Chapter 3: Father Figures

"What happened to your leg?" Commander Blaine asks me, gesturing at the foam immobilizer over my new black uniform.

"Oh, an accident in PE. A guy fell on me during an interdependency exercise, dislocated my kneecap."

Blaine winces. "I guess you're not 'depending' on that guy." He picks up my black suitcase, starts walking with it. "Come on, my car isn't far."

I try to grab the suitcase handle. "No, sir, I can take it. You shouldn't carry my bag." I work for him, after all. We're not even close to equals.

"The muscles won't heal if you keep straining the leg, Sam," he says practically. "It's no trouble." It's true, he's lifting it effortlessly, although it contains several books along with clothes. "Suitcases used to have wheels," he mutters. Maybe it's heavier than he'd thought. He glances at me sideways while navigating through the busy train station. "Do you prefer Sam, or Samuel?"

"We weren't allowed to use nicknames at the Academy."

"Oh, I remember that. I had a couple of teachers who insisted on calling me Nicholas. I hated it. Always preferred Nick. Thankfully, we're not schoolboys anymore."

"No, sir. Um, I like Sam better."

"Okay then."

He insists on driving home—downtown Boston isn't the place for a new driver to practice, he says—and tells me about his household. It's small, just a Wife (Rose) and a Martha (Sarah). "Rose is laid back, very friendly. You'll like her."

"She doesn't yell a lot?"

"Never. She does play the piano, and if she's upset about something, she really pounds the hell out of the keys." Did he really just say hell? "But that's not often. Do you play?"

"Uh, I did when I was little. I took lessons. I wasn't half bad."

"Great, maybe Rose can teach you. It'll probably come right back. Muscle memory, you know." He glances at me. "Do you remember…those days?"

I'm not sure what he means, but I'm definitely not going to fall into the trap of discussing pre-Gilead life. "I remember my piano teacher smelled like feet. Or cheese."

Commander Blaine laughs briefly. A baritone, I think. It's a nice laugh, deep and resonant. I was so sad last week to be leaving Peter and my friends in Charlottesville, but I must admit, this man with his beautiful laugh and beautiful face will make me forget about all of them. Sorry, Peter.

He continues to discuss the household. I get my own room and necessary. I can take showers for as long as I want, he assures me, don't worry about the cost of hot water. I haven't had my own room since I was with my bio family, age nine. The idea of privacy sounds terrific.

He keeps talking. Sarah used to be a fourth-grade teacher, and she's the "smartest person in the house." Weird that he'd say that—she's just a housekeeper. He adds that I'm to treat her with respect, and ask her very politely for help if I need anything. So the thesis of my essay was indeed correct: he is a Christian, a man of morals. If he actually believes that Marthas are worthy of kindness and respect, then he believes everyone is. He surely doesn't treat his soldiers as cannon fodder, either. If he were my commanding officer in battle, I'd gladly obey his orders.

"Although," he says, "you might be as smart as Sarah. You had a perfect 4.0 grade point average, I hear?"

"Yes, sir."

"That's more than double what I had. I wasn't exactly a scholar."

"What distracted you at school?" He's obviously intelligent; he must have lacked motivation, or been distracted by something.

Blaine shrugs. "Girls, mostly."

I laugh at his honesty. "I see." That reminds me of the other person that a prominent household should have. "You don't have a handmaid yet, sir?"

He answers very quickly. "No, we don't need one. Rose is seven months pregnant."

"Praise be."

"Yeah," he says under his breath. A non-standard reply: we'd have gotten reprimanded for that at school. Maybe he's not so happy about the upcoming baby…but why wouldn't he be? At the very least, it'll raise his profile. "How good are you at taking care of children?" he asks me.

"Uh…not great," I say cautiously. Does he actually expect a boy to help with childcare? "I had two little siblings at the Millers', but I've been away at school for most of their lives."

He throws me a grin. "Then I guess we're all gonna have to learn together."

"I guess." Belatedly, I add, "With His grace." He doesn't respond to that. So…not passionately religious. He's a strange man. I'm intrigued.

Commander Blaine brings me to the Chancellery the next day. He doesn't want me to be "just a driver"—he wants me to be an Eye. I'm his protégé, he says. "You can't come into the Council meetings with me. They're private. And almost always boring. Count yourself lucky to miss them. But while I'm in there, Sam, I want you to go down to the mess hall and get to know the other drivers that hang out there, as well as the cooks. You can learn a lot from Marthas—they're a wealth of information and gossip. Don't talk much; just listen and nod pleasantly, and then report back to me. Okay?"

"You want me to report gossip to you?"

