House of Names

by Colm Toibin

  Then the thirst began, and the fear that seemed to make the thirst even more intense. All I thought about now was water, even the smallest amount of water. I remembered times in my life when there had been pitchers of cool drinking water close to me. I imagined springs in the earth, deep wells. I regretted that I had not savoured water more. The hunger that came later was nothing to this thirst.

  Despite the vileness of the smell, and the ants and spiders that crawled around me, despite the pain in my back and in my arms and legs, despite the hunger that deepened, despite the fear that I would never come out of here alive, it was the thirst that turned me, changed me.

  I had, I realized, made one mistake. I should not have threatened with a curse the men who came to accompany us to the place of death. I should have let them do as they willed, walk ahead of us, or alongside, as though Iphigenia were their prisoner. That soldier who had spoken to my husband had, I was sure, whispered him a warning. He had prepared him and now, during my time underground, I blamed myself. As a result of my words, spoken too hastily, I was certain that Agamemnon had ordered that if we began a curse, my daughter or I, we were to be silenced instantly by the gagging cloth.

  If he had not been prepared, I imagined the men scattering in fear as Iphigenia began to curse them. I imagined her threatening to continue the curse, to finish the string of words that would shrivel them, unless they released her. I imagined that she could have been saved.

  I was at fault. In that time under the earth, in order to distract myself from the thirst, I resolved that if I were spared I would weigh each word I spoke and decision I made. In the future, I would weigh the smallest action.

  Because of how roughly the stone had been put over me, I could see a sliver of light, so that when it faded and I could see nothing I knew it was night. Through those hours of darkness, I went over everything from the start. We should never have been fooled into coming here. And we should have worked out a way of fleeing once Agamemnon’s intentions became clear. Such thoughts made the thirst that I suffered even more intense. That thirst lived in me like something that could never be assuaged.

  The following morning, when someone threw a pitcher of water into the hole where they had buried me, I heard laughter. I tried to drink what water I could that had soaked into my clothes, but it was almost nothing. The water had merely wet me and the ground beneath me. It had also let me know, in case I needed to know, that I was not forgotten. At intervals over the next two days, they threw more water in. It mixed with my excrement to make a smell like that of a body as it putrefies. It was a smell that I thought would never leave me.

  What stayed with me besides that smell was a thought. It began as nothing, as a piece of bad temper arising from the pure discomfort and the thirst, but then it grew and it came to mean more than any other thought or any other thing. If the gods did not watch over us, I wondered, then how should we know what to do? Who else would tell us what to do? I realized then that no one would tell us, no one at all, no one would tell me what should be done in the future or what should not be done. In the future, I would be the one to decide what to do, not the gods.

  And in that time I determined that I would kill Agamemnon in retaliation for what he had done. I would consult no oracle or priest. I would pray to no one. I would plot alone in silence. I would be ready. And this would be something that Agamemnon and those around him, so filled with the view that we all must wait for the oracle, would never guess, never suspect.

  *

  On the third morning, close to first light, when they lifted the stone, I was too stiff to move. They tried to pull me out by the arms, but I was locked into the narrow space where they had buried me. They had to lever me out slowly; they put their strength under my arms because I could not stand, the power in my legs had gone. I saw no value in speech, and did not smile in satisfaction as they held their noses against the stench that rose in the morning sun from the hole where they had held me.

  They took me to where the women were waiting. For hours that morning, having washed me and found me fresh clothes, they fed me and I drank. No one spoke. They were afraid, I saw, that I was going to ask them about the last moments of my daughter’s life and the disposal of her body.

  I was ready to be left in peace by them so that I could sleep when we heard the sound of running and voices. One of the men who had accompanied us to the place of death came breathlessly into the tent.

  ‘The wind has changed,’ he said.

  ‘Where is Orestes?’ I asked him.

  He shrugged and ran back out into the crowd. A sound rose then, the noise of instructions and commands. Within a short time, two soldiers came into the women’s tent and stood guard close to the entrance; they were followed soon by my husband, who had to bend as he pushed through to us because he was carrying Orestes on his shoulders. Orestes had his small sword in his hand; he was laughing as his father made as though to unseat him.

  ‘He will be a great warrior,’ he said. ‘Orestes is the chief of men.’

  When he let him down, Agamemnon smiled.

  ‘We will sail tonight when the moon sets. You will take Orestes and your women home and wait for me. I will give you four men to guard you on your way.’

  ‘I don’t want four men,’ I said.

  ‘You will need them.’

  As he stepped backwards, Orestes realized that he was being left with us. He began to cry. His father lifted him and handed him to me.

  ‘Wait for me, both of you. I will come when the task is done.’

  He stalked out of the tent. Soon, four men came, men whom I had threatened with my curse. They told us that they wanted to begin our journey before nightfall. They appeared afraid of me as I told them that it would take us time to prepare. I suggested that they stand outside the tent until I called them.

