I must have sat there for at least a minute, not saying anything. I felt I was gasping for breath. I felt chilled through.
Baby Nicole, with her round face and her unknowing eyes. Every time I’d seen that famous photo, I’d been looking at myself. That baby had caused a lot of trouble for a lot of people just by being born. How could I be that person? Inside my head I was denying it, I was screaming no. But nothing came out.
“I don’t like this,” I said at last in a small voice.
“None of us likes it,” said Elijah kindly. “We would all like reality to be otherwise.”
“I wish there was no Gilead,” I said.
“That’s our goal,” said Ada. “No Gilead.” She said it in that practical way she had, as if no Gilead was as easy as fixing a dripping tap. “You want some coffee?”
I shook my head. I was still trying to take it in. So I was a refugee, like the frightened women I’d seen in SanctuCare; like the other refugees everyone was always arguing about. My health card, my only proof of identity, was a fake. I’d never legally been in Canada at all. I could be deported at any time. My mother was a Handmaid? And my father…“So my father’s one of those?” I said. “A Commander?” The idea of part of him being part of me—being inside my actual body—made me shiver.
“Luckily not,” said Elijah. “Or not according to your mother, though she doesn’t wish to endanger your real father by saying so, as he may still be in Gilead. But Gilead is staking its claim to you via your official father. It’s on those grounds they’ve always demanded your return. The return of Baby Nicole,” he clarified.
Gilead had never given up on the idea of finding me, Elijah told me. They’d never stopped looking; they were very tenacious. To their way of thinking I belonged to them, and they had a right to track me down and haul me across the border by whatever means, legal or illegal. I was underage, and although that particular Commander had disappeared from view—most likely in a purge—I was his, according to their legal system. He had living relatives, so if it came to a court case they might well be granted custody. Mayday couldn’t protect me because it was classed internationally as a terrorist organization. It existed underground.
“We’ve planted a few false leads over the years,” said Ada. “You were reported in Montreal, and also in Winnipeg. Then you were said to be in California, and after that in Mexico. We moved you around.”
“Was that why Melanie and Neil didn’t want me going to the march?”
“In a way,” said Ada.
“So I did it. It was my fault,” I said. “Wasn’t it?”
“How do you mean?” said Ada.
“They didn’t want me seen,” I said. “They got killed because they were hiding me.”
“Not exactly,” said Elijah. “They didn’t want pictures of you circulating, they didn’t want you on TV. Gilead might conceivably search the images of the march, try to match them. They had your baby picture; they must have an approximate idea of what you might look like now. But as it turned out, they’d suspected independently that Melanie and Neil were Mayday.”
“They might have been following me,” said Ada. “They might have connected me with SanctuCare, and then with Melanie. They’ve placed informants inside Mayday before—at least one fake escaped Handmaid, maybe more.”
“Maybe even inside SanctuCare,” said Elijah. I thought of the people who used to go to those meetings at our house. It was sickening to think one of them might have been planning to kill Melanie and Neil, even while they were eating the grapes and the pieces of cheese.
“So that part had nothing to do with you,” said Ada. I wondered if she was just trying to make me feel better.
“I hate being Baby Nicole,” I said. “I didn’t ask to be.”
“Life sucks, end of story,” said Ada. “Now we have to work out where to go from here.”
Elijah left, saying he’d be back in a couple of hours. “Don’t go out, don’t look out the window,” he said. “Don’t use a phone. I’ll arrange for a different car.”
Ada opened a tin of chicken soup; she said I needed to get something inside me, so I tried. “What if they come?” I asked. “What do they even look like?”
“They look like anybody,” Ada said.
* * *
—
In the afternoon, Elijah came back. With him was George, the old street guy I’d once thought was stalking Melanie. “It’s
worse than we thought,” said Elijah. “George saw it.”
“Saw what?” said Ada.
“There was a CLOSED sign on the shop. It’s never closed in the day, so I wondered,” said George. “Then three guys came out and put Melanie and Neil into the car. They were kind of walking them as if they were drunk. They were talking, making it look social, like they’d been having a chat and were just saying goodbye. Melanie and Neil just sat in the car. Looking back—they were slumping, as if they were asleep.”