House of Names

by Colm Toibin

‘That’s the advice I have been given. This time, I will tell them who you are.’

  ‘Is my mother still alive?’ Orestes asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Electra?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In the palace?’

  ‘Yes.’

  They did not speak again for some time. Leander walked alongside him, linking arms with him, catching his hand at times and holding it or putting his arm around him and slowing down as they made their way through the night. While Orestes was comforted by this, he also understood that it was perhaps a way for Leander to tell him that they were together now but would soon be apart, that what had happened between them in the old woman’s house would not happen again.

  As the dawn came up, Orestes observed a lightness in Leander as he gazed around him in animated wonder, stopping to examine even the smallest thing. Orestes did not want to break the spell by asking Leander how long he should stay at his house. They had also not discussed what to do about Mitros’ family, who would surely come looking for their son when they discovered that Leander had returned.

  They walked by houses they recognized. Dogs barked as they passed, but Orestes felt no sense of danger. Soon, Orestes found that he had passed the place where he might have turned in the direction of the palace; he was quietly following Leander towards his own house.

  Near the house itself, Leander clicked his fingers and whistled and then one of the dogs from the house came close to him. Leander whispered to the dog and rubbed its head as the dog snuggled against him, wagging its tail. Leander knelt down and put his face against the dog’s face. With all the dogs following them, they walked around to the back.

  It was obvious that everyone inside was still sleeping. Orestes wondered at what point Leander was going to shout his father’s name or his mother’s name or that of his grandfather or his sister. Instead, Leander tried the doors but they were all locked. They sat on a step in silence, listening, until a servant going to get water opened a door and saw them. She instantly dropped the receptacle in fright and ran inside, pursued by Leander. Catching her, he put his hand over her mouth and held her by the wrist as he explained in a low voice who he was. With Orestes standing near him, Leander told the frightened servant that he did not want the family to be woken with the news of his arrival. He wanted food and drink placed on the table for himself and Orestes as though it were a normal morning and he had never been away.

  The servant seemed nervous and unsure as she prepared the table and brought eggs and cured meat and bread and cheese and olives. Even as she found the pitcher and went outside again to fetch water, she glanced back warily at the two visitors and stood well away from them once she had returned.

  Leander’s mother was the first to come into the room. As soon as she saw them, she screamed and ran along the corridor to the bedrooms. When Leander followed her, Orestes could hear Leander’s mother calling all the family, urging them to get up quickly and gather in the room that could be locked.

  ‘They have come back,’ she shouted. ‘The men have come back.’

  Leander walked quickly down the corridor, shouting his own name, shouting that he had returned. But nothing he said calmed the crying that came from the rooms. After a while, he returned to the kitchen and spoke to the servant.

  ‘Can you tell them that I am Leander and I have come back?’

  ‘They won’t believe me,’ she said.

  ‘Can you cut a lock of my hair and show it to my mother?’ he asked.

  ‘Your hair has changed,’ she said. ‘You have changed. I didn’t recognize you.’

  ‘Can you not convince them?’

  ‘They are afraid since the old man was taken.’

  Leander looked darkly at Orestes. Since he did not express surprise, this, clearly, was what he had learned in the house of his mother’s family.

  Leander stood at the kitchen door.

  ‘It’s Leander,’ he shouted. ‘I was kidnapped and I escaped and now I am home. Please come out. I am at the table. I am Leander.’

  He returned and sat down.

  ‘Let’s just eat,’ he said to Orestes. ‘One of them will have to come out.’

  Orestes wondered if he could slip away. He was aware that Leander barely noticed him now. Their arrival, which Orestes could see he had carefully planned, had not worked out the way he had foreseen. As they ate, still watched over nervously by the servant, no one appeared. Eventually, Leander stood up again and went outside and began calling in through the windows, shouting out his own name, telling them once more that he had come back.

  The first to emerge was a young woman. She stood at the entrance to the kitchen staring at both visitors, not speaking. She was in her nightclothes. Orestes saw how tall she was and how black her hair and how dark her eyes. When Leander moved from his chair to embrace her, she stepped backwards, recoiling.

  ‘We want you to leave,’ she said. ‘There has been enough suffering. Who else do you want to take?’

  ‘Ianthe,’ Leander said softly. ‘You are my sister. Is there anything I can do to make you believe that I am Leander?’

  She let out a deep cry before running down the corridor.

  Soon, they came in ones and twos and stood in the kitchen doorway, Cobon and Raisa and Raisa’s parents and Cobon’s mother, Dacia, and another couple with some children whom Orestes presumed must be part of Raisa’s wider family.

  Raisa was the first to cross the kitchen floor and touch Leander.

  ‘Who is that?’ she asked, pointing to Orestes.

  ‘Orestes,’ Leander said.

  ‘What is he doing here?’ she asked.

  ‘He escaped with me.’

  ‘And Mitros?’

  ‘We must go and tell his family that he died,’ Leander said.

  Raisa let out a sound, almost like a laugh.

  ‘There is nowhere to go. All of them were killed or taken.’

  ‘All of who?’

