LURCHING AROUND IN THE TRUCK

That redhead was not going to make it. She was breathing fire as she was pushed into the truck beside me, yelling about suing everyone in sight. Yelling about buying waterfront property, a house with a beach.

She was not going to make it.

Me, every time a man with a gun came into view, I hoped against all hope that it would be my husband. I had not seen him since he'd left that morning to go to work, and not soon after the security forces swarmed our building.

As the truck started to move, I sat beside another woman, skinnying my way on the bench between her and the redhead. It is probably better to say that I was thrown between them as the truck lurched.

The other woman was crying. Back in the cages I had seen her approach one of the men - he on the other side of the wire. She was pleading to be reunited with her daughter. She didn't know where her daughter was.

I needed to know what she found out. Since security forces had taken me and my daughter from our apartment - saying that the whole building was set for demolition - I'd not seen my daughter either. Nor my husband. Surely he was as panicked as me, looking for both of us?

Me, I was not like her. She was pleading. Me, I was heeding my husband's advice on what to do if I ever found myself in a place like this. "Hang back," was what he had said. "Above all, don't get noticed. Being part of the furniture is bad enough, stuff will happen anyway. Blend in. Don't bring it on yourself."

Whoever the redhead was to my right, she was bringing all sorts of attention to herself. Not good.

I turned to the woman on my left. I asked, "did they take your daughter? They took mine."

She wiped her tears, "these people are real fuckers." She said it loud enough to get an even louder 'Amen' from the redhead on my other side.

The woman continued, "my husband and I were almost to Canada. Then we got separated. Then they hunted us down in the forest, like wild animals." She got a bizarre calm to her when she added, "One day those fuckers are going to feel what that was like. My baby, torn from my arms."

Any one woman's reaction to this horror was all over the map. The redhead, defiant and yelling. The woman beside me, already quietly plotting her revenge.

Me? I was going to hang back. But I had one more question to pose to a woman who seemed to be keeping it together.

I asked, "have you had any luck? Any indication at all where your daughter is?" The woman said that she had heard, 'a couple of cages ago' (was how she'd put it), that children were being 'reassigned'. The best case, she said, was that her daughter would end up safe with a family. But not if she got out, and got to her first.

She just didn't know how she was going to manage that.

Had my daughter been 'reassigned' I asked? She said, "You have to find out for yourself."

Again, I turned to the woman and asked when we were going to eat. When were we going to get toileted? The smell in the truck betrayed that those sorts of things were not top of mind to our captors. My husband would have never allowed this.

Instead, it was the redhead who said, "they told me that they were giving my food to my son. So as long as he's getting it, I don't mind." The other woman leaned over me and asked if the redhead actually believed that?

"I'm telling you," the redhead said, "we're Americans. Me, I won a lawsuit against the fastfood place I was at. They'd been shorting my paycheque. I got it all back, plus damages. Then my bak-card stopped working." Aside from the fact that the redhead did not answer the woman's question, it was clear….

This fiery woman was not going to make it.

HE WAS LOOKING, WASN'T HE

My husband will be looking for us. Maybe he'd already found our daughter and already gone to Canada or some such thing. If that was true, then this hell was bearable. Not knowing was killing me.

There I was, a martha in the Putnam home. Second-martha to be precise. That was something that the head-martha had lorded over me since I'd arrived.

I was told that I had 'lucked out', being assigned to the Putnams. Commander Putnam was like every bank manager or accountant I'd ever known in the before times. Quiet, methodical. Dull. I would have called him 'kind', except his kindness was mainly due to what he didn't do. He never abused either me or the head-martha.

Mrs. Putnam, Naomi, was an efficient head of the household - not the head of the house, because that was the Commander. She was like the women written about in Ecclesiastes, the manager of a husband's estate. Not that I had read it recently! She was a woman perfectly married to a powerful man, she managed complex things adroitly - things that he owned, she managed.

Including me, apparently. I never made a 'thing' of it, but when my husband and I had had our Gilead marriage, we were told that wives belonged to their husbands. Not Commanders. But how does one point that out to Gilead?

Which brings up the obvious. What was I doing there? A martha at the Putnams? A fertile woman of Gilead no less!

As my husband used to tell my father, back in the day, 'to err is human, to really screw up requires a bureaucracy'. My dad and he would laugh and laugh and laugh about that, given the jobs that they, then, had.

Me, I'd wound up in a series of holding centers, some with cages, the last one without. Just an overcrowded school gymnasium. At the time it seemed hopeful to be moved around like that - I had a better chance of running into my husband.

Each time I was loaded into a truck and moved somewhere else, details of 'my file' would get lost. Once at the holding center at the gymnasium - I'd not even been asked about fertility. They'd lost my file all together. The head guy there called me into his office, looked me up and down, asked, "Can you cook?" I said 'yes', and that evening I was showered, sleeping in sheets, and preparing and eating proper meals at the Martha-center.

