“Yes, low-cut gowns—decolletage, it is called. Our women know this attracts men, so they expose a little here, a little there, a trifle, but they do not show everything. It is simply not done, except in private.”
“That is why you were angry with your wife? She broke the tabu?”
“Exactly.”
Tehura smiled sweetly. “I do not believe you.”
Marc felt the jab of fear in his chest. He stiffened to counter the threat. “What in the devil is that supposed to mean?”
“Simply, I do not believe you. Come, let us—”
He moved to intercept her. “No, wait—I want to know—Why do you think I became angry with my wife?”
“I cannot explain to you. It is a feeling I have that there are other reasons. It is also some things Tom has told me about the American men. Maybe someday I can speak of this. Not now. Come, I will be late.”
Sullen at her superiority, Marc walked beside her.
Her eyes, on his features, were amused. “You should not always be so angry at everyone, at yourself. You have so much, have you not? You are a handsome man—”
“Well, thanks for that.”
“—with a beautiful wife. I am beautiful, too, and proud of it, but when I was beside her last night, I felt less beautiful.”
“Don’t tell me you envy a poor American.”
“Oh, no. I have more than Mrs. Hayden in other ways. I am jealous of no woman. What is there to want?” She started toward the path, stopped, and slowly turned, “The bright ornament she wore from her neck. I have never seen such—”
“You mean, the diamond pendant?”
“Is it rare?”
“It is costly, but not rare. Countless American women receive them as gifts from their husbands and lovers.”
Tehura nodded, thoughtfully. “For a female, such things are nice, very nice.”
She turned and went down the path. Marc’s heart swelled. Until this second, her self-satisfaction, her supremacy, had been impregnable. In the prism of Claire’s diamond, he could see the crack in Tehura’s armor. She was vulnerable, after all, this too-perfect, too-assured child of nature. She was a female like any other, to be lured, to be enticed, to be finally bought and brought down.
Almost jauntily, hands thrust in his pockets, Marc entered the path behind her. For the first time, he looked forward to what lay ahead.
* * *
A half-hour after lunch, Dr. Rachel DeJong stood in the front room of the vacant hut that Courtney had located for her work, and ruefully, she considered its shortcomings.
Missing from the room were couch and chairs, desk and lamps, bookcase and file cabinets, telephone and message pads. While the primitive office was hers alone, tabu to all but patients, any atmosphere of seclusion, so necessary, was shattered by the village noises—squealing youngsters, chattering women, shouting men, cawing birds—that ambushed her through the thin cane walls.
So very far from the hushed slickness of Beverly Hills, California, U.S.A., Rachel thought. If only her learned colleagues, with their endless social weekends in Ojai and sports cars and decorators, could see her now. The idea of this diverted Rachel, and she could not repress a smile. With a practical eye, she studied the room, trying to figure out what might be done to improve it for her consultations.
Since there were only the pandanus mats, she set about rearranging those. She brought all the extra mats from the edges of the room, and by piling one on the other, she created a legless couch and headrest that would elevate the patient several inches from the floor. For herself, next to the headrest but slightly behind it, she built her legless chair with added mats. This done, all furnishing possibilities had been exhausted.
Rachel’s watch told her that in ten minutes the first of her three patients would arrive.
As frugal about time as she was with her income and her emotions, Rachel prepared to use her ten minutes gainfully. She found the pen and shorthand pad in her purse, and with these she sat on her mat chair and resumed the diary, the supplement to her clinical notes, that she had begun writing yesterday afternoon.
“Morning began with orientation lecture by Maud Hayden. Enjoy her, but find her platform manner cross between Mary Baker Eddy and Sophie Tucker. Most of it elementary tenderfoot Baden-Powell handy hints. Got kick out of her advice we emotionally transfer to natives. Doesn’t she know they must transfer to me?
