Elektra
There is no possibility of sleep tonight. Orestes and Pylades spread their cloaks on the floor in the centre of our home in hope of some kind of rest. Georgios, when he comes back inside, studiously avoiding my eye, lies down near to them. I perch anxiously on our hard, narrow bed, listening to the sound of their breathing. The restlessness surging inside me won’t let me relax for a single moment. When I can’t bear to even sit any longer, I rise noiselessly and creep past them, outside to the garden. Liquid shadows ooze, pitch black, from every direction. The tormented screech of an owl makes me freeze, the flesh of my arms prickling into goosebumps. This is the ancient, primordial night that could have given rise to the vengeful Erinyes. It was from such a depth of darkness that they first stepped, from the formless oceans of Chaos, coursing with insatiable fury. Or else, they rose up from the blood-clotted earth, baying in vengeance when the titan Kronos sliced his own father open with the blade of his sickle. Whichever story is true, I can feel their presence, the stench of them carried on the breeze, the serpent-slithering sound of them, the cold hiss of their breath at my ear.
Let them come for me if they will. Whatever torment they devise, it cannot be worse than what I’ve lived already.
However brave my thoughts, I still yelp when I feel a hand closing around my elbow, and I spin around in the darkness, my chest heaving.
‘Sorry,’ he says. It isn’t Georgios’ voice, nor is it Orestes’.
‘Pylades?’
‘I heard you get up,’ he says. ‘I can’t sleep either.’
I should go back inside at once. But a recklessness has taken hold of me. This man is my brother’s trusted friend, I’m safe with him, and I can’t deny my curiosity about him any longer. ‘Why did you come to Mycenae?’ I need to know.
‘Orestes is my friend.’ His voice is calm and measured, soothing in the black void. ‘I saw how distraught he was at the oracle’s word. I wouldn’t let him do this alone.’
I try to discern his face through the gloom. The shroud of night makes me feel freer, bolder. ‘Did you ever know our father?’
‘No. I was an infant when the forces sailed to Troy. Even though my mother is a daughter of Atreus, she never knew him either.’
So Pylades doesn’t bring me any new stories of my father. I’m not as disappointed as I might have been. Tonight, when everything in me shifts with unease and anticipation, all at once I don’t want to immerse myself in the past. Tomorrow is the day that we move into the future.
‘Are you afraid?’ he asks me.
I laugh. ‘Why would I be afraid? You can only fear if you have something to lose, and I have nothing.’
He doesn’t answer, and the silence between us is taut, crackling with an edge I don’t recognise.
‘If I was afraid, I would think of the shade of our father, begging us to take revenge,’ I say at last. ‘The image of his ghost, not able to rest. That’s the only thing that could make me afraid.’
‘Agamemnon will rest tomorrow,’ Pylades says. ‘Orestes, though—’
‘We will be here for Orestes.’ I’m firm and decisive, on steady ground. ‘Whatever happens after – we can care for him.’
‘What about your husband?’
‘He married me to help me escape Aegisthus,’ I say. ‘It is no true marriage.’
I don’t want to think about Georgios; I want only to think of Agamemnon. But then, I’m standing here with the son of Agamemnon’s sister – this is the closest I could be to my father in the living world, besides Orestes. The thought of it rears hungrily inside me for an instant, a sweep of flame, searing and sweet at once.
‘We should go back inside,’ he says.
For the first time since the night I knew my father was coming home, I am impatient for the dawn. The world sings with promise again, my hope as fragile but tangible as glass, and this time our mother won’t shatter it. This time, we are the strong ones, and there is nothing that she can do. I follow him back inside, and, although I thought it impossible, when I lie back on the lumpy bed, my eyes flicker closed and I sleep.
37
Clytemnestra
As I dress in the amber silence of dawn, I marvel that I have stayed here so long. What holds me to Mycenae? The comfort and luxuries of this palace are rotten illusions, its grandeur decaying from within. I’m not afraid to walk away from it all, alone. I have never cared what anyone else might think, and I have wits enough to live on my own, as far away from here as I can get.
I used to think incessantly of Iphigenia, lost in the realm of the dead, roaming that shadowy kingdom, unable to find peace. Now, instead, I find memories gushing forth: a child shrieking with laughter, running through the pillars of the courtyard, her hair streaming behind her. Her face, creased in concentration as she learned to master the loom; her beaming pride in the tapestries she wove. I think of all the mothers of Troy. Hecabe watching her sons slaughtered on its battlefield, her daughters dragged away on to Greek ships. Andromache’s infant torn from her arms and hurled from a Trojan tower on to the unforgiving rocks beneath. I hope they heard of Agamemnon’s death. I hope it brought them some comfort to know the commander who brought the armies to their shore met such a brutal end. At least I can give them that, if nothing else. But since I did it, I don’t know what there is to propel me on any more. Now that my thoughts are unclouded by anger, the desire for revenge no longer burns through my veins, I can feel my sadness in its cold and crystal purity.
And with the ebbing away of my rage, I look at the sleeping Aegisthus and wonder what ever bound me to him at all. Did we ever speak of anything except retribution? If we did, I can’t recall it, can’t summon any intimacy or find any common ground between us. When I look at him, I think only of my missing children. It’s their absence, rather than Iphigenia’s, that causes the aching in my heart.
And if I leave, will Elektra find some peace at last? I wonder if all I can offer to my embittered daughter is my absence.
Noiselessly, I gather my jewellery: thick gold bracelets and earrings that glint in the dim room, shining necklaces of carnelian and lapis lazuli, wealth to buy me safe passage anywhere I want in the world. Elektra disdained it all when she married, but if I’m gone and she realises she degrades only herself, and not me by association, maybe she’ll tire of flaunting her poverty.
The sun climbs higher in the sky, light washes through the room and I am ready to go, to leave all this behind me. But before I can take a step, a great clamour shatters the quiet – men’s voices, shouting outside the palace. And, to my horror, the din resolves itself into the words I dread the most to hear.
38
Elektra
‘Elektra, wake up.’ Orestes’ voice is soft as I swim back into consciousness, bewildered for a second until it floods back to me, and I sit bolt upright.
‘Is it time?’ I ask. ‘Is it nearly morning?’
‘It is. We must go now – but Elektra, you don’t have to come with us. We can come back for you, when it’s over.’
I push the threadbare coverlet away from me and rise to my feet. ‘I’m coming with you.’ I look around the room. ‘Where’s Pylades?’
‘Waiting outside.’
Georgios is sitting at the table, watching us. When I look towards him, he darts his gaze away. Orestes makes as though to step outside, but I clutch at his cloak. ‘I’m ready,’ I say. Orestes looks between Georgios and me, a question on his face, but I shake my head determinedly. The last thing I want is a goodbye, anything that might cloud my head. I did wonder, briefly, if Georgios would speak anyway, but he just looks down at the worn wood. I feel a spasm of pity for him, but I shove it down, far inside, and follow Orestes through the door for the very last time.