The Three Sirens

by Irving Wallace

  He had both hands on her arm now. “So is mine, Tehura, believe me, so is mine.”

  “How can it be?” she demanded. “We are—what is your word?—yes, I have it—we are an unusual two people together. Sometimes, I am the insect that you study. Other times, I am the female you want for your passing appetite. Never am I more. I have not complained. I do not know. I understand your feelings, because you are already wealthy with your work and your woman. You have love, the great love, you have your beautiful wife, who is everything—”

  “She is nothing!” he cried out.

  The savagery of his disavowal of Claire gave Tehura pause. She stared at him with new interest, mouth set, waiting.

  “That is the real reason I waited here for you tonight,” he went on in a rush. “To tell you that it is you I love, not Claire. Does that surprise you? Have you heard or seen any evidence of my love for her?”

  “Men are different in their public ways.”

  “My public actions are the same as my private ones. I met that girl, I courted her, I found her agreeable, and because I knew that I must marry someone—it was expected, part of the conformity of our society—I married her. Now I can truly say there was no love between us. I had no desire for her, no burning inside such as I feel for you. When I am with Claire, I can think of a million other things. When I am with you, I can only think of you. Do you believe me?”

  She had watched him, wide liquid eyes shining. She said, “Why have you not left her before? Tom has said this is possible in your America.”

  “I’ve always intended to, but—” He shrugged. “I was afraid. It would have been a social embarrassment. I worried what friends and family would say. So I went on, because it was easier to cause no eruption. Besides, there was nowhere else to go. I’ve gone on for two years, kept her satisfied physically, and in other ways, too, but myself have always been secretly dissatisfied. And then I came here. I met you. And now there is somewhere else to go, and I am no longer afraid.”

  “I do not understand you,” Tehura said quietly.

  “I’ll make myself clearer,” he said. He was up on his knees, fumbling one hand in the pocket of his sport shirt. “I know what ceremonial rites mean to you. I will now perform a rite, one of transferring my full love from the woman who was my wife to the woman who—” He had found what he wanted, and he held it out in the palm of his hand. “Here, Tehura, for you.”

  Puzzled, she reached for what was in his palm, and took it, and let it dangle from her fingers. It was the dazzling diamond pendant set in white gold that hung from a delicate chain, the very one that Claire had worn the first night and that Tehura had admired so constantly.

  With satisfaction, Marc could see that the gift had made her speechless. Her eyes were wide, her lips parted in awe, and the brown hand that held the jewel shook. She looked up from it at Marc, eyes brimming with gratefulness. “Oh, Marc—” she gasped.

  “It is yours,” he said, “all yours, and there will be a thousand more evidences of my love in the days to come.”

  “Marc, put it on me!” she exclaimed with childish glee.

  She twisted about, on the matting, her naked back to him. His hands went over her shoulders, as he took the diamond pendant from her, and looped it around her neck, and fastened the clasp behind. As she bent her head to enjoy it, her fingers fondling the gleaming diamond, Marc’s hands caressed her shoulders, and glided down her arms. Shaken by the texture of her flesh, the imagined promise of it, his hands went to her pointed breasts. She did not seem to mind, as she concentrated on her bauble. Marc’s hands enveloped her breasts, and every limb and organ of his person was inflamed. Releasing one breast, his hand went to her skirt, pulled high on her thighs, and he massaged the inside of her thigh. Never, in his entire life, had he wanted possession of any object as much as he wanted her sexually.

  “Tehura,” he said.

  She glanced from the diamond to him, but did not touch either of his hands.

  “Tehura, I want you forever. I am leaving Claire. I want you for my wife.”

  For the first time, this night, her face was mesmerized by his every word. She said, “You want Tehura for your wife?”

  “Yes.”

  She spun around, to face him, pulling her breast and inner thigh from his caresses. “You want to marry me?” She saw his hands, and covered them with her own. “They will love me, Marc, but wait—I must know—”

  “I want to marry you, as soon as possible.”

  “How?”

