House of Names

by Colm Toibin

  Electra stared at the floor and then at the window.

  ‘Who killed my father?’ Orestes asked.

  ‘That is what I was coming to,’ his mother replied. ‘Some of your father’s own men were plotting against him. Oh, they looked like his friends! Oh, they gave the impression that they were happy to obey him! I must admit that I saw nothing strange when he arrived. Perhaps it was because I was so relieved to have him home that I suspected nothing. I was so relieved to have all the burdens of office lifted from me.’

  She stopped and put her hands to her mouth again and looked towards the window.

  ‘But what happened?’ Orestes asked.

  ‘I can hardly say it,’ his mother replied. ‘We found out in time to rescue you and your sister, and in time for me to be hidden away too. But for your father, it was too late, it was too late. I cannot bear to think of it.’

  Her voice was shaking.

  ‘Rescue me?’ Orestes asked. ‘Did you say “rescue me”?’

  ‘We tried to make sure you were safe,’ his mother said.

  ‘Why was I taken so far away by those men,’ he asked, ‘if they just wanted to rescue me and make sure I was safe?’

  ‘To make sure that your life would be spared,’ his mother replied. ‘And to make sure that no one among our enemies would find you. They would have come for you if we had not done that.’

  ‘Who gave the order to take me to that place and not to some other place?’

  ‘It was a mistake,’ she said. ‘We soon realized it was a mistake. When I thought about it later, I knew it was a mistake.’

  Her voice began to quaver.

  ‘You see, Orestes, I had no control over those men. That was Aegisthus’ doing, but he had no control either. I thought it was the safest thing to do. And then we sent those two men looking for you and they did not come back. And then we sent others, but they could not find you. And I thought I had failed and we had lost you. I believed that your father was lost and that you were lost too. And your sister Iphigenia too. I thought that I had only Electra. They told us when they came back from looking for you that you could not be found. We did everything, but we had no control. Aegisthus, did we have control?’

  Aegisthus knocked over his drink. Quickly, as he retrieved it, he gave Orestes’ mother the fiercest, most threatening look. And then he calmly refilled his glass.

  ‘It was a time filled with panic,’ his mother went on. ‘And we tried to do our best. And all I can do is thank the gods that we at least are safe.’

  ‘I was not safe where you sent me.’

  ‘Orestes,’ his mother said, ‘it was not my doing.’

  Orestes pushed his chair back and stood up and moved across the room.

  ‘Why is Aegisthus here?’ he asked.

  ‘He is here to guard us.’

  ‘Why he is here in the room with us? At the table with us?’

  Orestes noticed Electra’s mouth open in surprise.

  ‘There has been a revolt,’ his mother said.

  ‘Is that why he needs to sit with us?’ Orestes asked, looking directly at Aegisthus. ‘Surely we can have our meals without him at the table?’

  ‘Orestes,’ his mother said, ‘he is all I have. We are all in danger.’

  As Orestes returned to the table, passing Aegisthus, he lingered behind him and reached down and tossed Aegisthus’ hair, as if fondly and familiarly, just as the old woman used to do with Mitros.

  Aegisthus stood up as if he had been threatened or attacked.

  ‘Orestes, do not do that!’ his mother shouted.

  ‘I am sure he is very welcome here,’ Orestes said and took his seat again.

  *

  Later, when he went over what his mother had said, it was her voice he remembered, and the sad, perplexed expression on her face when she mentioned his father and Iphigenia. He had not intended to challenge Aegisthus as openly as he did. He had said what he did almost as a joke, but somehow in the saying, it had turned, gone out of his control, in a way that such a conversation between himself and Leander would never have, but would have led instead to laughter. And then he had tossed Aegisthus’ hair to make clear that he meant him no harm. The response from Aegisthus and his mother showed him how much on edge they were.

  When Electra came to his room that evening, he was about to explain this to her when she said that she could not stay for long, but needed him to know that he had to be careful, that he was being watched and that every word he said was being noted.

  ‘Watched by whom?’ he asked.

  ‘They need to know whose side you are on.’

  ‘Do you mean my mother and Aegisthus?’

  ‘Watch everything you say. Ask no more questions.’

  She looked towards the door as though there might be someone listening.

  ‘I must go,’ she whispered.

  The following day, when Orestes was going from his own room to his mother’s quarters, he saw Aegisthus coming in his direction. Orestes stopped, ready to greet Aegisthus, pleased to have a moment with him uninterrupted, a moment when he might, if he were allowed speak, refer in some way to what had happened the previous day. Aegisthus, however, as soon as he saw Orestes, turned as if he had forgotten something and walked away.

  Each day, Orestes formed the habit of spending time with both his mother and Electra. He sat with his mother in a room at the front of the palace in the late morning. Often, they saw supplicants, but usually they were alone. One day, when a visitor had spoken about a revolt, she waited until she was on her own with her son before referring to the subject again.

