by Colm Toibin
‘All of them? My father and my mother, and all of them, my brothers? Maybe I have new brothers or sisters, ones I have never seen.’
‘We’ll tell all of them.’
Mitros lay back and fell asleep again. Later, Orestes went to lie down in Leander’s bed, but Leander did not join him; instead he hovered between the kitchen and where Mitros was, Orestes listening closely to his movements throughout the night.
In the morning, Orestes must have dozed off because he was woken by Leander’s hand on his shoulder.
‘Mitros stopped breathing a while ago,’ Leander whispered.
‘Have you tried to wake him?’
‘He’s not asleep,’ Leander said. ‘He’s dead.’
They waited by his body until the sun was weak in the sky and then they carried him to where they had buried the old woman, the dog following eagerly, its ears pricked up as though it could hear some distant sound. When they were ready to lower the body into the space they had made beside the old woman’s body, Leander looked at Orestes, asking with his eyes if Orestes would sing the song again. Orestes moved close to the grave and sat down. He began to sing the words he knew in a low voice and then lowered it further until it was almost a whisper.
The dog seemed restless when the grave was filled. It remained there for a while with both of them, but then it slowly made its way back to the house, following them hesitantly, growling in a low voice. It sat in the kitchen in its usual place. Orestes gave it its food and water and patted it on the head and spoke to it softly.
He knew that Leander was planning to go. They had not spoken of it, but he was sure that that was the plan. He did not know what would happen then to the dog.
When he woke in the night, he moved from his own bed into Leander’s, the dog following him. Leander made space for him, holding him as he settled in beside him. They were both afraid, Orestes realized, of what it would be like when they left.
He stopped going to his own bed, waiting instead until Leander was ready for bed and then going to the room with him, the dog once more in his wake. He began to look forward to the night, to what happened between them in these hours, and to the morning when they woke.
One night, Leander seemed unable to sleep. When he had tossed and turned for a while, Orestes moved towards him in the bed. They held each other in the dark, both of them wide awake.
‘I want to see my grandfather if he is still alive,’ Leander said. ‘He had two sons, but one of them died, and then my father had only one son and that is me. Maybe my grandfather is waiting for me. Ianthe, my sister, was ten when I was taken. She is a woman now, and she is waiting for me too, and my father and my mother are waiting for me and my uncles and aunts and my other grandparents, the parents of my mother.’
‘I don’t know who is waiting for me,’ Orestes said. ‘Maybe that’s what Mitros was trying to say, that there is no one waiting for me.’
‘Your mother is waiting for you, and Electra too,’ Leander said.
‘But not my father?’
‘Your father is dead.’
‘Who killed him?’
Leander did not reply for a moment and then, holding Orestes closer, he whispered: ‘It is enough that he is dead.’
‘My sister Iphigenia is dead too,’ Orestes said.
‘I know.’
‘I saw her dying,’ Orestes said. ‘None of them knew that I saw her dying, and I heard her voice and I heard my mother screaming and saw her being dragged away.’
‘How did you see this?’
‘I was on the hill in the camp. They had left me to play sword fighting with the soldiers, but the soldiers grew tired of the game after a time and then I was alone in one of the tents and I fell asleep and woke up to the sound of animals howling and I went out of the tent and lay on the ground overlooking where the heifers were being brought in and I watched as they were slaughtered. I heard the sound they made, the frightened sound that came from their bellies, and then I saw the blood spurting. And my father was there, and other men that I knew. I could smell the blood of the animals and the entrails that were everywhere, streaming everywhere. I was going to run down to my father, or maybe find my mother and Iphigenia. But then I saw them. They were in a procession, at the front of the procession, Iphigenia and my mother were both ahead of all the others, and there were men behind them. There was not a sound when they appeared. I saw them cutting my sister’s hair. Then they made her kneel. Her hands and her feet were tied. And then I heard her voice and my mother’s. They put something over their mouths to stop them shouting. And the men dragged my mother away and then my sister tried to reach my father, but she was dragged back. Then they put a blindfold on her. And then another man who was beside my father moved slowly towards her with a knife in his hand. And the cloth around her mouth fell away and she started to scream. The sound was like an animal. She fell over and they took her body away.’
‘And what happened then?’
‘Then I went back into the tent and I lay down and waited. Some men came and they asked me if I wanted to play sword fighting, but I told them that I had played enough. Then my father came and he played with me and carried me on his shoulders through the camp.’
‘And where was your mother?’
‘I was with my father’s men. I must have slept in his tent for a few nights, because I remember all of them talking and then the shouting when they knew the ships could finally sail because the wind had changed. Men were rushing everywhere once the wind changed. They almost forgot about me until Achilles saw me and brought me to my father. And then my father carried me on his shoulders again through the camp to where my mother was. And then we began the journey back.’
‘Did you tell your mother what you saw?’
