House of Names

by Colm Toibin

  ‘Oh, why is there no wind?’ my mother asked the air around her. ‘I am exhausted.’

  Aegisthus clenched his fists even harder.

  ‘I have a feeling there is news,’ my mother said, raising her voice so that it would be apparent to Aegisthus that she was addressing him.

  When she caught my eye, she pointed to Aegisthus, as if I could somehow make him respond.

  I looked at her coldly.

  ‘What message did the messenger bring?’ she asked more loudly.

  There was silence now, which none of us, it seemed, wanted to break. My mother was wearing a vague smile; she was like someone who had eaten something sour and was doing everything to disguise her discomfort.

  It had never struck me before, but it came to me forcefully at this moment, that she and Aegisthus had come to dislike each other. I had previously imagined them in some warm arrangement, circling each other happily by day and locked in each other’s arms in the parts of the night when Aegisthus was not wandering freely in the palace. Now, I noted a hard detachment. They had each taken the measure of the other and learned the outlines of some foul truth.

  It amused me how natural they made this appear; it was not something that seemed ready to break. I understood their dilemma. It would be difficult, I thought, for my mother and Aegisthus to separate. Too much had happened.

  As I sat in silence with them, I imagined what must fill their dreams in the hard hours, how the sound of muffled cries must press down darkly on their hours of slumber as much as when they are awake.

  I watched them for some time. I contemplated my mother opening and closing her eyes, Aegisthus not moving once. What I witnessed was almost as private as the most intimate act. I saw them together as though naked.

  *

  I gravitate from their world, the world of speech and real time and mere human urges, towards a world that has always been here. Each day, I appeal to the gods to help me prevail, I appeal to them to oversee my brother’s days and help him return, I appeal to them to give my own spirit strength when the time comes. I am with the gods in their watchfulness as I watch too.

  My room is an outpost of the underworld. I live each day with my father and my sister. They are my companions. When I go to my father’s grave, I breathe in the stillness in the place where his body lies. I hold my breath so that this new air fills my body and I release my breath slowly. My father comes towards me then from his place of darkness. I walk to the palace with his shadow close, hovering near me.

  He approaches the palace with care. He knows that there are people of whom he should, even in death, be wary. I do not make a sound while he finds a space in this room to settle. And then as soon as I whisper her name, my sister Iphigenia appears, first as a faint disturbance in the air. They edge towards each other.

  At the beginning, I feared for them. I believed that my sister had come into our presence to remind my father of how she died, to speak to him of how he watched coldly as she was sacrificed. I believed that she had come as accuser to cast him into a darkness beyond the one where he lived.

  Instead, my sister Iphigenia, dressed in wedding clothes, more pale and beautiful as she became substantial, inched soundlessly towards my father, ready to embrace him or hold him or seek comfort from his ghost.

  I wanted to ask her then if she did not remember. I wanted to ask if the manner of her death had been erased from her memory, if she lived now as if those things had not occurred.

  Perhaps the days before her death, and the way death was given to her, are nothing in the place where she is. Perhaps the gods keep the memory of death locked up in their store, jealously guarded. Instead, the gods release feelings that were once pure or sweet. Feelings that mattered once. They allow love to matter since love can do no harm to the dead.

  They approach each other, my father and my sister, their movements hesitant. I am not sure that, once they have seen each other, they still see me. I am not sure that the living interest them. They have too many needs that belong to themselves only; they have too much to share.

  Thus I do not speak to my father and my sister as their spirits hover gracefully in this room. It is enough for me that I have them here.

  But there was a question I wished to ask them. I wanted to know where my brother was. I divined some days that they were alert to this; they were waiting for my question, but they drifted away before I could mention his name.

  On one of those afternoons, soon after that encounter between Aegisthus and the man, there was sudden shouting from the corridor and then the sound of men running. And then I heard my mother’s voice shrieking.

  Once I realized that neither of my visiting spirits was aware of these noises, I did not move but waited with them. I heard more shouts coming from outside the palace; then one of the guards came to the door to let me know that my mother wished me to be with her now as the boys, the kidnapped boys, were finally about to arrive and we must be there to welcome Orestes.

  As soon as my brother’s name was spoken, I sensed my father and my sister become more densely present, more fiercely active. I felt my father tugging at my sleeve, my sister holding my hand. And then there was stillness as the sound of the guard’s footsteps faded.

  I decided to speak my brother’s name myself. When I whispered it, and then said it again more loudly, I heard a voice, a quickened sound in response, but I could make out no words. My sister put her arms around me as though to hold me in place. I struggled for a moment to free myself as my father tugged at my sleeve again, trying to get my attention.

  ‘My brother is coming back finally,’ I whispered. ‘Orestes is coming.’

  ‘No,’ Iphigenia said. Her voice, or a voice that was like her voice, was almost loud.

  ‘No,’ my father repeated, his voice fainter.

  ‘I have to go and see my brother, to welcome him,’ I said.

  And then I was no longer being held. I smiled in relief at the thought that my father and my sister might have moved to the front of the palace so that they could be there when my brother appeared. I ran as fast as I could along the corridor and towards the door. Men’s voices were rising in unison from outside the palace.

