Aunt Lydia had given permission for me to live in the same residence unit as Becka. Ardua Hall was divided into many apartments; ours was marked with the letter C and the Ardua Hall motto: Per Ardua Cum Estrus.
“It means, Through childbirth labour with the female reproductive cycle,” Becka said.
“It means all that?”
“It’s in Latin. It sounds better in Latin.”
I said, “What is Latin?”
Becka said it was a language of long ago that nobody spoke anymore, but people wrote mottoes in it. For instance, the motto of everything inside the Wall used to be Veritas, which was the Latin for “truth.” But they’d chiselled that word off and painted it over.
“How did you find that out?” I asked. “If the word is gone?”
“In the Hildegard Library,” she said. “It’s only for us Aunts.”
“What’s a library?”
“It’s where they keep the books. There are rooms and rooms full of them.”
“Are they wicked?” I asked. “Those books?” I imagined all that explosive material packed inside a room.
“Not those I’ve been reading. The more dangerous ones are kept in the Reading Room. You have to get special permission to go in there. But you can read the other books.”
“They let you?” I was amazed. “You can just go in there and read?”
“If you get permission. Except for the Reading Room. If you did that without permission, there would be a Correction, down in one of the cellars.” Each Ardua Hall apartment had a soundproofed cellar, she said, which used to be for things like piano practising. But now the R cellar was where Aunt Vidala did the Corrections. Corrections were a kind of punishment, for straying beyond the rules.
“But punishments are done in public,” I said. “For criminals. You know, the Particicutions, and hanging people and displaying them on the Wall.”
“Yes, I know,” said Becka. “I wish they wouldn’t leave them up so long. The smell gets into our bedrooms, it makes me feel sick. But the Corrections in the cellar are different, they’re for our own good. Now, let’s get you an outfit, and then you can choose your name.”
There was an approved list of names, put together by Aunt Lydia and the other senior Aunts. Becka said the names were made from the names of products women had liked once and would be reassured by, but she herself did not know what those products were. Nobody our age knew, she said.
She read the list of names out to me, since I could not yet read. “What about Maybelline?” she said. “That sounds pretty. Aunt Maybelline.”
“No,” I said. “It’s too frilly.”
“How about Aunt Ivory?”
“Too cold,” I said.
“Here’s one: Victoria. I think there was a Queen Victoria. You’d be called Aunt Victoria: even at the Supplicant level we’re allowed the title of Aunt. But once we finish our Pearl Girls missionary work in other countries outside Gilead, we’ll graduate to full Aunts.” At the Vidala School we hadn’t been told much about the Pearl Girls—only that they were courageous, and took risks and made sacrifices for Gilead, and we should respect them.
“We go outside Gilead? Isn’t it scary to be that far away? Isn’t Gilead really big?” It would be like falling out of the world, for surely Gilead had no edges.
“Gilead is smaller than you think,” said Becka. “It has other countries around it. I’ll show you on the map.”
I must have looked confused because she smiled. “A map is like a picture. We learn to read maps here.”
“Read a picture?” I said. “How can you do that? Pictures aren’t writing.”
“You’ll see. I couldn’t do it at first either.” She smiled again. “With you here, I won’t feel so alone.”
* * *
—
What would happen to me after six months? I worried. Would I be allowed to stay