  He came down from his knees, trying to let his ardor subside. He told himself what she had just told him, that there was time for love, their love, and they would have it, but first he must explain himself to her. The crucial moment had come, was upon him, he knew, and if he could put aside this towering need to consume her with his lust, he could be rational and persuasive.

  He had planned to propose to her, as he had written Garrity. The first necessity would be to ally her with his ambition. She was the only one here whom he could trust, who could make his dream come true. Without her help, anything further would be impossible. The offer of marriage, coldly calculated, would bring down her defenses, and make her a partner to his scheme. Yet, oddly, the offer of marriage had not been as business-measured as he had planned. It had become warm moist with his surging want of her, his grinding desire to split her asunder, to wrench her away from her haughty untouchability, to have her beneath him, below him, his dependent beggar of love. Out of this had burst his proposal, the very proposal that he had intended to make anyway, but now for the wrong reason, and he saw that he must redirect his motivation and manner, or he would accomplish nothing. He had made a gain with his earnestness, with the stupid pendant, with his offer of marriage. He must exploit it immediately. If she would not acquiesce to all that he had in mind, everything was lost.

  He exhaled, and attempted to consider her with a new, Garrity-oriented objectivity. “How?” she had asked. She wanted to know how he could marry her. He would tell her how, and make his plan their plan.

  “Tehura, I want to take you away from the Sirens, first to Tahiti, and after that to California,” he found himself saying. “The moment that we are in my country, I will divorce Claire, and the day the divorce is granted, I will marry you.”

  “Why not do it here?” she inquired, with a hook of shrewdness that he had often suspected she possessed.

  “You know that’s impossible, Tehura. You have no machinery for my divorce. Except the Hierarchy. They’d have to investigate Claire and myself. Suppose I allowed this—even if we extended our stay—then we would marry by your law, which would not be acceptable in my country. Whatever we do must be legal in the United States. For, there is where I want us to live our lives. From time to time we will come back to this island, so that you may see your own. But my life must become your life. This island is a lovely place, but so small, so inadequate, compared to what you will find and own in my great country. There you will be treated as an exotic beauty, worshiped by a million men, envied by a million women. You will possess not a hut but a house ten times the size of this hut, and servants, and the most expensive clothes, and a car—you know of these things from your learnings—and you will have precious stones like that diamond, as many as you wish.”

  She had listened, it seemed, as a girl child listens to a fairy tale, yet she was not fully carried away. There was something older and more careful about her, the shrewdness again. “Everyone is not so rich in your country,” she said. “I have asked Tom. He says in your country you are not so rich.”

  This was the opening. Marc entered it. “He is right in a way. I am rich when put alongside one such as Huatoro or others of your village. I am not the richest in my own land. I have enough, of course, much mana, as you know. Yet, you also know the value of that pendant. But I will be richer, very, very wealthy, Tehura. To become so, I must have your confidence in what I say next.”

  She nodded. “It is between us.”

 
; “There is enormous interest about places like The Three Sirens in my homeland. You are aware of that. Otherwise, why would we be here studying your people? In a month or two, when my mother brings the news of you to America, it will be scientific and make no one rich—do not ask me to explain this tonight, there is too much to explain—but it is so. On the other hand, if I were to leave here with you as soon as possible, taking with me information on the existence of this place, and offer the news in a popular way to the American public and the world, they would reward us with infinite wealth. Believe me, we would be rich beyond our imagination. I have the proof. I can show you letters. I have a man who will meet us in Tahiti. He has organized it. The three of us will go to the United States by airplane, such as the one Rasmussen owns, and we will tell the world of your remarkable island—”

  “And break the tabu? It would overthrow and put to an end the Sirens.”

  “No—no, Tehura, no more than my mother’s writings and speeches will end the Sirens. I promise you that we will keep its location secret. We will have proof enough of its existence in information I will bring—in—in the fact of you, my wife—”

  “Me?” she said, slowly. “Your people will want to see me?”