  ‘All of Mitros’ family.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When your grandfather was killed or taken.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ Leander said, as they all watched him. ‘They didn’t tell me that in the village.’

  Slowly, Ianthe approached him again. She began to touch Leander’s face and his shoulders and his back and chest. But still the others hovered at the entrance to the kitchen.

  ‘We thought that you were dead,’ Ianthe said. ‘It will take us some time to believe that you are alive.’

  ‘Did anyone follow you here?’ Cobon asked as he crossed the room.

  ‘No one,’ Leander said.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why has he come here with you?’ his father asked, pointing to Orestes.

  ‘I was told in the village that it would be safer,’ Leander said.

  ‘Perhaps that was wise,’ Cobon said. ‘He should stay here for now so that they don’t know you’ve arrived.’

  ‘Who should not know?’ Orestes asked.

  ‘Your mother and Aegisthus,’ Cobon said. The hatred in his voice was palpable.

  *

  Leander and Orestes possessed a set of references that were like a private language; in the old woman’s house, the discussion of weather or food or farm animals had evolved into a sort of mild banter with many comments exchanged on each other’s failings and incapacities. Now they had to restrain themselves when the family was there; they had to try not to talk too much since the talk between them disturbed the others.

  Orestes noticed how guarded everyone in the household was. Cobon went out every day to oversee supplies of food, or to go to the market, but he came back sullen and downcast. It became clear that the only news worth imparting would be news of his father’s whereabouts, but since Cobon did not speak, then it was presumed that he had found out nothing in the lanes or in the marketplace.

  Ianthe, unlike the others, seemed to understand or appreciate how Orestes and Leander spoke, but she showed this
only when she was alone with them. The rest of the time she joined the family in their silent disapproval of the two newcomers’ way of talking and joking with each other.

  A few times in the first days, they had tried to discuss their escape and talk about the house of the old woman, but they had been met by puzzlement and vacant expressions. All of the family spent their time embracing Leander and telling him about the morning when he was kidnapped. But no one wanted to know in any detail precisely where he had been, or what had happened to him. He had been away from them; that was enough.

  In the house, Orestes soon observed that there were whisperings between the men in which Leander was included and from which he was left out.

  Since Leander’s mother’s father could not keep his voice down, Orestes heard them talk of the need for Leander to go back to the village of his mother’s family and join them in seeking out one of his mother’s brothers, who had fought with Agamemnon in the war and returned with him victorious, only to be led away with the captured slaves.

  They were ready now for a revolt, Orestes heard the old man saying, as their captors had grown lazy and less alert, and were not as well armed as they used to be. The captors would not be easy to overthrow, the old man said, but there might never be a better time. Leander should leave soon.

  *

  Slowly and, it seemed, deliberately, the family found a way of bringing Leander into their conversations and disrupting the private way he and Orestes had of communicating. In doing this, they managed to ignore Orestes. When Leander witnessed this, it made him uncomfortable, but all his efforts to have Orestes included in the life of the house failed.

  When Orestes told him finally that he wanted to go home, he did not express surprise.

  ‘Your sister goes to the graveyard each afternoon,’ Leander said.

  ‘Have you seen her?’

  ‘My mother and my sister have.’

  ‘If we go there, will we see her?’

  ‘Once you leave this house, you’ll be noticed. They’ll want you back in the palace.’

  ‘Is there something I shouldn’t tell them?’

  ‘Don’t tell them that we stayed with my mother’s family on the way. And you mustn’t repeat anything you heard in this house.’

  ‘Can I tell them that I came back with you?’

  Leander hesitated before he replied.

  ‘My father was concerned about drawing attention to my return. That’s why he wanted you to stay here, so they would not know. But he agrees that it might be better now for you to go. Someone will find out you’re here. Maybe say as little as possible.’

  ‘Is there anything – ?’

  ‘If you discover anything about my grandfather, you must send word. Even the smallest thing.’

  ‘Who captured him?’

  ‘Orestes, don’t ask.’

  ‘Did Aegisthus kidnap him?’

  ‘Someone close to Aegisthus. Perhaps it was someone close to Aegisthus.’

  ‘I will do what I can.’

  After a few days, guided by Raisa and Ianthe, they went to the graveyard in the afternoon, using the narrow lanes and paths. As they hid behind a gravestone, Orestes watched Electra standing at a grave, whispering prayers and raising her arms towards the sky.

  ‘That is your father’s grave,’ Raisa whispered.

  It was hard for Orestes to imagine that the man he remembered, his large, imposing father, was lying inert below the ground, his body reduced to its bones.

  Slowly, they approached the grave, Raisa and Ianthe remaining in the distance. When Electra looked up, Orestes felt an urgent need to go towards her and embrace her, but he felt a need just as pressing to keep her at bay, as though her presence represented the real world in all its hardness and he preferred to remain in the soft, temporary cocoon that had been made for him.

  At first she did not look at him but directed her attention to Leander. Then she fixed her eyes sharply, completely, on Orestes.

  ‘My prayers have been answered. The gods have smiled on me.’

