I looked up into your eyes and saw that you were crying. Your smile felt as false as mother’s. Your tears washed over the place where I’d once kept the day when Orestes was born.
“Stop this,” said mother. She pulled me away from you and pushed me toward the other end of the tent. Orestes sat on the cushions beside me, a wooden toy in his hand, watching.
Mother turned to confront you. “I have heard a terrible thing. Tell me if it’s true. Are you planning to kill our daughter?”
Your eyes went blank. “How can you accuse me of such a thing?”
“I’ll ask again. Answer me plainly this time. Are you planning to kill our daughter?”
You had no answer. You gripped the hilt of your branch, and set your jaw. Tears remained immobile on your cheeks.
“Don’t do this.” Mother grasped at your shoulder. You wrenched away. “I’ve been a model wife. I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me. I ran your home and raised your children. I’ve been chaste and loyal and honorable. How can you repay me by killing my daughter?”
She snatched Orestes from the cushions and held him toward you. He began to cry and kick.
“Look at your son. How do you think he’ll react when you murder Iphigenia? He’ll shy away from you. He’ll fear you.” She turned the baby toward her. “Orestes, do you hear me? Do you want your father to take your sister away?”
You tried to grab my brother. Mother held him tight. Orestes screamed in pain and fear.
“He’ll hate you or he’ll imitate you,” mother shouted over his wails. “You’ll teach your son to be a murderer! Is that what you want?”
You pushed Orestes into his mother’s arms and stormed away from her. You stopped a short distance from me and reached for my arm. I flinched away.
“Are you happy, Clytemnestra?” you asked. “You’ve scared the girl. She could have gone thinking that she was going to be married. Now she’s going to be terrified.”
You leaned close to touch my hair. (Tugging my ponytaiclass="underline" “It’s a good thing you were born a girl.”) You dropped a kiss on my brow. (“I know this is hard to hear,” said Helen, “but your father is the kind of man who would kill a baby.”) I wrenched backward.
“What do you want?” I asked. “Do you want me to take your hand, blithe and trusting as any goat that follows its master back to the camp to see men fighting in the fog? I’m not a little girl anymore.”
I looked into your angry, sneering face.
“Or do I have it wrong?” I asked. “Do you want me to kick and scream? Do you want me to have a tantrum like Orestes so that later you can think back on my wailing and berate yourself about the terrible things you’ve done?”
You tossed your head like a disquieted horse. “You’re acting mad.”
I laughed. “So I’m right, am I? You’re already beginning to make me into an idea. A difficult decision rendered by a great man. Well, stop now. This is only difficult because you make it so. All you have to do is break your vow and spare my life.”
“Menelaus and Odysseus would take the armies and bring them to march against Mycenae. Don’t you see? I have no choice.”
“Don’t you see? It should never have been your choice at all. My life isn’t yours to barter. The choice should have been mine.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand that you want me to pity you for my death.”
Wind whistled through my brain. The edges of the tent rustled. Sand stirred. Strands of mother’s hair blew out from her braids.
“You know, I never believed what Helen told me. Did he look like Orestes, father? Did my elder half-brother look like Orestes when you dashed him to the rocks?”
You glowered at my defiance. “This is how you beg me to save your life?”
“Is it sufficient?” I asked, but I already knew the answer. I inhaled deeply. “Don’t kill me.”
I had forgotten how to beg.
With almost nothing of myself remaining, I found myself reconsidering my conversation with Helen. Without my ego to distract me, I concentrated on different details, imagined different motivations behind her words. Did I think Helen was arrogant because that was what everyone said about her? Was she boastful or simply honest?
As Helen sat beneath the olive tree, watching me admire her face, she sighed. I’d always believed it was a sigh of pride. Perhaps it was weariness instead. Perhaps she was exhausted from always having to negotiate jealousy and desire when she wanted to do something as simple as holding her niece’s hand.
“You’ll be beautiful one day, too.” Was she trying to reassure me?
“Not as beautiful as you,” I demurred.
“No one is as beautiful as I.”
Her voice was flat. How must it have felt, always being reduced to that single superlative?
After she told me the terrible things about my father, I fled into the crowd to search for my mother. I found her holding a stern conversation with one of Helen’s women. She wouldn’t budge when I tried to drag her away. She dabbed my tears and told me to find Iamas so he could calm me down.
It wasn’t until I crumpled at her feet, distraught and wailing, that she realized I was suffering from more than a scrape.
She slipped her arms around me and helped me to stand, her embrace warm and comforting. She brought me to her rooms and asked what was wrong.
I repeated Helen’s words. “It isn’t true!” I cried. “She’s mean and vain. Why would she lie about something like that? Tell me she’s lying.”
“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.