Summary

Chapter Five returns to Aunt Lydia’s perspective, where she opens by speculating on the identity of her reader. She writes that the reader must be wondering how she managed to evade being “purged by those higher up” in Gilead (61). Her response is that Gilead needed her – she knew too much about the political elite. Turning to the present, she narrates that yesterday she was invited to have a meeting with Commander Judd, the leader of the Eyes, Gilead’s secret police. The Commander informs her that Gilead’s agents in Canada have successfully killed two of the top Mayday members for aiding the Underground Femaleroad, whose “cover was a used clothing store in a seedy area of Toronto” (64). He adds that it was Lydia’s Pearl Girls that lead the agent to them, and Lydia thinks that it was her Pearl Girl initiative...