The Three Sirens

by Irving Wallace

  Claire, cut the last sentence, revise as follows … Being in the field again, after all those sedentary mourning years, has revitalized me. Adley would be so pleased. I will not lie to an old friend like you, Walter. I do miss Adley not being here. You will understand that. When I’m alone at night, and all are asleep, and I’m making my notes, I often find myself automatically looking up to discuss a point of information with Adley, and I am surprised that he is not sitting across from me. This is a hard reality of life. I do not know if more and more years will change it. There is simply no one to replace him. I doubt that there will ever be. But I am grateful for the gifts he has left me, a generous share of his wisdom, a strength derived from him … New paragraph … Do not misunderstand, Walter. I have no deep complaints. I am wealthier than most, in that I have a work I love, and a family I love. My daughter-in-law, Claire, whom you have not yet met, has adapted marvelously to the field. She has my own lively thirst for knowledge, and many abilities. She has been of inestimable value to me. In the past weeks, she has carried the burden of my stenographic work. She has served as my lieutenant with other members of our group. She has spent considerable time in the company of Mr. Courtney, interrogating him, and reported information to me that I might not otherwise have learned. As to Marc, he has been …”

  Her mind wandered. He has been—what? Maud watched the tape continuing to unwind, and she was not sure what she should tell it and Walter Scott Macintosh. Quickly, she pressed the button marked “Stop.” Abruptly, the tape was still, poised, waiting.

  Marc disconcerted her. He had always been a docile child, and as a grown man he had been submissive, only sometimes sulky. But since Adley’s death—no, since his marriage, really—or, more accurately, in the past year—he had proved openly willful. More and more often, Maud had found him sarcastic and rebellious in public. And his private moods were blacker and his depressions more protracted. For all her efforts to keep out of the way, to pretend she did not see what she saw, Maud could not help but be aware that her son’s marriage was not the happiest. Often, she wondered what was wrong with it, and often, she thought it might be her own presence. An opportunity to separate herself from Marc and Claire, she had come to believe, would solve their marital problems. Since arriving on the Sirens, she was less certain this separation would solve anything. Marc’s behavior, from the time the project had been considered to the present time, especially during the two weeks on the Sirens, had been a cause for increasing alarm. Something about this field trip, possibly the impact of this society upon him, had heightened an imbalance in his personality. From statements Marc made to her, delivered with unaccountable hostility, from his pronouncements to Claire and several others on the team, Marc’s growing lack of objectivity was only too apparent, and it was deplorable. He was neither anthropologist nor gentleman guest, but rather an adversary of the Sirens.

  Should she speak to him? What would Adley have done? As anthropologist, Maud was confident and decisive. As mother, she was confused and reticent. The moment that she had to communicate with this product of her flesh and blood on an emotional level, deeper than their work, she was held dumb. Still, something must be done to curb his public displays of disapproval. Perhaps, if the right opening came, she would find a way of drawing Marc out, and advising him. Perhaps, first, she might consult with Rachel DeJong, who was, after all, experienced in these matters. Then, Maud realized that she could not consult a psychoanalyst. If it got out, Marc would be furious at being made to seem yet more inadequate. No, there was no avoiding a face-to-face, mother-to-son confrontation. She would wait for the opportunity. She would see.

  Maud reached for the lever beneath “Rewind,” swung it left, saw the tape whir into reverse, immediately stopped it. She punched the “Play” button. She listened.

