Rachel Swirsky: A Memory of Wind

I twisted the ribbon from Helen’s headband around my fingers. I stepped toward her, but I didn’t take her hand.

Hermione upturned the bench she’d been sitting on, and began to cry.

Helen led me past the canopy that sheltered the benches, and toward the black scratchings of the olive trees that stood, lonely, in the chilly air. Helen arrayed herself beneath one, her garment spreading around her in delicate, shadowed folds.

I heard footsteps behind us and turned to see Hermione peering from the shadows, hoping to overhear what her mother had to say to another girl. She was clutching something in her hand. I wondered what delicacy she’d brought to bribe her mother with this time. A honeyed fig? A flask of sweet wine?

I looked back to Helen. Her eyes changed hue with the setting sun, taking on a lighter shade like the grey of water beneath a cloudy sky. Firelight from the lamps near the benches cast flickers across her cheekbones, highlighting an undertone in her skin like bronze. She watched my gaze as it trailed over her features, and gave a little sigh of boredom.

“You’ll be beautiful one day, too,” she said patronizingly.

“Not as beautiful as you,” I demurred.

“No one is as beautiful as I.” Her voice was flat, but full of pride.

The night smelled of burning oil and women’s bodies. A dandelion hung high in the sky, casting its light down on us. Helen’s motives were obscured behind blankness, like soldiers’ bodies disappearing into fog.

Helen distorts the world around her. Never look at her too closely. You’ll go blind.

“I saw you holding your father’s hand today,” said Helen. “Do you feel safe with your father?”

I made a moue. I couldn’t speak to my beautiful aunt without my mother beside me.

“What was that?”

“Yes,” I mumbled.

Helen shifted. The folds of her garment rearranged themselves into new shimmers and shadows.

“There’s something I think I should tell you, Iphigenia. About your father. Did your mother ever tell you that she was married before?”

I shook my head. Around and around, the ribbon wove through my fingers.

“She had a husband named Tantalus who was the king of Mycenae before your father came. They had a child together. A son.”

Helen paused, scrutinizing my reaction. I didn’t know what to do. I looked to the right and the left. There was no one nearby.

“I know this is hard to hear, Iphigenia,” said Helen, “but your father came to Mycenae and murdered Tantalus and then he-” She raised her sleeve over her mouth, and looked away. “He took the baby from your mother’s arms and he dashed it to the stones and smashed it to pieces. My nephew.”

With a quick glance over my shoulder, I saw that the servants were clearing out the benches and the canopy. Iamas helped a young girl douse the lamps. Behind me, there was safety, there was familiarity. I stepped back. Helen caught my hand.

“He was a round, happy baby. I only saw him once before-” She broke off. “After your father killed Tantalus, he forced Clytemnestra to marry him, and became king of Mycenae. I see him holding your hand and I worry. My sister doesn’t want you to know, but you need to be warned. Your father isn’t what he seems. He’s the kind of man who would kill a baby.”

I broke away and fled toward the bustling servants. My feet pounded past Hermione who glared at me, and then turned toward Helen, her expression aching with desire for her mother’s attention.

Jealous woman. Vain woman. Boastful woman. I never believed her. I never believed you would kill a child.

After mother fell asleep, I took Orestes in my arms and crept out of the tent. We made our way to the shore where the night sea looked like obsidian, reflecting the glow of the dandelion overhead.

I broke off a piece of branch the length of Orestes’s arm and gave it to him, but I couldn’t remember why. He stared at me with puzzled eyes until I took it away again and threw it toward the boats.

“Why don’t you speak?” I asked him. “You’re old enough.”

Orestes stretched out his chubby hands. He snuggled his face against my chin and throat, warm as a cat. He liked to snuggle when I was distressed. It made him feel powerful that he, too, could give comfort.

“I am dissolving into pieces,” I told him. “I need you to remember me for me. Will you do that? Please?”

He stared up at me with sincere, sober eyes.

“I am your sister,” I said. “My name is Iphigenia. I love our father very much. I am going to be murdered by our father, but you must not be angry with him for that. To be angry with our father is to be angry with everything. It’s to be angry with wind and war and gods. Don’t be angry with him.

“I was born on an autumn day when the rain fell, scented with the crisp aroma of falling leaves. I was born with the sound of thunder, but I was terrified of it anyway. When the palace rattled with strike and clash, I would run to hide behind mother’s loom. She would glare at me and tell me to find something useful to do, but when I lay down beside her and stuck my thumb in my mouth, she would lean down to stroke my hair.

“I love music, but I can’t sing. Our mother forever tells me to hush. I sang to you often anyway. When I sang, you laughed and clapped your hands. I taught you songs, but I don’t remember them anymore. I want you to remember the things I taught you, whatever they were.

“Our grandmother was raped by Zeus when he turned into a swan, and our mother’s sister was born out of an egg. Gods are our aunts and cousins, but we are only mortal. I am particularly mortal. I am weak and not very brave and I will die quickly, like those things they put in my hair for my wedding that never happened.

“I am afraid to die. I am afraid of losing simple things. Things like…” My memory cast a net through dark waters, coming up empty. I drew from what I saw. “Things like the smell of salt near a dark sea, and how warm your hand is, and how much you make me feel without ever speaking.

“I’ve lost so much already. I don’t want to lose any more.

“Should I be glad that I’ll never see the sun again so that Helen can be led like an errant child back to the marriage bed she desecrated? Should I rejoice that my death will enable my father to slaughter Trojans over a vixen that ran into the hills when she went into heat? Should my life dower the frigid air that passes between my uncle and his whore?

“I used to learn things, but now I forget them. I think I liked learning things. I need you to learn things for me now. Learn how to love someone, and how to survive a tragedy. Learn how to swing a sword, and how to convince an opponent when you have no argument but justice. Learn how to polish your armor until you become a glowing golden man, and then learn to be a flame that fuels itself. Learn to be your own wind. Will you? Will you please?”

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.