by Paula Guran
Why did you fetch me when you wanted to share that marvel? Why not my mother? Why weren’t you content to share the moment with your men, with whom you’ve shared so many of your days and nights?
Did you really fail to understand why I ran until I staggered rather than ask you to slow down? You seemed confused then, but you’ve never stopped expecting me to stumble after you. You’ve never hesitated to see if I will obey your commands, no matter how wild and cruel, any more than you hesitated that night to see if I would follow you past the palace threshold to a place I’d never been.
Maybe it wasn’t ignorance that made me fear your men in the fog. Maybe it was prescience: things have never ended well for me when you’ve led me out of the world of women and into the world of men.
Clytemnestra completed preparations to leave the palace by noon. She packed me in the wagon with the clothing and the yarn and the dried fruit. I was one more item of baggage to bring to Aulis: a bride for Achilles.
Mother placed Orestes in my lap to hold while she supervised the loading. If she noticed my stillness and silence, she must have believed they were part of a bride’s normal reticence.
The wagon set off under full day’s sun. Our wheels churned dust into the stifling air. It swirled through gaps in our canopy. Choking grains worked their way into our eyes and mouths. I braved more dust to peek through the curtains; beyond our car, the air hung heavy and motionless.
Orestes jounced on my lap as the wagon tumbled over dirt and rocks. He twisted up to look at me, enormous eyes blinking against the dust. He grabbed a lock of my hair in his fists and put it in his mouth, chewing contemplatively.
“Stop that,” said mother, tugging my hair out of his mouth. She inspected the ragged, chewed ends and sighed.
I was content to allow Orestes to chew my hair. During his two short years of life, we’d always communicated by gestures. I understood what he meant by taking an expendable part of me into himself.
Oh, Orestes, so steady and sincere. He never rushed into anything, least of all trivial matters like speech. He took his first steps long after his age-mates were already toddling around the palace, getting into mischief. When he did begin to walk, it was with slow, arduous caution, as if he were always gauging whether independence was worth the risk of falling.
Do you know these things about him? You must. And yet, you never knew me. Why should you know your son?
Really, how could you know him? Even when you were at home, you only saw him at feast evenings, during the chilly twilight hours before we women scooped up the babies and took them back to our spaces. I knew Orestes like my own skin. I worried about the day when he would begin the imperfect translation of his thoughts into speech. I worried that words would obliterate the easy understanding of our hands and faces. This is one fear that your betrayal has made moot. I’ll never know what words might have passed between me and my brother.
Orestes began to fuss. I rocked him and sang a ditty about a fleet-footed nymph and the god who loved her. Halfway through the second verse, my memory of the song decayed. Orestes fell asleep anyway, tiny fists still clutching my hair.
I began another song. Mother put her hand over my mouth. “He’s already asleep, Iphigenia. Give our ears a rest.”
She released me, and I turned to regard her. Through the fog of my dissipating mind, I knew there were things I needed her to tell me.
I couldn’t ask the questions I didn’t remember so I asked the questions I did remember.
“What is it like to be married? Will I have to live with Achilles’s family while he fights in Troy? Can I go to live with father in the army camp instead? How long will the fighting last? Is Achilles a good man? When Orestes is grown and becomes king of Mycenae, will you come to live with me so that I can take care of you as you’ve cared for me?”
Clytemnestra let me ask questions until my words ran out. The wind had spoiled her elaborate braids, and the dust emphasized the lines of her face, making her look weary. Her eyes were wet and red.
“Every marriage is its own,” she said. “Achilles will decide where you’re to live, and you’ll wait for him there, as I wait for your father. Achilles is a hero, which is a good judge of a man, although a good man is not always a hero. I’ll visit you when I can, but I’ll never be as happy as I was yesterday, with all my children in my house.”