  Her voice, with a rasp unfamiliar to her, came through the speaker. “—reported information to me that I might not otherwise have learned. As to Marc, he has been …”

  She stopped the tape, pecked at “Record” again, and lifted the microphone closer to her mouth. “—extremely helpful,” she dictated, feeling, in this attempt to further Marc’s career, motherly, protective, and therefore justified. “He spends several hours each day interviewing a valuable informant who is the Chief’s niece. I have not seen Marc’s notes, but from what he passes on to me in conversation, the young lady is articulate. The result will be a penetrating contribution to our study on the mores of the unwed young people of this society. What Marc is learning from Tehura, and Claire is learning from Mr. Courtney, wonderfully supplements the information I am acquiring from Chief Paoti. I have had the Chief recount to me the history of his people and their traditions. Yesterday, I encouraged him to speak of his own life, and he told me of his early years. I hope to bring him along in this vein for another week or more … New paragraph…As to the others on the team …”

  She paused to recollect what they had accomplished these weeks, and what they were doing now. The tape was running blank. Absently, she reached out and pressed down on the “Stop” button.

  She took a hasty mental census of her team, and tried to organize their activities for the benefit of Dr. Walter Scott Macintosh. Of them all, Lisa Hackfeld had been, to Maud, the greatest surprise. Maud had accepted her membership under silent protest, written her off from the start as spoiled and vapid, pegged her as the team’s albatross. Yet, after an unpromising beginning, Lisa Hackfeld had adjusted completely to the rigors of the field. More than that, she was enthusiastic about her role of participant observer. No longer did she complain of the lack of hair dye, although gray was showing at the roots of her hair. No longer did she object to the crude new lavatory, or the lack of furniture, or the omission of dinner service. She had rediscovered the Dance, not for money, fame, health, but for the pleasures it gave her body. From morning until night, every day, she was absorbed in rehearsing with Oviri’s group. She had not found the time, she had cheerfully told Maud yesterday, to write Cyrus her weekly letter.

  From Lisa, Maud’s mind jumped to the professionals of her team. Rachel DeJong was carrying on her lengthy psychoanalytical consultations with Moreturi, Marama, and Teupa. Except for two brief meetings with Maud—to discuss the role of morals and other venerated relics in the present society—Rachel had been, not unexpectedly, close-mouthed about her patients and her findings. Rachel moved about in a perpetual state of preoccupation. If anything, her familiar phlegmatic air had intensified in the thirteen days. Maud could not know if she was satisfied or dissatisfied, but she was apparently absorbed.

  Harriet Bleaska, on the other hand, was an easier personality to read. Before coming here, she had displayed the practiced extroversion and bounce of so many unwed ugly women. In this society, basically outgoing, she appeared to flourish. Except for the one occasion when she had shown concern over a dying patient and had wished to break a tabu to make him more comfortable, Maud had not seen her solemn. Harriet worked regular hours at the infirmary in collaboration with Vaiuri, a formal young native who was its head man. When she had time to spare, she spent it trying to learn the traditions behind the plants used for drugs that Sam Karpowicz brought her, mindful that one of the reasons she was on this trip was to find, if she could, something of value for Cyrus Hackfeld’s pharmaceutical network. Harriet kept meticulous, if uninspired, notes, and every Friday she submitted them, written on ruled paper in a stilted hand, to Maud, her mentor. Mostly, they were a nurse’s histories of patients in the infirmary. A small percentage of the material was beneficial, in that it revealed the diseases found on the Sirens. Yesterday, Harriet had reported, quite calmly, that she had lost a patient under her care. She alone, of the entire team, had been invited to attend the funeral services today. Maud was pleased at how well this young lady had been accepted by the natives.

  The Karpowiczes had blended into their surroundings as casually as three chameleons. Maud had seen and heard little of them. Sam Karpowicz had decided to defer the major part of his bota
nical searchings to the last three weeks of the field trip. So far, he had concentrated his energies almost entirely on photography, taking both stills and motion pictures. He had spent entire days preparing a pictorial record of the Social Aid Hut, the Sacred Hut, the Chief’s hut, daily life in the village compound, an afternoon meeting of the Hierarchy. The contact prints that he had shown Maud, not all professionally slick and glossy, were less concerned with artistic niceties of composition and light than they were with bringing the little-known community alive in the flesh. The natives of the Sirens seemed to leap from Sam’s prints. Ahead of him still lay a busy photographic schedule. He had told Maud that he planned to cover the infirmary, the school, the various festival activities, spend a day with the village craftsmen, at labor, another with the fishermen, another (under Courtney’s supervision) in the hills and the islets across the way, one more showing the life of a typical young female like Tehura, and an afternoon of candid shots of Maud herself at work in the field.

