The Handmaid's Tale Read Online Free

brick sidewalk towards me. She reaches me and we peer at each other’s faces looking down the white tunnels of cloth that enclose us. She is the right one.
    â€œBlessed be the fruit,” she says to me, the accepted greeting among us.
    â€œMay the Lord open,” I answer, the accepted response. We turn and walk together past the large houses, towards the central part of town. We aren’t allowed to go there except in twos. This is supposed to be for our protection, though the notion is absurd: we are well protected already. The truth is that she is my spy, as I am hers. If either of us slips through the net because of something that happens on one of our daily walks, the other will be accountable.
    This woman has been my partner for two weeks. I don’t know what happened to the one before. On a certain day she simply wasn’t there any more, and this one was there in her place. It isn’t the sort ofthing you ask questions about, because the answers are not usually answers you want to know. Anyway there wouldn’t be an answer.
    This one is a little plumper than I am. Her eyes are brown. Her name is Ofglen, and that’s about all I know about her. She walksdemurely, head down, red-gloved hands clasped in front, with short little steps like a trained pig’s on its hind legs. During these walks she has never said anything that was not strictly orthodox, but then, neither have I. She may be a real believer, a Handmaid in more than name. I can’t take the risk.
    â€œThe war is going well, I hear,” she says.
    â€œPraise be,” I reply.
    â€œWe’ve been sent good weather.”
    â€œWhich I receive with joy.”
    â€œThey’ve defeated more of the rebels, since yesterday.”
    â€œPraise be,” I say. I don’t ask her how she knows. “What were they?”
    â€œBaptists. They had a stronghold in the Blue Hills. They smoked them out.”
    â€œPraise be.”
    Sometimes I wish she would just shut up and let me walk in peace. But I’m ravenous for news, any kind of news; even if it’s false news, it must mean something.
    We reached the first barrier, which is like the barriers blocking off roadworks, or dug-up sewers: a wooden crisscross painted in yellow and black stripes, a red hexagon which means Stop. Near the gateway there are some lanterns, not lit because it isn’t night. Above us, I know, there are floodlights, attached to the telephone poles, for use in emergencies, and there are men with machine guns in the pillboxes on either side of the road. I don’t see the floodlights and the pillboxes, because of the wings around my face. I just know they are there.
    Behind the barrier, waiting for us at the narrow gateway, there are two men, in the green uniforms of the Guardians of the Faith, with the crests on their shoulders and berets: two swords, crossed, above a white triangle. The Guardians aren’t real soldiers. They’reused for routine policing and other menial functions, digging up the Commander’s Wife’s garden for instance, and they’re either stupid or older or disabled or very young, apart from the ones that are Eyes incognito.
    These two are very young: one moustache is still sparse, one face is still blotchy. Their youth is touching, but I know I can’t be deceived by it. The young ones are often the most dangerous, the most fanatical, the jumpiest with their guns. They haven’t yet learned about existence through time. You have to go slowly with them.
    Last week they shot a woman, right about here. She was a Martha. She was fumbling in her robe, for her pass, and they thought she was hunting for a bomb. They thought she was a man in disguise. There have been such incidents.
    Rita and Cora knew the woman. I heard them talking about it, in the kitchen.
    Doing their job, said Cora. Keeping us safe.
    Nothing safer than dead, said Rita, angrily. She was minding her own business. No call to