Rachel Swirsky - A Memory of Wind

“Of course she is,” said mother, patting me vaguely on the head. “No one would be monstrous enough to do that.”

She pulled the blanket to my chin and sat beside me and stroked my hair (oh, mother, did you never learn another way to comfort a child?). I fell asleep, head tilted toward her touch.

Later, I woke to the sound of voices in the corridor. They drifted in, too quiet to hear. I tiptoed to the door and listened.

“I’m sorry,” said Helen, her voice raw as if she’d been crying. “I didn’t mean to scare her.”

“Well, you did. She’s inconsolable. She thinks her father kills babies.”

“But Clytemnestra-”

“Stories like that have no place in this house. I don’t understand what was going on in your head!”

“He’s a killer. How can you stand to see him with that sweet little girl? I think of my nephew every time I look at her. He’s a monster. He’d kill her in a moment if it suited him. How can you let him near her?”

“He won’t hurt her. He’s her father.”

“Clytemnestra, she had to know.”

“It wasn’t your decision.”

“It had to be someone’s! You can’t protect her from a little sadness now, and let him lead her into danger later. Someone had to keep your daughter safe.”

Mother’s voice dipped so low that it was barely more than a whisper. “Or maybe you couldn’t stand to see that I can actually make my daughter happy.”

Helen made a small, pained noise. I heard the rustling of her garment, her footsteps echoing down the painted clay corridor. I fled back to mother’s blanket and tried to sleep, but I kept imagining your hands as you threw a baby down to his death on the stones. I imagined your fingers covered in blood, your palms blue from the cold in your heart. It couldn’t be true.

You called two men to escort me to Calchas. One wore his nightclothes, the other a breastplate and nothing else. Patchy adolescent beards covered their chins.

Mother wept.

You stood beside me. “I have to do this.”

“Do you?” I asked.

The soldiers approached. In a low voice, you asked them to be gentle.

My emotions lifted from me, one by one, like steam evaporating from a campfire.

Fear disappeared.

“Don’t worry, mother,” I said. “I will go with them willingly. It is only death.”

Sadness departed.

“Don’t grieve for me. Don’t cut your hair. Don’t let the women of the house cut their hair either. Try not to mourn for me at all. Crush dandelions. Run by the river. Wind ribbons around your fingers.”

Empathy bled away.

“Father, I want you to think of all the suffering I’ve felt, and magnify it a thousand times. When you reach the shores of Troy, unleash it all on their women. Let my blood be the harbinger of their pain. Spear them. Savage them. Let their mother’s throats be raw with screaming. Let their elder brothers be dashed like infants on the rocks.”

Love vanished. I turned on my mother.

“Why did you bring me here? You saw him kill your son, and still you let me hold his hand! Why didn’t you remember what he is?”

I pushed my mother to the ground. Orestes tumbled from her arms. Bloody fingers on blue hands flashed past my vision in the instant before mother twisted herself to cushion his fall.

I forgot resignation.

“Why did you write that letter? Am I worth less to you than the hunk of wood they used to make your staff of office? Would it have been so bad to be the man who stayed home instead of fighting? Let Menelaus lead. Let him appease Artemis with Hermione’s blood. If a girl must die to dower Helen, why shouldn’t it be her own daughter?

“Did you raise me only so that you could trade me in for the best offer you could get? A wealthy husband? Influential children? A wind to push you across the sea?

“Mother, why didn’t you take me to the hills? Helen went! Helen ran away! Why didn’t we follow Helen?”

You uttered a command. The soldiers took my elbow. I forgot how to speak.

Your soldiers escorted me through the camp to the temple. Achilles found me on the way. “You’re as beautiful as your aunt,” he said.

The wind of my forgetfulness battered against him. Effortlessly, Achilles buffeted against its strength.

“I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “It takes courage to walk calmly to your death. I wouldn’t mind marrying you. Talk to me. I only need a little persuasion. Tell me why I should save your life.”

Voiceless, I marched onward.

I forgot you.

They washed and perfumed me and decked me with the things that smell sweet. You came before me.

“My sweet Iphigenia,” you said. “If there was anything I could do to stop it, I would, but I can’t. Don’t you see?”

You brushed your fingers along my cheek. I watched them, no longer certain what they were.

“Iphigenia, I have no right, but I’ve come to ask for your pardon. Can you forgive me for what I’ve done?”

I stared at you with empty eyes, my brows furrowed, my body cleansed and prepared. Who are you? asked my flesh.

They led me into Artemis’s sacred space. Wild things clustered, lush and pungent, around the courtyard. The leaves tossed as I passed them, shuddering in my wind. Sunlight glinted off of the armor of a dozen men who were gathered to see the beginning of their war. Iamas was there, too, weeping as he watched.

Calchas pushed his way toward me as if he were approaching through a gale, his garment billowing around him. I recognized the red ribbons on his headband, his indigo eyes, his taut and joyless smile.

“You would have been beautiful one day, too,” she said.

Not as beautiful as you.

“No one is as beautiful as I.”

His breath stank with rotting fish, unless that was other men, another time. He held a jeweled twig in his hand-but I knew it would be your hand that killed me. Calchas was only an instrument, like Helen, like the twig.

He lifted the jeweled twig to catch the sun. I didn’t move. He drew it across my throat.

My body forgot to be a body. I disappeared.

Artemis held me like a child holds a dandelion. With a single breath, she blew the wind in my body out of my girl’s shape.

I died.

Feel me now. I tumble through your camp, upturning tents as a child knocks over his toys. Beneath me, the sea rumbles. Enormous waves whip across the water, powerful enough to drown you all.

“Too strong!” shouts Menelaus.

Achilles claps him on the back. “It’ll be a son of a bitch, but it’ll get us there faster!”

Mother lies by the remnants of the tent and refuses to move. Iamas tugs on her garment, trying to stir her. She cries and cries, and I taste her tears. They become salt on my wind.

Orestes wails for mother’s attention. He puts his mouth to her breasts, but she cannot give him the comfort of suckling. I ruffle his hair and blow a chill embrace around him. His eyes grow big and frightened. I love him, but I can only hug him harder, for I am a wind.

Achilles stands at the prow of one of the ships, boasting of what he’ll do to the citizens of Troy. Menelaus jabs his sword into my breeze and laughs. “I’ll ram Paris like he’s done to Helen,” he brags. Odysseus laughs.

I see you now, my father, standing away from the others, your face turned toward Troy. I blow and scream and whisper.

You smile at first, and turn to Calchas. “It’s my daughter!”

The priest looks up from cleaning his bloody dagger. “What did you say?”

I whip cold fury between your ears. Your face goes pale, and you clap your hands to the sides of your head, but my voice is the sound of the wind. It is undeniable.