The Handmaids Tale | Page 2

in fro nt of
the watercolor picture of blue irises, and why the window opens o nly
partly and why the glass in it is shatterproof. It isn't running aw ay
they're afraid of. Wewouldn't get far. It's those other escapes , the
ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge.
So. Apart from these details, this could be a college guest room, for
the less distinguished visitors; or a room in a rooming house, of
former times, for ladies in reduced circumstances. That is what we
are now. The circumstances have been reduced; for those of us who
still have circumstances.
But a chair, sunlight, flowers: these are not to be dismissed. I a m

alive, I live, I breathe, I put my hand out, unfolded, into the s
unlight.
Where I am is not a prison but a privilege, as Aunt Lydia said, who
was in love with either/or.
The bell that measures time is ringing. Time here is measured by
bells, as once in nunneries. As in a nunnery too, there are few
mirrors.
I get up out of the chair, advance my feet into the sunlight, in t heir
red shoes, flat-heeled to save the spine and not for dancing. T he red
gloves are lying on the bed. I pick them up, pull them onto my han ds,
finger by finger. Everything except the wings around my face is red:
the color of blood, which defines us. The skirt is ankle-lengt h, full,
gathered to a flat yoke that extends over the breasts, the sleev es are
full. The white wings too are prescribed issue; they are to keep us
from seeing, but also from being seen. I never looked good in red, it's
not my color. I pick up the shopping basket, put it over my arm.
The door of the roomnot my room, I refuse to say myis not locked. In
fact it doesn't shut properly. I go out into the polished hallwa y,which
has a runner down the center, dusty pink. Like a path through the
forest, like a carpet for royalty, it shows me the way.
The carpet bends and goes down the front staircase and I go with it ,
one hand on the banister, once a tree, turned in another century,
rubbed to a warm gloss. Late Victorian, the house is, a family hou se,
built for a large rich family. There's a grandfather clock in the
hallway, which doles out time, and then the door to the motherl y
front sitting room, with its flesh tones and hints. A sitting roo m in
which I never sit, but stand or kneel only. At the end of the hal lway,
above the front door, is a fanlight of colored glass: flowers, red a nd
blue. There remains a mirror, on the hall wall. If I turn my head so that the
white wings framing my face direct my vision towards it, I can see it
as I go down the stairs, round, convex, a pier glass, like the eye of a

fish, and myself in it like a distorted shadow, a parody of somet
hing,
some fairy-tale figure in a red cloak, descending towards a mome nt
of carelessness that is the same as danger. A Sister, dipped in bl ood.
At the bottom of the stairs there's a hat-and-umbrella stand, th e
bentwood kind, long rounded rungs of wood curving gently up int o
hooks shaped like the opening fronds of a fern. There are several
umbrellas in it: black, for the Commander, blue, for the
Commander's Wife, and the one assigned to me, which is red. I lea ve
the red umbrella where it is, because I know from the window that
the day is sunny. I wonder whether or notthe Commander's Wile- is
in the sitting room. She doesn't always sit. Sometimes 1 can he ar her
pacing back and forth, a heavy step and then a light one, anil th e soft
tap of her cane on the dusty-rose carpet.
I walk along the hallway, past the sitting room door and the doo r that
leads into the dining room, and open the door at the end of the ha ll
and go through into the kitchen. Here the smell is no longer of
furniture polish. Rita is in here, standing at the kitchen table , which
has a top of chipped white enamel. She's in her usual Martha's d ress,
which is dull green, like a surgeon's gown of the time before. The dress is much like mine in shape, long and concealing, but with a bib
apron over it and without the white wings and the veil. She puts on
the veilto go outside, but nobody much cares who sees the face o f a
Martha. Her sleeves are rolled in the elbow, showing her brown arms .
She's making bread, thowing the loaves for the final brief knea ding
and then the shaping.
Rita sees me and nods, whether in greeting or in simple acknowl
edgment of my presence it's hard