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The water has gone cold. Only natural it has. You’ve been sitting here for a while.
The bath is too big. The bathroom is as cavernous as it is ornate. You are an island on to yourself. (You had it built, why are you complaining?)
It is quiet. Which is what you wanted, you retired here to get away from the party, but it should not be this quiet this quickly. Surely there should still be some noise? Surely not everyone could have gone to bed this early? (Why complain? Is it not what you wanted? This is what you wanted.)
How long have you been sitting here, exactly? How long ago did you leave dinner? How long have you even been home? Since this morning? Since this afternoon? (Not home yet? Still on the road? Never home?)
You are in the bath that you had built, (did it look like this?) in the house you raised up (you could have sworn you would have picked different colors) enjoying the fruits of your labor (the rim is spattered with sickly yellow tiles that you hate. They stare at you like eyes).
The whole evening has been like a dream–disjointed, airy, only making sense to its participants. You only remember flashes of isolated images and sounds, never full scenes.
The ground soaked in scarlet and indigo. (Is that fabric familiar to you?)
A young woman laughing. A young woman screaming. (Was she always screaming? Could you tell the difference?)
There are faces you know. You are not sure from where. Faces of the dead, too. You think you see your brother’s face. It is not. He is somewhere else, alive (do not dare beg for it, though. Fate is easily tempted).
There are antlers on the wall. (Did you put them there?)
You see the face of the boy you once called your brother, before you turned to hate him. It is not.
The antlers have turned to horns (or they always were). Are you sure you have seen that tapestry before? Where?
There is a feast. It’s bleeding with colors and chatter and you are great, high on victory and glorious.
All you can smell is carrion. (Was that smell there before?)
What is rot to a king? (It is all you can taste.)
The sweet sick smell of decay is not any weaker in the bathhouse. You thought you could escape it with incense or nice oils, but no. Like a half-crushed, writhing beetle, it lingers. (Maybe its you (or maybe it is the only thing you are able to smell now)).
Like the beetle, you linger as well. You will sit here as long as you please, and you will leave when you are good and ready (when you can, once again, ignore the smell of death (you are really good at that, are you not? You call yourself “adaptable” for a reason)).
You can taste the presence at your back far before you hear it. Her existence emits a sense in it of itself, in some unexplainable way. Like the air before a storm. Like a ghost (like a wraith (like sin)).
You do not turn to look. You do not have to (and whatever happens, it will not count if you do not look).
“I know you’re there.”
No response.
“I know what you’re doing.”
The chasm screams.
“You’re trying to draw this out. Lead me on, or make me uncomfortable, or something.”
You try to sound powerful, like you own the place (and you do still own the place (right?)). You are used to sounding powerful, but it is an uphill battle with your back turned, exposed, soaked and cold. She must see all your scars from this angle. Every proof that you are weak and slow enough to hit.
“I haven’t forgotten what you’re like, you know. You’ve got some sharpened speech prepared and hidden in your mouth.”
Her vile mouth, razor blade mouth, too smart mouth, too familiar mouth. A mouth you will never be able to kiss again.
“Can you just get on with it?” Scream. Break something over your head. Humiliate you. Tell you everything you are. “Say something?”
“What is there to say?”
Her voice cuts through you, like a knife to the back, would bring you to your knees if you were not already seated. It is like you are hearing it for the first time in a lifetime. It is harsher than you remember (if your memory is even right).
“Obviously you do. Or you wouldn’t be here.”
“It’s my home. I will go where I wish.”
“It’s our home.”
“Who has been managing it? Not you, certainly.”
“I’ve killed for it.”
“You have, haven’t you?” You do not have to turn around to see the blood dripping from her lips as she says it.
You would do anything to keep the house that formed you; you’ve been molded to fit into the crevices of its walls, if it crumbled, where would there be for you to lay your head? In all your fantasies of breaking the roof and walls open to let the light in, would you turn your face to it if you did? Would you wither? Would you grieve, as you would grieve your father, your mother, your cousin?
(Once, in this house, against all odds, the light touched a young girl’s room. A miracle in a fox hole. Now, nothing touches that old room.)
“Where are the children?”
“‘Where are the children?’” she echos, like it is the most obvious thing in the world.
“They weren’t there to greet me when I rode in. I haven’t seen them all evening.” This is a lie. You know it is a lie. Did you not see your second oldest (oldest now, technically (now older than your oldest)) at dinner, almost swallowed by the crowds? She could have been anyone, really. You only know it was her because, for the second you looked at her, you saw she had her mother’s eyes, and the same curve of her nose that yours has.
She was a grown woman now. Fully formed in the same crevices you grew in. You could see the fault lines on her face. Is the carrion smell new, or has she grown accustomed to it? Is this just what home smells like to her?