Mother worried her hands as she spoke. Her knotted knuckles had grown larger in the past few years as her arthritis worsened in proportion to her worry over the crisis whirling around her sister Helen and the scoundrel who abducted her to Troy. Mother wouldn’t have sent a pig into battle for her whore of a sister, but the kings had been called to war by their oaths, and all her men would go. She’d always known she’d be left to raise Orestes without you, but until that morning she’d believed that she would have me with her to share both loneliness and companionship. Now I was supposed to wed a stranger and disappear as completely as if I’d gone to war.
My mother, stern and sentimental, always happiest in that moment after she set things in their designated places: dyes by hue, spices from mild to pungent, children in their proper rooms—easy to assess and admire.
The first thing my mother told me about Helen was, “She is my sister, but not my sister. Zeus fathered her when he was in the shape of a swan. We share the same mother but she was born in an egg. I was born the normal way. Helen distorts the world around her. Never look at her too closely. You’ll go blind.”
I was young when she told me that, still so young that I stretched up for her hand when I wanted to take an unsteady, toddling step. Nevertheless, I still sensed that she had said something important, even though I didn’t understand what it meant.
When Helen came to Mycenae during my ninth summer, I was old enough to walk on my own, but I still didn’t understand the things my mother said about my famous aunt. Helen seemed glamorous and mysterious and unfathomable—like you.
I wove through the maze of the servants’ feet and legs, trying to catch a glimpse of her. Hushed words of praise drifted down, all uttered in the same awed tones, whether the speaker was a slave, a servant, or a hequetai, a man or a woman. They marveled over Helen’s skin like beaten gold; her deep blue eyes the shade of newly fallen night; the smooth swell of her high, brown-tipped breasts.
You were busy with your brother Menelaus, the two of you clapping each other’s shoulders as you exchanged information about recent military encounters. You didn’t even glance at your beautiful sister-in-law, or at the way your wife paced uncomfortably, barking at the slaves to carry out orders they were already rushing to fulfill.
Your men retreated to the megaron to drink and discuss. We women went out to the courtyard. Slaves erected a canopy to shelter us from the sun, and set up benches for us to sit on. Clytemnestra walked among them, shouting that the canopy was hung too low, the benches were in the wrong places, bring more food, bring thicker blankets, and don’t forget to set aside lamps and oil to set out at dusk.
Helen arrayed herself on a bench near the front of the canopy where fresh breezes would reach her first. She arranged her garments fetchingly around her form as she lay down. She brushed her hand through her braids, allowing the breeze to blow through her stray hairs so that she looked tousled and intimate and all the more beautiful. I thought she was very vain to pose like that.
A girl my age nearly collided with me as I stood watching Helen. She gave me a glare, and then turned abruptly away as if I wasn’t worth her time. “Put my bench there,” she directed a slave, pointing to a spot near Helen. I wanted to ask her who she thought she was, but before I got the chance, my mother caught me by the shoulders.
Her grip was harder than normal, her fingernails digging into my skin. “Come sit down,” she said, guiding me to the bench where she sat near Helen.
I sat at Clytemnestra’s feet while she ruffled my hair, and looked up at my aunt. From below, Helen was just as beautiful, but her features looked sharper. Braids coiled ar
ound her face like snakes, bound back by a beribboned brass headband that caught the gold flecks in her eyes.
Mother kept a firm grip on my shoulders as if she could keep my mind from straying by holding my body in place. She began a monologue about housekeeping, a subject that was impersonal, factual, and utterly under her control. “Next month, we’ll begin drying the fruit stores,” she said. “It was too cold this year for the figs. We lost nearly half our crop. But we’ve traded for nuts that will keep us through the winter.”
“You’re an excellent steward, sister mine,” said Helen, not bothering to disguise her boredom.
“Mother,” interjected the awkward girl who had collided with me earlier. “I found you a perfect one.”
She extended her hand, in which nestled a cube of goat cheese, its corners unbroken. A bemused smile crossed Helen’s face as she looked down at the morsel.
“Thank you,” she said awkwardly, taking the cheese. She rewarded the girl with an uncertain pat on the head.