"Whatever they're discussing. Even idle gossip about a Commander or even a Martha can be useful. The trick is to remember all these little details, and then put them together to form a bigger picture. Like a jigsaw puzzle; do you ever do puzzles?"

"No, but my mother did." He assumes I mean Mrs. Miller. I actually am thinking of my birth mother. My mom. We had a screened-in back porch with white wicker furniture, and there was always a jigsaw puzzle on the table. She'd work on it whenever she had a challenging legal case. A puzzle was a problem with just one correct solution, she'd say, and it freed her mind (whatever that meant). When she was working on a puzzle, my dad would advise me to leave her alone with her thoughts. Then, after an hour or two, she'd come back inside the house and be her old cheerful self again.

"So, this is your little mini-me?" High Commander Lawrence looks me up and down as we approach him. "He looks a lot smarter than you, Nick." He stares oddly, as if he recognizes my face from somewhere but can't place it. "What are you, twelve?"

"Sir. I'm sixteen, sir," I answer formally, thinking of Doctor Andrews' words. This guy designed Gilead's economy. "Just graduated."

"From where?"

"The Guardian Prep Academy in Charlottesville, Virginia, sir. But I'm from Richmond."

"A southern gentleman," Commander Blaine adds. "With better manners than you, Yankee." He's showing me around. Or showing me off. His new toy.

"He's adorable. You know," Lawrence says snidely, "most Commanders who have a teenage boy as an aide have a very different purpose in mind. Lucky I know you better than that."

My boss smirks right back at him. They're like two friends, trading barbs. Funny, I never thought adult men had friends. "Yeah, he's not really my taste, Joseph."

"Not blond enough," he agrees easily. Strange comment, though—Mrs. Blaine isn't at all blond. Her hair is dark red. I wonder whom he's referring to. A little mystery for me to solve some day.

"I've got a meeting with Eyes leadership soon," Commander Blaine says. "Possible prisoner swaps."

"Whom are you swapping?"

Blaine shrugs. "Maybe we'll get Commander Jimenez back. And his family. I'm not sure."

"Well, go in grace." Lawrence looks at me again. "See you later, mini-me."

When I was eight, I went to my friend Eric's birthday party. He had a cavernous basement, as I remember, with a big flat-screen TV. A bunch of us boys had popcorn and birthday cake, sweet and salty tastes competing in my mouth and on my sticky fingers. We watched a comedy, my first PG-13 rated film. Austin Powers. The bad guy had a little assistant…and if I remember correctly, his name was Mini-Me. Could Commander Lawrence possibly be referencing that blasphemous movie? No way would he have seen such a thing, right? Unless Commanders are a lot less holy than I've always been taught they are.

"Under His eye, Commander Lawrence!" I answer like the most pious Aunt I've ever met. Because maybe I'm completely wrong about him. Maybe he's testing me. Maybe if I ask him about Austin Powers, he'll turn me in. Don't trust anyone at the Chancellery, Commander Blaine warned me this morning, and I won't.

Over the next few weeks, I get to know the other Commanders' drivers as well as the Marthas who work in the basement of the Chancellery building, just as Commander Blaine has ordered. I say almost nothing, but keep my ears open and report back, dutifully, every evening during the car ride home.

Here's what I have learned: a couple of Commanders are having extramarital relations–one even with his placement daughter, whom he brings regularly to Jezebel's. One wife is pregnant even though her husband had some sort of operation a long time ago which prevents him from conceiving a child. (Why would that sort of operation have ever been legal? America was a strange place.) Commander Evans has a Martha who hates him so much that she spits in his food and drink every time she makes something. One driver was approached by his Commander's teenage son in an unholy way: the boy cupped his hand around the driver's private parts. The driver shoved the hand away, of course, but isn't sure whether to tell the Commander or not.

Commander Blaine looks at me intently when I tell him these things, nodding gently, absorbing every detail. He never seems shocked by the stories, though I certainly am. Sometimes he takes notes. What he'll do with the information, I'm not sure. He's just collecting jigsaw puzzles pieces, I guess, to be used when necessary.

After dinner, he sometimes calls me into his book-lined office and we talk, or he gives me advice. I love these talks. I'm learning so much from him. He's the father I wish I had. My earlier lust for my commander has calmed, or at least shifted into something more like the affection a son shows a father. Mostly, anyway. Only when I'm alone in my room do I allow myself to think forbidden thoughts about men.

One evening in his office, Blaine tells me, "We're going on a long drive tomorrow, to meet with one of my counterparts to the north."

"Yes, sir," I say enthusiastically. A road trip sounds fun. "But…I thought the New Gilead district was the furthest north that we've got?"

