The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood Page B

as possible.
    But Rita clamped her lips together. I am like a child here, there are some things I must not be told. What you don't know won't hurt you, was all she would say.
CHAPTER 10
    Sometimes I sing to myself, in my head; something lugubrious, mournful, presbyterian:
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
Could save a wretch like me,
Who once was lost, but now am found,
Was bound, but now am free.
    I don't know if the words are right. I can't remember. Such songs are not sung anymore in public, especially the ones that use words like free . They are considered too dangerous. They belong to outlawed sects.
I feel so lonely, baby,
I feel so lonely, baby,
I feel so lonely I could die.
    This too is outlawed. I know it from an old cassette tape of my mother's; she had a scratchy and untrustworthy machine, too, that could still play such things. She used to put the tape on when her friends came over and they'd had a few drinks.
    I don't sing like this often. It makes my throat hurt.
    There isn't much music in this house, except what we hear on the TV. Sometimes Rita will hum, while kneading or peeling: a wordless humming, tuneless, unfathomable. And sometimes from the front sitting room there will be the thin sound of Serena's voice, from a disc made long ago and played now with the volume low, so she won't be caught listening as she sits in there knitting, remembering her own former and now amputated glory: Hallelujah .

    It's warm for the time of year. Houses like this heat up in the sun, there's not enough insulation. Around me the air is stagnant, despite the little current, the breath coming in past the curtains. I'd like to be able to open the window as wide as it could go. Soon we'll be allowed to change into the summer dresses.
    The summer dresses are unpacked and hanging in the closet, two of them, pure cotton, which is better than synthetics like the cheaper ones, though even so, when it's muggy, in July and August, you sweat inside them. No worry about sunburn though, said Aunt Lydia. The spectacles women used to make of themselves. Oiling themselves like roast meat on a spit, and bare backs and shoulders, on the street, in public, and legs, not even stockings on them, no wonder those things used to happen. Things , the word she used when whatever it stood for was too distasteful or filthy or horrible to pass her lips. A successful life for her was one that avoided things , excluded things . Such things do not happen to nice women. And not good for the complexion, not at all, wrinkle you up like a dried apple. But we weren't supposed to care about our complexions anymore, she'd forgotten that.
    In the park, said Aunt Lydia, lying on blankets, men and women together sometimes, and at that she began to cry, standing up there in front of us, in full view.
    I'm doing my best, she said. I'm trying to give you the best chance you can have. She blinked, the light was too strong for her, her mouth trembled, around her front teeth, teeth that stuck out a little and were long and yellowish, and I thought about the dead mice we would find on the doorstep, when we lived in a house, all three of us, four counting our cat, who was the one making these offerings.
    Aunt Lydia pressed her hand over her mouth of dead rodent. After a minute she took her hand away, I wanted to cry too because she reminded me. If only she wouldn't eat half of them first, I said to Luke.
    Don't think it's easy for me either, said Aunt Lydia.

    Moira, breezing into my room, dropping her denim jacket on the floor. Got any cigs, she said.
    In my purse, I said. No matches though.
    Moira rummages in my purse. You should throw out some of this junk, she says. I'm giving an underwhore party.
    A what? I say. There's no point trying to work, Moira won't allow it, she's like a cat that crawls onto the page when you're trying to read.
    You know, like Tupperware, only with underwear. Tarts' stuff. Lace crotches, snap garters. Bras that push your tits up. She finds my