The Testaments

by Margaret Atwood

  I was not one of the singers. Why waste your energy? My mood was not melodious. It was rather one of a rat in a maze. Was there a way out? What was that way? Why was I here? Was it a test? What were they trying to find out?

  Some women had nightmares, as you’d assume. They would groan and thrash about during them, or sit bolt upright with modified shouts. I’m not criticizing: I had nightmares myself. Shall I describe one for you? No, I will not. I’m fully aware of how easily one can become fatigued by other people’s nightmares, having heard a number of recitals of these by now. When push comes to shove, only one’s own nightmares are of any interest or significance.

  In the mornings, wakeup was perpetrated by a siren. Those whose watches had not been taken away—watch removal had been spotty—reported that this happened at 6 a.m. Bread and water for breakfast. How superlatively good that bread tasted! Some wolfed and guzzled, but I made my portion last as long as possible. Chewing and swallowing distracts from abstract mental wheel-spinning. Also it passes the time.

  Then, lineups for the foul toilets, and good luck to you if yours was clogged, since no one would come to unclog it. My theory? The guards went around at night stuffing various materials down the toilets as a further aggravation. Some of the more tidy-minded tried to clean up the washrooms, but once they saw how hopeless it was they gave up. Giving up was the new normal, and I have to say it was catching.

  Did I say there was no toilet paper? What then? Use your hand, attempt to clean your sullied fingers under the dribble of water that sometimes came out of the taps and sometimes did not. I’m sure they arranged that on purpose also, to raise us up and hurl us down at random intervals. I could picture the glee on the face of whatever kitten-torturing cretin was assigned this task as he flipped the power switch on the water flow system back and forth.

  We had been told not to drink the water from those taps, but some unwisely did. Retching and diarrhea followed, to contribute to the general joy.

  There were no paper towels. There were no towels of any kind. We wiped our hands on our skirts, whether those hands had been washed or not.

  I am sorry to dwell so much on the facilities, but you would be amazed at how important such things become—basics that you’ve taken for granted, that you’ve barely thought about until they’re removed from you. During my daydreams—and we all daydreamed, as enforced stasis with no events produces daydreams and the brain must busy itself with something—I frequently pictured a beautiful, clean, white toilet. Oh, and a sink to go with it, with an ample flow of pure clear water.

  Naturally we began to stink. In addition to the ordeal by toilet, we’d been sleeping in our business attire, with no change of underwear. Some of us were past menopause, but others were not, so the smell of clotting blood was added to the sweat and tears and shit and puke. To breathe was to be nauseated.

  They were reducing us to animals—to penned-up animals—to our animal nature. They were rubbing our noses in that nature. We were to consider ourselves subhuman.

  The rest of each day would unfurl like a toxic flower, petal by petal, agonizingly slow. We were sometimes handcuffed again, though sometimes not, then marched out in a line and slotted into the bleachers to sit under the blazing sun, and on one occasion—blissfully—in a cool drizzle. We reeked of wet clothing that night, but less of ourselves.

  Hour by hour we watched vans arrive, discharge their quota of women, depart empty. The same wailings from the new arrivals, the same barking and shouts from the guards. How tedious is a tyranny in the throes of enactment. It’s always the same plot.

  Lunch was the sandwiches again, and on one day—the drizzle day—some carrot sticks.

  “Nothing like a balanced meal,” said Anita. We had contrived to sit next to each other most days, and to sleep in proximity. She had not been a personal friend before this time, merely a professional colleague, but it gave me comfort simply to be with someone I knew; someone who personified my previous achievements, my previous life. You might say we bonded.

  “You were a damn fine judge,” she whispered to me on the third day.

  “Thank you. So were you,” I whispered back. Were was chilling.

  * * *

  —

  Of the others in our section I learned little. Their names, sometimes. The names of their firms. Some firms had specialized in domestic work—divorces, child custody, and so forth—so if women were now the enemy I could see why they might have been targeted; but being in real estate or litigation or estate law or corporate law appeared to offer no protection. All that was necessary was a law degree and a uterus: a lethal combination.

  * * *

  —

  The afternoons were chosen for the executions. The same parade out to the middle of the field, with the blinded condemned ones. I noticed more details as time went on: how some could hardly walk, how some seemed barely conscious. What had been happening to them? And why had they been selected to die?

  The same man in a black uniform exhorting into a microphone: God will prevail!

  Then the shots, the toppling, the limp bodies. Then the cleanup. There was a truck for the corpses. Were they buried? Were they burned? Or was that too much trouble? Perhaps they were simply taken to a dumpsite and left for crows.

  On the fourth day there was a variation: three of the shooters were women. They weren’t in business suits, but in long brown garments like bathrobes, with scarves tied under their chins. That got our attention.

  “Monsters!” I whispered to Anita.

  “How could they?” she whispered back.

  On the fifth day there were six women in brown among the shooters. There was also an uproar, as one of them, instead of aiming at the blindfolded ones, pivoted and shot one of the men in black uniforms. She was immediately bludgeoned to the ground and riddled with bullets. There was a collective gasp from the bleachers.