Actually, she was very good on necessity of establishing rapport and being participant observer. I shall be firm with myself on this, overcome that in my nature which makes me stand off, watch from arm’s length, regard everyone as specimen. That, I suppose, was the barrier between Joe and me. (I had better make this diary less personal or there will be nothing of The Three Sirens in it.)
“After lecture, Courtney escorted Marc H to Chief’s place. Marc not unattractive, but one feels strain held behind amiability—suspect potential paranoid schiz—battered superego—possibly paranoid defense against latent homosexuality—can’t be sure yet.
“Afterwards, Courtney took Orville Pence and self across village to the Social Aid Hut. I find Pence a dictionary of repressed tends. I can almost see him writing the letter John Bishop wrote to Increase Mather: ‘The Lord rebuke that worldly, earthly, profane & loose spirit up & down in the country …’ To know his fantasies! I had double curiosity about the Social Aid Hut—for myself, to know what it was really like, and for Orville, to see how he would react. His shield of professionalism hides everything. Except his eyes. They sparkle. The voyeur, no question.
“The Social Aid Hut looks like a huge hill made of woven bamboos. I did not know what to expect inside. Revels? Orgies? It turned out to be quite as proper and orderly as Brigham Young’s Lion House, except in one respect. The unclad young men and women everywhere, the excessive amount of vigorous flesh, gave the center its sensual character. How can I describe the pleasure house? Inside it was comparable to a huge sport field house with many locker rooms. Actually, there were private rooms and open compartments and several big social rooms. We saw healthy young men, and some older ones, squatting or lolling about, smoking, gossiping. Could not find out why they were not working. Also, here and there, six or seven women napping or having their meals. Women ranged from—a guess—nineteen to one of fifty years.
“According to Courtney, the Social Aid Hut is a central meeting place, a club forbidden to all others, for the diversion of unmarried natives, meaning bachelors, single women, the divorced, the widowed. Here they consort, and have social as well as sexual intercourse. It serves another function, at which Easterday hinted, some unique method of giving the villagers full sexual satisfaction, but what this method is our Courtney would not reveal. He preferred that the information come to us directly from a native. The Social Aid has for its overseers not chaperones but administrative heads, decision-makers—one woman of forty-five, Ana, and one man of fifty-two, Honu. The woman was not present, but the man was, a straight, spare, kindly man whom I liked instantly. Honu offered to show us around more carefully, but Courtney had made an appointment for me with the Marriage Hierarchy, and since this concerned my immediate work, I left with Courtney. Orville Pence stayed behind with Honu, and I shall have to find out what he learned.”
Rachel’s fingers felt cramped on the pen, and she ceased recording the events of her day momentarily to knead her hand. Doing so, she read what she had written, and then she idly considered whether Joe Morgen would or would not have the opportunity to one day read her diary. What would he make of it, of her apparent ability to write about love and discuss it frankly and with detachment, and her inability to face it in her own life?
When she had sent him the long, personal letter informing him—if he was still interested—of her six-week sabbatical to the South Seas, and alluding to certain problems of her own that were at the root of their separation, he had responded speedily. He had met with her in a neutral area, the quiet booth of a cocktail lounge, and he had been amusingly concerned a
nd formal, poor bewildered bear. He had assured her that he was interested in no woman (she made no mention of the Italian starlet) except Rachel. His marriage proposal stood as before. He hoped to spend his life with her.
Relieved by this, grateful for it, Rachel had told him more of her secret self than ever before, of her fears of having a real relationship with a man and of facing the consequences this relationship might produce in marriage. She had come to the feeling, she had told him, that she might solve her problem on this trip. If she succeeded in doing so, she would become his wife upon her return. If she was unable to solve it, she would tell him so, and that would be the end of their association. The getting away, the time to think in a new environment for six weeks, might give her a rational view of herself, and of Joe and herself, and if he would wait, she would do her best. He would wait, he promised. She would write, she promised.
