Margaret Atwood - The Testaments

There was a crunch, which must have been gravel, and another big wave came, and the inflatable tipped sideways, and we were hurled up onto the land. I was on my knees in the water, I was knocked over by another wave, but I managed to right myself, and Nicole’s hand reached down out of the dark and pulled me up over some large boulders. Then we were standing, out of the reach of the ocean. I was shivering, my teeth were chattering together, my hands and feet were numb. Nicole threw her arms around me.

“We made it! We made it! I thought we were dead!” she shouted. “I sure as hell hope this is the right shore!” She was laughing but also gasping for air.

I said in my heart, Dear God. Thank you.

Transcript of Witness Testimony 369B

70

It was really close. We almost kicked the bucket. We could have been swept out with the tide and ended up in South America, but more likely picked up by Gilead and strung up on the Wall. I’m so proud of Agnes—after that night she was really my sister. She kept on going even though she was at the end. There was no way I could have rowed the inflatable by myself.

The rocks were treacherous. There was a lot of slippery seaweed. I couldn’t see very well because it was so dark. Agnes was beside me, which was a good thing because by that time I was delirious. My left arm felt as if it wasn’t mine—as if it was detached from me and was just held on to my body by the sleeve.

We clambered over big rocks and sloshed through pools of water, slipping and sliding. I didn’t know where we were going, but as long as we went uphill it would be away from the waves. I was almost asleep, I was so tired. I was thinking, I’ve made it this far and now I’m going to lose it and fall and brain myself. Becka said, It’s not much farther. I couldn’t remember her being in the inflatable but she was beside us on the beach, I couldn’t see her because it was too dark. Then she said, Look up there. Follow the lights.

Someone shouted from a cliff overhead. There were lights moving along the top, and a voice yelled, “There they are!” And another one called, “Over here!” I was too tired to yell back. Then it got sandier, and the lights moved down a hill towards us along to the right.

Holding one of them was Ada. “You did it,” she said, and I said, “Yeah,” and then I fell over. Someone picked me up and started carrying me. It was Garth. He said, “What’d I tell you? Way to go! I knew you’d make it.” That made me grin.

We went up a hill and there were bright lights and people with television cameras, and a voice said, “Give us a smile.” And then I blacked out.

—

They airlifted us to the Campobello Refugee Medical Centre and stuffed antibiotics into me, so when I woke up my arm wasn’t so puffy and sore.

My sister, Agnes, was there beside the bed, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt that said RUN FOR OUR LIFE, HELP FIGHT LIVER CANCER. I thought that was funny because that’s what we’d been doing: running for our lives. She was holding my hand. Ada was there beside her, and Elijah, and Garth. They were all grinning like mad.

My sister said to me, “It’s a miracle. You saved our lives.”

“We’re really proud of both of you,” said Elijah. “Though I’m sorry about the inflatable—they were supposed to take you into the harbour.”

“You’re all over the news,” said Ada. “ ‘Sisters defy the odds.’ ‘Baby Nicole’s daring escape from Gilead.’ ”

“Also the document cache,” said Elijah. “That’s been on the news too. It’s explosive. So many crimes, among the top brass in Gilead—it’s much more than we’ve ever hoped for. The Canadian media are releasing one disruptive secret after another, and pretty soon heads will roll. Our Gilead source really came through for us.”

“Is Gilead gone?” I said. I felt happy but also unreal, as if it hadn’t been me doing the things we’d done. How could we have taken those risks? What had carried us through?

“Not yet,” said Elijah. “But it’s the beginning.”

“Gilead News is saying it’s all fake,” said Garth. “A Mayday plot.”

Ada gave a short growly laugh. “Of course that’s what they’d say.”

“Where’s Becka?” I asked. I was feeling dizzy again, so I closed my eyes.

“Becka’s not here,” Agnes said gently. “She didn’t come with us. Remember?”

“She did come. She was there on the beach,” I whispered. “I heard her.”

—

I think I went to sleep. Then I was awake again. “Does she still have a fever?” said a voice.

“What happened?” I said.

“Shh,” said my sister. “It’s all right. Our mother is here. She’s been so worried about you. Look, she’s right beside you.”

I opened my eyes, and it was very bright, but there was a woman standing there. She looked sad and happy, both at once; she was crying a little. She looked almost like the picture in the Bloodlines file, only older.

I felt it must be her, so I reached up my arms, the good one and the healing one, and our mother bent over my hospital bed, and we gave each other a one-armed hug. She only used the one arm because she had her other arm around Agnes, and she said, “My darling girls.”

She smelled right. It was like an echo, of a voice you can’t quite hear.

And she smiled a little and said, “Of course you don’t remember me. You were too young.”

And I said, “No. I don’t. But it’s okay.”

And my sister said, “Not yet. But I will.”

Then I went back to sleep.

XXVII

Sendoff

The Ardua Hall Holograph

71

Our time together is drawing short, my reader. Possibly you will view these pages of mine as a fragile treasure box, to be opened with the utmost care. Possibly you will tear them apart, or burn them: that often happens to words.

Perhaps you’ll be a student of history, in which case I hope you’ll make something useful of me: a warts-and-all portrait, a definitive account of my life and times, suitably footnoted; though if you don’t accuse me of bad faith I will be astonished. Or, in fact, not astonished: I will be dead, and the dead are hard to astonish.

I picture you as a young woman, bright, ambitious. You’ll be looking to make a niche for yourself in whatever dim, echoing caverns of academia may still exist by your time. I situate you at your desk, your hair tucked back behind your ears, your nail polish chipped—for nail polish will have returned, it always does. You’re frowning slightly, a habit that will increase as you age. I hover behind you, peering over your shoulder: your muse, your unseen inspiration, urging you on.

You’ll labour over this manuscript of mine, reading and rereading, picking nits as you go, developing the fascinated but also bored hatred biographers so often come to feel for their subjects. How can I have behaved so badly, so cruelly, so stupidly? you will ask. You yourself would never have done such things! But you yourself will never have had to.

—

And so we come to my end. It’s late: too late for Gilead to prevent its coming destruction. I’m sorry I won’t live to see it—the conflagration, the downfall. And it’s late in my life. And it’s late at night: a cloudless night, as I observed while walking here. The full moon is out, casting her equivocal corpse-glow over all. Three Eyes saluted me as I passed them: in moonlight their faces were skulls, as mine must have been to them.

They will come too late, the Eyes. My messengers have flown. When worst comes to worst—as it will very soon—I’ll make a quick exit. A needleful or two of morphine will do it. Best that way: if I allowed myself to live, I would disgorge too much truth. Torture is like dancing: I’m too old for it. Let the younger ones practise their bravery. Though they may not have a choice about that, since they lack my privileges.