The Three Sirens

by Irving Wallace

  Perhaps the time had come, Maud told herself, to assert the authority invested in her as leader of the team, to bring them together, have them air the pressures this study had brought down upon them, and soothe and calm them with learned chapter and verse out of past experiences. But here was Harriet Bleaska, nurse, and the immediacy of her annoyance, and Maud knew that she must meet it now. “I have no idea, Harriet, why Orville is behaving badly with you,” Maud lied, “but if it continues, you let me know. I shall find a way to speak to him about it.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” said Harriet hastily, somewhat placated. “I’ll manage him. He’s probably just been getting up on the wrong side of the bed—of the mat, I should have said.” Her annoyance had been superficial, and fell away, and she giggled at her joke.

  “Was that why you wanted to see me this morning?” asked Maud, trying to repress her impatience at being interrupted in her dictation.

  “As a matter of fact, no. I was really coming here to—to have a little confidential talk with you, Maud.”

  “By all means, Harriet.” She hesitated. “Is there something bothering you?”

  Harriet had located a cigarette and was nervously lighting it. She was more serious this morning than Maud had known her to be since she had joined the team. “Not exactly bothering me,” Harriet said from behind the screen of smoke. “It’s just something I wanted to—to discuss with you—I mean, with your background—” She waited, inviting encouragement.

  “If there’s any way I can be of help—”

  “I really want some information from you,” Harriet said. “I’ve been thinking. You’ve been on many field trips. You know other people who have been on them. You’ve even been down here in Polynesia before—”

  “Yes, all of that is true.”

  “I—well—have you ever heard—do you know any cases of women, American women on field trips, who’ve—well—simply stayed behind, decided not to go home?”

  Maud suppressed a whistle (now this was promising), and her tumid face and ponderous arms remained motionless. “That is an interesting question,” Maud said with earnestness. “As I have told you and the others, I have known cases of women who have cohabited with natives and set up households and had children by their native lovers. As for a more permanent arrangement, one of our women staying behind with a native man, or simply staying behind to live in the new society, I can only think of a few such instances. These I do not know about firsthand. I repeat, a few female anthropologists have done this.”

  “Well, I wasn’t really thinking about female anthropologists,” said Harriet. “I was just thinking of an ordinary woman—a nobody—I mean, who had no career—that would be easier for her, wouldn’t it?”

  “I can’t say, Harriet. It would very much depend upon the woman. Besides, women present a special case. With men, it is different. I know many cases of men in the field who have gone native—that is, ‘stayed behind,’ as you put it.”

  “You do?” said Harriet, eagerly. “Were they happier? I mean, did it work out?”

  “One never knows, truly,” said Maud. “I would imagine so, I would imagine it has worked out many times.”

  “You really know such cases?”

  “Oh, certainly. Some are legend, still discussed whenever anthropologists gather. There was one anthropologist who went into Outer Asia to study the Buddhist tradition. He became so fascinated by the subject, the people, the life, that he was converted to Buddhism and entered the priesthood. He’s probably in some remote lamasery this very day. There was another young man I knew, an anthropologist, who took a field trip to—it was somewhere in Central Africa—and when his study was done, he just staved on and on, and never returned to America. Still another, he went down to our own Southwest to study the Pueblo Indians. In the end, he renounced his old life and joined the Pueblos. Which reminds me of Frank Hamilton Cushing, an ethnologist from Pennsylvania. He went to New Mexico to study the Zuñi Indians, published a book, Zuñi Creation Myths, and was so taken with the life there that he gave up his old life in the East, gave up publishing, and went native. In effect, became a Zuni until he died in 1900. I’ll tell you the best of them—have you ever heard of Jaime de Angulo, who worked up in Berkeley, California?”

  “No—no, I don’t think so,” said Harriet.

  “There’s a story, not to be believed, but most of it true, I’m sure,” said Maud with relish. “Jaime de Angulo was born in Spain, Castilian parentage, reared in a cosmopolitan way, taken to the various spas of Europe by his father. The talk is that he was educated in France, then came over to the United States and acquired his M.D. at John Hopkins. After that, he moved on to California, studied with Kroeber, was a friend of Paul Radin. Anyway, he was a linguist, that was his field, and he could write beautifully in Spanish, French, English, too. He was a very eccentric person. He—oh, well, that’s not what you’re interested in—only I was going to mention that he was said to go stark naked often, even around his home and back yard in Berkeley, or he dressed like the natives here on the Sirens, that is, wearing nothing more than an athletic supporter, and this horrified his neighbors, No matter. The important thing is that he would go on field trips, study the Indians of Mexico, study the Indians of California. He wrote an excellent book on the dialects of various American Indian tribes. When he worked among the Indians, he lived as they did, made himself one of them. Eventually, he found their life more compatible than the one he lived away from them. So he changed his way of life. He had a house in Big Sur, but when he decided to go native, he changed this house into something resembling an Indian hogan. He covered the windows of the house, set up a fireplace in the middle of one room, chopped a hole in the roof above it, real Indian style, and then he would roast his meat over this fireplace, go about undressed as a redskin, chanting Indian songs and beating Indian drums. He went native with a vengeance, and I’m sure he was happier for it. Once, when Ruth Benedict wanted to study the Indians, she wrote Jaime de Angulo and asked for an introduction to informants who could give her information on the ceremonials and so forth. Jaime was indignant. He wrote Ruth Benedict, ‘Do you realize it is just that sort of thing that kills the Indians?’ He meant both spiritually and physically. He wrote her, ‘That’s what you anthropologists with your infernal curiosity and your thirst for scientific data bring about. Don’t you understand the psychological value of secrecy at a certain level of culture?’ Then he wrote her, ‘I am not an anthropologist but I am half an Indian, or more. Don’t forget Cushing killed Zunyi.’ There are some cases for you, Harriet.”

