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I was the only one in my family who was saved. You wouldn't think that, would you? Not with me singing hymns on television so young. Most people assumed I was a preacher's daughter. But I wasn't; I was saved in high school. There was a Christian prayer group on campus, though I'm surprised it was even legal in those days, with the way they persecuted us. Coming from a family with no real religion, I was curious about it. Eventually I made friends with a girl named Emily. She was so worried about me going to hell, but she tried not to preach too much. The most important thing is to be a good example. At least, that was what I thought then. And Emily was a normal kid just like me, music and dresses and everything, except she followed the Lord.
One day she asked me if I thought there was something more than just this world.
I had thought about it before. Everybody does. You can't help it, really. Not knowing any better, I figured there was a heaven up high somewhere, and that whoever was a good person in this life could get in. I found out soon enough that it's not as simple as that. You have to believe and be saved. I read the Bible a lot in those days, and I read other books too, that Emily gave me. And they told me why what was in the Bible was the absolute truth. Of course I can't read those books anymore, but I don't need to. It's all in my heart, now.
After some looking around, I found a church I loved. They preached against television, and secular music, and women working outside the home. And then they discovered my voice. Singing on television, even if it's forbidden now... I'll never forget it. I had an audience just for my worship and praise. It sounds conceited, but I believe I may have brought some sinners to salvation just through the power of my voice. A woman's voice can do that, you know, can bend a man's mind. That's why we can't sing anymore. It's too powerful.
I used to get fan letters, can you believe it? People would write to the church. I had men I'd never seen propose marriage to me. It was flattering, but of course I always said no. I was waiting for the right man. For Fred.
As I said, the rest of my family wasn't saved. There was me, and my older sister Janey, and our mom. It was horrible for me, living with them, thinking about the pain of hell that they were destined for. I tried talking to them, but they had hearts of stone, as they say, and would not be moved. So the church became my new family.
Our church never got involved in any of the scandals, I'm happy to say. Pastor Allman was a good man, and educated. And he lived what he preached. You would never see him caught with a woman, or another man, or any of the other terrible matters some churches had to deal with. I admired him so much that I felt called to the ministry myself. I prayed about it often. But of course women aren't meant for that, and even in those days we knew it. A woman can't speak in church. So I settled for the second-best thing. I became an activist.
I know I'm famous for going out into the world to tell women to stay at home. Do you think nobody has ever pointed out that contradiction to me before? But someone had to do it, and they would listen to a woman more than a man.
You see, my mother worked when we were young. She didn't have any choice, not having a man to care for her. Our father was long gone, never even sent money. These days, my mother might be a Martha, and we might be taken in by a real family, with a mother and father.
My sister Janey was wild. She brought boys into the house when my mother was at work. I knew about it but I was afraid to say anything. I didn't want her to get in trouble, and what could my mother do about it anyway? So Janey carried on, having sex with boys and sometimes smoking marijuana. Then she ended up pregnant.
This happened before I was singing in church, before I was saved. But I knew right from wrong, and I begged and begged her to have the baby and give it up for adoption. So many couples were desperate for children. But Janey didn't listen. She had an abortion. She killed her baby! My mother let her, paid for it even. I had a hard time even speaking to Janey after that, and all I could say when I did is that she needed to repent. And she still brought boys into the house, though you'd think she would have learned her lesson.
So that's what I told people about, when I told them women belonged in the home. I told them how women were taking away jobs from men who needed them to support their families. How a woman's glory is within, and she should be having children and giving love and comfort to her man. Just as women would live later on in Gilead.
People weren't ready to hear it. This time instead of fan mail I got hate mail, from feminists and such. People telling me a woman can do anything a man can do, when it's so obvious she can't. Letters about famous women and what they accomplished. Well, I don't care. Women can't be good lawyers, doctors, any of that. I wouldn't ever go to a woman doctor, if we still had them. A woman falls apart in a crisis.
