"LITTLE JEFF"
"Little Jeff. As I live and breathe! God is indeed, good." I'm not sure what I'd expected, it is not as if there had been much chance of me recognizing her.
I told her I had a million questions. The big ask was going to be, "Do you know who my real parents were?" But we were nowhere near that yet. I had asked The Commander's permission to visit her in civilian clothes. Not that there was really such a thing. I looked like a young econohusband, although even that language had fallen out of use.
I asked her how long she had been the Jefferys' martha. She said, "it was almost 12 years. Commander Jefferys had just become a commander."
It was easy to summarize what she'd said next. Nothing out of the ordinary. Yes, Commander and Mrs Jefferys had been salvaged, giving contrary information to what I'd heard before. She simply refused to comment much past that. After that, she had gone into service in Commander Fong's household. Where she'd been until her retirement a few years ago; just after this Martha Retirement Centre had opened.
Before leaving, I pressed her about the day of my trafficking. She spoke of the special relationship that marthas had had in homes with children. It was not for everyone. I had been put to bed early the night of the kidnapping. Mrs. Jefferys had, uncharacteristically, handled that routine chore. In the morning I was gone. Early on, marthas had been suspected as behind it all. But her own movements, or lack of same, were well established by household and neighbourhood Guardians.
That didn't stop Guardians from detaining her for 'questioning', the finger quotes were hers. After a few 'tough' days, finger quotes, Commander Jefferys intervened. He wanted his martha back because the household chores were suffering. The Guardians, according to her, took that to be a blasé attitude with what both his own household and the whole of Gilead had suffered.
As for me, according to her, one evening I was there, the next morning I was not. She never knew more than that.
I had about 10 minutes left. I asked if she knew who my parents were? She replied, "Why, Commander and Mrs. Jefferys, of course."
"No, that's not what I mean. I've been told I was a placement in the home, not a natural birth, not a Genesis 30 birth." She looked surprised. She said, "I don't know who's been telling fibs, but I can assure you that Mrs. Jefferys gave birth to you. A few weeks before I arrived."
I asked, "But weren't they enrolled in the Handmaid Bilhah program?"
She said, "Oh that." At that she simply wandered into other subjects. Not sure which interrogation technique would work on her, because I had to leave.
With no answers. Gilead was starting to get to me. People of that martha's generation are just simply uncomfortable with questions, regardless of the answer.
TALKING TO A MARTHA
"Sir, I wish your permission to talk with Beth again." I said this as I was standing respectfully on the other side of his desk in his study.
Commander Blaine said, "Son, you don't need my permission to talk with a martha."
I said, "No, I know, sir. I wish to talk with her with my status as a Guardian, where she can be held account for withholding."
"Or lying," he added. "You don't need my say-so for that either. How far do you plan to extend your reach, son?
I knew he would think of as much. I was on dangerous ground here. "Sir, depending on Beth being forthcoming, I, regretfully, put you on notice that I will make the same request of you."
He sat there studying me. If I'd been smart I would not have played it this way. This kind of thing had to be done by the numbers - yet, Commanders held all the numbers. But if this went badly, I was going to have to show I'd done it the right way. Yet, if this went badly….
Blaine interrupted the silence, "Tell you what, Jefferys. Let's get Beth in here now. She's going to want to hear what I have to say." He paused, "By the way, what time am I due at Chancery?"
"Two p.m., sir." I replied.
Blaine said, "That'll give us enough time."
"OH FOOEY"
Blaine was like that. As a hero of Gilead, I could see why he'd earned the reputation of not being trifled with. As Beth came in with our lunches, hers as well, we settled on to the couches, this time me sharing the same one as the martha. That was a first. For me. If I'd been aware of it, I may have become aware just how far from orthodoxy I'd already strayed. In pursuit of a selfish agenda.
In a nod to how official I wanted this conversation to be, I politely refused Blaine's offer of spirits. Beth, she accepted.
Blaine announced that it was time to start. With that he pulled out a recording device from his pocket, clicked the 'on' button and placed it on the table between us. He said, "Meeting at the call of Guardian Jeff Jeffreys, by virtue of his licence as Guardian in this District, under it's laws and tenets, in Faith to God, and under the stewardship of the Chancery. On which I sit." He looked up at me and said, "Guardian Jefferys, please state your name, your authority, and your current billet. Please state the matter at hand, and who it is you have called together under your legal remit."
