IT'S A SMALL WORLD
Dr. Yates had practised medicine for far too long to fall for fish tales. That's exactly what he thought he'd been exposed to in his reunion with his former colleague, Dr. Holly Maddox. One long fish-tale.
Technically, he was not supposed to be treating Marthas, especially those like Holly who'd once been condemned to The Colonies - who'd once been obstetricians in their own right, practising 'women's health', which Gilead decided was code for abortions.
Yates' anxiety was whether he'd need to report this or not - given that he was treating Dr. Maddox for cancer. She, a Martha, being treated for a pernicious and always fatal, malignant tumour. If he reported this, he would only demonstrate his waste of national resources on an unwoman, a slut.
If he didn't report this…. that was a crime in and of itself. What to do? What to do?
Speaking of, all he'd ever wanted to do was practise medicine - a cold was a cold whether in the old Massachusetts or in New Gilead. He'd grown tired of the erosion of the Hippocratic Oath in Gilead. Determining who to treat should be only a medical decision, not an affair of state. (He then laughed, because back in the old USA, the decision-to-treat had always been a financial decision. Could they pay?)
As he was explaining to the ex-Martha, she now in her all-but comatose state, his patient was not supposed to be her. Unwomen did not qualify. His 'patient', technically speaking, was her owner. That kind of clarity he could not work with.
As Dr. Maddox lapsed into and out of awareness, she could occasionally manage a word or two. When it happened, it was all Dr. Yates could do to decipher her meaning. When she'd managed the word, 'cancer?' he knew that she knew. Afterall, Dr. Maddox way-back-when had been one of the smarter doctors, so smart that she'd scared Gil Yates. But he knew what she'd be thinking - why even try to cure it, if she was simply going to be returned to the Bootheel Colony to get more radiation?
Anticipating her meaning of her word, 'cancer', he said aloud, "it's the Hippocratic Oath, Dr. Maddox. Do no harm."
He knew that she was fully aware, when the single word she managed next, was a weak, almost defeated, "bullshit."
He then went into counseling mode, a rarity for him. Changing the subject he said, "June, your daughter June. I have no idea if she got out. I just know that she failed in Colorado Springs. Her own daughter, Agnes had been shipped back to Boston. I'm not sure it had been for marriage, but the point is, June failed. Where she is now, I don't know."
After a while, the one, final word Holly managed was a weak, "fuck."
ONCE AGAIN, THE PINS KNOCKED FROM UNDER ME
It's strange where your mind goes when you're struggling for bearings. I must be in some distress, because nothing makes sense. The sounds around me, they don't add up. Sounded medical, what that I could make of it. Beeps. Sounded like one of the wards I'd worked on when I was young, back at the CHA Somerville Campus, in Boston.
But that couldn't be it.
Then the voice. Dr. Yates. Dr. Gil Yates. First met him in Boston, then from the Bootheel Colony. Now here. Like a bad penny. Jesus Christ, there was no getting rid of him!
Me, I tried speaking. I wanted to tell him to stop being such a yutz. I wanted to tell him he was NOT my friend. If I'm dying, I want to be around June, not Dr. Yates, the guy always obsequious in my presence. One of those male-white-liberals, who never think they measure up when in the presence of a feminist.
So - they overfunction, badly. They use the vocabulary, with no understanding. It's embarrassing.
Why don't they measure up? Because they don't. They try so damn hard, and they fail on all accounts.
Okay, I now remember. June had said that Lieutenant Stans had suggested that the tumor I had was going to spoil HIS fun! Remember that?
Okay….. June. The tumor. Dr. Yates, Yates the yutz. Me here….. where is this? Okay, Holly (I told myself), your vaunted analytical skills - which colleagues from medicine as well as the Women's Collectives seemed to value a bedside manner…. where have those skills gone?
"Don't try to speak," Dr. Yates was saying. "We're here to make you comfortable."
Oh good. My 'comfort' was in the hands of the man who sold out his women colleagues. I guy who talked the talk, but who didn't mind being promoted over a woman who had twice the skills he had. Then again, one remaining analytic surfaced, even as I was obviously struggling.
This was Gilead. I remember being in Canada at one time….. at the Quebec/Gilead border, I'd broken down…. No Man's Land out there…. then Toronto, just missing June. Then that long odyssey out to Calgary, then south with June and Emily to Shelby - Shelby in that 'other' No Man's Land, the one that the indigenous had reclaimed.
Comfort? For a woman? Really, Gil? In Gilead? Did that mean that I'd never gone south of that Medicine Line that the Assiniboine and Blackfeet now patrolled?
My head hurt. I thought I'd heard Dr. Yates' declaration that my comfort was his top priority. Another of his stupidities.
"June?" That's what he said, I mean it was in his voice. But who was he parroting, calling for June?
Apparently that word had not been his, it was me calling for her.
But it was his voice answering a question I'm not sure I'd asked. "June, she's gone. But she has connections here in the Western Colonies District. She knows Commanders, so it's not necessarily a disaster. She's quite the lady! I sincerely wonder who she's working for!"
There it was again. June. Consorting with Commanders.
Yates then answered another question I wasn't positive I'd asked.
He parrotted another thing I'd, apparently, said. "'Blaine'? Okay, that rings a bell, if by it you mean 'Commander Blaine', you're way ahead of me. Like always, Holly. It's how I know that you two had survived prison…. hell, 'prison' out here in The Colonies? How does one survive that? It's already bad enough we are in The Colonies. At least in here, your cancer is being seen to. You can thank Martha Lori for that."