"It is," Blaine says patiently. (He never patronizes me, even if I ask dumb questions. Not like most teachers I know, or Commander Miller. Such a relief.) "I meant, my counterparts in Canada and the USA."

"Wait, what?" I blurt out. "We…talk to them?" I thought we were in a cold war against the infidels.

"Of course. The Canadians are our neighbors, after all, and we used to be Americans. We still have more in common with them than not." He speaks easily in his house, unafraid of being reported by me. Not that I would ever consider that.

"They've got some of Gilead's people, and we have political prisoners in our custody that the Americans would like, so we're going to discuss a swap."

"They have Commander Jimenez," I offer, showing him that I was listening to his first conversation with Commander Lawrence (who, by the way, still calls me Mini-Me. What an odd duck he is).

"Exactly right. Jimenez took his whole household to Canada, in fact, including his fertile wife, his handmaid, and two young children. We want them back."

"Of course. Who knows what the Americans might do to a Commander to get information-–torture him or his family."

Blaine gives me a strange look. "Yeah," he says finally.

"And we have American soldiers in our prisons?" I thought we offered prisoners of war a choice: see the light and join Gilead's community, or be salvaged.

"Not soldiers. Resistance members—that is, Gilead subjects who pass information on to Mayday or the American government."

"Spies, you mean. Traitors."

"Right," he says distantly. When Commander Miller talks about Mayday, there's fury in his voice. Blaine doesn't seem to hate anyone, though. He takes out a manila folder but then hesitates before passing it across his desk to me. "Before we go, Sam, I want you to read up on the American diplomat we're going to be meeting. You should never, ever go into a meeting like this without knowing as much as you can about the players."

"Sounds reasonable," I say. I take the folder, open it. It's got more than a dozen densely-filled pages of information. There's a photograph of the American paper-clipped on the left. My stomach suddenly drops, and my vision gets a little blurry. I blink a few times, hard. I know this man before I even read the name.

Mark Tuello. That's the name at the top of the file. United States State Department.

The folder starts slipping out of my suddenly-limp hands. I catch it just in time.

He's alive, he's alive, he's alive…the sentence is swirling around my skull. And we're going to meet with him. "Am I going with you?" I ask, and my voice sounds far away, like it's not mine at all.

"Only if you want to, Sam," Blaine says very softly, leaning back in his leather chair. He's studying me, I realize when I look up at him. He knows. Oh my God. He knows exactly who this man is to me.

"Mark Tuello is my birth father," I tell him unnecessarily.

"Yeah, I know." Of course he does.

"Do you think he'll recognize me? I mean, he hasn't seen me since I was nine."

"Of course he will. You look just like him. Even Commander Lawrence noticed the resemblance."

"He…?" What? How would Lawrence know a State Department official? How would…I can't even think straight. "He probably thinks I'm dead."

"No, he's been keeping tabs on you since the Revolution. He knows you're okay. He's been…." Blaine stops abruptly, although I'm sure he has more to say on this subject.

"How do you know that?"

"I've talked to Mr. Tuello before."

"You have? Why?" Suddenly I feel quicksand beneath my feet. Why would a Commander repeatedly talk to an American fed? Why did they discuss me? Is that why Blaine wanted me to work for him—not because of my essay, not because of my good grades or stellar reputation, but to use me against his enemy? Is he going to hurt me if my father doesn't give in to his demands? And if so, would my dad try to protect me?

Without waiting for an answer to the last questions I asked aloud, I stand up, clutching the folder. "May I please be excused, Commander?" I just want to retreat to my room, read this file slowly, and clear my head.

He nods. He doesn't look angry at me; in fact, his expression is full of sympathy. "Of course, Sam. Let's have a late breakfast tomorrow, around eight thirty? We should be on the road by nine."

"Yes, sir." I speak formally, as if to a teacher at the Academy, then turn crisply on my heel and leave the office. I feel betrayed.

I spent hours that night reading and re-reading my dad's file. As a child, I had no idea how important he was. In my childish mind, he was just a regular Eye. But no, he's got a lot more power than that, at least nowadays. He reports directly to the US Secretary of State, who reports to the US president. There's no Gilead equivalent of that—maybe a High Commander in charge of a large district, except we don't have one president running the entire country. A decentralized republic is better, I was taught.

Anyway, Mark Tuello is a really important man in the US government. I'm proud of him, can I say that? I know he's an enemy of Gilead. The Americans are still futilely trying to destroy our republic and drag us backwards into their old ways, with all the dangers of atheist liberalism. I know this, I've had years of history and politics classes. And yet my life was better in those days. I loved my friends, school, and of course my parents, whom I truly believed were doing good in the world.