It seemed that Blaine had done this before. I reached to the recorder on the table and turned it off.
He said, "Really, Jefferys? Really?"
"Sir, I just need a chat. With Beth. Then with you."
He looked at me, then glanced at Beth, and said, "Well, here I am. There she is. Chat!"
I thought for a second then leaned forward in the act of getting up.
Blaine caught me, "Sit!" I sat back, Beth looked over to me as if I was a green kid. Which, it turned out, I was.
Beth then said, "Well, Jeff, maybe I'll start. I take it you got no satisfaction at the home with the Jefferys' martha." I shook my head, no. She continued, "I thought she'd open up. We're all getting on. I guess it dies hard with some, especially those who lived through those early days."
Blaine looked at Beth and said, "We lived through those early days too, Beth?"
She said, "Maybe that's the problem. Kids these days don't know anything about it. Not really. Especially a kid who grew up in Canada idealizing the place."
I broke in, "I don't idealize the place, I respect it. It is part of God's plan."
"Oh fooey," Beth blurted out. Yikes. Sedition! Again! In front of me and a Commander of the Faith. Yet neither The Commander nor me, the Guardian, did anything about it.
So I said, "With respect, Commander. This is a seditious household."
It was Beth who answered: "Oh grow up!"
Commander Blaine interceded, "Ok, ok, let's not do this. Okay? Jefferys, you've got enough, more than enough, to turn us all in. Why aren't you?"
I wasn't sure. Why wasn't I?
Beth said, "I'll tell you why you aren't. Because without us, you'll never get any answers. Just like you got none in your visit with the Jefferys' martha." She then said, "You're half-way to us, you may as well jump in with both feet. You're already dissatisfied with Gilead's answers, especially when you're not allowed to even ask the questions."
I got up, this time Blaine did not stop me. I went outside and stood by the SUV. The other household Guardians rushed up to me, "Sir, is the Commander headed out early?" I told them that I just needed something in the SUV for the Commander before we left, but added, "Now that I'm out here, do you think I can remember what I came for?"
I stood there while the two of them just looked at each other waiting for me to decide what they should be doing. So I said, "Look, we're not going for another hour. Just do a couple of perimeter searches. Then be back here for our departure." That got rid of them.
I had not yet decided what it would be, but my next act would decide things, wouldn't it.
THE HIGH GUARDIAN'S OFFICE
Not acting is acting.
So it is that I just dropped off The Commander for his 2 pm Chancery gathering. As I was heading over to the vehicle pool, there was a banging on the rear right of the SUV. I stopped. A Guardian had been running after me, and came up to the driver's side window which I rolled down.
"Hey, buddy. There's a message for you from the High Guardian's office," the guy said, a little out of breath.
I said, "For Commander Blaine?" He replied, "No, for you." He symbolically double-tapped my closed door with his hand, and then just walked away. I parked, then went to the back of the SUV where the secure radio was. I'd not done it before, but I put in a secure call to headquarters. Of the Guardians. Suffice it to say that it was unusual for a Guardian to be communicating to that office without the prior knowledge of their Commander, or other such supervising authority.
Sure enough, I was to be there within the hour. I left a message with the vehicle-pool supervisor to give to Commander Blaine, that if I was not there when his meeting finished, he was to secure other means to get home. I hoped that I'd be back before that, though. One does not want to have to explain why that was to be.
I'd arrived on time. I was in the outer office-lobby, one I'd not been in before. This lobby lacked the piety I would have expected from the High Guardian. The walls were adorned with pictorial renderings of 'noted Guardian interventions' from the past. I kept trying to remind myself that it was not my place to judge. But neither my reeducation after escaping Canada, nor my training as a Guardian at the Academy supported this kind of 'virtual idolatry' as Instructor Hiwakawa had called it.
Being out in 'regular-Gilead' was certainly unlike reeducation - the expectations they raised, in any event. Me, I tried not to look at the renderings. They were hard to ignore.
At that point, I was summoned in. To the High Guardian's office. At least it was spartan, with a more Gilead-like piety to it. As trained, I simply stood - not in rigid attention, but in a respectful pose. I waited for him to speak.
"Thanks for coming, Jefferys. We'll just be a minute. We're going to be joined by someone." The High Guardian never once looked up as he spoke, and had not stopped rifling through the reports in front of him.
