The Three Sirens (29 page)

During the first part of the hike, when she had her full strength and was not yet tired, when her senses were fresh and alive and able to absorb every new sight and sensation, Claire had enjoyed the journey. The first climb through the weathered and lofty lava boulders, with its gradually increasing vegetation, dense scrub, and twisting vines, all sunless and lightless and constricted, had been easy, even invigorating as she felt the stretch of unused muscles.

The magnificent green of the flat plateau eventually giving way to great gullies and gaping ravines, heavily and moistly thicketed all through, had been agreeable, too. Before her eyes danced the parades of breadfruit trees, the scraggly vines indicating wild yam, the sugar cane, the pandanus leaves, the coconut palms, the banana trees, the bamboo groves, the mangoes, the yellow and white acacia, the taro swamps, so much of the exotic, so much of the colorful, that vision was gradually dulled, and reaction to vision jaded and limp. Soon, all that had remained had been the smells, the faintest whirl of the salt sea behind, overpowered by the odors of tropical flowers, fruits, plants, and coconut husks.

Now she was tired of the island’s excesses, tired of beauty and movement and sun. Her muscles and her senses ached.

After the last break an hour earlier, she had found a place beside Harriet Bleaska, and a few feet behind Courtney and Maud, who led the way and were hatefully tireless. Like a dray horse following another in a team, she tried to keep in step with Maud’s military strides—what had happened to her arthritis?—and Courtney’s monotonous, jerky, swinging gait. They were going upward on a rounded ribbon of earth, ascending a hill, the furry slope rich with pandanus and scaevola (or so Sam Karpowicz said), and they had attained a level summit. There they approached an arbor of thick-leafed breadfruit, shady and fronting a small rushing stream that cascaded off” somewhere down the hill.

Courtney slowed, lifting an arm, then revolved to face them all. “All right, we can rest here in the shade—last break before the village—it’s no more than twenty or thirty minutes away, and that’s downhill, so it won’t be hard. If you’re thirsty, the stream is fine, it’s fresh.”

Without delay, Mary Karpowicz broke out of the line and made for the water, followed quickly by her panting mother, and then Orville Pence and Lisa Hackfeld.

Claire, who had been watching them, suddenly realized that Courtney was above her, watching her. His face was concerned. “You’re tired, aren’t you?”

“Do I look that bad?”

“No, but—”

“Yes, I am,” she said. “I don’t understand it, either. I’m no girl athlete, but I do keep in shape back home—you know, tennis and swimming—”

He shook his head. “No, it’s not a physical tiredness—it’s the other kind—too much hitting you at once. Like going to Paris or Florence the first time for one day, and trying to do it in a single gulp. Your head becomes disconnected and indifferent, your eyes smart, and you feel it in your back and calves.”

“Are you clairvoyant or something? How did you know?”

“It happened to me when I came here, the very first day. After I rested, I was fine, and by evening, all in one piece and receptive again. You’ll be okay tonight.”

“I’m sure I will,” said Claire. “Anyway, I hate it showing on me.”

“I swear it doesn’t. Your mirror will testify to my honesty. I was just guessing … Better sit down there in the shade with the others. The ten minutes will refresh you, and in no time we’ll be there and you’ll have your own place to lie down.”

She liked him, and wondered if this attention was personal, or simply a kindness that he would have tendered Rachel DeJong or Lisa Hackfeld, had they been the nearest to him. He turned away to walk to the stream. She decided his attention had been impersonal, and she went to the breadfruit grove and dropped to the grass a few yards from Maud.

The relief of sitting, as well as hiding from the sun, revived her somewhat. She was able, almost for the first time since the beach, to become interested in the others lolling on the grass. All but Courtney had returned from the stream. Claire found a lemon drop, and after she had it in her parched mouth, she began to study the others, speculating on the ones who were silent, tuning in on those who were conversing.

Maud, she noticed, was silent. She sat cross-legged, like a stunted female Buddha, her broad face mottled from exertion and heat, rocking her corpulent body, eyes vacant to the present, reversed inward to the past. Claire guessed: she is daydreaming about Adley, of their field trip to Fiji nearly a decade ago, of what it had been like then, with a beloved one, and what it was like now, again in Polynesia, but emotionally alone.