  “The ones you mentioned, I wonder why they changed their lives like that?” said Harriet, thoughtfully.

  “I can only give you my view of it, an educated guess. I would suggest that people who go native are people who have no special ties on the outside, that is, back home. The chances are, they are people who are not entirely satisfied with the lives they lived back home or with our civilization. Tom Courtney is a good example of that, a very good example. In a sense he has cut himself off, gone native. You should speak to him.”

  “I have,” said Harriet.

  “You have?” Maud was surprised. “And what did he say about the whole subject?”

  “He said, ‘My case is too personal. Go speak to Maud Hayden. She’s more detached. She knows about everything.’ So here I am.”

  “Well, I’m flattered by Mr. Courtney, but I don’t know about everything, and in the end this decision comes down to one’s own personality. Those anthropologists who stayed behind, I suppose they found more satisfaction in the native life. After all, what is the ideal basic unit for mankind? It is relatively small. If one works in a small unit, like the village on the Sirens, becomes part of it, absorbed by it, it is hard to break away. If a participant observer goes to a foreign society, and stays six weeks or fifty weeks, the odds are he can get away. If he stays two years, leaving is more difficult. If he remains four or five years, like Cushing and de Angulo, the life in
the native society becomes his accustomed way of life. So, if his memory of life back home is not too good, what he finds in the field may be more appealing. Also, one grows fond of new friends and hates to leave them. Ideally, an anthropologist should not go native. His loyalty must be to his work. He must tread a narrow line, that is, being part of a people, yet not part of them, learning from them, yet not being blotted up by them. A society like the Sirens is highly seductive. In a place like this, I’ve got to tell myself that I must maintain my cultural identity. I remind myself that I’m an anthropologist, and a member of a culture tradition of my own, and I must live by the rules of my home society. I remind myself, always, that I simply can’t be a good anthropologist unless I do get home with the goods, my material, and analyze it and publish it for the use of my own people. But then, I am an anthropologist, and you are not, and you may not be particularly interested in the duties of my profession.”

  “I’m not really, no,” said Harriet, frankly.

  Maud’s eyes narrowed, and she studied the homely girl across from her with keen interest. “What you are saying, Harriet, is that you are interested in yourself, how you would react to going native, possibly staying on here? Is that what you are considering?”

  “Yes, Maud.”

  “Well, this is a serious thing. Have you given it a good deal of thought? Have you thought why you are even considering this change?”

  “Yes,” said Harriet, almost too lightly, “because it’s the only game in town.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand you. What does that expression mean?”

  Harriet exhaled. “It means, I’ve found the one place on earth that wants me. Far as I know, there is no other. Certainly, I’ve found no love, warmth, kindness, no hospitality at home.” She paused, went on quickly, “It’s rotten at home, Maud, and it’s something you’ve never known. You don’t know what it is like to grow up in the United States and be—and be—well, a girl who is unattractive. It’s like, you’ve got to be a movie star, or at least kind of good-looking or nice-looking. Well, who are we kidding? I can say this to you. By the standards the men have at home, I’m zero, less than zero. No man would look at me twice, let alone take me out, let alone—God, even to think of it—marry me. Oh, I haven’t withered in the corner, if you know what I mean. When the boys in school, in the hospitals, found out I didn’t mind going to bed with them—gosh, I had to do something for companionship—I had dates. Then, they found out I was better than the other girls, in making love I mean. There was no trouble getting men, if I did that, but it had to be that, nothing else, never normal relationships. Some men were quite taken by me, that part of me, and it fooled me into thinking they liked me as a woman, might even marry me. But no, in the end it came down to the face and figure, they’d rather have a wife with a face and figure they can showcase, even though she was a lump in bed, than someone like me, even though they enjoyed me more. So, what’s my future if I return, what am I going back to? I haven’t a close family to speak of. Just lots of relatives in the Midwest, busy with their own headaches. I’m alone, on my own, so what will it be? More dreary hospitals and clinics and lousy, lonely apartments at night, until some fresh intern or young doctor or old doctor finds out I will, I’m easy, and by God, I’m good, and so it’s the bed all over again until they’re tired or I press them, and then they’re off to marry some cold dill pickle. Do you know what I mean, Maud? What am I giving up?”

  Somewhat shaken, Maud nodded gravely. “Yes, I understand, Harriet.”