Around then I met Fred. We met on the front lines, protesting at an abortion clinic. He taught me how to find the women's addresses from their cars' license plates, so we could ask them later why they did it. Fred was so brave. In fact he told me a secret: he had a gun, and was going to shoot an abortion doctor. I was so proud of him. He didn't use the gun for that in the end. We had a much bigger fight on our hands, by the time he used that gun.
It wasn't too long before we were married. My church didn't believe in dating for a long time, or in long engagements. Pastor Allman told me Fred was a good man and I shouldn't make him wait. My mother and Janey hated Fred but they did show up for the wedding.
Fred was a gentleman, and a true servant of the Lord. Slow to anger, quick to smile. And he knew that women have limits in their intelligence, but he always treated me with respect and talked to me almost like an equal. That all changed later, but that's what it was like at first. And I submitted to him, just as all good women submit to their husbands.
I was so in love with him. That was a problem. A woman doesn't need to be out choosing her own husband. She picks someone for romance, not for values and respect. Not that I'm saying Fred had no values. In those days, he certainly did. He was one of the original planners of Gilead, though he didn't talk about it yet, and he used to study the Bible every day. This was before they edited the Bible to emphasize the parts that supported our cause.
Right away I had a son. Are you surprised to hear Fred had a child? Our son Douglas. Douglas was my life. I could never have left him to go out to work, so I quit being an activist then. Fred would have made me quit anyway. We moved us out to the country then, because Fred said the city was no place to raise a child. We had a little farm there.
He was such a good baby, a sweet baby. Fred was gone a lot. I only found out later that he was working on bringing Gilead. So it was just me and Douglas, and I loved him like nothing else.
Douglas, well, maybe it was that he didn't have his father around so much, but he grew up angry. He was always arguing with us, practically from the time he learned how to talk. Then when he was ten, the stealing started. If I refused him candy or a toy, he would just go out and pick it up himself without paying for it. I wanted to make him return all the things and apologize, but his father told me not to. He was afraid there would be trouble with the law and he didn't trust the police and the government. But he punished Douglas himself, by chastising him and taking away his things. We didn't spare the rod when it came to our child. I still don't know what we did wrong.
When he was twelve years old, his father found a can of beer in his room. I kept saying to Fred that Douglas was only human and we were all sinners, but Fred was furious. When he called Douglas in to deal with him, Douglas said he would do whatever he wanted, and he cursed his father. That was the final straw for Fred. That night he finally told me about Gilead and how much we would all gain from the new government, and how it would be a place where people lived by the Bible. It says in the Bible that the rebellious son is to be stoned by the men of his city. Fred said that was exactly what we were going to do. He would bring over some of the other Commanders, and they would stone Douglas.
I believed in the Bible but I'd never heard of anyone carrying out its penalties like that. I became hysterical, and I begged Fred to change his mind and give Douglas another chance. But he wouldn't. He reminded me that the man is the ruler in his home. The next morning, the other Commanders came over.
I'm sorry, but I can't talk about this. Fred made me watch, and I won't forget a single second of it, but I can't tell it over to you. I'll just say, do you think stoning happens quickly? It doesn't. Douglas was screaming and trying to run, but they had him tied up. And they couldn't find enough rocks heavy enough to do the damage they needed to do.
I tried to be good and pray for Douglas's soul. But mostly I was praying that someone would come by the farm and see what was happening and make them stop. No one did.
They took my son's body out to the woods and buried it. Fred told people he ran away from home. But the government was starting to fray at the edges by then and I don't think anyone could have done anything even if Fred had admitted what he did.
Does it surprise you that I stayed with Fred? I'll admit that I hated him for a while, and I spent days just crying for my baby. Fred told me we had made the ultimate sacrifice to serve the Lord, giving up our own child. A woman has to honor and obey her husband no matter what. I wasn't going to shirk my responsibilities.
One of the first things Fred did when we took over here was erase all records that referred to Douglas. There was no birth certificate or any other document left with his name on it. In the nation of Gilead, Fred had never had a child. Most people didn't even know about the stoning.