  In her own unobtrusive way, Estelle Karpowicz too was making a contribution, though more culinary than scientific. When she was not reading or keeping house, she was collecting native recipes, her investigation motivated by nothing more than a personal interest in unusual dishes. Yet Maud saw that her findings might have some footnote value in the published study.

  Originally, Maud had thought that the only person other than Lisa who might not integrate with the group would be young Mary Karpowicz. She had, so to speak, pouted her way across the Pacific. She did not hide her mammoth disinterest in this entire adult balderdash. Maud had feared that her chafing might infect others. Yet, like Lisa, young Mary had done a complete about-face after her second day on the island. While uncommunicative—or rather, given to monosyllabic replies—and possessed of adolescent intensity, she was now a tractable and cooperative child. She attended her school classes willingly, and could often be seen sitting under a tree lost in conversation with a male schoolmate named Nihau. Estelle was delighted, and Maud was satisfied.

  The last member of the team, Orville Pence, had spent the first ten days making a careful study of the Social Aid Hut, its origins, history, regulations, and current operation. Half of his time was given over to recording what he had learned. Only two or three days ago, he had undertaken a new phase of his work. He had begun to test a mixed group of the natives, using not only the standard Rorschach inkblot tests and the Thematic Apperception Test, but several of his own devising. One of these, he had explained to Maud in his sniffing, pedantic manner, was to be the presentation of a portfolio of Western pictorial erotica, to obtain and gauge native reactions. The method was not unfamiliar to Maud, who, with Adley, had frequently in the past showed natives of one culture various picture books of another culture or of life in the United States, in order to stimulate discussion. Orville’s idea of exhibiting Western erotica to a sexually free South Sea society was an inspiration. Maud told herself that she must remember to remark on this in her letter to Macintosh. Aside from his work, Orville Pence, the social being, was less at ease than the others in the group. Except for a nightly highball with Marc, he mingled little with his colleagues. His spinster character, the fussiness and superiority that Claire always mentioned, made it impossible for him to become a participant observer. Although he worked efficiently with the villagers, he was apart from them, and Maud sensed that he did not like the villagers and they had no special affection for him.

  But at least, Maud told herself, Orville had the good sense, the control, to represent himself as a pure scientist. If he felt displeasure, or distaste, he did not reveal it publicly. He tried to perform according to the rules. In this way, he was above criticism and better adjusted than Marc.

  Maud offered the lonely room an involuntary unhappy sigh. Her own Marc, of all people, her Marc, who was trained, experienced, cognizant of what was expected of him, he alone, of the entire team, was proving destructive. She must admonish him.

  Another sigh escaped her, as she leaned forward, pressed the “Record” button, and brought the silver microphone before her to conclude her spontaneous, informal letter to Dr. Walter Scott Macintosh …

  * * *

  For Marc Hayden, the moment with Tehura that he had been fantasying much of every day and all of every night was almost upon him. His breath quickened at the provocation of her words, and he waited for them to end, so that he might make the decisive move.

  They were high above the village, in an isolated grove shielded from the path by shrubbery and trees. The midday heat encompassed them. He could almost smell the desire of his flesh, and the sensuality of her body. He sat cross-legged on the grass, listening to her, and she lay a few feet from him, stretched on her back, one leg straight and limp and the other bent at the knee, so that the short grass skirt was lifted and tantalized him. He wondered if this posture was deliberate, if she knew her power as a female and his desperate hunger for her, or if this was simply her ingenuousness. He could not believe that she did not know what she was doing to him now, did to him every day. If she knew, then the ultimate result was possible.

