Elektra(72)

I’d love to find the words that could wound her even more deeply. But I know her far better than she knows me. She will rally in a moment, gain control of herself again. This sudden vulnerability is temporary, and if I linger to luxuriate in her pain, she’ll be Clytemnestra again, cold and unreachable, and hurling more words at her will be like hammering at these thick stone walls with my bare fists.

I shove past her. I shudder at the feel of her body as I knock her aside, but it’s so brief I can tolerate it. And then I’m free of her, running up the path towards the home I hate almost as much as I hate her.



I stay in my chambers as much as I can. Life in Mycenae has always been a tedious thing, but now I have nothing to look forward to – and, without Orestes, I am more alone than I have ever been. I can sit for an hour doing nothing more than staring at the patterns on the floor, letting my eyes blur so that the lines run together, wondering when I will summon the energy to stand. But why bother? There is nothing to get up for, no one to go outside to see. No point in leaning out over the courtyard walls to scan the distant sea for the sight of sails returning, victorious against the blue sky. I wonder if Georgios has managed to deliver Orestes to his friends, if his friends will hide him away and if I will ever see my brother again, but the thoughts meander without urgency. Maybe I will and maybe I won’t, but even though I know I should be consumed with my revenge and my fury, instead a heavy listlessness has settled upon me. When each day dawns, all I want is for it to be over.

Through the palace, the atmosphere has changed. Aegisthus no longer skulks and trails behind my mother. I watch him, daring to stride ahead of her. I hear his voice, louder these days, ringing through the halls. And I see her face, smooth and inscrutable, watching him. Whatever she thinks of her newly emboldened lover is well concealed behind her smiles. I can’t begin to guess at it.

For me, for the most part, I cannot bear to witness him wrapped in purple cloaks and laden with the gleaming jewels that belong to a man he did not even dare to kill himself. He was no match for Agamemnon, and he must know it, but the knowledge doesn’t choke him, and he carries on stuffing roast meat into his mouth at my father’s table and lounging back in my father’s seat, his face alight with self-satisfaction.

Meanwhile, food curdles in my stomach. I thought that grief would be like a sea of suffering within me, that it would wrack me with its storms and endlessly replenish my tears, but instead it lodges like a heavy stone in my throat. I don’t want to eat; I can barely swallow. The effort of talking overwhelms me, so I fall silent. Besides, with Georgios and Orestes gone, there is no one here to talk to anyway. I can’t even summon the energy to cry, beyond a few trickling tears that I let roll down my cheeks. I think of the dagger, always glinting at Aegisthus’ waist – a man can’t be too careful when he’s married to a woman who thinks nothing of killing a husband, after all – and I wonder dully what the blade would feel like if it pierced my skin. I wonder if my blood would swell out in a river of crimson. I can’t imagine it flowing in my body; I feel like such a shrivelled and dried-up thing. I think of Iphigenia, and how she died pressed against my father’s broad chest, and I burn with the slow smouldering of envy.

They buried the woman, the one I saw walking behind him. No one has told me how she died. I wish that I could have talked to her: perhaps she could have told me stories about my father. The slaves say she was a princess of Troy. She was so lucky to be chosen by a king, the greatest king in Greece, to be brought here to a palace that must be as fine as the one she left. Finer, I’m sure. Whatever wealth Troy possessed, Mycenae had Agamemnon. And she did too, for a little while.

But she’s dead, as so many who knew him are. The war took a heavy toll. Even I, his daughter, have so few memories of him to cherish. Agamemnon, descendant of the House of Atreus: a mighty family that should know such greatness, but, time after time, has been struck down by the curse upon us. It can’t burn out with his murder. I am left living and so is Orestes. But I’m so tired, so weighed down with my despair, and Orestes is a boy, and so far away that I wonder how we can hold up the weight of our destiny on just our shoulders.

I don’t take note of how the days pass from one to the next, but there comes the afternoon when I am watching the blistering glare of the sun fall across the sweep of the valley, its heat pressing down, and I notice through the narrow slit of my window a spiral of smoke rising from the farmer’s hut in the distance. Georgios has returned.

There is no one in the palace who cares what I do or where I am. I know that Aegisthus has sent men out to search for my brother. It is the only time when Clytemnestra’s facade cracks; the anxiety flares briefly in her eyes when they return empty-handed. I wonder if she is more afraid that they will find him or that he will remain missing. I think I see relief on her face when they report, again, no news. But whilst they may fear what Agamemnon’s son might do, I think everyone has forgotten that I am here at all. Still, I look up and down the corridors as I slink out of the palace and make my way towards the farm.

The familiar sight of his narrow frame is a surprising comfort to me, a balm I hadn’t expected. When he sees me, I see the rush of warmth in his face, and I’m glad of the first flicker of happiness I’ve felt since the morning of my father’s return.

‘Elektra!’ he says, hurrying towards me.

‘Orestes?’ I ask, casting a glance behind me to make sure no one has followed.