Chapter 3: Numb
On the long, silent car ride north, Janine had decided a few things about her new host, Skye. She wasn't part of Miklat; one of the few things the reticent woman had volunteered was that she was Maya's Femaleroad contact, and that she'd been told to show up at the train track meeting point. Secondly, she wasn't a Wife or handmaid. Her affect was too casually brusque, her blonde hair looked dyed, and she was wearing a black leather jacket and tight pants—pants!—that showed off her curves. Even her shoes were black pumps—not standard for any Gilead woman.
Janine decided there were only two possibilities: either this woman was Canadian and she was being driven across the border tonight, or Skye was a Gilead sex worker. A Jezebel. She'd never been to a Jezebel's herself, but she'd heard about them from June and Brianna.
Janine and her escort were dropped off at a house, a mansion really, with manicured lawns and an ostentatious fountain. A white statue of the Venus de Milo was brightly lit by a spotlight, although it was the middle of the night, closer to dawn than dusk. A Guardian waved them onto the grounds, opening a black steel gate with a remote controller. This wasn't Canada. Janine's heart sank.
"Where are we?"
"Your new home. At least for a few days."
"I mean, what town is this?"
"Hanover. One of New Hampshire's nicest communities, once upon a time. A lot of Commanders' families have summer homes around here now."
New Hampshire. At least they were getting closer to the Canadian border, finally out of Massachusetts. "Is this a Commander's home?" she asked.
Skye snorted. "It's everyone's home. Communal property, of a sort." The car pulled up to a gravel lot in the back of the house. A dozen or so vehicles were already parked there. "Thanks for the lift, babe," she purred to the driver before beckoning to Janine. "Come on in."
Skye led her through the kitchen and a huge pantry, then down a flight of stairs that looked like it was meant for the servants. The cavernous basement looked to Janine like the Red Center dormitory, with neat rows of twin beds, some already occupied by sleeping women. Skye led her over to an empty cot. "This'll be yours, Susie. Get some rest. There's a party going on upstairs, but it'll be over in less than an hour, so the other girls will be going to sleep soon too." She bent easily from the waist to reach under the bed, bringing out neatly folded pajamas for her guest. "We'll talk tomorrow."
Janine undressed silently. She didn't want to get rid of the all-black rebel outfit Jon and Maya had gifted her; it made her feel strong. Tough. She put the outfit carefully under the bed, hoping she could guard it somehow. Then she glanced around the dorm until her eyes fell on somebody who was still awake. Clad now in her new cotton pajamas, she padded over in her bare feet. "Hi there," she offered the woman. A girl, really, no more than eighteen.
"Hi." She studied Janine's face with a mixture of curiosity and disgust. "What happened to your eye?"
She touched her red eyepatch self-consciously, unaccustomed to the scrutiny of a judgmental adolescent. It reminded her of those little bitches in high school. Not a pleasant memory. "Oh, an Aunt took it out in Gilead's first year."
"What did you do to deserve that?"
"I didn't deserve it," Janine reprimanded, taking the teacher-tone she used with the young handmaids at the Red Center. "I was a wild thing in those days, but nobody deserves to have an eye plucked out."
"I guess not," said the girl agreeably. "I'm Ella."
"Susie. Nice to meet you. What is this place?"
Ella raised an eyebrow. "You don't know?"
"No, I was just brought here by Skye. Do you know her?"
"Skye's our owner. An Aunt, technically, though she prefers being called Madam. Don't call her Skye to her face."
"Okay then," Janine said slowly. Madam Skye sure didn't dress like the Aunts she knew. Or talk like one.
"And this is Jezebel's. We serve the Commanders from the area. There's a Guardian training center where the US Army Corps of Engineers School used to be, and an Eye academy where Dartmouth College was, so we help with those guys too. You're lucky, you just missed the Saturday night rush." Ella twirled a strand of her waist-length brown hair around a finger. "Have you been a pro for a long time?"
It took Janine a moment to figure out what pro stood for. "Uh, no. I'm…I was…well, it's a long story." She wasn't going to share her background with anyone here. What if someone talked to a Commander from Boston? They were probably still looking for her. "How about you?"
"Originally, I was supposed to be a handmaid," she shrugged, fingering her ear-tag. "I flunked out within a year. The Wife complained that I cried too much during Ceremonies, so she returned me to the Red Center in Montpelier. The Aunts tried another posting, but that didn't work out either, so they sent me here for 'education,' as they put it."
When Gilead began six years ago, Janine thought, this girl had been a child. Eleven or twelve. "Fucking monsters," she muttered.