  One of them was softer, younger than the others. He took control of Orestes and distracted him with games and stories as we made our way home. Orestes was filled with life. He would not let his sword out of his hand as he spoke of warriors and battles and how he would follow his enemy until the end of time. It was only in the hour before sleep that he would whimper, moving towards me for warmth and comfort and then pushing me away as he started to cry. His dreams woke us on some of those nights. He wanted his father and then his sister and then the friends he had made among the soldiers. He wanted me too, but when I held him and whispered to him, he recoiled in fright. Thus our journey was filled both day and night with Orestes, so much so that we did not think about what we would say when we arrived home.

  All of the others must have wondered, as I did, if word of the fate of Iphigenia had reached Electra, or reached the elders who had been left to advise her. On the last night of our journey, I concentrated on keeping Orestes calm under a high, starry sky as I started to think about what I would do now, how I would live and whom I might trust.

  I would trust no one, I thought. I would trust no one. That was the most useful thing to hold in my mind.

  *

  In the weeks we had been away, Electra had heard rumours, and the rumours had aged her and made her voice shrill, or more shrill than I had remembered it. She ran towards me for news. I know now that not concentrating on her and her alone was my first mistake with her. The isolation and the waiting seemed to have unhinged some part of her so it was hard to make her listen. Maybe I should have stayed up through the night taking her into my confidence, telling her what had happened to us step by step, minute by minute, and asking her to hold me and comfort me. But my legs still hurt and it was hard to walk. I was still ravenous for food and no amount of water quenched my thirst. I wanted to sleep.

  I should not have brushed her aside, however. Of that I am sure. I was dreaming of fresh clothes, my old bed, a bath, food, a pitcher of sweet water from the palace well. I was dreaming of peace, at least until Agamemnon returned. I was making plans. I left the others to tell her the story of her sister’s death. I moved like a hungry ghost through the roo
ms of the palace away from her, away from her voice, a voice that would come to follow me more than any other voice.

  *

  When I woke on the first morning, I realized that I was a prisoner. The four men had been sent to guard me, to watch over Electra and Orestes, to ensure the loyalty of the elders to Agamemnon. They were happy once I was in my chambers, once I asked for nothing more than food and drink and time to sleep and to walk in the garden and restore the power in my legs. If I left my own quarters, two of them followed me. They let no one see me except the women who took care of me and they questioned those women each night about what I said and did.

  It occurred to me that I would have to murder all four of them on a single night. Nothing could happen until that was done. When I was not sleeping, I was planning how best this could be carried out.

  Even though the women brought me news, I could not be sure of them. I could be sure of no one.

  Electra continued to run through the palace, unsettling the very air. She developed a habit of repeating the same lines to me, the same accusations. ‘You let her be sacrificed. You came back without her.’ I, in turn, continued to ignore her. I should have made her see that her father was not the brave man she still believed him to be, but rather a weasel among men. I should have made her see that it was his weakness that caused the death of her sister.

  I should have had her join me in my rage. Instead, I left her free to have her own rage, much of it now directed against me.

  When she came to my room, I often feigned sleep, or turned away from her. She had many things to say to the elders and to the four men her father had sent. They, I saw, grew weary of her too.

  But one day, I began to listen to her carefully as she seemed more agitated than usual.

  ‘Aegisthus,’ she said, ‘is walking these corridors in the night. He is appearing in my room. Some nights when I wake, he is standing at the foot of my bed smiling at me and then he retreats into the shadows.’

  Aegisthus was being held hostage; he had been in the dungeon under our care, as my husband phrased it, for more than five years. It was agreed that he must be well fed and not harmed since he was a glittering prize, clever and handsome and ruthless, I was told, with many followers in the outreaches, the wild places.

  When our armies had first taken Aegisthus’ family stronghold, no one could fathom how two of my husband’s guards were found each morning lying in their own blood. Some felt that it was a curse. Guards were detailed to guard the guards. Spies were positioned to watch through the night. But still, each morning, once first light came, two guards were found lying face down in their blood. It was soon believed that Aegisthus was the killer, and this was confirmed when he was taken hostage, as no more guards were found dead. His followers offered to pay ransom, but my husband saw that, so great was Aegisthus’ standing, holding him here, keeping him in chains, was more powerful than sending an army to put down his followers, who had fled into the hills.

  When he met with his advisers, my husband often asked, amused, if there was any word of unruliness in the conquered territories and then, on hearing that all was well, he would smile and say: ‘As long as we keep Aegisthus here, all will be at peace. Make sure that his chains are firmly in place. Have him checked each day.’

  There was talk of our prisoner as the years passed, of his good manners and his good looks. Some of the women who served me spoke of how he had tamed the birds that flew through the high window of his cell. One of the women whispered too that Aegisthus knew how to attract young women into his cell, and indeed young servant boys. One day when I asked my women why they were trying to suppress their laughter, they finally explained that one of them had heard the sound of the clanking of chains echoing from Aegisthus’ cell and had stood outside until one of the serving boys had emerged with a furtive, sheepish look and had fled back into the kitchen to resume his duties there.

