The Testaments (The Handmaid's Tale, #2)

by Margaret Atwood

I had no notion of geography: we did not study it in school, since our own neighbourhood should be enough for us, and what Wife needed more?

The world was infested with men who were certain to be tempted by girls who’d strayed out of bounds: such girls would be viewed as loose in their morals. I might not get any farther than the next block before being ripped to shreds, polluted, and reduced to a pile of wilting green petals.

Rosa went so far as to say, as if talking to herself, “Once you’re dead, you’re dead forever” while looking at me out of the sides of her eyes.

His lips were unpleasantly warm; they made a sucking sound as they pulled away. I pictured a tiny morsel of my brain being sucked through the skin of my forehead into his mouth. A thousand such kisses later and my skull would be emptied of brain.

Where there is an emptiness, the mind will obligingly fill it up. Fear is always at hand to supply any vacancies, as is curiosity. I have had ample experience with both.

“Perhaps one day you will be able to help me as you yourself have been helped. Good should be repaid with good. That is one of our rules of thumb, here at Ardua Hall.”

Time wounds all heels. Patience is a virtue. Vengeance is mine.

Even with grown women, four female witnesses are the equivalent of one male, here in Gilead.

Should I twist and turn, using the secrets in my possession to manipulate others, or should I zip my lip and rejoice as others outsmarted themselves?

“Friendship, alas, can be skin deep.

I hadn’t considered what it was like to leave a place you knew, and lose everything, and travel into the unknown. How hollow and dark that must feel, except for maybe the little glimmer of hope that had allowed you to take such a chance.

The official line was that there were no corrupt Angels, and certainly no fleeing Handmaids; for why would one renounce God’s kingdom to plunge into the flaming pit?

Innocent men denying their guilt sound exactly like guilty men, as I am sure you have noticed, my reader. Listeners are inclined to believe neither.

“Two and two do sometimes add up to four. And we women, myopic as we are, often notice the finer details that may escape the broader and loftier views of men.

But it’s difficult to be grateful for the absence of an unknown quantity.

“No one wants to die,” said Becka. “But some people don’t want to live in any of the ways that are allowed.”

Being able to read and write did not provide the answers to all questions. It led to other questions, and then to others.

Once I’d passed my sixth-month examination and had been accepted as a permanent Supplicant, I was allowed into the Hildegard Library. It’s hard to describe the feeling this gave me. The first time I passed through its doors, I felt as if a golden key had been given to me—a key that would unlock one secret door after another, revealing to me the riches that lay within.

The truth can cause a lot of trouble for those who are not supposed to know it.

“Working out,” she said. “It’s like exercising. You have to keep strong.” “Men are strong in body,” said Becka. “And in mind. Women are strong in spirit. Though moderate exercise is allowed, such as walking, if a woman is of child-bearing age.” “Why do you think you need to be strong in body?” I asked her. I was becoming more and more curious about her pagan beliefs. “In case some guy aggresses you. You need to know how to stick your thumbs in their eyes, knee them in the balls, throw a heartstopper punch. I can show you.

Such a cruel thing, memory. We can’t remember what it is that we’ve forgotten. That we have been made to forget. That we’ve had to forget, in order to pretend to live here in any normal way.

She who cannot control herself cannot control the path to duty. Do not fight the waves of anger, use the anger as your fuel. Inhale. Exhale. Sidestep. Circumvent. Deflect.

“You are not unique in the universe. No one has an easy time in life. But maybe God has effed up—as you put it—your life for a reason.”

As they say, history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.

One question about The Handmaid’s Tale that came up repeatedly is: How did Gilead fall? The Testaments was written in response to this question. Totalitarianisms may crumble from within, as they fail to keep the promises that brought them to power; or they may be attacked from without; or both. There are no sure-fire formulas, since very little in history is inevitable.

Like any human technology, there’s a plus side, a minus side, and a stupid side you didn’t anticipate. Pick out any technology, it’s true of them all.