At that bit of info, I doubted I was in Gilead. Couldn't be. I mean, did Martha Lori carry that much weight out here? To get me some palliative care?
Emily Malek had said that Martha Lori was going to look out for me. Apparently she was. I must be the only woman in Gilead - most certainly the only unwoman! - getting what appears to be all the oncology bells and whistles.
Oh God, I'm blathering. I hope this is not too much to follow. I apologize for my state. It was not my idea to get cancer.
That was all on Gilead. I swear, even if I'd not been an obstetrician from Boston, even if I'd not supervised abortions and the full suite of health care for women….. Gilead would have rounded me up anyway. Wasn't I rounded up because of a vasectomy?
I shouldn't get too chuffed that I'd been in Gilead's sights because of my visibility. No sir. I was a woman, that was enough of a reason to expose me to radiation. I hope I won't have too much longer.
WHAT DR. YATES SAID
It would be better, Dr. Maddox, if you tried not to talk. I mean, do what you want - as if that had ever been a problem for you.
It's not months, Holly, it is days. We've done what we can. Chemo, radiation. You know the score on all that. The only reason to do radiation at this point is pain management. Part of me believes you'd find all that amusing, Gilead using those sorts of scarce resources on a Godless Obstetrician…. seriously that's what it said once on your file…. a Godless Obstetrician who preyed on the unborn.
Hell, even I preyed on the unborn, but that'll be our little secret, Holly.
You'd been delivered here from the prison - by Martha Lori's people. Me, I'd asked, 'How in hell do Marthas spring people from a Colonies' prison!?' They just looked at me like I was the stupidest person in the world. 'Really,' one of the Lori-lieutenants said, 'you'd ask that, of Martha Lori?' So I let it alone and we admitted you.
Still, it's days, Holly. You know the drill on that, I don't need to rehearse it, not for you.
Look, don't speak. You've just brought up your daughter, and I get it. I told you, didn't I, that June and I, back in Boston, we'd had quite the contact - over the Ofmatthew thing, the pregnant Handmaid friend June had - who'd been shot. We'd had to wait until the foetus became viable. Yes, yes, yes, yes, I can just hear you screaming at me, Holly, about Ofmatthew. You don't have to yell out the words…. you're in no shape. I can hear you.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, we'd 'adjusted' the Hippocratic Oath - the 'patient' was now the unborn - Ofmatthew, yes she was just the vessel. A petri dish needing temporary life support.
Between you and me and the fencepost - and I know that you'll not tell anyone - how doctors like me could literally abandon a viable human being…. Ofmatthew…. okay, I'll not go there.
But June. We got to know each other, she scared me. I think I may have told you when you and I were briefly at that infirmary at the Bootheel Colony.
So I'll skip to the part you're probably interested in.
June, after the two of you had been sprung from Stans, she did not get to her daughter - the one (apparently) at Rubies Preparatory School in Colorado Springs. Commander Blaine, he had to get four large Guardians to pull her away from the trap waiting for her school. That was after the two of you, you and June, had been released by Stans.
You, you're here. My hope for June? That she's back in Calgary, and that she stays there. But I don't know that. I wish in this last days, I could give you some peace. Commander Blaine, he'd gone all 'traditional motherhood' on June, and insisted she go back to Canada to see to Nichole. Nichole. What I learned was as much his baby as it was hers. Me, I was there when he scolded June - for getting too many other people killed because of her obsessions.
The people killed? They'd been the ones trying to help her. They bore the cost of your daughter's obsessions.
So, is your daughter a hero? The talk among the Marthas I related to, was that she wasn't. She was trouble. And not good trouble.
Don't try to speak Holly. If I know you, your mind is in overdrive right now
A penny for you thoughts, Holly.
A LITTLE SECRET
I can imagine that this is a nightmare for you, having me summarize things for you. You hate people, especially men, doing anything for you.
Here's the secret, Holly. You're scary. Cancer has put a dent in that for sure, but you used to put the fear of The Lord into me!
I never knew why you chose Osborne over me. Osborne, June's dad. I mean, we all knew who June's dad was. Me, I was the only guy at the baby-shower, way, way, way back in the dark ages. Your girl-friends, they did not spare the insults about Mr. Zero. Me, I wondered how you were going to deal with that. I wondered how you were going to sell Mr. Zero to June when she got older.
At the shower, I'd looked at that little baby, the one you'd named 'June'. Give me this, Holly, give it to me while there's still time. 'June' should have been mine, just as your granddaughter, Nichole, is Commander Blaine's.
It's the reason why when June had been sliced up that day, sliced up in some sort of fight with Serena Joy Waterford - it's the reason why I risked The Eyes by stitching her up. I relished the synchronicity. I didn't bother June with all of my own drama, but…
- laughter - Ha! Know what's funny, Holly? You and me, we're having this conversation in Gilead!
I won't lie. Gilead has been good to me. Okay, not at Bootheel, but still.
Another little secret. I qualified for to get Handmaid. As a doctor, I could have had one. Never took one, though. I'd actually been too ashamed.
That's what you'd done to me Holly, Dr. Maddox - you made me ashamed about Gilead.
I wish I'd been stronger.
i woke last night to the sound of thunder
how far off i sat and wondered
started humming a song from nineteen sixty two
ain't it funny how the night moves
when just don't seem to have as much to lose
strange how the night moves
with autumn closing in