  So, I thought. That’s one way out.

  * * *

  —

  During the days new women would be added to our group of lawyers and judges. It stayed the same size, however, since every night some were removed. They left singly, between two guards. We did not know where they were being taken, or why. None came back.

  On the sixth night Anita was spirited away. It happened very quietly. Sometimes the targeted ones would shout and resist, but Anita did not, and I am ashamed to say that I was asleep when she was deleted. I woke up when the morning siren went off and she was simply not there.

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” one kind soul whispered to me as we stood in line for the pullulating toilets.

  “I’m sorry too,” I whispered back. But I was already hardening myself for what was almost surely to come. Sorry solves nothing, I told myself. Over the years—the many years—how true I have found that to be.

  * * *

  —

  On the seventh night, it was me. Anita had been noiselessly abstracted—that silence had had a demoralizing effect all its own, since one could vanish, it seemed, with nobody noticing and not even a ripple of sound—but it was not intended that I should go quietly.

  I was wakened by a boot applied to the hip. “Shut up and get up,” said one of the barking voices. Before I was properly awake I was being yanked upright and set in motion. All around there were murmurs, and one voice said, “No,” and another said, “Fuck,” and another said, “God bless,” and another said, “Cuídate mucho.”

  “I can walk by myself!” I said, but this made no difference to the hands on my upper arms, one on either side. This is it, I thought: they’re going to shoot me. But no, I corrected myself: that’s an afternoon thing. Idiot, I countered: shooting can happen anywhere at any time, and anyway shooting is not the only method.

  All this time I was quite calm, which seems hard to believe, and in fact I no longer believe it: I was not quite calm, I was dead calm. As long as I
thought of myself as already dead, untroubled by future cares, things would go easier for me.

  I was steered through the corridors, then out of a back entrance and into a car. It was not a van this time but a Volvo. The back-seat upholstery was soft but firm, the air conditioning was like a breath of paradise. Unfortunately the freshness of the air reminded me of my own accumulated odours. Nevertheless I relished the luxury, despite the fact that I was squashed in between my two guards, both of them bulky. Neither said anything. I was simply a bundle to be transported.

  The car stopped outside a police station. It was no longer a police station, however: the lettering had been covered over, and on the front door there was an image: an eye with wings. The logo of the Eyes, though I did not yet know that.

  Up the front steps we went, my two companions striding, me stumbling. My feet hurt: I realized how out of practice they had become, and also how wrecked and filthy my shoes were, after the drenching, the baking, and the various substances to which they had been subjected.

  We went along the corridor. Baritone rumblings came from behind doors; men in outfits like the ones beside me hurried past, their eyes gleaming with purpose, their voices staccato. There’s something spine-stiffening about uniforms, about insignia, about shiny lapel pins. No slouchers here!

  We turned into one of the rooms. There, behind a large desk, sat a man who looked faintly like Santa Claus: plump, white beard, rosy cheeks, cherry nose. He beamed at me. “You may sit down,” he said.

  “Thank you,” I replied. Not that I had a choice: my two travel buddies were inserting me into a chair and attaching me to it with plastic straps, arms to arms. Then they left the room, closing the door softly behind them. I had the impression that they went out backwards as if in the presence of some ancient god-king, but I couldn’t see behind me.

  “I should introduce myself,” he said. “I am Commander Judd, of the Sons of Jacob.” This was our first meeting.

  “I suppose you know who I am,” I replied.

  “That is correct,” he said, smiling blandly. “I apologize for the inconveniences you have been exposed to.”

  “It was nothing,” I said, straight-faced.

  It’s foolish to joke with those who have absolute control over you. They don’t like it; they think you don’t appreciate the full extent of their power. Now that I have power myself, I do not encourage flippancy among subordinates. But I was careless back then. I have learned better.

  His smile vanished. “Are you thankful to be alive?” he said.

  “Well, yes,” I said.

  “Are you thankful that God made you in a woman’s body?”

  “I suppose so,” I said. “I’ve never thought about it.”

  “I am not sure you are thankful enough,” he said.

  “What would thankful enough be like?” I said.

  “Thankful enough to co-operate with us,” he said.

  Have I mentioned that he had little oblong half-glasses? He took these off now and contemplated them. His eyes without the glasses were less twinkly.

  “What do you mean by ‘co-operate’?” I said.

  “It’s a yes or a no.”

  “I was trained as a lawyer,” I said. “I’m a judge. I don’t sign blank contracts.”

  “You are not a judge,” he said, “anymore.” He pressed a button on an intercom. “Thank Tank,” he said. Then, to me: “Let us hope you will learn to be more thankful. I will pray for that result.”

  * * *

  —

  And that is how I found myself in the Thank Tank. It was a repurposed police-station isolation cell, approximately four paces by four. It had a bed shelf, though there was no mattress. It had a bucket, which I swiftly concluded was for human food by-products, as there were still some of those in it, as witnessed by the smell. It had once had a light, but no more: now it had only a socket, and this was not live. (Of course I stuck my finger into it after a while. You would have too.) Any light I had would come from the corridor outside, through the slot by which the inevitable sandwiches would shortly arrive. Gnawing in the dark, that was the plan for me.