  “Here—why, here I’ve been only three weeks—and it’s like I’m in paradise. Here my face and figure aren’t important, no one gives a damn. What counts here is that I’m warm, and decent, and like to love and be loved, and to those wonderful, wonderful idiots that makes me beautiful. Imagine, Queen of the Festival. Me! And it’s not as if I were a nine-day wonder, I thought of that, too; I’m a stranger, white, different, and I’m good at doing what is important here, more important than looks. I’ve asked myself what it would be like after I was no longer a nine-day wonder, but one of them, day in and day out, year after year. You know what, Maud, I think it would still be good. I watch how the men here treat their women, and also the freedom and fun the women have. It’s nothing like at home. It has staying power. It could work.”

  She caught her breath. “Anyway, I didn’t mean to bend your ear like this. I only wanted to tell you something. In the last few weeks I’ve had a dozen proposals of marriage—yes, truly, for real. Very flattering. But there was one young man here who really impressed me. He’s a serious person, whom I thought rather standoffish and cool, but it turns out he was reticent because he loved me and was afraid he had not enough to offer me. Anyway, the festival got to him, and he sent me his necklace thing, and I met him and we talked and talked, nothing more. You know what, he proposed marriage last night, real big deal, he wants me for his wife, forever. You know who I’m talking about? Vaiuri, the medical practitioner, the head of the infirmary, the fellow I’ve been working with. He’s smart, educated according to Sirens standards, attractive, and he’s in love with me and wants me for his wife, wants me not to go home, to stay here for always. Well, it is really something, like learning I’ve found where I belong and can be happy and appreciated. But I didn’t give him an answer because—because why?—because I hate where I came from, what I came from, and still I’m an American girl and this is so strange, here in the middle of nowhere, cut off from civilization as we laughingly call it. So, I don’t know, I’m mixed up, rattling around, trying to decide. And I wanted to hear what you would say about the whole native thing in general. I guess nothing can help, nobody can live my life. I’ve got to make my own decisions.”

  Maud Hayden was moved as she had not been in a long time. Some instinct in her wanted to make her cry out to this lonely girl: Stay here, for Heaven’s sake, stay here and don’t go home to the other, stay here and know real acceptance and happiness. Yet, Maud could not cast herself in the role of Miss Lonelyhearts. Her training had made her the observer, the taker-in, not the giver-out, and she had not the daring to enter another’s life. She contained herself as best she could.

  “Yes, Harriet, I can see where Vaiuri’s proposal would be very complimentary, and where life here on the Sirens could possibly be better than life at home. Certainly, you must consider the whole thing realistically and exercise your best judgment. But as you have guessed, I don’t dare to advise you. You must come to your own decision about this. I’m sure, for you, it will be the right one. If you decide to stay behind, I will assist you in every way possible. If you decide to return home with us, I will always be available there, too, to help you if I can.”

  Harriet was standing, and Maud stood, also, out of deference to Harriet’s problem and Harriet’s drama.

  Harriet smiled, and she said, “Thanks, Maud, for playing mother. I’ll let you know how I make out.”

  “You are a sensible person,” said Maud. “I know that you will do what is right for you.”

  Harriet gave a nod of assent, opened the door, stepped through it, closed it with appreciative respect, and walked into the baking compound.

  * * *

  Passing Claire Hayden’s quarters, Harriet Bleaska slowed down, thinking that she might see if Claire was inside. Now that Harriet had unburdened herself in privacy, her dilemma was less secret. She wished that she had allowed Claire to remain in the room with Maud. This instant, she had the urge to visit Claire, and share her marriage proposal with one who was of her own years, and hear what Claire might have to say. But Claire had been distant in the past week, and perhaps she had other things on her mind, so Harriet decided to continue on next door to her own hut. Rachel DeJong just might be in, and if she was, she might lend her professional advice to Harriet’s problem.

  As Harriet went between Claire’s hut and her own, she saw a figure in the shadows, leaning against the side of her house. With her appearance, and recognition of him, Orville Pence quickly left
the shadows to advance toward her.

  “Harriet, I’ve got to speak to you.” There was a tight scolding in Orville’s tone, and his right eye and fussy nose twitched. “You’ve been trying to avoid me. Nevertheless, I’m going to have my say.”

  “I haven’t been trying to avoid you, but I am now, because you’ve been sarcastic to me. I don’t know what’s got into you.”

  “I’m sorry if I’ve sounded that way. I only want to help you. I’ve got to help you.”

  For the first time, Harriet’s interest was aroused. She was seeking advice, and here was someone, despite his bewildering behavior, who was offering to help her. She submitted to curiosity.

  “Okay,” she said, “but at least, let’s get out of the sun, let’s get in the shade.”

  They went between the two huts, and came to a halt facing each other near Harriet’s rear window.

  Harriet found Orville’s eyes fixed on her face, as if examining her for pimples, and automatically, her hand went to her forehead and cheek to learn if she had broken out in a rash since breakfast. When his speechless staring began to make her uncomfortable, she took the initiative. “You said you wanted to talk to me, Orville. What about?”

  Agitated, he picked at the sunburned bald portion of his head, and then brought his fingers down to his shell-rimmed spectacles and kept trying to set them higher on the moist, slippery bridge of his thin nose. “I know all about you!” he suddenly blurted.