These days it's legal to execute your rebellious child. It doesn't happen too much, since we need all the children we can get, but it happens. I've seen three stonings myself. The men throw the rocks, but they want the women to watch. It's always boys. Partly because the Bible says "your son," but mostly because we need girls worse than boys. If ideally there would be no Econowives and every man should have a Wife and a Martha, and maybe a Handmaiden, well... the math is easy. It's only because so many Angels sacrifice themselves in the war that we have anything like enough women now.
My friend Sarah lost a son to stoning. I think the boy had a mental illness, myself. Sarah was screaming the whole time, and I just kept holding her hand and telling her how brave she was, what a servant of the Lord. And after it was done I went back to her house and had a doctor come give her some pills. Her husband, Dan, just didn't care about how much this had hurt her. He was proud of himself, and he was thrilled when they gave him a Handmaiden because now he had no children. Ofdan never did produce another baby for them though.
And there was another child, too. Just before Gilead was founded, I had a daughter. But the child wasn't Fred's.
Does that shock you? That I would have an affair, when butter wouldn't melt in my mouth and all that? I'm a human being, and a sinner, and I did.
Fred was having affairs all the time in those days. I used to find the scent of perfume on his clothes constantly, and little notes from women. It drove me crazy. Why wasn't I enough for him? I did everything he asked me to, always. I respected him as the master of the household. But I guess it just wasn't good enough.
So one night when Fred was off with some loose woman, I visited the widower next door. I wish I could say that wasn't how it happened. I wish I could say I was upset and went to him for comfort, or that I loved him. But it wasn't like that. I just wanted revenge on Fred. I drank a little alcohol, and so did he, and we went to bed. In the morning I was crushed with guilt, couldn't even believe what I had done. I couldn't possibly tell Fred. But I did tell the Lord, and I know I am forgiven for my sin.
I was happy when I found out I was pregnant. Of course Fred thought the baby was his, though I think he was probably sterile already by then. A lot of the men couldn't father children. They were doing some experiment, trying to make our enemies sterile, and it backfired on them. Childlessness was always blamed on the wives though. The men thought we didn't know about the experiment, but we knew way more than they gave us credit for.
As for Rebecca, my daughter... she was a shredder, or that's what we would say these days. I thought she was fine at first, but she kept getting sick, and the doctor told me her lungs were malformed somehow. She was the prettiest little thing. Not deformed like you picture shredders. Just perfect and so cute. She could have lived. But when Fred heard about her lungs, he talked to me about how some babies come out wrong and how they aren't really human. How when Gilead was founded they would be removed from the population, and he was going to start this policy with Rebecca. Of course he never called her by name. He said he would take her away, and she'd grow up in a home with others who were like that.
You know and I know there is no home for these babies. I knew what would happen to Rebecca if I gave her to him. The doctor had told me honestly that she might die anyway, but if I gave her to Fred he might have handed her over to scientists or something like that. It's like Douglas; I can't keep talking about it. But in the end, I did for her. I used a pillow. That makes me sound like a terrible person, but it was a lot more merciful than whatever my husband had planned for her.
So I lost two children, and so did Fred. But he never really mentioned them again, just kept on chasing women and planning for Gilead. I never slept with him again after what happened with Rebecca.
I wonder now that I never thought of running away with my daughter. It was still a free country, for a few more months then, though there were plenty of problems. But I didn't have a passport, and I didn't know how to drive. I didn't have any job skills. Fred had discouraged me, all those years, from ever learning anything like that. I had made money in my activist days but I could hardly do that now. If I had gone to the law... well, we all hated the law in those days before Gilead. And in spite of everything, I believed that the Lord wanted me to obey Fred's every dictate, and I still wanted Gilead to happen. I didn't know everything, like about the Handmaids. From what Fred said it sounded like a paradise. And if you didn't look too hard, maybe it was.