‘I wondered at first if she knew that Iphigenia was dead, or if she might ask me or someone else what had happened after she was dragged away. She didn’t see what happened. I saw everything. My mother didn’t see and Electra wasn’t there at all. I was the only one, except for the people in the crowd and my father.’
‘Do you want to go home to your mother and Electra?’
‘Sometimes I don’t, but maybe I do now.’
‘We have to decide.’
‘We’ll go. And we’ll take the dog?’
‘We’ll have to make the dog trust us so it will follow us,’ Leander said. ‘We’ll get food to bring with us. We should take what food we can, and water.’
Orestes put his arms around Leander to make clear that he was afraid. Leander held him.
Orestes knew as the night went on and the dawn light began that Leander was not sleeping. He could sense that Leander’s eyes were open and he was thinking. He wished that they could go back to a time before, when the old woman and Mitros were still alive, or even before that, a time barely imaginable, when his mother and he and Iphigenia had set out to meet his father as he prepared for battle and were welcomed by him.
He wondered, as Leander stirred, if there would ever be a future when he would remember nights like this, nights when he and Leander had been alone with each other, when they spent time whispering to each other, with the dog asleep beside them, with Mitros and the old woman in their graves not far away. He lay in bed as Leander got up. He watched him dressing, getting ready for the day. He too would have to get up and begin preparing for their departure. He would make himself busy packing food. In his mind, he began to list the things they would need for their journey.
On the morning they were to go, they found the dog lying listlessly in the kitchen, its tongue hanging out of its mouth as though it wanted water. When they offered it water, however, it did not drink.
‘The dog is dying,’ Leander said. ‘He does not want to come with us.’
The dog did not resist when they lifted it. They carried it down to the grave of Mitros and the old woman and they waited with it there. As the day wore on, one or the other of them got food and water, but the dog would not touch anything. All it did was whine gently
, until soon even that stopped. They waited with it, whispering to it and to the old woman and Mitros, even after dark. Then they both remained silent, the silence broken only by the dog’s hesitant breathing. And then there was no breath at all.
In the morning, as soon as the sun was up, they dug the grave again and added the body of the dog to the bodies of Mitros and the old woman. As soon as that was done, they went back to the house and found what they had prepared for their journey. They should start as soon they could, Leander said, so that they would make good progress on the first day.
Electra
There is a set of winding steps some distance from the palace that leads to a sunken space that was once a garden. Some of the steps are broken, one or two have been almost completely chipped away by time or by the lizards that make their home in the gaps in the stone. Below, stunted trees do battle for space with bushes grown wild. When my sister was alive, we would go there if we needed to speak and wished to be sure that no one could hear us. As the light faded, the birdsong became intense, almost fierce. Perhaps the noise they made was a way for the birds to defy the weasels that seemed to have infested the place. We were certain then that even if someone were hiding in the shadows they would not be able to hear us.
My sister is not alive now. She will not come to this garden again.
Instead, my mother goes there. She moves out of the palace with two or three guards following her at a distance. Some days I walk with her, but we do not speak much, and often when I leave her she barely nods.
This sunken garden is where she will die. Someone will murder her here. She will lie in her own blood among the gnarled bushes.
I smile sometimes as I watch her descend the steps, her guards alert as they lean over the stone balustrade in case she falls on the broken masonry.
It might be easy to think that in my mother’s absence, and in the absence of her guards, Aegisthus is more alone and vulnerable, and that now might be a good time for someone to sneak into the room where he works, move quickly towards him and stick a knife in his chest or edge towards him as if to ask him for a favour and then, without warning, pull his head back by the hair and cut his throat as well.
It would be wrong, however, to believe that my mother’s lover would be so easy to murder. He is filled with strategies, and one of them, perhaps the most important, is his own survival. He is watchful. And there are men in his pay, or under his control, who are watchful too.
Aegisthus is like an animal that has come indoors for comfort and safety. He has learned to smile instead of snarl, but he is still all instinct, all nails and teeth. He can sniff out danger. He will attack first. He will arch his back and pounce at the slightest hint of a threat.
It is not a mistake to be afraid of him. I have reason to be afraid of him.
*
That day when my father returned from the war, as he greeted the elders outside, my mother ordered two of Aegisthus’ friends to find me. They dragged me from the dining room, ignoring my screams and shocked protests. They pulled me struggling down the winding stairs to the floor below and they threw me into the dungeon under the kitchens and left me there for some days and nights without food or water. Then they released me. They simply opened the door of the dark room where they had kept me. They allowed me to crawl in my filth back to my room, observed by everybody as though I were some abject wild animal that had been only half tamed. They allowed me to live thereafter as though nothing untoward had occurred.
Aegisthus came to my room on the day I was released from the dungeon. He stood in the doorway and said that my mother had suffered a great deal and was in a fragile state and that it would not do to raise subjects that might upset her or remind her of what she had endured. And he said that I must not leave the palace grounds or be seen speaking to the servants or be found whispering with one of the guards.
I was not to make trouble, he said. He would see to it that I did not make trouble.