She had the urge to write him this very minute, merely to have contact with him, to know he was there and she was here, and that she was thinking of him. But she knew the diary came first. The mail pickup was still five days off and there would be plenty of time to tell him of her adventure, one that she was not yet sure would profit them.
For a short interval, she stared unseeing at the ledger in her lap, then she recalled what she wanted to make note of, and she resumed her diary.
“In a room of the Chief’s hut, I met the five members of the Marriage Hierarchy, three women and two men, all in their late fifties or early sixties. Their spokesman, a plump lady, dignified (a real triumph, for she wore naught but the grass skirt, and was drooping and bulging), was one named Hutia, wife of the Chief. After Courtney had effected the introductions, and gone off, Hutia explained to me in most general terms the function of her board or panel or whatever it is, the function being largely to supervise marriages and divorces on the Sirens, and to investigate and arbitrate marital disputes. I imagine this is somewhat like a marriage counseling service, but I am not sure.
“Hutia requested that I clarify my own requirements and wizardry. Since Maud had prepared me for this, I was ready. Obviously, not one of them had heard of Dr. Freud or the psychoanalytic process, and trying to explain this, relate this to their everyday life, was not easy. I think we came to an understanding that I had a means of helping the troubled exorcise demons from their souls. Hutia said that they had six applications for divorce, and that she and the Hierarchy would defer investigating any three that I chose to subject to my own techniques.
“Applicants were led in one by one, to sit with me while the Hierarchy remained in background. As each came in, Hutia merely announced a terse biographical summary of the person. For example a short man in his middle forties entered. Hutia said, ‘This is Marama, woodcutter, whose first spouse of twenty years died five years ago. Recently, he took, by mutual consent, a second wife considerably his junior, and now he requests a divorce.’ I was given a minute or two for interrogation of applicant.
“Of the six natives I met so briefly, there were four I could make judgments upon at once. The man Marama was good. Also, a thirtyish woman named Teupa. Two other women were less promising, and I rejected them. That left two, and I was undecided which I should take. One was a placid young man, probably not too imaginative, whom I might have handled with ease. The other young man was named Moreturi, and Hutia announced that he was the Chief’s son, which would make him her own son, too. This made Moreturi a personage, but I could not tell if the Hierarchy-wanted me to accept him or reject him.
“Moreturi proved of powerful stature, but I thought his manner and personality less than attractive. He smiled condescendingly the entire period I questioned him, and turned back my inquiries with teasing quips. Veiled hostility, I believe, toward the idea that a female could have magic and authority to solve his problem or advise him. Before we had finished, I had decided that he would be uncooperative and disruptive and that I had better select the more compliant man. After Moreturi rose, smirking, and left the room, I turned to the panel to tell them I would choose the other and not Moreturi. Somehow, it came out that I wanted Moreturi. It was as involuntary as the speech blunder I committed several months ago in Beverly Hills.
“Sitting here, I try to analyze why, once having made the mistake, I did not retract it before the Hierarchy and present them with the correct name. I suppose, unconsciously, I preferred the Chief’s son for a patient. I do not think it is because of his high station, which would give me prestige in the village. Nor do I believe it is because his position will enhance my paper. I think I was compelled to choose him because his insolence had challenged me to do so. Also, to prove to him that I am not merely an inferior female. It always irritates me when I run into the kind of man who thinks women are good for one thing and nothing else. (In fact, this may be a part of his problem.) At any rate—”
There was a heavy knocking. Startled, Rachel looked up and saw the cane door shudder under someone’s fist.
“Come in—come in,” she called out.
The door flung open, and Moreturi filled it, squinting down at her with a grin, inspecting her from his manly height. He nodded a slow greeting, stepped inside, closed the door softly, and waited, rocking on the balls of his bare feet.
“They say you chose me to come,” he drawled. “I am here.”