  Hypnotized, he watched her bosom. One arm was behind her head, cushioning it against the grass. The other was free for the fluid gestures she made when she spoke of the social attitudes of girls like herself on The Three Sirens. When she moved her free arm and shoulder to underline something she said, her breasts swayed with the arm.

  Exhausted by anticipation, Marc shaded his eyes and nodded slowly, thoughtfully, steadily, a pose of deep scholarly meditation. He did not want her to see his eyes, not yet.

  He tried to shake free of her words and remember the road that had brought him so close to the climactic moment. Familiarity breeds attempt, he thought, and congratulated himself for wit. He had seen her regularly, every day, in. the two weeks. Most often they came up to the grove for two or three hours. He would begin with a few prepared questions, and she would reply, going on and on, with amazing candor. Sometimes they would hike through the woods, and talk, and one of these strolls took an entire afternoon. Twice she had invited him to light lunches that she had prepared in the earth oven. Once, he had accompanied her to the communal storehouse for food, and, like a schoolboy carrying his girl’s books, had carried her ration of yams and breadfruit back to her hut.

  Before her, he had played a character he had invented to replace himself, performed the role with the unwavering passion of a great actor impersonating Hamlet on opening night. Whenever he was not listening, he played this character of Marc Hayden. And whenever he had a chance, he inserted this character into her attentive mind.

  Fortunately, while he felt obligated to ask about her and her life on the Sirens, she was more interested in his life in the quaint, distant land of California. In that land, he projected himself as a mythological figure of national importance and immense power. Since Tehura had never been there, she could not contradict him. Of course, some portions of her vision of the American male had been corrupted by that sonofabitch Courtney, but in two weeks Marc had sought to correct Courtney’s picture of their milieu. Marc felt that he had succeeded, or was succeeding, because Tehura was young, imaginative, and wanted to believe in marvels—and because, subtly, he had undermined Courtney’s authority.

  Marc had tried to point out, without being obvious, that Courtney’s opinions were not typical, for Courtney was not typical. Else, why had Courtney fled a land where millions remained? And why had he stayed in exile from his own people? And why did he admit so many sicknesses of the mind? Courtney had been a failure, a small person, affable, attractive but defeated, and had run away. Ergo, his words reflected personal bitterness, not the clarity of truth. Marc had never spoken of Courtney exactly thus—indeed, he represented himself as having affection and pity for Courtney, his countryman—but this was the impression that he had tried to implant in Tehura.

  More affirmatively, he had built up the invention of himself. He had explained that scientists were among the nobility of the West, and tha
t he was a scientist with considerable stature. Because Tehura had once revealed to him a weakness for the material things of life, Marc painted himself and his position in American society in terms of the material. He spoke of the great university under his thumb, and of students and supplicants who hung on each gem of his wisdom and scurried at his command. He spoke of the mansion on the sea where he dwelled with his kin, with servants and magical gadgetry at his command. He spoke of his automobiles, his airplanes, his ships. He spoke of the women who had sought him, and sought him still, and how from among them he had airily crowned Claire. His wand had brought her a life of regal luxury. He spoke of her furniture, her bed, her staffed kitchen, her clothes, her jewelry, her rights. He had made her, as he had the mana to unmake her. He could command any woman, any woman on earth, to this high throne.

  At such times, as he spoke of these autobiographical magnificences, Tehura listened quietly. Except for her eyes, so alert, her countenance conceded no interest, ambition, or wanting. Sometimes, speaking without inflection, which was unnatural for her, she would pose a question, and another, but that was the total sum of her reaction. To someone else, she might have appeared faintly bored or mildly disbelieving, yet held by rhetoric. To Marc, who felt that he knew her inner workings, she seemed impressed with his world and his life, but too proud to reveal it. Only sometimes did he doubt his subversion of her. These were the times when she challenged an American custom as being inferior to her own way of life, but she voiced such objections less frequently now.