  ‘You heard us talking about a revolt,’ she said. ‘There have always been revolts. There are always factions and there is always unrest. We are always at war. We get daily reports. And what I learned from your father and what you must learn is that a trusted friend is the one you can least trust. For each ally, I have a shadow ally, and even then I have other shadows, all of them watching, all of them reporting. That is how we keep power, by never trusting. I will take you through who they are. You can also talk to Aegisthus, who is always vigilant. Orestes, our enemies have to be lucky just once but we must be vigilant every second of every day. Now that you have returned, you can become my eyes and ears. But you must trust no one.’

  What struck him was how different his mother could be when they were eating together, or receiving a guest, or when he was walking with her in the garden. She could be worried one minute and then all chatter and easy, friendly talk.

  Electra let it be known that she was not to be disturbed for much of the afternoon. She went each day to her father’s grave and then returned to her room. By the time the sun was going down, she would receive him. When he referred to her warnings about what he should say and do, she brushed him off, and when he asked her if she knew the names of the men who had killed his father, or anything about Leander’s grandfather, she went silent and pointed to the door.

  Instead, in this time they had alone, his sister became interested in where he had been. She was less anxious in his company. When he told her what had happened when he was taken away and how he had escaped, she paid close attention.

  Although he went into great detail, he did not tell her about the killing of the guard or of the two men. And he tried not to say too much about Leander. But it was the house of the old woman that interested Electra most. He found that telling her about the old woman and Mitros gave him a sort of comfort and he looked forward each day to seeing his sister.

  Sometimes, Electra spoke of the gods and her belief in them, invoking their names and speaking of the power they had.

  ‘We live in a strange time,’ Electra said. ‘A time when the gods are fading. Some of us still see them but there are times when we don’t. Their power is waning. Soon, it will be a different world. It will be ruled by the light of day. Soon it will be a world barely worth inhabiting. You should feel lucky that you were touched by the old world, that in that house it brushed you with its wings.
’

  He did not know how to reply to this. Once Electra had spoken of the gods, she would look desolate, and then, when she had checked that no one was listening at the door, she would begin to speak of what was happening in the world outside the palace. When she told him about the revolt, he knew not to repeat what his mother had said, that there were always revolts. Instead, he listened carefully.

  He was surprised at how much she seemed to know of the plains beyond the mountains, and surprised also to be told that the rebels hiding in the mountains were not in retreat but gathering their strength, making alliances and growing in number.

  He wondered about the accuracy of what she said, however, when she told him that she did not know the names of anyone involved. Orestes presumed that Leander was among them now, as well as members of his family. But he did not mention this.

  *

  He began to observe that his mother was more preoccupied and had less time for him. Once, as they were sitting together, Aegisthus came into the room and made a gesture to her that he did not expect Orestes to notice. As his mother tried to return to the topic under discussion, he could see that she was no longer concentrating on him. Soon, she made an excuse, saying that she would have to go and deal with the servants. But Orestes did not believe her; he knew it was something more serious.

  *

  The palace was silent at night. Sometimes Orestes slept deeply and woke in the morning wishing it were the night before and he was facing dreams and oblivion rather than the pervading unease of daylight, as more and more men came to consult his mother and Aegisthus, and his mother tried to disguise her worry by growing more ebullient during meals. Electra, in turn, became more withdrawn.

  But as he grew accustomed to the silence, he realized that it was not entirely real. He started to hear sounds – someone moving quietly in the corridor, for example, or faint whispers, and then nothing for a while. Soon, as he stationed himself outside his room in the darkest hours, he saw that Aegisthus came and went, moving quickly, and that his mother often walked the corridor too. He even noticed Electra crossing the corridor from her room to a room on the opposite side.

  The guards merely stood watch. It was not their job, it seemed, to stop any of the incumbents from straying in the palace, but rather to protect them from outsiders. At the beginning, he supposed that they never shifted from their appointed stations, almost like pieces of furniture. One night, however, he stood watching while Aegisthus left the room where he normally slept with Orestes’ mother. Orestes saw him walking slowly towards one of the guards, beckoning to him and indicating that he should follow him. None of the other guards appeared to register their presence as they made their way into one of the seldom-used rooms at the front of the palace. Orestes waited for a while to see if they would return, and when they did not, he went stealthily down the corridor himself, passing guards whom he pretended not to see. He stood outside the door of the room where Aegisthus and the guard had gone.

  The sounds he heard were familiar to him, and unmistakable. He wondered if his mother ever followed Aegisthus in the night like this herself and heard this panting and hot breathing.

  It made him wonder also when he thought of Electra. Did she too cross the corridor in the shadows for a secret assignation? Immediately, he thought of what Leander would say when he was told about this, how many questions he would have and comments he would make. But then it struck him that he would not be able to share this with Leander. He would have to keep this to himself until Leander returned.

  One night when he woke, he saw Electra in the corridor, with one of the guards following her into a room. He saw another guard approach and enter the room as well. All he heard as he listened outside were whispers, the voices so low that he could not even tell who was whispering. The tone was serious, whatever the subject.