The girl lay stretched out on the bench, imitating Helen, but to completely different effect. The languorous pose accentuated her skinny, ungainly limbs. Stray tangles poked out of her braids like thistles.
“You’re Hermione? You’re my cousin?” I blurted.
Hermione bristled. Her mother looked down at me with a slow, appraising gaze. “Why, hello,” Helen said. “Are you my niece?”
Clytemnestra’s hand tightened protectively on my shoulder. “This is Iphigenia.”
Helen’s eyes were hot like sunlight on my cheeks. I burned with embarrassment.
“She’ll be a beauty someday,” Helen said to my mother.
Clytemnestra shrugged. “There’s time enough for that.”
Hermione pushed a tray of honeyed figs out of a slave’s hands. It clattered to the ground. “None of those are good enough for my mother!” she shouted.
Helen looked uncertainly at Clytemnestra, and then over at Hermione, and then up at the sky. She gave a sigh. “I don’t know how you do it, Clytemnestra. I was never raised to be a mother. I was only taught to be a wife.”
“Children are just small people, Helen,” mother said. “Albeit, occasionally stupid ones.”
Helen tugged a red ribbon off of her headband and held it out to me. “Here, Iphigenia, would you like this?”
Wordlessly, I accepted. The ribbon was soft and silken and magic with her touch.
“I’d like to talk with you, Iphigenia. Somewhere where other people can’t listen in. Just you and me. If your mother will agree?”
Helen lifted her gaze to Clytemnestra’s face. Mother’s fingers dug into my shoulders.
“Of course,” said mother. “She’s your niece.”
I knew my mother didn’t want me to be alone with Helen. I also knew that I wanted to be near that beauty, that glamour, that heat. I pulled the ribbon taut between my fingers.
“All right,” I said.
As I rode to Aulis, I forgot the day when I was eight when my mother plucked my embroidery out of my lap and held it up to the light. I waited for her to tear out my stitches and return it to my lap for me to do over again, as she had done every morning since I could first grip a needle. Instead she stared at my work with a thoughtful expression. “Hmm,” she said. “You’re getting better.”
I lost that day, but I remembered Helen in Mycenae, her searing eyes and her haughty pose and her daughter sitting forlornly nearby, trying to earn a moment’s attention by finding a perfect bite of food.
The wagon stopped at Aulis with a jolt. Prickling dust settled onto our clothing and skin. I pulled the canopy aside and spat onto the ground to clear my mouth. Mother reached out to stop me, but as her hand touched my shoulder, she changed her mind. She leaned over beside me and spat onto the ground, too.
A slave helped my mother down onto the soil of Aulis. He was old and bent, his right leg dragging behind his left. I felt a tug of recognition, but I couldn’t remember who he was. Iamas, my mind suggested, but Artemis had stolen everything else I knew about him.
I accepted his hand to help me down. He looked up at me and startled. His hand jerked away. I stumbled, only barely catching my balance. Orestes began to cry.
“What’s the matter?” mother demanded.
The slave whimpered.
“Iamas,” mother repeated, more softly. “What’s the matter?”
Iamas trembled. “King Agamemnon said you might not come.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said mother. “How could there be a wedding if we didn’t come? Help my daughter down.”
Iamas offered his hand again. This time, his grip remained steady as I descended. His gaze lingered on the smelly decorations in my hair that I had forgotten were there. I reached up to touch them, and felt their softness, their fragility.
A shudder ran through Iamas. He looked away from me, and clutched himself as if he were cold, even though the air was hot and stagnant. I knew that he was sad and uncomfortable and lying about something. I couldn’t care much. He was a stranger.
“You could still ride back to Mycenae,” he suggested, softly.
“Iamas!” Mother’s voice grew sharp. “What’s wrong with you?”
I remember now what I didn’t then: Iamas, the old slave, who had been with my mother since before I was born. I remember him holding me when I was so small that I understood the world in images. He was younger then, his nose crooked from a healed fracture, his smile gaptoothed and ever-wide. When his work was mobile, he came to sit near me while I played, watching me run around and chatter as toddlers will. When I exhausted myself, he made a place for me to lie beside him, and told me stories through the sleepy afternoon.