Once again, Guardians from all over the District would come into our dining room for lunch and dinner to sample our culinary delights. Guardians of all shapes and sizes came though our test-cafe. Once again, my hopes of running into my husband were dashed. That was the first time I had dreamed that he and our daughter must have made it to Canada, and he was searching for me from there.

HER NAME WAS JANINE

But here at the Putnams, the whole household was about to get a shakeup.

The new Ofwarren arrived. Delivered by an Aunt in the birthmobile. I had not seen the arrival, but I had been summoned to bring refreshments for three to the Commander's study. Preparing for anything, I loaded up a tray of tea, coffee, as well as cold drinks. Me, I was worried that I'd misheard them when they'd said 'three'. Including the Aunt, the Handmaid, the Commander and Mrs. Putnam, that made four.

Except entering the office heavily laden, it became obvious. There was the Aunt seated on the couch opposite the couch that the Commander and Mrs. Putnam were sitting, and the Handmaid was standing obediently with her back to me. As I put the tray down on the table between the couches, I got my first glimpse.

I gasped. Made enough noise for the Commander, Missus, and the Aunt to stop what they were saying. I apologized, and scurried from the study.

In the hall outside I had to stop to catch my breath. I vomited into my hands. My word, the new Ofwarren was Janine from the truck! The one who was sure that her boy was getting the food that was being withheld from her!

But the gasp was bigger than that. Ofwarren had had an eye sewn shut! It looked like the whole thing had been taken out. I wretched again.

When I went back to the kitchen, the head-Martha noticed something not right with me. She asked. I said, "no it's nothing," but in my mind I was rehearsing the dozens of ways that my husband had been able to escape to Canada, with our girl.

Either that, or that he was furiously looking for me. As a Guardian, he'd had the resources and smarts to do that. Indeed, it was thinking of him and how he had talked about his work…..

….. that had got me safely here. So far.

I loved that man. Even if only in my mind.

NOT GOOD, NOT GOOD

It was none of my business, but I was told to make it mine. By an Aunt no less.

Last physical, Ofwarren had been diagnosed with a urinary tract infection, a UTI. The Putnam's head-martha, she had said that she, 'did not do handmaids'. So it fell to me. No pressure. The Aunt had said that the UTI needed to be cleared up before the next Ceremony.

There was no mention of antibiotics, not like the before-times. The Aunt had made it my responsibility that Ofwarren was to, and I quote: stay hydrated, pee as needed, drink cranberry and orange juice (for the Vitamin C), 'wipe from front to back', and 'practise good sexual hygiene'.

Was it my responsibility to tell the Commander that last one!? Remembering my husband's dictate to 'hang back', I never did approach Commander Putnam on it. Obviously!

So it was, just after midnight, that I was bringing up to Ofwarren's room a jug of cold water, so that she could keep herself hydrated through the night. She had her own bathroom up there just steps from her bed, so that #2 on her marching orders could be seen to.

Except.

It was 12:10 am, and she was not in her room. Not good.

Not knowing what to do, I put the jug down on her dresser, and just stood there. Like an idiot. Not that I was prone to panic attacks, but my mind started to race - I was accompanying Mrs Putnam and Ofwarren to a Wives' tea at 9 am, we were leaving in less than 8 hours' time.

Halfway through my mental assembling of a morning agenda, I heard quiet footsteps coming up the stairs. Light ones, which could only be Ofwarren. As quiet as the steps were, the silence of the night broadcast them throughout the house.

As she came into the room, her flaming red hair was all askew. She was smiling and playing with a strand of it, as it was obvious - she was not even aware I was there.

She was muttering, "he loves me, he really loves me." Huh? I thought. Who on earth does she think loves her?

Then with another gasp I saw the stain on her garment's shoulder. Getting her attention, I asked, "What's that? What's that on your shoulder?"

She turned to look at it, pulled back some of her hair, to show the size of the stain. "Oh that," she said. "He's a gentleman. He cares for me. He pulled out of my mouth just before he finished."

Not good. Not good.

Janine, honey, you have to keep it together. No honey, he does not love you.

You're not going to make it.

THE DRIVE TO THE TEA

Oh no. Mrs. Putnam was already in the SUV at 9 am sharp, for the drive to the Wives' Tea. I wasn't late, but I was behind her. Ofwarren was still getting ready back in the house. It may be she who will be yelled at.

Yet I didn't 'catch it'. Mrs. Putnam was alone in the vehicle, she was beaming! Fidgeting with an ear to ear grin.

"Good news!" she said, "Blessed is the Lord!" She announced that the Red Centre had just called, that the Putnam 'household' was pregnant. "The Lord has opened," she said with excitement.

Then she looked at me. "Ofwarren is not to know until we get to the tea. Understood?"