Then came the takeover. We all knew what was going to happen. Women didn't do the planning or the fighting but we were all smart enough to get into our husband's offices and look through their things. So we knew most of the plans. When Gilead was finally established I had mixed feelings. Part of me was happy, because now I was truly free to believe and truly protected as a woman. And part of me was worried. Because the Lord wouldn't really run Gilead, men would, and we all know men are fallible. I had already had a more than a taste of the downside of the new government.
But of course I pretended I was ecstatic. I burned books with some other Wives and told newsmen from all over that this was the greatest step ever taken for women. We all pretended that.
They did shut all the abortion clinics and give the doctors what they deserved. I was happy about that. I used to go past the Wall every day just to see the doctors hanging there, the ones I used to protest but had no way to hurt. So there were some good things I could see happening at the beginning.
I knew that women everywhere were being fired from their jobs. That was a good thing, too. I thought now we would have a country where women truly cared for their children, unlike my mother. As time went by, and our side gained more and more land and more and more control, women were being led on the right path. At least at first.
As for me, I had my whole household to run, with help from Marthas. That was something I appreciated. I never even had a cleaning woman in the old days, but now I have two women doing all the heavy work. I can't complain about that. These women are suited for work like that, and too old to do something important like have children.
Then they started the Handmaid program. They had worked even harder keeping that secret from us than they had on their military maneuvers! I knew about the Handmaids in the Bible, but the Biblical Wives volunteered. No one would trust us to make a decision like that these days, so any childless man of enough status received a Handmaid. Fred was legally childless, with Douglas and Rebecca erased. So the first Offred moved into our house, and we were instructed in how to conduct the Ceremony.
Of course, they did put limits on them. They had to. What man would choose an old Wife over a younger, prettier woman? I was worried Fred would find a way to divorce me to marry a Handmaid. Fortunately for us, in the end they enforced scripture: A man can't divorce his wife for anything but adultery. Adultery has a death penalty, so divorce just doesn't happen anymore.
I felt a little better when I found out the Handmaids would have such a low position in our houses, and weren't supposed to look pretty and seduce our husbands. If I had my reservations about it, especially with a husband like Fred, I kept them to myself. I just went right on submitting.
I was hoping that now we would have a place where every woman lived by the Bible. I had also hoped that Fred would stay faithful to me, now that there were no Pornomarts, no prostitutes, no indecent clothing. I should have known better. He's always trying to get personal with the Handmaids, cheat on me with them, as if trying to get them pregnant weren't enough!
The first Offred didn't last long. She couldn't bear doing the Ceremony every week. I think the whole thing disgusted her. All I know is that she went to another home, and I hope she learned to bear it then.
Then there was Dierdre. The second Handmaid. I knew her real name, even if I always called her Offred like I was supposed to. From the beginning I knew there would be trouble. She was too pretty, for one thing. And she was always asking questions, of me, of the Marthas. I didn't try to befriend her. I've never tried to befriend any of them. But all the same she kept asking me how I met Fred, what was my life like before Gilead.
Fred never could resist the temptation of a woman, and he was already having sex with her, even if he wasn't supposed to enjoy it. He must have thought she was so cute, must have just loved dressing her up in those nasty outfits he thinks I don't know about. I couldn't prove anything, but I knew what was going on. If that weren't enough, I found writing in her room once, a scrap of a note. Wasn't she smart enough to realize I would search?
I told her she would have to leave. We would get a new Offred, and she would be relocated. But we were her third house; there was nothing left for her now but the Colonies. I could have done worse; I could have told the government I caught her writing, and she might have been Salvaged. In the end she committed suicide. One of the Marthas found her the next morning. I don't blame myself at all. Suicide is a sin and it was her sin. Hers and Fred's. No one forced her to be a Handmaid, anyway. We never forced anyone to do that.
The third Offred was too pretty, too. Same story, except instead of committing suicide she got in trouble with the government. They came and got her one day. I don't think she was Salvaged, since I never saw it happen, so maybe they sent her to the Colonies. They say it's terrible there, but that's no better than she deserved.
We're on the fourth now, and I keep a strict eye on her. Fortunately she's not especially pretty or especially bright. We might be able to keep her for a while.