  ‘I have brought him home,’ Leander said gently to Electra. ‘I have delivered him safely to you.’

  A number of palace guards moved quickly in their direction before Leander stepped away from them and turned towards his mother and his sister. As Orestes’ eyes followed him, Leander did not look back.

  *

  The guards ran ahead to let his mother know that her son had finally returned. As he and Electra walked towards the palace on the path that led from the graveyard, his mother was standing alone waiting for him, fully unprotected and utterly vulnerable. When he was very close to her, she raised her arms towards the sky.

  ‘This is all I have wanted,’ she said. ‘And I must give thanks.’

  His mother embraced him and made him follow her into the palace, shouting out instructions about his room and what food they would have and calling for Aegisthus to come from wherever he was. She embraced him further and kissed him and directed servants to find her a tailor who could make new and suitable attire for her son.

  Once Aegisthus came, Orestes followed the example of Leander when they were with his mother’s family in the village. He attempted to be dignified. He edged away as though he had larger matters to consider when he saw that his mother’s lover wished to embrace him. And all of the time, he noticed how keenly Electra observed him.

  The next day, when he was being fitted for new clothes, his mother came into the room and circled him, giving elaborate advice to the tailor. She was all warmth and bustling comment.

  ‘You have become so tall,’ she said. ‘You are taller than your father was.’

  A shadow crossed her face as she spoke and there was a sort of nervousness in her voice.

  ‘I have something to ask you,’ he said.

  ‘There must be many things you want to find out.’

  ‘Yes, there are, but just now I want to ask if you know anything about Leander’s grandfather.’

  ‘Nothing,’ his mother said. ‘Nothing at all.’

  Her face reddened as she held his gaze.

  ‘It has been a very difficult time,’ she continued, ‘and there are many rumours. Have they asked you to enquire about him?’

  ‘No, but they said that he has been kidnapped. They’re worried.’

  ‘It is most unfortunate. But it’s best not to become involved in what I imagine is a dispute between families. I hope you understand that.’

  Orestes nodded.

  ‘And the most important thing for us is that you are home. Maybe we should not think about anything else for the moment.’

  *

  Even though his mother and his sister treated him as a boy, asking if he had enough to eat and if his bed were comfortable enough, everywhere he went in the palace he was greeted with respect, sometimes with a sort of awe. For the guards and the servants, he was his father’s son, come back to take his rightful place.

  This meant that when he walked through the corridors, or even when he was alone sometimes, he became aware of his role and his importance. Sometimes, however, it was as though he were still in the house of Leander’s family. His mother had a way of cutting off all conversation by constantly thanking the gods for his return and punctuating this with many mentions of how much he had been missed and how much she and Aegisthus had done to effect his release.

  Like his mother, Electra was happier offering him accounts of what his absence had meant to her and how relieved she was now that he had returned. He found that both his mother and his sister became nervous if they thought that he was even going to speak; if he seemed ready to say something, they rushed to ask him further questions about the state of his comfort, as if to make clear that, as far as they were concerned, he was still the boy, the son, the younger brother, who had been kidnapped and had now come home.

  Like the family of Leander, they had no interest, as far as he could make out, in what had happened to him and where he had been. Aegisthus always smiled when he saw Ores
tes, but at meals he allowed Clytemnestra to dominate, leaving the room at intervals when one of his minions came with a message for him, a frown often darkening his face.

  From the beginning, Orestes was warned about his safety; usually several guards followed him wherever he went. Once, however, when he diverted their attention, he made his way to Leander’s house, only to be told coldly by Raisa that Leander was no longer there and she did not know his whereabouts.

  One day, as he was sitting at the table in his mother’s room with his mother and Aegisthus and Electra, he saw that they had run out of easy topics and had exhausted the subject of him and his comfort. He felt a tension in the room and looked from one to the other to see who would attempt to break it. He could almost hear his mother trying to think of something soft and pacifying to say.

  ‘You know,’ she finally began, ‘there is a line of people each morning to see me, to ask me about land and water rights, or some come to consult me about inheritance and old disputes. Aegisthus says that it is too much, that we must send those people away. Some of the visitors could even be dangerous. But I know them. I knew those people when your father was alive. They come because they trust me as they trusted your father. In the mornings sometimes I have them brought into the palace. And often that is enough for them, and perhaps even for those left waiting. We have allowed them to come into the palace. I use that room where your father’s guards used to be. I sit and I listen. Some day soon, Orestes, you must come with me and help me. You must listen too. Will you come with me?’

  He found himself nodding coldly, as he thought Leander might have done, while his mother continued talking about all the tasks she had, going into more and more excited detail as the others remained silent.

  ‘Can you tell me what happened after my father came back from the wars?’ Orestes interrupted.

  His mother put her hands to her mouth, looking nervously at Aegisthus and making as though to stand up before settling back in her chair. Then she cleared her throat and looked at him sharply.

  ‘We are the most fortunate people,’ she said. ‘We are so very lucky to be alive. And for that we have to thank Aegisthus. He was the one who found out about the conspiracy against all of us, and it was his supporters who came in time to quash the revolt that would have meant the end of us all.’