‘Where is my father?’ I asked him.
‘He was murdered,’ he said.
‘Who murdered him?’
‘Some of his own soldiers. But they have been dealt with. We will not be hearing from them again.’
‘Where is my brother?’
‘He has been removed from here for his own safety. He will be back soon.’
‘Is that where I was too? In the dungeon for my own safety?’
‘You are safe now, are you not?’ he asked.
‘What do you want?’ I asked.
‘Your mother wishes to return to normal. And that is what you wish too, I am sure. We want your help in this.’
He bowed to me in mock formality.
‘I presume you understand,’ he said.
‘When is my brother coming back?’ I asked.
‘Soon it will be safe for him. That is all your mother is waiting for. Then she will be less fretful than she is now, less worried.’
*
It did not take me long to find out how my father was murdered and why my mother did not want the manner of his death mentioned. I understood then why she had sent Aegisthus to threaten me. She did not want to hear the voice of her accusing daughter. Both she and he were familiar with the web of old loyalties and allegiances that envelops this palace full of lingering echoes and whisperings. They must have known how easily I would find out what happened to my father, and also how quickly I would be told how my brother had been lured from here and on whose instructions.
My mother and her lover bought my silence with their threats, but they cannot control the night nor how word is spread.
The night belongs to me as much as it does to Aegisthus. I can move too without making a sound. I live in the shadows. I have an intimate relationship with silence and thus I am sure when it is safe for someone to whisper.
*
I am certain that Aegisthus knows where my brother is, or what his fate has been. He will, however, share this with no one. He knows what power is. His knowledge disturbs the air in this house.
He is ready to pick us up in his claws. He has us like the eagle that captures smaller birds and bites their wings off and keeps them alive so that they will nourish it when the time is right.
He is fully alert to how much he interests me. Like him, I hear every sound, including the love-noises he makes with his favoured guard in one of the rooms off this corridor, or his quick, flitting movements towards the servants’ quarters, where he will find a girl to satisfy him before he returns to my mother’s bed and curls up there as though he has been nowhere, as though he is not impelled by some slimy and voracious appetite that has led him towards pleasure and power.
Only once have I seen Aegisthus flinch or show fear; only once have I seen the chameleon in him dart for cover.
When news came that the kidnapped boys had been released and were on their way home, with, we expected, Orestes among them, my mother and I sat with him while he remained uneasy and unsmiling.
We were waiting to welcome my brother home. As we grew impatient for more precise information about when he would arrive, my mother and I left Aegisthus’ presence to ensure that the preparations for Orestes’ room had been properly made. We went to the kitchens and thought of food he might like for his first meal. We spoke to each other cordially for the first time since my father’s murder as we discussed the best servants to look after him. I could sense my mother’s happiness at the prospect of his return.
When we went back to the room where Aegisthus was, we found that there was another man present, a stranger. It seemed to me in that moment that we were intruders, that we had interrupted this man and Aegisthus while something important, perhaps even intimate, was being spoken of. I wondered if this outsider, who was uncouth and unpleasant, had been a secret lover or supporter of Aegisthus, now come to remind him of what he was owed.
Aegisthus was facing the window when we entered; he had his fists clenched while the visitor stood leaning against a wall near the door. When Aegisthus turned, I saw
fear in his eyes. He nodded to the other man, indicating that he should leave the room. I realized that perhaps I should go too, that this would be a moment when, whatever had happened, Aegisthus and my mother would need to be together. Instead of leaving, however, I sat down. I made it plain that it would take more than a polite request to dislodge me. I would wait with my mother to hear from Aegisthus what it was that had caused that look of fear.
My mother, in the presence of Aegisthus, would often at that time become girlish and silly, and then at intervals petulant and oddly demanding. Nothing she said was of any interest. She had learned to sound stupid. The heat, some flowers, how tired she was, the food, the slowness of some of the female servants, the insolence of one particular guard – these were her subjects. I often wondered what would happen to her chirping voice, the jokey inconsequentiality of her tone, or her way of suggesting something and then stopping herself, if it were to be openly stated that the guard in question felt that he had a right to be insolent to her because he was sometimes to be found panting in the arms of Aegisthus, and that two or three of the female servants, as she must know, were slow because they were either pregnant with Aegisthus’ child or had already had a baby by him. One of them, I understood, had even had twins.
The rooms beneath us were thus filled with fecundity as the corridors were filled with rough desire. While it was convenient for my mother to pretend that none of this was happening, that she was somehow too foolish or distracted to notice, it was clear that she, like me, allowed nothing to escape her. She was not foolish. She was not distracted. Beneath all her simpering and insinuation, there was fury, there was steel.
‘Who is that man who was here?’ she asked.
‘What man?’ Aegisthus asked.
‘That unpleasant man.’
‘Just a messenger.’
‘Normally messengers don’t come in here. And that is a good thing because that man has left a smell behind him in this room. Perhaps that is because he has not bathed for some time.’
Aegisthus shrugged.