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Friday
Julia and I listened to Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments on our trip to Myrtle Beach, and when we came to the part where Aunt Lydia describes how she was arrested by the Gilead militia in the early days of the coup, I couldn’t help but think of those immigrants that ICE is grabbing off the streets and sending to concentration camps, some abroad, some here at home. Most of those arrested are guiltless of any crime, some are spouses, parents, and grandparents of American citizens that have been living productive lives in this country for years, and many have documents that were supposed to protect them. ICE and its MAGA cheerleaders don’t care.
I’ve noted in that past that Atwood’s two handmaid novels now read more like social realism than dystopian sci-fi (what Atwood calls speculative fiction). Keep in mind, as you read the following, that versions of this are now occurring daily in our country. Aunt Lydia, formerly a judge, has just been warned by a colleague that her inalienable rights are no longer operative:
I felt stunned. “This is completely unconstitutional!”
“Forget the Constitution,” said Anita. “they’ve just abolished it…”
At that moment the main door was kicked in. Five men entered, two by two and then one on his own, submachine guns at the ready….
A couple of them were young—twenties, perhaps—but the other three were middle-aged. The younger ones were fit, the others had beer bellies. They were wearing camouflage gear direct from central casting, and if it hadn’t been for the guns I might have laughed, not yet realizing that female laughter would soon be in short supply.
“What’s this about?” I said. “You could have knocked! The door was open.”
The men ignored me. One of them—the leader, I suppose—said to his companion, “Got the list?”…
Anita and I were taken down the stairs, five flights. Was the elevator running? I don’t know. Then we were cuffed with our hands in front of us and inserted into a black van, with a solid panel between us and the driver and mesh inside the darkened glass windows.
The two of us had been mute all this time, because what was there to say? It was clear that cries for help would go unanswered. There was no point in shouting or flinging ourselves against the walls of the van: it would simply have been a futile expense of energy. And so we waited….
“What will they do?” Anita whispered. We couldn’t see out the windows. Nor could we see each other, except as dim shapes.
“I don’t know,” I said.
The van paused—at a checkpoint, I supposed—then moved, then halted. “Final stop,” said a voice. “Out!”
The back doors of the van were opened. Anita clambered out first. “Move it,” said a different voice. It was hard to get down from the van with my hands cuffed; someone took my arm and pulled, and I lurched onto the ground.
As the van pulled away, I stood unsteadily and gazed around. I was in an open space in which there were many groups of other people—other women, I should say—and a large number of men with guns.
I was in a stadium. But it was no longer that. Now it was a prison.
I think of the prisons in El Salvador and in the Louisiana and Florida swamps as Lydia’s story continues. As I noted in yesterday’s post, some of the actual conditions are as horrific as those described in the novel:
Some women had nightmares, as you’d assume. They would groan and thrash about during them, or sit bolt upright with modified shoults. I’m not criticizing: I had nightmares myself…
In the mornings, wakeup was perpetrated by a siren….Bread and water for breakfast. How superlatively good that bread tasted!…Then line-up for the foul toilets, and good luck to you if yours was clogged, since no one would come to unclog it. My theory? The guards went around at night stuffing various materials down the toilets as a further aggravation. Some of the more tidy-minded tried to clean up the washrooms, but once they saw how hopeless it was they gave up. Giving up was the new normal, and I have to say it was catching.
After sharing more gruesome details, including operating without toilet paper and having access to only a dribble of water from the sinks, Lydia continues,
I am sorry to dwell so much on the facilities, but you would be amazed at how important such things become—basics that you’ve taken for granted, that you’ve barely thought about until they’re removed from you. During my daydreams—and we all daydreamed, as enforced stasis with no events produces daydreams and the brain must busy itself with something—I frequently pictured a beautiful , clean, white toilet. Oh, and a sink to go with it, with an ample flow of pure clear water.
Naturally we began to stink. In addition to the ordeal by toilet, we’d been sleeping in our business attire, with no change of underwear. Some of us were past menopause, but others were not, so the smell of clotting blood was added to the sweat and tears and shit and puke. To breathe was to be nauseated.
They were reducing us to animals—to penned-up animals—to our animal nature. They were rubbing our noses in that nature. We were to consider ourselves subhuman.
And if you want insight into the ICE officers who are making the arrests, consider the following observation:
I’ve had cause to notice over the course of what you might call my Gilead career that underlings given sudden power frequently become the worst abusers of it.
As you consider whether to join marches or write letters or find other ways to stay engaged, think of scenes like this. Don’t let giving up become the new normal.
Further note: As if in confirmation of Atwood’s vision, here’s a recent quote by Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino about Mayor Karen Bass objecting to ICE’s show of military force in MacArthur Park. As in Testaments, intimidation was the major goal since virtually no arrests were made. The show involved military units on foot and horseback and in armored vehicles. Notice the relish Bovino takes in showing a powerful woman who is boss:
I don’t work for Mayor Karen Bass. Better get used to it now, cause this is going to be normal very soon. We will go anywhere, anytime we want in Los Angeles.