  When I heard cheering and whistling, I wanted to be with my mother so that in those first moments Orestes would see us standing together to welcome him home.

  When the first boy to arrive was lifted up and shown to the crowd, the cheering continued, but I could see how unsettled people quickly became. Some looked around as though searching to see if there were another person who had witnessed what they had witnessed – the pale, frightened face of the boy, his darting eyes like the eyes of an animal that had been held in a cage and was now even more frightened by the noise of freedom.

  My mother caught my hand in hers. She watched and then gasped and let out small cries and began to shout at those around her, telling them that Orestes must be brought directly to her, that he was not to be lifted into the air by others, that he was the son of Agamemnon and he was not to be handled as the others were being handled.

  It was then that I noticed Aegisthus standing in the crowd. His face was tense with worry, his brow furrowed, his eyes cast down. When he looked up, he caught my eye. I knew then that Orestes was not among those who had been released. I knew as other boys were lifted high with shouts of welcome and cries of relief that my brother was not among these boys and, as I looked around at some men who were glancing nervously at my mother, I became aware that they knew that too. Maybe everyone knew. The only one who did not know was my mother, who was all heat and breath and voice and blind expectation.

  I watched Aegisthus as the boys were taken home by their joyous relatives. When the crowd began to disperse, he was left with two of the families whose sons had not returned either. They had crowded around him and, when he managed to assuage their fears with promises and assurances, he was left with my mother. I stood beside her as she gazed at him imperiously.

  ‘Where is Orestes?’ she asked him.<
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  ‘I do not know,’ he replied.

  ‘Could you find out?’ she asked.

  ‘I understood that he was with the rest of the boys,’ he said.

  ‘Did you?’ she asked.

  Her tone was cold, direct, controlled, but there was also rage in her voice.

  ‘So who was that messenger, the one who left the smell behind him?’ she asked.

  ‘He came to tell me that the boys were on their way.’

  ‘And that Orestes was not among them?’

  Aegisthus bowed his head.

  ‘He will be found,’ he said.

  ‘Have the men who accompanied the boys brought before me,’ my mother said.

  ‘They did not come all the way,’ Aegisthus said. ‘They left the boys in the care of others once they had come part of the way.’

  ‘Have them followed and brought back,’ my mother said. ‘Do that now. When they are here, have them presented to me. This has gone on for long enough. I will not tolerate it any further. I will not be treated like this by you.’

  I kept away from my mother, but from the sounds of groups of men in the corridor and the pitch of my mother’s voice as she issued instructions and the silence that ensued, I deduced that vicious antagonisms were at play around me. I slipped out quietly to my father’s grave, but even there I felt that the air was unyielding and that no set of whispers, however imploring, would cause the dead to venture beyond their own realm.

  That night, when I went to the door of my mother’s room, I heard her weeping and I heard Aegisthus’ voice trying to soothe her and then her dismissing him, telling him to get away from her.

  The following morning, I was woken by further shouts from outside the palace. Once more, I heard the sound of men in the corridor. I dressed carefully. I thought I would find my mother and Aegisthus and sit with them, if only to confirm what I had been told by one of the guards – that Aegisthus had, until recently, known Orestes’ whereabouts, had been responsible for him and had believed that he would return with the others, but that somehow Orestes and two other boys had got away from his henchmen.

  Theodotus, the grandfather of Leander, one of the boys who was still missing, and the father of the third boy, Mitros, who was also not among the group that came home, appeared with some of their followers, demanding an urgent meeting with my mother and with Aegisthus.

  Of the men who had stayed when my father went to battle, Theodotus was the most respected and revered. He had come often to the palace to talk about the whereabouts of the kidnapped boys, explaining each time that Leander was his only grandson.

  I greeted these men waiting in the corridor. I followed them into my mother’s room and I stood in the corner watching them as, without even looking at Aegisthus, Theodotus told my mother that they had ascertained from the boys who had come home that Orestes had escaped with two friends, one of them Theodotus’ grandson, Leander, and the other Mitros’ son, also called Mitros. The three boys had fled just days before the others were released, he said, having killed one of the guards. No one had any idea where they had gone.

  ‘They will be found,’ my mother said, as though none of this were a surprise to her. ‘I have arranged that they will be found.’

  ‘All of the boys were beaten and badly treated,’ Theodotus said, as the other man stood humbly beside him. ‘Some of them were almost starved.’

  ‘This has nothing to do with us,’ my mother said.

  Theodotus smiled at her faintly. As he bowed his head, he politely indicated that he understood why she might speak like this but that he did not believe her. Then he bowed towards me. But neither he nor the other man looked at Aegisthus. In the way they held themselves, they suggested that he was somehow beneath their contempt.

  Some days later, the two men who had accompanied the boys most of the way were brought to the palace and escorted towards my mother’s room like prisoners. They were told to wait in the corridor, while men whose sons had come back gathered inside the room with Theodotus and Mitros. As I passed the two men, I turned and looked at them closely; they seemed to be terrified. I went into my mother’s room once more and stood in the corner.