  There was also something that my mother had told me at the time of my marriage. There was, she said, a story that my father-in-law in the heat of rage had ordered Aegisthus’ two half-brothers killed and then stuffed and cooked with spices and served to their father at a feast. This stayed in my mind now as I thought about our prisoner. He might have his own reasons to wish to take revenge on my husband were he given the chance.

  When Electra mentioned again that she had seen the prisoner standing in her room, I told her that she was dreaming. She insisted that she was not.

  ‘He woke me from my sleep. He whispered words I could not hear. He disappeared before I could call the guards. When the guards came, they swore that no one had passed them, but they were mistaken. Aegisthus moves through the palace at night. Ask your women, if you do not believe me.’

  I told her that I did not want to hear of this again.

  ‘You will hear of it each time it happens,’ she said defiantly.

  ‘You sound as though you want him to appear,’ I said.

  ‘I want my father to return,’ she said. ‘Not until then will I feel safe.’

  I was about to tell her that her father’s interest in the safety of his daughters was not something that could be so confidently invoked, but instead I questioned her further about Aegisthus. I asked her to describe him.

  ‘He is not tall. He lifts his face and smiles when I awake as though he knows me. His face is the face of a boy, and his body too is boyish.’

  ‘He has been a prisoner for many years. He is a murderer,’ I said.

  ‘The figure I saw,’ she replied, ‘is the same figure that the women describe who have seen him chained in his cell.’

  I began to sleep early so that I would wake when it was still dark. I noticed the soundlessness around me. The guards outside my door were sleeping. Some nights I practised moving from room to room in bare feet, hardly breathing. Not going far. The only sounds I heard were men snoring in one of the rooms in the distance. I liked the sound because it meant that the noise I made was nothing, a noise that could not be easily heard.

  I had a plan now, and the plan involved finding Aegisthus and seeking his support.

  After a week or more, I risked travelling into the bowels of this building. I would feign sleepwalking, I thought, if anyone found me. I could not work out, however, where exactly Aegisthus was held, in a dungeon floor below the one where the kitchens and storerooms were or in some outer dungeon.

  I started to haunt the corridors in the hard hours of night when it was silent. And it was on one of those nights that I came across our hostage face to face. He was as young and boyish as Electra had described, with no hint that he had been in a dungeon for many years.

  ‘I have been looking for you,’ I whispered.

  He was not frightened or ready to turn and run. He examined me with equanimity.

  ‘You are the woman whose daughter was sacrificed,’ he said. ‘You were buried in a hole. You have been walking in these corridors. I have been watching you.’

  ‘If you betray me,’ I replied, ‘you will be found dead by the guards.’

  ‘What do you want? You must be direct,’ he said. ‘If you do not use me, perhaps someone else will.’

  ‘I will have guards put at your door all night.’

  ‘Guards?’ he asked and smiled. ‘I know the ones who matter. Nothing escapes me. Now what do you want?’

  I had one second to decide, but I knew as I spoke that I had decided some time before. I was ready now.

  ‘The four men,’ I said, ‘who came with us from the camp, I want them killed. I can guide you to where they sleep. They have guards at their door, but the guards sleep at night.’

  ‘All four killed on the same night?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And in return?’

  ‘Everything,’ I said, and put a finger to my lips and moved back as quietly as I could to my quarters.

  Nothing happened then. I realized that perhaps I had risked too much, but I knew that I would have to risk even more were anything to happen. I watched the fo
ur guards. I watched the elders who had been left here when my husband went to war. I listened carefully to the murmurings and gossip of the women. I used Orestes as an excuse to wander beyond my own quarters. I followed his sword fights with one of the guards and his young son, who often accompanied his father. I knew in this strange time as rumours came of how our army had prevailed that something would move or shift, that somebody would give me a sign, even unwittingly, a sign that would help me, a sign before official news would come to me of Agamemnon’s victorious return.

  Each night, I made my soundless journeys in the corridors and then I returned and slept, often sleeping beyond the dawn until Orestes came to my side, all energy still, all talk of his father and the soldiers and the swords. On one of those nights, having fallen into the deepest sleep, I was woken by the sound of an owl screaming at my window and then by some other sound. I lay listening, hearing footsteps from outside my door and voices and shouts to the guards that they must protect me with their lives.

  When I approached the door, they would not let me leave my room, or allow anyone to enter. Louder sounds then began, men shouting orders, and others running and the high-pitched voice of Electra. Then Orestes was rushed into my room by two men.

  ‘What has happened?’ I asked.

  ‘The four men who came with you were found in their own blood, murdered by their guards,’ one of the men said.

  ‘Their guards?’

  ‘Do not worry. The guards have been dispatched.’

  I looked out and saw the bodies being carried along the corridor outside and then I returned to the room and spoke softly to Orestes to distract him. When Electra came, I signalled to her not to speak of what had occurred in her brother’s presence. Soon she tired of having to be silent and left me and my son in peace. When she returned, she whispered to me that she had spoken to the elders, who had assured her that this had been a feud over cards or dice between the guards and the four men. They had been drinking.