Our teachers have warned us we might feel like this. They explained that it's human nature to miss the 'good old days,' to look back at childhood with naïve nostalgia and rose-colored glasses. So maybe I just remember my parents as good people, when in reality they were doing terrible things that I didn't understand because of my youth. But…I trust my memories. Maybe that's stupid of me. I'll see soon enough.

So now I'm driving Commander Blaine north, through lush green forests which run along the near-empty highway. We're not talking much. My mind is busy thinking about my dad, what I might say to him, and how I fit into these upcoming negotiations. The Commander isn't pushing me to converse, which I appreciate. Instead, he's listening to the radio. An American station: strictly forbidden. I didn't know our radios were even capable of receiving their broadcasts. It's mostly rock music, which I remember from Before. There are also news breaks every thirty minutes. Propaganda, I think. It's all about battles supposedly taking place all over Gilead. But the war is over.

"This is crazy," I comment. "Does anyone actually believe this garbage? Fighting in Alabama?"

Commander Blaine looks at me. Instead of agreeing with me, he says, "It's a very different report than what we normally hear."

"It's completely different." I glance at him. "But this is just propaganda, right? It's not accurate. Can't be. Gilead is peaceful." Except Chicago, I think to myself. But I don't want to remind him of his failure there.

"I don't know," he murmurs distractedly. "I'm not in Alabama."

We fall silent for a while again, and listen to the music. A woman is singing a chorus that nobody in Gilead would ever say: "If it makes you happy, it can't be that bad. If it makes you happy, then why the hell are you so sad?" Blaine sings along, as if he might actually agree with the blasphemous sentiment. There are so many things that could make us happy but will send us to an early death and then straight to hell. We have to do what we must, not what we want. Obedience and discipline, strength and sacrifice: the path of every soldier. Definitely not do whatever makes you happy.

"Wasn't anybody in America worried about their immortal soul?" I ask him.

He laughs. "Yes, some people were. But…well, you know Genesis. We're created in God's image, right?"

"Of course."

"So our desires, our instincts, are God-given. There's nothing in us that isn't part of God. So it can't be that bad, as Sheryl Crow would say."

Even though I'm hurtling down a highway at 85 miles an hour, I turn to stare at him. "But you're supposed to repress certain desires."

"Why?"

"Just…because. Because they're not holy."

"How could they not be? God gave us our feelings."

He's implying that my sinful lust towards men is…a gift from God? This is apostasy. I choose a different example to say aloud. "What about the desire to be cruel? To kill?"

"I could argue that killing is still godly. God kills thousands of people in the Bible, through flood, plagues, disease. He turns Lot's wife into a pillar of salt, just for looking back at her home as she's fleeing. And He allows a lot more to get killed—good people, including Jesus."

"But…." I can't come up with a counterargument. Blaine likes doing that to me, arguing unpopular opinions to make me defend my views. I'm going to need some time to chew on this one. I fall silent.

Maybe he's just trying to distract me from thinking about Mark Tuello. I'm not going to be sidetracked, I finally decide. Religion can wait.

"Do you play chess, Commander?" I eventually ask him.

"No, I never really learned how."

"Different pieces have different values. You get eight pawns, but they're easy to lose, because they're not worth very much. So you sacrifice your pawns to protect more valuable pieces."

"I kinda knew that. The goal is to capture the other player's king, right?"

"Yes." I pause. "Am I a pawn, sir?"

"Huh?"

"Are you going to use me to get what you want from my father? Threaten to kill me if he doesn't give you Commander Jimenez and his family?"

"What?" He turns the music off, and goes mute for a minute. "Samuel, listen to me. That is not at all what's going to happen. I would never hurt you. I would never threaten to hurt you. You're not a pawn, no. I…I can't tell you what the plan is, because I don't know how you'd take it. But you're not the means to an end, Sam. You're the end." He shakes his head. "I know you don't get it right now. You will. Just know that you're a very important piece on this board."

After three and a half hours of driving, we reach the border. It's neither Canada nor Gilead, Blaine explains to me. This is "No Man's Land," owned by the Abenaki people of Missiquoi, part of Vermont. We stop at a diner in a town called Swanton. Some brown-skinned Abenaki are eating, joking, or playing cards; it seems to be a popular hang-out. It's also where spies meet to make deals and drink milkshakes, apparently.

Commander Blaine leads me to a large table in a quiet corner. Six American Eyes—'federal agents,' they're called—are standing guard. They look like they know what they're doing. Dangerous. Weapons under their loose clothing. There are three people already seated at the table: a blond woman, a toddler in a booster chair, and my father.