  Gradually, he was able to distinguish the guards from one another. Only two of them would go with Aegisthus, but several more would cross the corridor to whisper with Electra. One night he stood and watched his mother as she walked up and down the corridor; he wondered if she too would slip into one of the rooms and be followed by a guard. But her way of moving was too self-absorbed for that; she was like someone sleepwalking or trying to work out a difficult problem. Even though she passed near him, he knew that she would not notice him. There was something on her mind that she was going over in a great, undisturbable solitude.

  Some of the guards who were there by day often became night guards. One of the day guards, he had known from before the time he was kidnapped. This guard’s father, a guard too, had always been ready to amuse Orestes when he wanted to have a sword fight. Orestes remembered that he had often brought his son with him; the boy was easygoing and willing to play with him, even though he was a few years older.

  Now this boy grown into a man stood guard close to Orestes’ door during the day. At the beginning, his demeanour was formal; he barely nodded at Orestes as he passed. When Orestes spoke to him, reminding him of the sword fighting and asking about his father, the guard remained curt and stern. When he changed to night duty, he still hardly acknowledged Orestes.

  Slowly, however, the guard began to change. As soon as he came on duty, he would alert Orestes to his presence, let him know that the other guard had gone and that he had replaced him. It was as if he believed that Orestes would be pleased, would feel more at ease with someone he knew.

  One night, Orestes woke and, while still lying in bed, cleared his throat. It was just a single sound, something that he thought that no one in the corridor would be able to hear. But the guard heard it and came into the room and sat on the side of the bed and asked him if he needed anything. When Orestes replied that he had merely woken and believed that he would soon return to sleep, the guard touched him for a second and then took his hand away.

  ‘I am with Leander,’ he whispered. ‘My father is a friend of his grandfather. Leander has asked me to be here. It has taken time because no one must realize.’

  ‘Where is Leander?’ Orestes asked.

  ‘In the mountains with the rebels.’

  They listened out in case there was a sound from the corridor.

  ‘Leander says that you are with him,’ the guard whispered.

  ‘I am his friend.’

  ‘He says that you will support him.’

  ‘Tell him –’ Orestes began.

  ‘I must go,’ the guard said. ‘I will come again when I can.’

  The next time the guard came, he made clear that they could not speak at all, that there was too much movement in the corridors. On a further visit, however, he stayed for longer, telling Orestes that he had no more information about what was happening, or where Leander was, but as soon as he had news he would convey it.

  His presence in the room some nights became part of the slow ritual for Orestes of being back in the palace, with times each day marked out for Electra, with times marked out for his mother, who needed his company more since Aegisthus had gone to raise an army to deal once and for all, she said, with this latest revolt.

  At the beginning, he tried to ask the guard questions, but the guard would put his hand over his mouth, signalling that someone could be listening at the door. Even when they were together, the guard managed not to make a sound and tried to encourage Orestes, no matter what happened between them in the darkness of the room, not to disrupt the stillness. That too became part of the ritual.

  One night, as he had been in the room and was preparing to make his way back to his station, the guard motioned Orestes to follow him. They both then stood in the corridor, the guard listening out. When there was pure silence, he took Orestes by the hand and accompanied him back into his room, stood close to him in the corner that was farthest away from the door and began to whisper.

  ‘Theodotus and Mitros are alive,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ Orestes whispered. ‘Mitros is dead. I was with him when he died.’

  ‘His father Mitros is alive, and Theodotus too.
Leander has asked that you go to where they are held. That is the message I have. The place where they are being held is not far from here.’

  ‘Are they being guarded?’

  ‘Yes, but at night there is no one.’

  ‘Can we get help to have them released? Can we ask Leander’s father?’

  ‘It must be done from the palace, Leander insists. Cobon cannot approach the palace. The men are being held underground in the gardens,’ the guard said. ‘And we have to move quickly, as Mitros will not live much longer.’

  ‘Can you do it alone, or with some others?’ Orestes asked.

  ‘We need someone to lead us.’

  ‘Who’s holding them?’ Orestes asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ the guard said. ‘I only know that Theodotus is the grandfather of Leander. And Leander wants him free. That’s the message I’ve been told to give you.’

  The next night, the guard said that he had been in touch with Cobon, who had arranged a hiding place for the two men. Once they had reached a spot beyond the graveyard, Cobon could meet them there. He would have help, or he would ensure that there was no one in the lanes to stop them. Some of the guards were loyal to Leander, and they would make sure of this.

  Orestes did not want to send an open message of support to Leander, since he was with the rebels. That would look like disloyalty or defiance to his mother. Nor did he want to deny Leander what he had asked. Nor did he wish to share the news the guard had given him with his sister. He was alone with this, he saw. He could do nothing, or he could, as requested, accompany the guard to the place where he claimed that the men were being held.

  If he did this and found them, he could then make a further decision there. As he pondered on what the likely outcome would be, he told himself that he was his father’s son, who could, if he wished, exert power in the palace, but he was also the son of his mother, who had warned him to trust no one.

  His father, it struck him, would never have done nothing. He remembered his father’s strong voice and tone of command. If his father were here, he might move warily, but he would never stay in his room out of fear. He would take action.