Clytemnestra

by Costanza Casati

Sometimes her anger feels so real that she wishes she could cut it out with a knife.

‘I’m saying that it is hard to find a man who is really strong. Strong enough not to desire to be stronger than you.’

The men Clytemnestra knows don’t speak of their weaknesses. She considers what he said. A life like that is hard to imagine.

Is this what happens when one falls in love and marries? Clytemnestra wonders. Is this what a woman gives up? All her life she has been taught courage, strength, resilience, but must those qualities be kept at bay with a husband?

She will bow to no one. Her destiny will be what she wants it to be.

‘I am sure of it. It is one of those things men say to make sure we feel responsible, while they can be children for ever.’

Why do women always have to leave? Clytemnestra repeats the words in her head until they lose meaning. She doesn’t know the answer. She knows only that leaving doesn’t feel like punishment to her but rather a blessing. Life at this moment is like being at sea, open waters all around her and no coastline in sight, the world brimming with possibilities.

It makes Clytemnestra think of the sky when it is grey and sullen, endless clouds never breaking into rain. Just a tiring, never-ending threat.

Polydeuces knelt next to her. ‘I understand –’ ‘No, Polydeuces,’ Helen snapped back, a flicker of fury in her bright eyes. ‘You don’t. How could you?’ You’re a man.

‘You wouldn’t have been able to handle me,’ she says. ‘I am too fierce for you.’ He laughs. ‘And your husband?’ ‘He likes the fire. He isn’t afraid to burn.’ She says it lightly, with a smile, but she knows it is true. Odysseus strikes her as a man who is fascinated by fierceness, but also repulsed. He values himself too highly to come close to anything that might harm him.

‘Your hatred consumes you,’ Castor says gently. ‘But it also keeps you alive.’

Memory is a strange thing, vicious. The more one wants to forget, the more one can’t help but remember. It is like a rat chewing at the skin, slowly and painfully – impossible to ignore.

Maybe it is good for him never to have what he desires – then others can’t come and take it from him.

‘Of course they are angry,’ Phoebe replies. ‘They are men. They are used to getting what they want.’

But perhaps that is his way into people’s hearts – not his beauty, not his wealth, his story.

All her childhood she has tried to be perfect, to excel in every challenge and mend every broken thing on the way. She did it because her parents taught her so. But that girl – wild and brave, always testing her own courage, always protecting her loved ones – is long gone.

‘Men are usually so invested in themselves, even more so when they are special.

‘People can change their minds, but they can’t change their feelings.

‘Are you happy?’ Clytemnestra asks. The question sounds strange on her lips and she realizes it isn’t something she often asks.

Helen can’t seem to be happy unless she has someone’s attention. It is strange: she who is such a light is always seeking someone who shows her the way.

But now they have grown so used to their aloneness that they don’t even remember what it felt like to be so close to each other.

The pain nearly broke him, and he cried out his anger in the arms of a child.

Why is a reaction to loss always expected? Why can’t loss be something one mourns in private, away from everyone else? Isn’t she mourning if she doesn’t tear out her hair, bruise her cheeks?

‘Why do you make others suffer when you are in pain? Why can’t you weep and mourn like everyone else? Why are you like this?’

If Clytemnestra’s rage was a fire, Helen’s was a lamp, warm and thin in the darkness, but burning if you came too close.

‘There is the truth, and then there is the lie that keeps a kingdom together.’

Her mistake was to trust. It is always the worst mistake to commit.

How is someone not killed by such sorrow?

There is nothing more powerful than a strong-willed woman. That is what you have always been and must be no matter what others do to you. It is easier for a man to be strong, for we are encouraged to be so. But for a woman to be unbent, unbroken, that is admirable.

Is one life really worth more than another? And, if so, who is the judge of that?

In truth we must suffer. In lies we can prosper.

Is there any feeling more painful than regret? It spreads like a fever, invisible, and you can do nothing to fight it.

I would come to you with my gnawing doubts and believed everything that came out of your mouths. Now I answer my own questions, but I don’t really believe in myself.

I spend my days looking at the soldiers cutting each other down on the battlefield, their blood spilling into the shape of anemones, and I wonder, What are you doing, sister? What are you thinking about? Are you happy?

Then, slowly, those thoughts healed her, as much as one so broken can be healed.

‘Well, I am no man,’ she says, smiling again.

‘You say you don’t understand politics, Aileen, but you understand people. They are one and the same.’

When the room falls dark, she searches for a feeling inside her – grief, safety, anger, pleasure, anything.

They are two knives slicing each other, cutting at the bone and thus giving each other pleasure.

His love for her comes like a flood. Sudden, fierce, overpowering. She should have predicted it: to someone who has spent his entire life unloved, unwelcome, it must feel like a miracle to have someone like her beside him.

I thought there was something wrong with me. I thought, If I can’t hear them whisper, then maybe they don’t like me.’

‘Sometimes I fear that I am becoming the person I am pretending to be,’

An easier time, when friends and enemies were stark and clear, and she thought she always knew what was right.

She knows ‘hate’ is the wrong word. But in all these years she has never found the right one. Some feelings aren’t meant to be captured.

‘Gods do not care about us. They have other concerns. That is why you should never live in the shadow of their anger. It is men you must fear. It is men who will be angry with you if you rise too high, if you are too much loved. The stronger you are, the more they will try to take you down.’

That is what everyone does in the face of atrocity: they look away. No one is brave enough to acknowledge the truth, not even a god.

Who decides what can be forgiven? Her heart is beating too loudly, and she is afraid they will hear it.

‘You can’t have justice and everyone’s approval,’

She once asked herself, What does it mean to be queen? Now she knows. It is daring to do what others won’t.

For more than half of her life she has worn vengeance like a second skin. Now it is time to shed it. Who will she be without her anger, her pain? What will her freedom taste like?