A Memory of Wind

by Rachel Swirsky

  I felt my tears falling into Orestes’s hair. He hugged me tighter. I breathed in his smell.

  “When warm air rises, seeking the sun, cool air rushes in to replace it. That’s the way of the world. Joy and youth and love flow ever upward. What they leave behind is the cold consolation of the wind.”

  Orestes pulled away from me. I studied his solemn face. His mouth opened. For a long second I thought he would speak, but no words came. For once, I found him inscrutable.

  ***

  I feel the sea beneath me. I inhale and it waits. I exhale and it tumbles. Can you feel the pressure of my anger as it blows fiercely across your skin? I am the sand in your eyes, and the reek of the camp’s midden heap blowing toward the sea. I am the force that rocks you back on your heels so that you flail and stagger. My hatred whistles through the cliffs. It screeches across the rough timber of your boats.

  I grow stronger with every moment. I will be wild. I will be brutal. I will encircle you and conquer you. I will be more powerful than your boats and your swords and your blood lust. I will be inevitable.

  ***

  I brought Orestes back to the tent, and we laid down beside Clytemnestra. I stared, sleeplessly, into the dark.

  Possible paths stretched before me. I could go to Achilles’s tent and plead my case as a whore instead of a virgin. I imagined what Helen would have done in my place, how she would color her cheeks and set her hair. She would arrange herself to look like a dandelion, easily crushed, and easily conquered. Unlike my mother, she would not have halted her fingers at the laces of Achilles’s breastplate. Unlike my mother, she would have let her lips do more than hover hotly by his ear. Unlike my mother, she would have convinced him.

  I could plead my case to Menelaus as his niece and an innocent. Or if he did not care for virtue, I could venture a suit to replace his lost Helen. Such methods might work on Odysseus, too. Only I was not a practiced seductress. My clumsy attempts might only succeed in doing as my mother said they would, and make the monsters feel justified when they gave me to Calchas’s knife.

  I could have sought you out, in the hope that the eye of night would grant you mercy. But I already knew what you would do if you found me wandering alone through a camp of soldiers.

  One path seemed best: I would run out into the cold and wake the first soldier I found. “Take me to Calchas,” I would tell him, and march resolutely to my fate. It would give me a fast, honorable end. And there might be a chance, just a small one, that I could be killed without seeing your face and knowing how it changed after you betrayed me.

  But Orestes whimpered and tossed beneath his little blanket. Sweat damped his brow. I’d kept him up too late, overwhelmed him with disturbing confidences. I stayed to soothe him until dawn neared and I was too tired to chase my death.

  I was not brave. I was only a girl.

  ***

  You came to fetch me. You didn’t know we knew. You pretended to be overjoyed at the prospect of the wedding that would never happen. You took my hand and whirled me in a circle. “Oh, Iphigenia! You look so beautiful!”

  I looked up into your eyes and saw that you were crying. Your smile felt as false as mother’s. Your tears washed over the place where I’d once kept the day when Orestes was born.

  “Stop this,” said mother. She pulled me away from you and pushed me toward the other end of the tent. Orestes sat on the cushions beside me, a wooden toy in his hand, watching.

  Mother turned to confront you. “I have heard a terrible thing. Tell me if it’s true. Are you planning to kill our daughter?”

  Your eyes went blank. “How can you accuse me of such a thing?”

  “I’ll ask again. Answer me plainly this time. Are you planning to kill our daughter?”

  You had no answer. You gripped the hilt of your branch, and set your jaw. Tears remained immobile on your cheeks.

  “Don’t do this.” Mother grasped at your shoulder. You wrenched away. “I’ve been a model wife. I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me. I ran your home and raised your children. I’ve been chaste and loyal and honorable. How can you repay me by killing my daughter?”

  She snatched Orestes from the cushions and held him toward you. He began to cry and kick.

  “Look at your son. How do you think he’ll react when you murder Iphigenia? He’ll shy away from you. He’ll fear you.” She turned the baby toward her. “Orestes, do you hear me? Do you want your father to take your sister away?”

  You tried to grab my brother. Mother held him tight. Orestes screamed in pain and fear.

  “He’ll hate you or he’ll imitate you,” mother shouted over his wails. “You’ll teach your son to be a murderer! Is that what you want?”

  You pushed Orestes into his mother’s arms and stormed away from her. You stopped a short distance from me and reached for my arm. I flinched away.

  “Are you happy, Clytemnestra?” you asked. “You’ve scared the girl. She could have gone thinking that she was going to be married. Now she’s going to be terrified.”

  You leaned close to touch my hair. (Tugging my ponytail: “It’s a good thing you were born a girl.”) You dropped a kiss on my brow. (“I know this is hard to hear,” said Helen, “but your father is the kind of man who would kill a baby.”) I wrenched backward.

  “What do you want?” I asked. “Do you want me to take your hand, blithe and trusting as any goat that follows its master back to the camp to see men fighting in the fog? I’m not a little girl anymore.”

  I looked into your angry, sneering face.