  “They’ll want to meet you, see you, hear you, love you. They will shower you with everything you wish. Do you know what is possible?”

  “I have seen the pictures in Tom’s books.”

  “Everything will be yours.”

  Absently, she fiddled with her pendant. “I will be so far from here—I will be alone—”

  He edged toward her, and placed his arm around her. “You will be my wife.”

  “Yes, Marc.”

  “I have promised, I will give you everything.”

  She gazed at the matting, slowly lifted her head, sadness in her smile. “All right,” she said, almost inaudibly.

  His heart skipped and jumped. “You’ll marry me? You’ll go with me?”

  She nodded.

  He wanted to leap and shout with joy. He had accomplished it! Garrity! “Tehura—Tehura—I love you—”

  She nodded blankly, still overwhelmed by the enormity of her decision.

  He was alive now, and efficient. He removed his arm from her. “Here is what must be done—first off, this must be an absolute secret between us—even that pendant, don’t wear it outside, Claire must not know—”

  “Why must she not know?”

  “She loves me. There would be terrible scenes. I just want to elope, go off with you, and afterwards I’ll write her through Rasmussen. And my mother must not know yet, none of them, for they’d try to stop us. They are greedy to have the gains of this island, the discovery of it, for themselves. They would not want us to have the riches the news can bring. And your people must not know either, not Paoti or Moreturi or Huatoro, absolutely no one must know. They might try to stop you, as my people might try to stop me, out of fear or envy. You will keep it secret?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” His head reeled with visions of the potential booty of his victory, and he clambered to his feet, and walked the room. “Here is what we will do. I have thought it out. I am told that from time to time some of your braver young men take canoes or sailing vessels to other islands—”

  She nodded. “They are good with the sea.”

  “We need one of them, Tehura, one we can trust. Are there any such?”

  “Maybe.”

  “We can offer him anything he wants, anything I possess. We would have to slip out of here at night, both of us, and meet with the friend of yours who has a sailing vessel. He would take us to the nearest island where we can obtain a ship or flying boat to Tahiti or can find passage to another island where we can get transportation to Tahiti. After that, we would be safe. Can this be done?”

  “It would be bad for the one who helped us.”

  “When he returned, he could tell Paoti I forced him—I had a weapon—I forced him to do it. That would absolve him. Or maybe he would not have to return. I could give him enough to remain on the outside. Surely, there must be someone.”

  “There might be. I cannot be sure.”

  “Do you want to undertake finding someone?”

  “Yes.”

  He stood over her, beaming down at her. “I knew you would. It is for both of us. How long will it take—to arrange everything?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Can you guess?”

  “A short time. A few days. A week. No more.” She hesitated. “If it is possible at all.”

  “You will have to be careful, Tehura.”

  “I know.”

  He bent, and brought her up to her feet, so light, so pliable in his arms. “And you know I love you, Tehura.”

  She nodded against his shirt.

  “I must teach you to kiss. It is part of our way. I want to seal this, Tehura—love you—kiss you—”

  She brought her head up, full lips parted, and he put his mouth to them and his hands to her breasts. Throughout the last hour, his inner ego and outer being had grown, expanded, enlarged with his achievement, his first knowledge of independence and achievement, so that he felt almost full-grown into manhood. There was only this one unfinished thing left, to impart his new manhood to her, so that he might be certain he had it himself.

  “Tehura—” he whispered.

  She disengaged herself completely, and stepped back, arms at her side, entirely poised.

  “There has been enough tonight, Marc,” she said. “We will know each other the night we leave.”

  “You promise?”

  “I do.”

  “I’ll go then, Tehura.” He went to the cane door. “We will continue our meetings every day, anthropologist and informant, pretend to work. There must be no hint of any change. When you have made the arrangement, you will tell me. I will need but a few hours’ notice.”

  “I will tell you.”

  “Good night, darling.”

  “Good night, Marc.”