  When the two men were brought before her, my mother immediately put up her hand to stop them speaking.

  ‘We know he escaped with the two others. We don’t need to be told that. We simply need you to find them, all three of them. You must have some idea where they went when they escaped. What I am saying is: follow them, find them, bring them here. Nothing more, nothing less. No excuses. And start now. I am in anguish about this.’

  One of them made as though to speak.

  ‘I don’t want to hear anything from you,’ my mother said. ‘If you wish to ask a question, then ask Aegisthus on your way out. I want to see my son; that is what I want. I do not want to listen to anything else. And I do not want him or his companions ill-treated in any way. If I hear the slightest complaint from them, I shall personally cut your ears off, both of you.’

  They humbly left, with Aegisthus following. As the others went out of the room too, I waited behind, noticing how filled with pride my mother was. She was touching her own face tenderly, softly, and then gently putting her hands on her hair. She glanced self-consciously around her, like an ungainly peacock. She sat as if she had a large audience and might dismiss everyone at any moment or give some order that would impress everyone with its aura of pure wilfulness and sharp menace. When she spotted me, she stood up and smiled.

  ‘It will be so wonderful to have Orestes back,’ she said, looking around still at some imaginary crowd. ‘And perhaps it is for the best that he did not come with the others and have that mob to greet him. I will make sure that he arrives alone, with the other two boys perhaps coming a day or two later.’

  She smiled sweetly. I could not wait to get back to my room. I had a feeling that she would spend the rest of the day trying on dresses and checking her hair and her face, thus to be ready to perform when the time came to receive Orestes and be seen by the crowd as the adoring mother welcoming her son on his return.

  *

  Over the months that followed, Theodotus often came to the palace with the other man, Mitros. Both were always received formally, with others sometimes invited to witness the encounter, my mother talking with great authority about how they would have to be patient. Even though Aegisthus watched from the side, ushering the visitors out when it was time to go, they never once addressed him or looked at him.

  My mother and I often spoke of Orestes and where he might be. I knew that relations between her and Aegisthus were difficult so I took my meals alone and went each day to the grave and returned with my father’s spirit close to me. I whispered also to my sister. But Iphigenia’s presence and that of my father were faint; at times they were hardly there.

  I was aware of tensions all around me; there were days when no one moved in the corridors of the palace, days and nights when my mother did not leave her room and Aegisthus seemed more soundless than usual. For some time, they received no one, no one at all. When I ventured into the corridor, the guards stood immobile like figures that had been turned to stone.

  *

  One morning, I was woken by the sound of men’s voices. Theodotus and Mitros had gathered ten other men, who stood in a row behind them, and they, in turn, had brought relatives and retainers to support them. I went past the guards to the front of the palace and approached Theodotus. I discovered that for some time my mother had been refusing to meet either him or Mitros, and that Aegisthus had told them that they were not to come to the palace again unless summoned.

  ‘Tell your mother that we demand to be allowed into her presence,’ Theodotus said, as Mitros and the others stood beside him, nodding.

  I pointed inwards, emphasizing that all of them could enter the palace freely if they wanted. I spoke to the guards and told them that my mother had said that she wished to see these visitors. I ran ahead as the men, led by Theodotus and Mitros, walked through
the corridors towards my mother’s room, but they were soon stopped by other guards, who came running from all directions.

  ‘Let me through,’ I told the guards.

  Inside her room, my mother was standing at the window and Aegisthus was seated. They were looking at each other harshly, as if difficult words had just been said, or might be uttered soon. They both turned to look at me with a mixture of malice and grim familiarity.

  ‘Tell the men to wait,’ my mother said. ‘I will see them soon, but only two of them.’

  ‘I am not your messenger,’ I said.

  Aegisthus stood and stared at me. It frightened me and made me edge towards the door. But then I grew brave and walked across the room and stood close to my mother. Once Aegisthus went outside, I heard the voices of the men becoming louder. Soon, the men pushed their way into the room, led by Mitros, with Theodotus following. They stood facing my mother.

  As Aegisthus moved quietly towards the corner, my mother found a seat, having crossed the room like someone with many other important things on her mind. When she had made herself comfortable, she focused on Theodotus.

  ‘How dare you crowd into my room? Is this what it has come to? After all I have done?’

  Theodotus smiled courteously. He was about to speak when he was interrupted by Mitros.

  ‘After all you have done! What have you done?’ Mitros asked. His face was red with anger.

  ‘I have been working tirelessly to ensure the return of the three boys,’ my mother said. ‘When the first two guards we sent did not return, we dispatched others among our most trustworthy –’

  ‘You kidnapped the boys in the first place,’ Mitros interrupted. ‘It was done on your orders. And your own son!’

  Aegisthus went angrily towards Mitros but was pushed away by one of the other men. My mother put her hand to her mouth and stared straight ahead. When Theodotus tried to speak, Mitros interrupted again.

  ‘And you, and you alone, murdered your husband,’ Mitros said directly to my mother. ‘It was done by your hand. Your hand alone.’

  My mother stood up. A few of the group crept towards the door and quickly left the room.