm successful in persuading him not to plead guilty to it all… he wants to spare the women of Gilead a trial."

The prosecutor said, "He knows that the judge will insist on an evidentiary phase anyway, doesn't he?" He sat back, "hell so will I! What Gildead does to women simply needs to be recorded for history! Fuck culture."

Blaine's lawyer said that that wasn't just her being a dispassionate, defence lawyer. "Look, I have lesbian and feminist bona fides to think about, which are - by the way - being trashed with Blaine as my client. Not to mention Mrs. Waterford as my client, the architect of 'new feminism! My firm supports me, but I've not been invited out much to Pride parades these days."

The prosecutor smiled, "Are you sure he's not an asshole? I've heard some fairly compelling depositions."

Blaine's lawyer continued, "believe what you want. Yes, the evidence is what it is. But this was Gilead. Okay, I'll admit that that bar is rather low. I've dealt with my fair share, defended them in court. My wife has me sleeping in the basement." Blaine's lawyer asked for some trust on this one, "Blaine was 'making do' in Gilead."

The prosecutor said, "Tell the Commander that my office would probably look kindly on guilty pleas. The Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act grants the minister lots of leeway and discretion. And you know very well, that when it comes to Gilead, the PMO is not shy to interfere."

The woman looked at the prosecutor and smiled, "this is what I love about you people, you know how to issue threats." She packed up her briefcase, said, "Look, I'm meeting with Commander Blaine this morning. I'll tell him something he already knows - that the politics are lined up against him."

"Tell him something else, tell him that the evidence so far is clear. He conspired to murder, he sexually interfered with minors, he preyed on women when no civilized country in the world would recognize it as 'consensual'." He paused, "You know that, I know that, he knows that."

The woman stood, ready to walk. "Then there are three words I have in his defence. First is Mayday. Related to that are the next two, 'June Osborne'." She smiled, "me, I'm under no obligation to inform you of our defence in court, but Osborne plays well in Canadian courts. I say it because I like you. Be prepared."

"If the War Crimes act is as you say, more political than judicial… well, buckle up." She put her hand on the door-handle, "I just may win this. If I do, I just may be sleeping in the basement for years to come."

ITWC DETENTION

Blaine's lawyer summarized, "well, fully one-third of Pitcairn Island's adult male population was charged. They weren't Gilead, but they tried to make the 'culture' argument, that Polynesians were tolerant of underage sex."

"What happened? How'd it turn out?"

She smiled, Blaine was, apparently, nerdy enough to want her to continue. "First, the men's lawyers tried to claim that Britain, and hence New Zealand, had no jurisdiction When the mutineers burned The Bounty, that was, they claimed, a renouncing of Britain's authority over them."

When Blaine looked baffled, she said, "don't worry, it didn't work." She paused, "but the thing that is similar is what we will try, as did they, to play the 'culture' card."

Blaine said, "I'm not sure I want you to do that."

"It's just as well," the woman offered. "Once proper law enforcement reached the island, circa year 2000, the young girls started speaking out. Every woman was interviewed, given that this was Pitcairn it was not difficult to hear from everyone. Older women said they had just resigned themselves to Pitcairn's 'patriarchal' society."

Blaine looked down at the floor of what he called his 'palatial' cell. It was very much an 'upgrade' from anything down south in Gilead.

He said, "Look, I'm no hero here. I mean that. I did what I did for Rita Blue more for me that her. In fact, what was it I did for her? I dragged her into the Waterford orbit."

The lawyer said, "where she could keep an eye on you."

"Yes," he repeated, "where she could keep an eye on me."

Blaine recounted the time he'd been outside of The Commander's office, late at night. Waterford had been inside with Offred - which one, he was not now sure.

Blaine had just been standing there listening to the sounds of muted activity inside. Scrabble? Sex? It was frustratingly hard to tell the difference through the heavy oak door.

What he did know was that there in the dark, he had his pistol drawn, pointed down at the floor beside his leg. He was also calculating. High Commander Pryce had said about Blaine's appointment to the house, 'we're going to clean up Gilead, son'. Wasn't the illicit meeting between Commander and Handmaid precisely what Pryce had been combating? Blaine had been the one to have reported that Commander Guthrie had been sleeping with his last two handmaids, as well as skimming from the Transportation Ministry that he oversaw.

Pryce's take on Guthrie? "It's hard making it in a society that cares only for pleasure and profit. No wonder God has turned his back on us."

But, Blaine thought as he remembered, 'don't forget Rita Blue'. She's the reason he had remembered that night outside Waterford's door, gun drawn.

Rita had been watching from a shadow, down the hall, 'psst'ing' trying to get his attention. When she did and he looked to see her, all she had said was, 'Nick! No!'