  I groped around in the dusk, found the bed slab, sat down on it. I can do this, I thought. I can get through.

  I was right, but only just. You’d be surprised how quickly the mind goes soggy in the absence of other people. One person alone is not a full person: we exist in relation to others. I was one person: I risked becoming no person.

  I was in the Thank Tank for some time. I don’t know how long. Every once in a while an eye would view me through the sliding shutter that was there for viewing purposes. Every once in a while there would be a scream or a series of shrieks from nearby: brutalization on parade. Sometimes there would be a prolonged moaning; sometimes a series of grunts and breathy gasps that sounded sexual, and probably were. The powerless are so tempting.

  I had no way of knowing whether or not these noises were real or merely recordings, intended to shatter my nerves and wear away my resolve. Whatever my resolve might be: after some days I lost track of that plotline. The plotline of my resolve.

  * * *

  —

  I was parked inside my twilit cell for an unknown length of time, but it couldn’t really have been that long judging from the length of my fingernails when I was brought out of it. Time, however, is different when you’re shut up in the dark alone. It’s longer. Nor do you know when you’re asleep and when awake.

  Were there insects? Yes, there were insects. They did not bite me, so I expect they were cockroaches. I could feel their tiny feet tiptoeing across my face, tenderly, tentatively, as if my skin were thin ice. I did not slap them. After a while you welcome any kind of touch.

  One day, if it was a day, three men came into my cell without warning, shone a glaring light into my blinking purblind eyes, threw me onto the floor, and administered a precise kicking, and other attentions. The noises I emitted were familiar to me: I had heard them nearby. I won’t go into any further details, except to say that Tasers were also involved.

  No, I was not raped. I suppose I was already too old and tough for the purpose. Or it may be that they were priding themselves on their high moral standards, but I doubt this very much.

  This kicking and tasing procedure was repeated two more times. Three is a magic number.

  Did I weep? Yes: tears came out of my two visible eyes, my moist weeping human eyes. But I had a third eye, in the middle of my forehead. I could feel it: it was cold, like a stone. It did not weep: it saw. And behind it someone was thinking: I will get you back for this. I don’t care how long it takes or how much shit I have to eat in the meantime, but I will do it.

  * * *

  —

  Then, after an indefinite period and without warning, the door to my Thank Tank cell clanged open, light flooded in, and two black uniforms hauled me out. No words were spoken. I—by this time a shambling wreck, and even smellier than before—was marched or dragged down the corridor by which I had arrived, and out the front door by which I had entered, and into an air-conditioned van.

  Next thing I knew I was in a hotel—yes, a hotel! It was not one of the grand hotels, more like a Holiday Inn, if that name will mean anything to you, though I suppose it will not. Where are the brands of yesteryear? Gone with the wind. Or rather gone with the paintbrush and the demolition team, because as I was being hauled into the lobby there were workmen overhead, obliterating the lettering.

  In the lobby there was no sweetly smiling reception staff to welcome me. Instead there was a man with a list. A conversation took place between him and my two tour guides, and I was propelled into an elevator, then along a carpeted corridor that was only beginning to show signs of an absence of maids. A couple more months and they’ll have a serious mildew issue, I thought with my mushy brain as a door was carded open.

  “Enjoy your stay,”
said one of my minders. I don’t believe he was being ironic.

  “Three days R & R,” said the second one. “Anything you need, phone the front desk.”

  The door locked behind them. On the small table there was a tray with orange juice and a banana, and a green salad, and a serving of poached salmon! A bed with sheets! Several towels, more or less white! A shower! Above all, a beautiful ceramic toilet! I fell to my knees and uttered, yes, a heartfelt prayer, but to whom or what I could not tell you.

  After I’d eaten all the food—I didn’t care if it was poisoned, I was so overjoyed by it—I spent the next few hours taking showers. Just one shower was not enough: there were so many layers of accumulated grime I had to wash off. I inspected my healing abrasions, my yellowing and purpling bruises. I’d lost weight: I could see my ribs, which had reappeared after a decades-long absence due to fast-food lunches. During my legal career my body had been merely a vehicle for propelling me from one achievement to the next, but now I had a newfound tenderness for it. How pink were my toenails! How intricate the vein patterns on my hands! I could not get a good fix on my face in the bathroom mirror, however. Who was that person? The features seemed blurred.

  Then I slept for a long time. When I woke up, there was another delicious meal, beef stroganoff with a side of asparagus, and peach Melba for dessert, and, Oh joy! A cup of coffee! I would have liked a martini, but I guessed that alcohol was not going to be on the women’s menu in this new era.

  My stinking former clothes had been removed by unseen hands: it seemed I was to live in the white terry cloth hotel bathrobe.

  I was still in a state of mental disarray. I was a jigsaw puzzle thrown onto the floor. But on the third morning, or was it an afternoon, I woke in an improved state of coherence. It seemed I could think again; it seemed I could think the word I.