A Handmaid's Tale Fanfic

Sara

Our homeschooling was the limit of our education. Girls didn't need to learn science, we were told the books and journals of our foremothers were lies. Oh, we get an education, enough to add a value to a lady's worth. But I knew enough. Or so I thought.

Our Martha had told me about my birth mother, very vaguely, when I would ask. She didn't seem to know much, or didn't want them to know she knew. Like all of my father's Handmaids, her name was OfPhilip. Martha had a former name but wouldn't tell me. Martha was scared of a lot of things.

"Your OfPhilip was beautiful. Her hair was like yours. Blonde, curly, impossible to comb but it didn't matter. Her eyes were a sad brown. Large, but sad." Martha scrubbed vegetables in the sink while talking, occasionally glancing over at me, perhaps wondering if I believed her. Like all of the elite girls, my hair was pulled back into a modest bun. But Martha was right, it was a nest.

And even though I had asked questions countless times, she patiently answered every time. The authenticity of these answers, I'm not sure.

"But Mrs. Jennings is your mother, and she and the Admiral love you very much." She would always add this, like adding a warning label. I watched her continue to scrub the vegetables. Another Martha appeared in the kitchen doorway.

"Tina," she said to my Martha. I'd heard her called that before, but mother has always instructed me to call all the women workers in our home Martha.

Martha looked at the doorway, at me, then back at the doorway. The other Martha urged her impatiently. She sighed heavily, and put the bowl of vegetables in front of me.

"Put these on the cutting board, Sara."

She walked out of the kitchen. I tried with all my might to listen to them. But servants had mastered the art of whispering in an almost silence. They were not supposed to gossip. Martha had learned that the hard way. When word got out she had been gossiping, Aunt Rebecca - not a true Aunt although nowadays there are no aunts and uncles, or cousins - took her away for a few days. Aunt Rebecca, like the other "aunts", were more like mothers superior of convents long ago. They gave the women disciplined and direction. I don't know what happened to my Martha, but I could see lacerations on her ankles when she returned. Since then, she has been very careful.

After a few lines of indistinct whispering, my Martha gasped. In a harsh hiss of a whisper I heard "No! Oh, God, no!" Then silence. A long silence. Too long.

"Martha?" I called out. She huffed and leaned her head in the door.

"Sara, go to your room and read your Bible. I'll finish the potatoes."

"But—"

"Go!" She hissed.

I stood, her gaze was still locked on me. I gave her a nervous curtsy, and went off to my room on the second floor. The Bible, old and well used, was on the table. It was dreadfully boring, and the stories had many holes in them which I questioned. Once. My father was told and I received a beating unlike I'd ever had before. So I learned not to question it. But father was away, mother was probably in her room knitting or in the courtyard talking with other wives. So I glanced out the window. The town buildings had become dilapidated. I'd heard this area was once called Manhattan, in a land known as New York. I'd heard millions of people had lived here. But who knows how much truth there is to these tales? And this was long ago. Our whole country, once called the United States, was saved from the wretched grip of sinners by the New Order of God and given the name Gilead. Mother told us the demons who owned the land before had subjected the people to sin, tempting them to the devil. We were in a better place.