Nick came back into the room, said to his lawyer, "when I figure out which Handmaid it was, I'll tell you a story."

"And thus, Commander Blaine," said the lawyer, "this is why it is so hard to defend you. You're actually one who might walk - if only so that the International Criminal Court can show the world that it's not just hanging the lot of you."

JUNE OSBORNE

"I hear there's a tape, June. One that you made for Luke. One that may get me off."

June released her embrace with Nick, an embrace she had been discouraged from making by the ITWC staff there at the detention centre. But like many things in Osborne's recent life, her response to authority was usually a crisp rendition of, 'bite me'.

June took a few steps back and said, "I'd not paid much attention to Lawrence's tapes, I mean I wasn't aware of what I was overwriting. I'm now afraid that Luke mis-read the tape, only because the song I had overwritten was, 'You Make Me Feel Like Dancing'. Lawrence had crappy taste in music."

Blaine said, "the tape hadn't got Mrs. Waterford off. To quote that humourless American, Mark Tuello, 'it's still rape'." Blaine never thought he'd say the 'R' word in front of Osborne. He choked a bit, then asked, "was it rape June?"

Osborne went to the chair to sit, rather than the couch. "Nick," she said harshly, "everything to do with that fucked-up place was rape. For Christ's sake, Nick, if you don't know that…"

Nick was now full of questions - 'pleas' actually. Osborne knew him well enough to answer without him asking.

"That tape for Luke," she said, "I had to tell him. About Nichole. But more so, that I had failed. In everything. I'd failed in getting Hannah." She began to do something Nick had rarely seen, weep. "How was I to face him, here in Canada, when I never brought Hannah with me?"

Nick sat on the couch and said, "I think you still love the man."

"The more important question is," she said pointing to her ankle bracelet, "does he love me? Could he love me? I have failed him in more ways than one."

Nick repeated, "the tape, June. The tape you made for him, what did it mean?"

"Jesus, Nick. You sound like your lawyer! Fear not, you have no cause for concern on account of me." They sat at some distance eyeing one another.

She dried the tears from her cheeks, then added, "I think I'm pretty good at describing what Gilead did to me. Took my daughter, dragged her through the woods away from me. Then enslaved me." She managed a weak smile, "about the only good thing was that they enslaved me with you."

Nick said, "That's setting the bar a little low, June."

"You want to know what I told Luke, in that tape?" They took a moment to look at one another. "I told him I loved him. I told him that Nichole's name was really Holly. And yes, I told him I loved him."

She then sat up, "I told him you had helped me survive. And it wasn't just the fucking we did. You actually did something about my enslavement, at least you tried. I still have no idea how you got me out of that hospital… I mean, I'd fantasized that it had been you, but Jesus, it wasn't until you visited in the newspaper place…. it was hard to believe that someone like you would do that for someone like me."

Nick parroted, "'Someone like you…..' June, you were never like what Waterford put on to you. First and foremost, you deserved to be free."

"There you go, Nick, I hand you a free one, and you blow it." She looked to the side then added, "if you truly knew what I 'deserved', as you put it, you would have known that I deserved to have Hannah." She looked back at him. "You wore their fucking uniform, Nick. Do you know what I wanted to do to you seeing you for the first time? I wanted to fucking kill you."

All of this was news to Nick. He truly had no idea what to say.

She finally spoke again, "are you married, Nick?"

Blaine said, as if off a script, "you know I was, June. Eden. Eden was not my fault. She's dead, June. Jesus, she was 15. For Christ's sake, June, I told you I didn't want to 'consummate' the marriage, but you chided me. Remember? You'd said, 'so, you are forced to fuck someone you don't want to.' You told me to survive. I mean, that's what I thought we had - we wanted to survive against Gilead's odds!"

June was silent, then spoke more softly, "that's not what I asked, Nick."

Then with some force, she leaned forward and asked, "Who the actual fuck are you married to now?" As a demand she added, "Right now!?"

JUNE'S BOTTOM LINE - JUNE WITHIN THE 100 MILE LIMIT

"Your lawyer says you don't want to be forced back to Gilead," June revealed. "Everyone thinks it's because of State reprisals against a Commander who has turned."

When she was met with silence, June leaned back, "that's not what I believe." She paused, "I believe you have a skeleton back there you don't want anyone to know about."

"That you don't want me to know about." Then June mumbled something about, 'Mayday will probably get you off, anyway'.

Mayday, the one defence his lawyer said might work. Nick wanted to be anywhere but there with June right now. Ok, not Gilead, but not there with June, not under these circumstances, not with June with a head of steam.