And yet none of the Offreds have managed to produce a baby for me. I know Fred will never get one pregnant. Sometimes I've told them to involve other men, like doctors or our driver. It's against the rules but I have to do that. I ache to hold a child. Women are meant to be mothers, and I want to know what it's like to be one again. If I had a little girl, I could name her Rebecca. It's a fine name, a Biblical name.
I said there were no prostitutes but of course there are. There's that club. Some of the husbands actually think we don't know. It's harder to go through their things than it used to be, but we know. I tell myself that it's not all of the men, that we are all sinners, that Gilead still serves the Lord. I don't know if I believe it anymore though.
I can't stand to be in the same room as the Handmaids, but one or two of the Wives don't feel that way about it. They try to make friends with them, to be co-wives, which is not what we're supposed to be. We fought for that. The Handmaids aren't what we are. They're just baby factories, if they can even manage that much. Still, some women need friendship so badly they make a friend of out of their Handmaid.
And then there was Cora. She was caught in bed with her Handmaid, if you can believe such a thing. Of course they were both Salvaged. That was back when they still read the reasons out loud. The crowd was so shocked. Nothing like that is supposed to happen in Gilead. Her husband remarried some young girl and got another Handmaid on top of that! They haven't produced any children yet.
We Wives, we look out for each other, and do whatever we can. We have a whole network. Like I said, sometimes we still spy on our husbands, just to make sure they aren't planning anything worse for us. And we have plans of our own.
Once we even smuggled a Wife out of Gilead. We really had no choice. Her husband was beating her. Really hurting her, not just what is allowed. Most of us put up with bruises, and broken bones are pretty common too, but we were afraid her husband would kill her one day. There was no recourse. Technically a husband has limits on how much he's allowed to chastise his wife, but no one would ever enforce them.
She had nowhere to go. What woman has anywhere to go these days? So she told her husband she was visiting relatives up by the Canadian border, and one night very late some of the other Wives up there managed to disguise her and get her a fake passport. She went over into Canada. We weren't able to keep track of her after that, but the Canadians hardly ever send anyone back. Sometimes I wish I had gone with her. But I'm married forever in the eyes of the Lord, and I'm staying in Gilead.
We do that with some of the shredders too. Our husbands don't seem to care much when we tell them they died. They don't go looking for a grave. So when we can, some contacts drop them off at a convent just over the border. I mean yes, they're Catholic but surely that's better than being dead, don't you think? But it doesn't always work. Sometimes the husbands want to take care of it all themselves, and the babies disappear.
And we have books. Every time someone sends out word that she's sick, it means she has a book. We all go to visit and take turns reading out loud to each other. If the husbands caught us, there would certainly be trouble, but they don't spy on us the way we spy on them. They just don't think we're capable of much, which may be a good thing.
I love everything about books, though I know I shouldn't. Even the smell of the ink on the paper brings back memories. The ones we keep now aren't always good books. Sometimes the quality and the morals aren't what they could be. I've heard Flowers in the Attic twice now. But we have the words and the way they flow over the page and that's something to keep us going. We just don't keep any of the old Bibles. They'd Salvage us for certain if we were ever caught with one of them.
So that's my life as a Wife. It's definitely a better life from when there were Pornomarts on every corner and abortion clinics in every town. Women were never safe then. Now every woman has her place.
I belong at home, not out being an activist, and no one disagrees with that now. I watch over my home well. But I have my regrets; we all do. Nothing is ever perfect on this earth. I'm a sinner, and subject to temptations of my own.
As bad as it was, there are some things I miss about the old days. I miss reading the Bible, and I miss crowds of people listening to my voice. There are times I even miss my mother and Janey. My mother died before Gilead was realized, though, and I don't even know what happened to Janey. Probably she's a Handmaid somewhere.
Some of us sacrificed more than others, to make Gilead real. And sometimes when it's getting late and evening is falling outside, I still sing a hymn, soft and low, just like I used to.