  “Or do I have it wrong?” I asked. “Do you want me to kick and scream? Do you want me to have a tantrum like Orestes so that later you can think back on my wailing and berate yourself about the terrible things you’ve done?”

  You tossed your head like a disquieted horse. “You’re acting mad.”

  I laughed. “So I’m right, am I? You’re already beginning to make me into an idea. A difficult decision rendered by a great man. Well, stop now. This is only difficult because you make it so. All you have to do is break your vow and spare my life.”

  “Menelaus and Odysseus would take the armies and bring them to march against Mycenae. Don’t you see? I have no choice.”

  “Don’t you see? It should never have been your choice at all. My life isn’t yours to barter. The choice should have been mine.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “I understand that you want me to pity you for my death.”

  Wind whistled through my brain. The edges of the tent rustled. Sand stirred. Strands of mother’s hair blew out from her braids.

  “You know, I never believed what Helen told me. Did he look like Orestes, father? Did my elder half-brother look like Orestes when you dashed him to the rocks?”

  You glowered at my defiance. “This is how you beg me to save your life?”

  “Is it sufficient?” I asked, but I already knew the answer. I inhaled deeply. “Don’t kill me.”

  I had forgotten how to beg.

  ***

  With almost nothing of myself remaining, I found myself reconsidering my conversation with Helen. Without my ego to distract me, I concentrated on different details, imagined different motivations behind her words. Did I think Helen was arrogant because that was what everyone said about her? Was she boastful or simply honest?

  As Helen sat beneath the olive tree, watching me admire her face, she sighed. I’d always believed it was a sigh of pride. Perhaps it was weariness instead. Perhaps she was exhausted from always having to negotiate jealousy and desire when she wanted to do something as simple as holding her niece’s hand.

  “You’ll be beautiful one day, too.” Was she trying to reassure me?

  “Not as beautiful as you,” I demurred.

  “No one is as beautiful as I.”

  Her voice was flat. How must it have felt, always being reduced to that single superlative?

  After she told me the terrible things about my father, I fled into th
e crowd to search for my mother. I found her holding a stern conversation with one of Helen’s women. She wouldn’t budge when I tried to drag her away. She dabbed my tears and told me to find Iamas so he could calm me down.

  It wasn’t until I crumpled at her feet, distraught and wailing, that she realized I was suffering from more than a scrape.

  She slipped her arms around me and helped me to stand, her embrace warm and comforting. She brought me to her rooms and asked what was wrong.

  I repeated Helen’s words. “It isn’t true!” I cried. “She’s mean and vain. Why would she lie about something like that? Tell me she’s lying.”

  “Of course she is,” said mother, patting me vaguely on the head. “No one would be monstrous enough to do that.”

  She pulled the blanket to my chin and sat beside me and stroked my hair (oh, mother, did you never learn another way to comfort a child?). I fell asleep, head tilted toward her touch.

  Later, I woke to the sound of voices in the corridor. They drifted in, too quiet to hear. I tiptoed to the door and listened.

  “I’m sorry,” said Helen, her voice raw as if she’d been crying. “I didn’t mean to scare her.”

  “Well, you did. She’s inconsolable. She thinks her father kills babies.”

  “But Clytemnestra-”

  “Stories like that have no place in this house. I don’t understand what was going on in your head!”

  “He’s a killer. How can you stand to see him with that sweet little girl? I think of my nephew every time I look at her. He’s a monster. He’d kill her in a moment if it suited him. How can you let him near her?”

  “He won’t hurt her. He’s her father.”

  “Clytemnestra, she had to know.”

  “It wasn’t your decision.”

  “It had to be someone’s! You can’t protect her from a little sadness now, and let him lead her into danger later. Someone had to keep your daughter safe.”

  Mother’s voice dipped so low that it was barely more than a whisper. “Or maybe you couldn’t stand to see that I can actually make my daughter happy.”

  Helen made a small, pained noise. I heard the rustling of her garment, her footsteps echoing down the painted clay corridor. I fled back to mother’s blanket and tried to sleep, but I kept imagining your hands as you threw a baby down to his death on the stones. I imagined your fingers covered in blood, your palms blue from the cold in your heart. It couldn’t be true.

  ***

  You called two men to escort me to Calchas. One wore his nightclothes, the other a breastplate and nothing else. Patchy adolescent beards covered their chins.

  Mother wept.

  You stood beside me. “I have to do this.”

  “Do you?” I asked.

  The soldiers approached. In a low voice, you asked them to be gentle.

  My emotions lifted from me, one by one, like steam evaporating from a campfire.

  Fear disappeared.

  “Don’t worry, mother,” I said. “I will go with them willingly. It is only death.”

  Sadness departed.

  “Don’t grieve for me. Don’t cut your hair. Don’t let the women of the house cut their hair either. Try not to mourn for me at all. Crush dandelions. Run by the river. Wind ribbons around your fingers.”

  Empathy bled away.

  “Father, I want you to think of all the suffering I’ve felt, and magnify it a thousand times. When you reach the shores of Troy, unleash it all on their women. Let my blood be the harbinger of their pain. Spear them. Savage them. Let their mother’s throats be raw with screaming. Let their elder brothers be dashed like infants on the rocks.”

