The Testaments (The Handmaid's Tale 2)

The lights were left on, which was a mercy.

No, it was not a mercy. It was a convenience for those in charge. Mercy was a quality that did not operate in that place.

VIII

CARNARVON

Transcript of Witness Testimony 369B

21

I was sitting in Ada’s car, trying to absorb what she’d told me. Melanie and Neil. Blown up by a bomb. Outside The Clothes Hound. It wasn’t possible.

“Where are we going?” I said. It was a limp thing to say, it sounded so normal; but nothing was normal. Why wasn’t I screaming?

“I’m thinking,” Ada said. She looked into the rear-view mirror, then pulled into a driveway. The house had a sign that said ALTERNA RENOVATIONS. Every house in our area was always being renovated; then someone would buy it and renovate it again, which drove Neil and Melanie crazy. Why spend all that money on tearing the guts out of perfectly good houses? Neil would say. It was hiking up the prices and shutting poor people out of the market.

“Are we going in here?” I was suddenly very tired. It would be nice to go into a house and lie down.

“Nope,” said Ada. She took out a small wrench from her leather backpack and destroyed her phone. I watched as it cracked and slivered: the case shattered, the metal innards warped and fell apart.

“Why are you wrecking your phone?” I said.

“Because you can never be too careful.” She put the remains into a small plastic bag. “Wait’ll this car goes past, then get out and toss it into that trash bin.”

Drug dealers did this—they used burner phones. I was having second thoughts about having come with her. She wasn’t just severe, she was scary. “Thanks for the lift,” I said, “but I should go back to my school now. I can tell them about the explosion, they’ll know what to do.”

“You’re in shock. It’s no wonder,” she said.

“I’m okay,” I said, though it wasn’t true. “I can just get out here.”

“Suit yourself,” she said, “but they’ll have to report you to Social Services, and those folks will put you into foster care, and who knows how that’ll turn out?” I hadn’t thought about that. “So once you’ve ditched my phone,” she continued, “you can either get back in the car or keep on walking. Your choice. Just don’t go home. That’s not a command, it’s advice.”

I did as she’d asked. Now that she’d laid out my options, what choice did I have? Back in the car I began to sniffle, but except for handing me a tissue, Ada didn’t react. She made a U-turn and headed south. She was a fast and efficient driver. “I know you don’t trust me,” she said after a while, “but you have to trust me. The same people who set that car bomb could be looking for you right now. I’m not saying they are, I just don’t know, but you’re at risk.”

At risk—that’s what they said on the news about children who’d been found battered to death despite multiple warnings by the neighbours, or women who’d hitchhiked because there was no bus and were found by someone’s dog in a shallow grave with their necks broken. My teeth were chattering, though the air was hot and sticky.

I didn’t quite believe her, but I didn’t disbelieve her either. “We could tell the police,” I said timidly.

“They’d be useless.” I’d heard about the uselessness of the police—Neil and Melanie regularly expressed that opinion. She turned the car radio on: soothing music with harps in it. “Don’t think about anything yet,” she said.

“Are you a cop?” I asked her.

“Nope,” she said.

“Then what are you?”

“Least said, soonest mended,” she said.

* * *

—

We stopped in front of a large, square-shaped building. The sign said MEETING HOUSE and RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS (QUAKERS). Ada parked the car at the back beside a grey van. “That’s our next ride,” she said.

We went in through the side door. Ada nodded at the man sitting at a small desk there. “Elijah,” she said. “We’ve got errands.”

I didn’t really look at him. I followed her through the Meeting House