"Oh, this place isn't so bad. You get used to it. It's better than being a handmaid, at least. In my second posting, the Commander was always fucking me in his office, and the Wife beat me on the regular. She starved me, too. Here, you get three meals a day. They keep us pretty thin, but at least we get food." Simple pleasures, Janine reminded herself: three meals a day, a bed, rape-free mornings. Great.
A woman in a nearby bunk threw a shoe at them. "Would you shut the fuck up, Ella? We're trying to sleep here."
The girl winced. "Sorry," she whispered to Janine apologetically.
She awoke to a bell, like in the Colonies. For a moment, Janine thought she was still there. But this bed, even with its thin mattress and light blanket, was far nicer than the hay in the Colonies. And the air here didn't reek of decay and death.
"Rise and shine, girls!" called the woman with the bell. Her voice was as infuriatingly patronizing as Aunt Lydia's. "Time for your shower. Remember Ezekiel: God will sprinkle clean water on you, and cleanse you from all your impurities and sin."
"Not likely," muttered the woman in the bunk next to Janine.
"Amen," called everyone else in chorus.
Like at the Red Center, the 'showers' here were ten or so faucets sticking out of a wall in a row, without privacy or temperature controls. Lukewarm. Janine's teeth chattered as she washed away the sweat, dirt, and blood from yesterday's shoot-out. Was it really yesterday? She wasn't sure. The night had seemed endless. In any case, she tried to concentrate on matters at hand: soap, shampoo, rinse, dry. She noticed the other women's skinny bodies displayed various bruises, some faded green and purple, others angry blue. So much for Commanders being gentlemen…as if she'd ever believed that one.
By the towel rack hung shapeless cotton tunics and pants. Sweats, Janine thought happily, or something close to it. She hadn't worn sweatpants in six years. Praise be. She chose a white set that fit her, more or less.
Breakfast came next. The women sat at long tables like picnic benches. There was an outdoor beer garden in South Boston Janine used to frequent with a similar layout, where you could get drunk next to strangers and bring your dog along to socialize with other canines. It had a much better vibe than this place, though. Here, the women barely talked. And alas, there were no dogs.
Munching on her crackers, hard-boiled egg, and sliced tomato, she thought of her last mutt, Hester. Named after Hester Prynne, since she had a reddish-brown spot on her chest, almost a scarlet letter. Caleb had adored that dog. He learned to walk by leaning his pudgy little hands against Hester's patient back and lifting himself up. Such a kind dog, so good with the toddler, and quiet too; Janine had given Hester a long lecture about barking, and she seemed to understand. Despite the dog's near-silence, a neighbor had eventually ratted them out to the landlord—pets weren't allowed in her shitty apartment complex—and they'd been faced with eviction if they didn't ditch the dog. So Hester was ripped away from them and given to Janine's asshole boss at the diner where she waitressed. She should've found a better home for Hester. That sweetie pie had deserved a good home. Janine had felt guilty about it for months. America fell the following year, and mutts were all put down…or eaten, in parts of the country that fought back and were starved out. Gilead had no use for dogs, except as occasional status symbols for Commanders.
Just one more reason to hate Gilead, Janine thought. It outlawed dogs, clam chowder, pizza, reality TV, and tequila. Fucking hellhole.
And then Caleb was ripped away from her and given to a stranger, pretty much the same way Hester was. She hadn't gotten to choose her son's new home, though it was probably just as bad as her boss's house. No, she contradicted herself firmly, it was better than that. Much better. A sweet Wife and a kind but distant Commander, who'd been transferred to southern California. They were raising Caleb by the ocean, where it never got cold. Maybe they had other kids too, so he grew up with some siblings. Maybe even a dog.
A mocking voice brought her back to the present. "Oh, Jesus, you're not crying, are you?"
Janine swallowed the lump in her throat and looked up. Skye. Madame Skye. "No, ma'am," she said meekly. Pretend it's Aunt Lydia, she told herself. Be a good girl.
The Aunt sat down next to Janine as the women sitting around her evacuated. "So, Susie. You're going to have to pay your way around here. Everyone does—we don't have freeloaders. You understand?"
Janine moved her head, somewhere between a shrug and a nod. "You want me to be a…." She couldn't finish the sentence. "You want me to work with the other women, when Commanders come over?"
"Right." Skye scrutinized the scrawny woman in front of her. "You've still got the ear-tag. A lot of men fantasize about handmaids; we can put you in a red dress, and you can play the innocent newbie or the slutty handmaid. Your choice."
