The Testaments: Chapter 24 Summary & Analysis

Lydia receives another summons to Judd’s office, even though they have a private phone line. Lydia suspects that Judd enjoys their face-to-face interactions and the play of power between them. When she arrives, Judd reveals that his current wife is ill and seems near her deathbed. Lydia offers whatever help she can give, and they both understand that Judd will soon kill his current wife and begin looking for a new “child bride.” However, the reason he has called Lydia is to announce that Aunt Sally, the Pearl Girl who was partnered with Aunt Adrianna when she died in Canada, has returned to Gilead.

Later, Aunt Lydia meets with Aunt Sally, who has just arrived from Canada. Sally tearfully recounts that she killed Adrianna in self-defense after Adrianna randomly attacked her. She and Adrianna suspected they had seen Baby Nicole at The Clothes Hound and Sally was about to report this at the Gilead consulate, but Adrianna believed they should bring it directly and discreetly to Lydia themselves. Lydia assures Sally that it was only a psychotic break on Adrianna’s part and Lydia will bury the truth of the matter for her. She tells Sally that she will spend some time at the Margery Kempe Retreat House to rest her mind—Lydia knows the staff will render Sally “incoherent” there, though they will not kill her.

Lydia meets again with Judd, who reveals that his operatives recovered Mayday’s communication method with whomever their source is in Gilead. They have been using a microdot camera, which prints a tiny microfilm only readable with an easily concealable viewing device. Lydia is inwardly fearful but makes a show of promising to put her Aunts to the search for more information, declaring that they will outwit Mayday. Lydia then leaves, retiring to a café for hot milk to soothe her nerves.

Lydia resumes recounting her time under arrest in the stadium. All the women continued to be held there for days. Some tried to cheer each other by singing hymns, but as the toilets overflowed and the bleachers and women were covered with human refuse, most simply felt like giving up. Lydia suspected the men were consciously “reducing [them] to animals.” As days passed, more women arrived. Though Lydia and Anita were never friends before, they remained at each other’s side as much as possible now, simply for the comfort of knowing someone else.

Every afternoon there were executions by firing squad: the same lines of blindfolded women, the same uniformed man making his speech about God. But on the fourth day, three of the firing squad were women, wearing not business attire like the rest but brown robes that looked to be made of something like sackcloth. They shot the blindfolded women just the same. Lydia and Anita were horrified and thought these women must be monsters. The next day, six of the shooters were women, though one of them turned her rifle at the last moment and shot a uniformed man instead, before the other men killed her. More women arrived, but the numbers in the stadium stayed roughly balanced by the executions. On the sixth night, Anita was taken away in the middle of the night while Lydia slept.

The next night, men woke Lydia by kicking her and dragged her out of the stadium. They put her in a van which deposited her at a repurposed police station. Inside, sitting at a boardroom table, she met Commander Judd of the Sons of Jacob. Judd asked Lydia if she was thankful to be alive and to be a woman. Lydia was unsure but realized that Judd was asking her to cooperate with their new regime. Judd simply wanted a yes or no answer, but Lydia refused to give one since she didn’t know what she would be agreeing to. As a result, Judd sent Lydia to the Thank Tank and told her he’d pray that she determined the right answer.

The Thank Tank turned out to be a small, unlit isolation cell. They left Lydia there for what seemed like days, though without any light or human contact her mind began to feel untethered, as if she was losing her grip on herself. From other cells down the hall she could occasionally hear women scream, being beaten or raped. Three times over the course of her stay, men with tasers entered her cell and beat her and electrocuted her. While this happened, one part of Lydia cried in pain and fear, but another newly-awakened part plotted its revenge, no matter how long it would take or how low she would have to stoop.

Lydia was finally taken out of the Thank Tank, only vaguely aware of where she was or what was happening. She was taken again by van to a modest hotel, and after her name was found on a list, was shown to a room and told to enjoy herself for three days. The room had every necessary amenity and good food, and Lydia spent the first two days eating delicious meals and taking hours of concurrent showers. The third day, however, she woke with most of her mental sharpness returned, and her situation began to dawn on her. Someone had laid out the same brown sackcloth robe she’d seen the female shooters in the stadium wear. Although she was horrified, she put it on, since there seemed to be no alternative.