Claire moved her attention to the three Karpowiczes. Estelle and Sam were sprawled on the grass. Mary was on her knees irritated by some question. Claire tuned in.

“Well, how do I know, Fa?” Mary said impatiently. “I haven’t seen anything yet—just a bunch of trees and some natives in jock straps.”

“Mary—your language.” It was Estelle. “Where do you pick up such things?”

“Quit treating me like a baby, Mother.”

Estelle turned imploringly to her husband. “Sam—”

Sam stared at his daughter. “Mary, this will do ten times more for you than a summer at home. I promised you it would and it will.”

“Oh, sure,” said Mary with thick sarcasm.

“Leona Brophy and the rest will envy you.”

“Sure—sure—”

“And that Neal Schaffer, he’s no bargain. He’s not running anywhere. He’ll be interested in you for yourself when you get back.”

“Sure, he’s going to sit around and wait.” She waved her hand at the scenery. “This is just great for a summer vacation. Real sharp. I’ll come back home with a ring in my nose and tattoos. I don’t care what you say, it wasn’t fair to drag me all the way—”

Claire tuned out, and regarded Lisa Hackfeld with pity. Lisa appeared haggard and disheveled. Her white outfit was soiled and crumpled. Her face, under the blond hair, was puffy, streaked, and she was desperately trying to repair it from her compact. Claire observed Lisa staring into the glass of the compact. What was on her mind? Claire guessed: she is thinking that, for the first time, she looks her age, feels her age (the long flight, the long march), for earlier she had spoken to Claire, wryly, of her fortieth birthday.

She is thinking, guessed Claire, that her years weigh on her like a knapsack with forty stones, and it is heavier now that she is weaker. She is thinking, guessed Claire (as Claire herself had thought on the beach), that this is a mistake, that now the initial excitement and gaiety of planning and take-off are gone, and the beauty shop and the Continental and the servants and Saks and the Racquet Club are gone, too, and what in the hell was she left with but perspiration and palm trees and no air-conditioned tearooms.

Claire’s eyes caught Rachel DeJong and Harriet Bleaska talking together, Harriet with her head thrown back, eyes closed, soaking in the fresh air, and Rachel, cheeks drawn in some vise of unhappiness. Claire tuned in.

“—just love it,” Harriet was saying. “I’ve never felt more energetic. I can’t tell you what it’s done for me, these few days, to have gotten away, away from hospitals and—and the people there—what goes on—to be free, on my own.”

“I certainly envy you,” Rachel said. “I’m afraid I don’t have your nature. It is really quite a gift—to cut away from cares, I mean. I—I left so much behind, unfinished. I refer to patients and—oh, personal affairs. Quite irresponsible of me.”

“Stop worrying, start living, Doctor, or you’ll wind up on a couch!” Harriet laughed with delight at her joke, and squeezed Rachel’s arm to prove that it was only fun.

Claire tuned out, and twisted to observe Courtney, returned from the stream, crouching beside Marc and Orville Pence. Quickly, Claire tuned in.

“I was just saying to Marc here,” said Orville, “that the beauty of Polynesian women is highly overrated. I mean, as far as I could judge from my first visit to Tahiti. I know it was only a day, but I’ve read quite broadly on this subject. The outside world has been propagandized, bamboozled by published fairy tales and plays and movies. I found those Tahitian girls thoroughly unattractive.”

“In what way?” asked Courtney.

“Oh, broad Negroid noses,” said Orville, “and gold teeth, full waists, thick ankles, bunions and blisters and calluses all over their feet—there’s your South Sea beauties.”

“I’m inclined to agree with Orville,” said Marc, pedantically. “My research convinces me that the whole legend was created by those early explorers and sailors who had been at sea for many months. They were starved for femininity. Naturally, the first females they laid eyes upon, and especially permissive ones, were beautiful to them. I trust, Mr. Courtney, your Sirens women have more to offer.”

“I’m no expert on the opposite sex,” said Courtney with the faintest smile. “However, the females in the village are not pure Polynesian—they are half-English—and so they reflect the best—or the worst, also—of physiques in both societies. I will say this—I disagree with both of you. I think Polynesian females are the most beautiful in the world.”

“Those heavyset creatures?” said Orville Pence. “You must be joking.”

Marc nudged Orville. “Our Mr. Courtney has been at sea too long.”