It wasn't much of a choice, Janine thought glumly. But she'd played both of those roles many times for Warren Putnam. And for Stephen in Chicago. And for a long line of nameless American men before that. This might not be any different. Besides, hopefully she'd only be here a few days, and then the Femaleroad (or whoever was in charge of this rebel alliance) would move her north. She remembered what June's friend Nick had advised her: do whatever you have to do, but stay alive. Think of Canada.
Janine straightened her shoulders and looked directly at the other woman. "Sure, I can do that."
"Good. Work starts after dinner, around six. Don't eat much supper; you'll get drunk quicker." She leaned forward conspiratorially, as if they were girlfriends chatting in the cafeteria. "It's way easier if you're drunk."
Taking that advice to heart, Janine got drunk every night for the next five weeks. Except Tuesdays; she didn't work Tuesdays.
She was very glad Nick had encouraged her to use a different name while she was here. That made it simpler. Nothing was happening to Janine Lindo, but rather to Susie. Janine was optimistic, healthy, sane, funny. Susie was none of those things. She'd stopped smiling. She barely talked, ate very little. Janine was waiting patiently to be moved north to Canada, to a life of freedom. Susie was trapped permanently in a brothel, passed around between distracted, disinterested men like a borrowed garden tool. A hoe, she thought ruefully, definitely a hoe.
On the fifth Thursday of her stay, a change finally came.
"Wake up, little Susie," Skye half-said, half-sang at her. She shook Janine's shoulder, hard, to rouse her. "Wake up."
Her shoulder ached. A customer—a drill sergeant at the Eye Academy who came by every Wednesday—had pulled her arm awkwardly the night before. He liked pinning her arms behind her. Susie's left hand went to her right shoulder. She wondered if her rotator cuff was torn. If that was where her rotator cuff was located; she wasn't quite sure, but it sounded right. "Stop shaking me, that fucking hurts," she informed the older woman sleepily, her eye still closed.
Skye sat on the edge of her cot. An apology was not forthcoming. "A Commander last night, he recognized you. Asked me if you were the handmaid who'd gone missing in Boston. Was your name Ofjoseph?"
She was awake now. She sat up, pulling the blanket up to her neck. She was cold suddenly. Shivering. "It used to be."
"Well, he's probably gonna tell Commander Joseph that you're here. So you've gotta go. Get dressed."
"I'm going back to Boston? I can't go back there. Please." Like Ella had suggested: this place wasn't so bad, once you got used to being used. Susie was as numb as if she'd had a constant epidural.
"Not to Boston—we'll send you to your next stop. Jack will drive you." Jack was the silent chauffeur who had brought Janine to New Hampshire. He lived with them inside Jezebel's, but as far as she could tell, he never slept with the girls, didn't drink or do any of the drugs the others indulged in. He just kept to himself.
Skye stood up. "You've got ten minutes to get ready."
A shower would have been nice—Susie always woke up feeling filthy—but she had to settle for a quick wash at the sink and a toothbrushing. Then she put on her comfy white loungewear, braided her wild hair, adjusted her eyepatch, and slipped outside into Jack's waiting Mercedes. Having made no friends, she didn't say goodbye to anyone. Nobody would miss her. She didn't much care where she was heading, either, as long as it was north.
She had survived the Red Center, three Commanders, the Colonies, and now Jezebel's. She could survive anything. Just get me the fuck to Canada, God, please. She just had to get there. Janine fingered the two wedding rings in her trouser pocket: Jon and Maya's. She wanted to find their family. She thought of June, free in Toronto with her little girl, and Emily, still probably running over asshole men somewhere. She wanted so badly to see her friends again, just hug them and cry, dance and drink the tequila June had once promised her.
After an hour of silence, Jack actually spoke to her. "Have you ever heard of Shelburne, Vermont?"
"No."
"It's just south of Burlington."
Burlington was where the University of Vermont had been, she thought. They used to have a 'naked bike riding day' at the end of the semester. Those crazy college kids were definitely salvaged on day one of Gilead, she concluded with a smirk. The naked bikers and Bernie Sanders and probably the entire city of Burlington too. "So what's in Shelburne?"
"Not much. It's a tiny little town. But it's on Lake Champlain. It has a marina."
"You want to go sailing, Jack?"
He snorted, the closest thing to a laugh as she'd ever heard from him. "Uh, no. The yacht club was never my scene. But maybe you'd like to get on a little boat?"
"A boat to where?"
He half-turned to stare at her. As she was about to remind him to watch the road, he asked, "You know where Lake Champlain ends?"
"No, I'll just look it up on Google Maps," she said tartly.
He ignored the sarcasm, keeping his tone even. "It connects Vermont and New York to Quebec."
Quebec. Canada.