Boston Common
Boston Common, a historic public park in Boston, Massachusetts, is the site of a memorial statue erected decades after the fall of Gilead. The statue, which was created by an artist active in Montreal after the collapse of the regime, was transferred to its present location on the Common following the post-Gilead chaos and the subsequent Restoration of the United States of America. It stands as a physical testament to the survival and reunion of the central figures from the witness testimonies known as the Ardua Hall Holograph and the transcripts of Agnes Jemima and Nicole.
Description and Iconography
The statue depicts a young woman wearing the distinctive costume of the Pearl Girls, complete with a definitive cap, a strand of pearls, and a backpack. She carries a bouquet of forget-me-nots, small flowers identified by an ethno-botanist consultant. On her right shoulder, two birds, belonging to the pigeon or dove family, are perched. The iconography directly references the narrative of the two half-sisters' escape from Gilead, where Nicole, disguised as a Pearl Girl, carried a crucial microdot hidden in a scarified tattoo on her arm.
The Inscription
The weathered inscription on the statue reads: "IN LOVING MEMORY OF / BECKA, AUNT IMMORTELLE / THIS MEMORIAL WAS ERECTED BY HER SISTERS / AGNES AND NICOLE / AND THEIR MOTHER, THEIR TWO FATHERS, / THEIR CHILDREN AND THEIR GRANDCHILDREN. / AND IN RECOGNITION OF THE INVALUABLE SERVICES PROVIDED BY A.L. / A BIRD OF THE AIR SHALL CARRY THE VOICE, AND THAT WHICH HATH WINGS SHALL TELL THE MATTER. / LOVE IS AS STRONG AS DEATH." The initials "A.L." are widely interpreted as referring to Aunt Lydia, the architect of the escape plan. The biblical quotations, "A bird of the air shall carry the voice" and "Love is as strong as Death," are phrases that held deep personal meaning for Becka and Agnes during their time at Ardua Hall.
Historical and Narrative Significance
For historians of the Gilead period, the Boston Common statue is a crucial piece of corroborating evidence. Professor James Darcy Pieixoto, in his keynote address at the Thirteenth Symposium on Gileadean Studies, presented the statue and its inscription as a convincing testament to the authenticity of the two witness transcripts. He argued that the correspondence of the initial letters in the inscription to key names in the transcripts—Agnes, Nicole, Becka, and A.L.—is highly evocative. The statue proves that the two young messengers not only survived their perilous escape but were also reunited with their mother, their respective fathers, and went on to have children and grandchildren of their own. It transforms the abstract narrative of survival into a concrete, public memorial, ensuring that the sacrifices made by Becka and the invaluable services of Aunt Lydia are not forgotten.