Courtney conceded no humor, but said, “I’ve learned a woman’s real beauty is not in her outer appearance. It’s inside—and inside, the Polynesian women, the Sirens women, are incomparably beautiful.”

“Beautiful inside?” said Marc, uneasily. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Courtney’s mouth was mischievous. “You’re the anthropologists,” he said, as he stood up. “See for yourselves.”

Belatedly, Marc was abashed. He said lamely, “We’ll do our best, if we have cooperation.”

Claire tuned out, and once again she wondered about Thomas Courtney. She patted her black hair absently, and tried to imagine how she, and the other women in the group, appeared in Courtney’s eyes, and how he judged them, judged her, alongside the Sirens women. Suddenly, she felt unsure of her own femininity, and what lay immediately ahead seemed hostile. They, ahead, were beautiful inside. What was she inside?

Courtney was approaching. “Rise and shine, my friends,” he called out. “The last lap, and you’ll be home.”

With the others, Claire came to her feet. The question occupied her entirely, and then the answer, and she was tempted to cry out: Mr. Courtney, I know the answer—I am beautiful inside—only, because it is locked inside, no one can see it—not Marc—not you—not me—but I can feel it—that is, that is if you mean what I mean.

But she was not exactly sure what she meant. She closed her mind to the enigma, for the time, and fell into motion behind Maud and Courtney.

* * *

The walk of the next twenty minutes, for Claire and the others, was less taxing than the earlier portions of the march. It was single file, gradually down and gradually up, like treading a roller coaster for children. They were single file on a deeply worn trail, through dense bright greenery, once passing several grazing goats, and it was pleasant, like a morning’s stroll in an English countryside, like a sweet English phrase, o’er hill mid dale … how comforting it must have been for the first Daniel Wright, Daniel Wright, Esq., of Skinner Street.

The immense yellow platter of sun above seemed to fill the blue sky, and its fierce heat followed them relentlessly. Claire could see that Courtney’s white cotton shirt was now a spreading blotch that clung to his muscular back. Her own neck and the flesh above her breasts and the cleft between were wet. Yet, somehow, it was better than before, and the hotness made one’s skin glow with health.

They had been mounting slowly, higher and higher, through the vegetation, which was also higher and higher, she realized. They were inside the shade of rows of acacia and mulberry trees, and other trees Karpowicz identified as kukui, and their movement through the fragrant tunnel scared half a dozen brightly feathered birds and sent them winging into the sky. Soon, they emerged into the sunlight, and found themselves on a broad, flat precipice. Courtney had stopped, shaded his eyes, peering beyond the brink, and then he turned, as the members of the team continued to emerge from the path, and he said, “If you’ll gather around, you’ll see the village below.”

Claire, with Harriet Bleaska and Rachel DeJong at her heels, hastened to the edge of the elevation, and looking down, she saw it.

The one community of The Three Sirens stretched out before them on the grass floor and setbacks of the long valley. The village had been planned in a perfect rectangle. The center was a grass and dirt compound, bisected through by a shallow running thread of a stream crisscrossed by perhaps a dozen minute wooden bridges. On both sides of the compound, running in parallel lines, were the shaggy, woven huts of the village, like so many square baskets turned upside down. There was not a single row of huts on each side, but several, one row set behind the other, but spaced far enough apart so that every hut had its own private border of grass on all sides. Between the huts were footpaths and a scattering of trees that appeared to be eucalyptus.

All of the dwellings, on either side of the long compound, had been built under vast stretching overhangs from the hills, which provided natural roofing and shade. It occurred to Claire that these mammoth projections had probably been the main reason why the tribe had settled here centuries ago. For, except from the point where they stood, the village would be hidden from prying eyes searching down from other heights, hidden from the sight of explorers who had ventured inland, and hidden, in modern times, from the crews of airplanes above. Yes, Claire decided, it was this, as well as the stream and the flat area for a compound, that had located the people of the Sirens here instead of on higher land.

Claire pulled her sunglasses from her purse and slipped them on, since the glare had hidden the far end of the village in a haze. The dark lenses made the distant portion of the village clearly visible, and Claire could make out what she had not seen before, three mighty huts, one actually as enormous as a small college field house, but all were one-story and elongated as caterpillars, and set in groves of trees.