  Love vanished. I turned on my mother.

  “Why did you bring me here? You saw him kill your son, and still you let me hold his hand! Why didn’t you remember what he is?”

  I pushed my mother to the ground. Orestes tumbled from her arms. Bloody fingers on blue hands flashed past my vision in the instant before mother twisted herself to cushion his fall.

  I forgot resignation.

  “Why did you write that letter? Am I worth less to you than the hunk of wood they used to make your staff of office? Would it have been so bad to be the man who stayed home instead of fighting? Let Menelaus lead. Let him appease Artemis with Hermione’s blood. If a girl must die to dower Helen, why shouldn’t it be her own daughter?

  “Did you raise me only so that you could trade me in for the best offer you could get? A wealthy husband? Influential children? A wind to push you across the sea?

  “Mother, why didn’t you take me to the hills? Helen went! Helen ran away! Why didn’t we follow Helen?”

  You uttered a command. The soldiers took my elbow. I forgot how to speak.

  ***

  Your soldiers escorted me through the camp to the temple. Achilles found me on the way. “You’re as beautiful as your aunt,” he said.

  The wind of my forgetfulness battered against him. Effortlessly, Achilles buffeted against its strength.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “It takes courage to walk calmly to your death. I wouldn’t mind marrying you. Talk to me. I only need a little persuasion. Tell me why I should save your life.”

  Voiceless, I marched onward.

  ***

  I forgot you.

  They washed and perfumed me and decked me with the things that smell sweet. You came before me.

  “My sweet Iphigenia,” you said. “If there was anything I could do to stop it, I would, but I can’t. Don’t you see?”

  You brushed your fingers along my cheek. I watched them, no longer certain what they were.

  “Iphigenia, I have no right, but I’ve come to ask for your pardon. Can you forgive me for what I’ve done?”

  I stared at you with empty eyes, my brows furrowed, my body cleansed and prepared. Who are you? asked my flesh.

  ***

  They led me into Artemis’s sacred space. Wild things clustered, lush and pungent, around the courtyard. The leaves tossed as I passed them, shuddering in my wind. Sunlight glinted off of the armor of a dozen men who were gathered to see the beginning of their war. Iamas was there, too, weeping as he watched.

  Calchas pushed his way toward me as if he were approaching through a gale, his garment billowing around him. I recognized the red ribbons on his headband, his indigo eyes, his taut and joyless smile.

  “You would have been beautiful one day, too,” she said.

  Not as beautiful as you.

  “No one is as beautiful as I.”

  His breath stank with rotting fish, unless that was other men, another time. He held a jeweled twig in his hand-but I knew it would be your hand that killed me. Calchas was only an instrument, like Helen, like the twig.

  He lifted the jeweled twig to catch the sun. I didn’t move. He drew it across my throat.

  ***

  My body forgot to be a body. I disappeared.

  ***

  Artemis held me like a child holds a dandelion. With a single breath, she blew the wind in my body out of my girl’s shape.

  I died.

  ***

  Feel me now. I tumble through your camp, upturning tents as a child knocks over his toys. Beneath me, the sea rumbles. Enormous waves whip across the water, powerful enough to drown you all.

  “Too strong!” shouts Menelaus.

  Achilles claps him on the back. “It’ll be a son of a bitch, but it’ll get us there faster!”

  Mother lies by the remnants of the tent and refuses to move. Iamas tugs on her garment, trying to stir her. She cries and cries, and I taste her tears. They become salt on my wind.

  Orestes wails for mother’s attention. He puts his mouth to her breasts, but she cannot give him the comfort of suckling. I ruffle his hair and blow a chill embrace around him. His eyes grow big and frightened. I love him, but I can only hug him harder, for I am a wind.

  Achilles stands at the prow of one of the ships, boasting of what he’ll do to the citizens of Troy. Menelaus
jabs his sword into my breeze and laughs. “I’ll ram Paris like he’s done to Helen,” he brags. Odysseus laughs.

  I see you now, my father, standing away from the others, your face turned toward Troy. I blow and scream and whisper.

  You smile at first, and turn to Calchas. “It’s my daughter!”

  The priest looks up from cleaning his bloody dagger. “What did you say?”

  I whip cold fury between your ears. Your face goes pale, and you clap your hands to the sides of your head, but my voice is the sound of the wind. It is undeniable.

  Do you still want forgiveness, father?

  “Set sail!” you shout. “It’s time to get out of this harbor!”

  I am vast and undeniable. I will crush you all with my strength and whirl your boats to the bottom of the sea. I’ll spin your corpses through the air and dash them against the cliffs.

  But no, I am helpless again, always and ever a hostage to someone else’s desires. With ease, Artemis imposes her will on my wild fury. I feel the tension of her hands drawing me back like a bowstring. With one strong, smooth motion, she aims me at your fleet. Fiercely, implacably, I blow you to Troy.

  ***

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  Document creation date: 18.06.2010

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