He was little more than a shadow to me. I walked past him, toward the harbor where a thousand ships sat motionless on a sea as flat as glass. Wilted sails drooped from their masts, pining for a wind that refused to come. The painted eyes on the ships’ prows stared blankly forward, as if trying to make out the shape of Troy in the distance. Ten thousand oars waited.
“Why are all the ships still moored?” I asked.
Iamas spoke from behind me. “They’re trapped. There’s no wind to send them to Troy.”
“They’re just sitting there?”
“They have no choice.”
I watched the ships bob up and down with the almost imperceptible motion of the water. Seabirds circled silently beneath the brazen sun. Even they seemed to be waiting.
I turned my back to the water and surveyed the camp. It was larger than I’d thought a camp could be, an immense array of men and equipment. Regiments formed restless circles around banked fires, their strength turned to games of chance played with stones and carved figures.
The soldiers who had grown bored with sitting rubbed wax into their armor with strokes as forceful as blows. Metal shone, bright as children’s eyes and new-minted coins. As I stared at the men and their armor, the sun blazed off of the metal until it became impossible to tell warriors from breastplates, skin from gold. Orestes laughed and stretched out his hand toward the shining ranks. They seemed an array of golden men, waiting to stretch their flaming limbs and dazzle into battle like animate rays of sunlight.
Left in the harbor with no one to fight, they were burning up fast. They couldn’t survive without wind to stoke them, to blow them onto dry firewood. They needed new things to burn. They needed fuel.
You came to the tent where Iamas settled us to wait for the wedding. All three of us looked up at your approach. Orestes stretched his arms in the direction of your voice. You called only for Clytemnestra.
Mother slipped out of the tent, leaving Orestes and me to peer out from the shadows. Orestes fussed; I held him close. Mother’s garment was bright against the dun ground, her sandaled feet pale and delicate. I heard cloth rustling as she embraced you.
“You’ve arrived.” Your voice splintered with ambivalence.
“Come inside,” Mother said. “Iphigenia is wearing her wedding flowers. She’ll want to
see you. She looks radiant.”
“I can’t. I have things to attend to.”
“Just come in for a moment. You have to see your Iphigenia one last time while she’s still a maiden.”
“I can’t!” Your shout was sudden, anguished. “I must go. I’ll return later.”
Dust swirled around your retreating footsteps. I inhaled it, ready to choke.
Do you remember what happened later on that night when you led me out to see the soldiers in the fog? It has only just come back to me, how you took me by the hand and led me, walking this time, back out of the copse of trees and into the palace, up to my chamber where the other girls lay, half-awake, waiting for us to return.
I stared after your retreating form. I felt as if I were waking from a dream into my mundane existence. I wanted to run after you and make the dream last.
So I did.
Do you feel it now? The sky is darkening. My power grows. I feel the ruffle of waves beneath what has become of my spirit. They churn into tiny crests, surmounted with foam. Boats tremble beneath me. Sails billow with my breath. I tousle the hair of men who have set aside their helmets, and they totter, no longer sure of their footing.
I am still weak, my father. Soon, I will do more than wail in your ear.
Mother sat at the edge of the tent after you departed, staring out (as I stared after you when you left me to mundanity after showing me marvels). Perhaps she had begun to suspect something from your refusal to see me, from Iamas’s shudder as he looked up at my wedding adornments.
Outside: a flash of gold.
Mother squeezed my hand. “That’s Achilles’s shield,” she said. “Stay here. I’ll ask your questions for you.”
It was not like my stern, proper mother to expose herself to strange men.
I swung Orestes into my lap. I could only see a narrow slice of the camp from where I sat. I saw the arm and chest of the man who must be Achilles, his body rippling with muscles as sharply delineated as those on a statue. His helmet and breastplate were wrought of fine, detailed gold. His oiled brown skin shone as brightly as his armor.