The unexpectedness of his appearance—somehow, she had thought that Marama or Teupa would be first—and the fact that he had come upon her just as she had been confiding his name to her notebook, both disconcerted and embarrassed her. It was as if she had been caught flagrante delicto. She could not restrain the redness on her cheeks.
“Yes,” she said, “I—I thought we should get started.”
Momentarily, she was dumb. All of the familiar routine and patter was impossible in this situation. No couch. No person who respected her. No person who desperately sought her help. No person like any person she had ever known, no neat tie and shirt and narrow-shouldered suit, but instead, Rousseau’s noble savage, un-appareled except for the conspicuous white bag between his legs. Her worried eyes lifted to meet his slanted mocking ones.
“What do you want me to do, Miss Doctor?” He had given her title a special emphasis, to show that his regard for her was still qualified by cynicism.
Quickly, she shut the diary, and shoved it into her purse. She patted her hair, and sat more erect on her heightened mattings, recovering some vestige of composure.
“Let me explain, Moreturi,” she said, attempting a schoolteacher approach. “In my country, when one is troubled, has a problem, and seeks psychiatric care, he comes to my office. I have a couch—like a cot, a bed—and the patient lies down, and I sit on a chair next to him or behind him … that—that is the way we do it.”
“What should I do now?” he asked stubbornly.
She indicated the thick strips of matting beside her. “Lie down here, please.”
He seemed to shrug, not with his shoulders, but with his eyes. As if to indulge a child, he carried his muscular body past her, knelt, and stretched out at full length on his back.
“Make yourself as comfortable as possible,” she said, not looking at him.
“It is not easy, Miss Doctor. Here we do not lie this way except to sleep or make love.”
She was too conscious of his presence, and she knew that she could not avoid it. Deliberately, she half-turned to face him, and then, having done so, she regretted it. She had meant to hold on his face, the taunt in it, but almost by uncontrolled reflex her eyes went to his sleek, block chest, and narrow hips, and intrusive codpiece.
Hastily, she averted her eyes, and studied the floor. “It is not necessary to lie down, but it is better,” she said. “It is more comfortable. This is a method of treatment we have to relieve you, to make you happier, better integrated, to free you of guilts and doubts, to help you correct poor judgments and—and impulses. You are called the analysand. I am your analyst. I cannot cure you. I can only advise you, help you cure yourself.” “What must I do
, Miss Doctor?”
“You must talk, just talk and talk, whatever comes to your mind, good, bad, no matter what. We call this free association. You must not think of me. You must allow nothing to interrupt or hinder your flow of memories, feelings, ideas. Do not worry about being polite. Be as rude or frank as you wish. Speak out the very things you would usually not mention aloud, even to your wife or family or male friends. Speak of everything, no matter how trivial, how secretly important. And when you hesitate to repeat some idea, image, memory, know that I want to hear that, too, and want you to hear it aloud, for it may have significance.”
“I talk,” said Moreturi. “What do you do when I talk, Miss Doctor?”
“I listen,” she said, her eyes finding his face at last. “I listen, sometimes discussing certain points, commenting, advising, but most of the time merely being attentive to what you are saying.”
“That will help me?”
“It probably will. To what degree it can help in six weeks, I cannot say. But out of all of your confused, unrelated, mixed-up, seemingly meaningless thoughts there will eventually appear—first to me, later to you—a meaning. Things will add up, things will connect, things will fall in place. Central threads will become visible, and we can draw them out, and find their sources, and eventually, we will find out what is wrong.”
His supercilious demeanor had vanished. “Nothing is wrong,” he said.
“Why are you here?”
“Because I was told to be hospitable and—” He stopped abruptly.
“And what? What other reason, Moreturi?”
“You,” he said. “I am curious about an American woman.”
She suddenly felt uneasy and incompetent. “What is so curious about an American woman?”
“I look at all of you and I think—I think—” He halted. “Miss Doctor, did you mean I should speak everything in my mind?” She was sorry for her professional invitation, but she nodded her permission.
The Three Sirens Page 32