  Once outside, and making his way toward the village compound, he decided to write Rex Garrity a second brief airmail letter. The first one, dropped into Rasmussen’s outgoing mail bag in the afternoon, had outlined his intentions. The second letter, the postscript, would announce his triumphant progress, and would request Garrity to meet them in Tahiti. He thanked God that Rasmussen had stayed over an extra day for the festival, and he could post the later news at daybreak.

  By the time he had arrived at the stream, and traversed the bridge, his mind was again on Tehura. A speculation teased his mind. How ingenuous was she? How clever? Everything had gone exactly according to his plan, yet it made him uneasy to think that perhaps everything had also gone according to her plan. This was no reason to feel uneasy, since their goals were one and the same. Yet, a sudden suspicion that she might be as smart as he, not inferior but equal to him, even superior to him, was disconcerting. It was probably not true; still, it was possible. He felt less completely in control, and therefore less his own man. Damn these introverted speculations. Somehow, he felt a shade less happy than before … damn all women, damn everyone …

  VII

  DR. MAUD HAYDEN, smelling faintly of deodorant, sat behind her makeshift desk, squinting past Claire, trying to compose her thoughts. Already, even though it was only mid-morning, Maud’s drip-dry khaki-colored blouse and skirt were beginning to wilt, so that she resembled an obese Girl Scout leader after a two-hour summer’s hike.

  As Claire waited, one leg crossed over the other, her stenographic pad on her knee, her pencil poised, she could feel the oppressiveness of the heat. The sun came through the hut windows like molten pig iron out of a blast furnace, and once inside the room, the sun had a compact thickness that lay against the skin and seared it. Drugged sleep was the one escape, and Claire wished that she was still asleep in her room. But she had been awakened early by Maud, who apologized and explained that the portable tape machine did not work, and was being repaired by Sam Karpowicz. Me
anwhile, there were outgoing letters to be dictated and deposited with Captain Rasmussen when he arrived at noon.

  To Claire, her mother-in-law, divested of the familiar portable tape recorder at her elbow, seemed as helpless as an admiral divested of his epaulets.

  “Well, let me see …” Maud was saying. “Let’s start with Dr. Macintosh. A brief note to keep him up to date.”

  Unconsciously, Claire winced. Until now, she had enjoyed typing the reports to Dr. Walter Scott Macintosh. Each titillating report, Claire had felt, more firmly secured Maud’s chances to become lifetime executive editor of Culture. Claire had instinctively regarded this as good for her own future. For two years, two women had made demands on Marc’s time. With one of the women, namely Maud, off to Washington, the other woman, namely Claire, might receive the attention she had long desired. With Maud out of the way, Marc would be freer to move alone and upwards in the academic world, and Claire would be mistress of her own home at last. This had been Claire’s view of it until this week. Now, suddenly, everything was different and her emotions had been forced into a turnabout.

  Until their arrival on The Three Sirens, Marc had been reserved, difficult, often cold, but he had been possible. He had sometimes been her husband. There was always the hope that he would be a better one. In these recent weeks, he had ceased being her husband altogether. He had become impossible. Hope had vanished. Despite their close quarters, Claire rarely saw him. It was as if he deliberately arranged to be gone in the morning when she awakened, to have always to eat out, to return long after she was asleep. When they were together, there seemed to be other people around them. In the rare times that they were alone, he did not even appear to be avoiding her. It was just that he treated her as if she were not there, as if she were a shade, an invisible woman.

  Never in her life had Claire felt more hurt, more abandoned and lonely. Tom Courtney was kind, very kind, sometimes gallant, and this filled many hours, but Courtney was careful with her. He treated her too correctly, as Someone’s Wife. So, that left Maud. Claire had always adored Maud, a strange contradiction since she had also been hopeful of being rid of her. Recently, Claire had held less regard for her mother-in-law, because Maud had refused to be her confidante in this trying period with Marc. Yet, now that Claire had been abandoned, Maud loomed before her as the last friend on earth, a sheltering Gibraltar. And consequently, she hated to take down in shorthand, and to type and send off, another letter that would help separate Maud from her.