You turned away from her. Pretended you did not see her. If you do not look, it does not count. With luck (what luck?), she will be left untainted.
However, you did not see your youngest daughter or your son at all. You are not even sure they were in attendance (they were so young when you left them, though, would you recognize them now? (Did you even actually see Electra, or just a woman you thought looked like what she should look like?)) So it is a half truth–the best kind of lie.
“They’re asleep, most likely.”
“They didn’t want to see me?”
“You still think they should?”
“They should know what kind of man their father is.”
“They already do.”
“I would like to see the children.”
“Do you? Really?”
Maybe you do not. You are not sure what you could give them at this point. Love? Where did all your love go? (It is buried in a beach at Aulis.)
Where did all your love go? (You left it under the floorboards of the house.)
Where did all your love go? (You ate it, choked it down just to carry yourself further.)
Where did all your love go? (It was never there at all.)
When you turned away from Electra, she was gone in a blink. Replaced by a woman with plague-yellow eyes, smiling with a kind of bitter triumph. Like she knows something you do not. She always looks at you like this. It is infuriating. You should really (throttle)(kill)(hold)(apologize to) do away with her.
Always? How long have you known her? You have had her five days. Six days? Eight, maybe? Her face looks familiar. Did you see her in the wedding procession?
“You only want your children?” She will not be ignored. “Nothing for me? Go on. Turn. Look at me.”
You want to. The thought is sticking your hand in a roaring flame. You do not.
“I didn’t want to leave you there.”
“Who made you, then?”
(Whoever made you not enough of a man to look her in the eye. Not enough of a man to stand up for her. Not enough of a man to do it yourself.)
“You know there is a sickness in my blood. In our blood, now. It follows me where ever I go. I didn’t think it would touch you. I don’t know why.”
“What, you thought you could,” she chokes on the words, then decides on, “purify me?” Like the idea of purity or the adjective applying to her is completely absurd.
Of course you do not. Filth does not purify filth.
“Not what I meant. I just need you to know that,” you do not know what you wanted her to know. (Is there anything she does not already?) “I didn’t want that to happen to you.”
“There’s a lot of damn things you don’t want, aren’t there? You didn’t want to be a drunk either, right? You didn’t want to be your father. How do you think that turned out?”
She is right, but you are fairly certain you have never said that to her. Did her mother say that to her? When? Are you just that obvious?
“How would you know that? You never met my father.”
“Your father is my own.”
(Sounds about right, does it not?)
You had no illusions about marrying for love. Neither did your wife. Your courtship of her was predicated on ugly practicality, a means to a father-in-law. You are not really sure what she (what you) expected.
(Did you not mean it when you kissed her? When you held her? When you tried to convey confessions you could not choke out? When you promised her the world, knowing in the back of your mind what she would pay for it?)
“What do you want from me? We have made our choices. What should I do about it now? Rewrite the world?”
And then she laughs. It is off-key and cacophanous, more akin to someone mocking the sound. (Is it not enough for you? Did you not miss how she laughed?)
“Do you want to know something?” she heaves. She is getting impatient. “I really thought you were worth something. I thought if you were worth loving, you were worth fighting. At least worth hating. Now, you come to my doorstep, and you act like I’m barely there. One of your mounts on the wall.”
“I don’t know what you’re expecting.”
“You said you were strong. Said you were brave. Said you were a man. I believed you. Was that ever true?”
You fall silent. You tell yourself you were.
(You heard she was brave, after it was over. Your little girl, so brave, and dignified, and strong. You should have been proud. But you would not know. You did not look. It does not count if you do not look.)
“You were never much of anything at all, were you?”
(She was brave for you. Were you ever brave?)
(You got what all fathers wish for—your child died greater than you.)
(Aren’t you proud? Aren’t you proud? Aren’t you proud?)
“I am exactly what I always was.” Then, the words that surprise you to have finally been said: “I am sorry for what I am not.”
She breathes deep behind you, just an inch away. Close enough to turn and touch her, if you dared.
“Don’t be.” Her voice is silky and cold, like you could fall asleep in it on an autumn evening.
If you do not turn around, she is anything you want her to be. Alive and dead. Ghost and flesh. She can be like she was on her wedding day.
“I miss you.” It is the only thing you can find left to say.
“Turn around, Agamemnon.”
“Not yet.” Pretend a second longer. Savor it. You will not get it again.
“Turn around. I will not do this with your back turned. I will not be you.”
You turn, your mouth about to form the words to ask what she means, and you catch a glimpse of your wide-eyed reflection before the axe falls, with practiced ease. There is a wet cracking, a headache, a great splitting, and another, and another as your cursed tangle of thoughts spills forth into the dirty water. Then, a thick fog. Then, a warm quiet. Then, you are not much of anything at all.