The Three Sirens (51 page)

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 that 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.

What Marc did not speak of to her, biding his time, waiting until she was entirely disarmed, was his all-consuming desire for her. His instincts told him that if he moved too soon, he would repel or frighten her. The right moment was that moment when she was so in awe of him, or what he represented, that succumbing to him would enhance her pride. Awaiting that moment, through the past two weeks, Marc had lived out an entire imaginary life with her that she knew nothing about. He had no time for the tedium of note-making—it would have stunned Matty to know he had made not a single note since his arrival—and he had no patience with his mother or interest in his wife. His mind was filled entirely by his seduction of Tehura.

Among the twisting nerve cords of his gray brain matter, he had slept with the naked Tehura on the mats of her hut, in the grass of their grove, on the sand of the beach; he had slept with her in Papeete, in Santa Barbara, in New York; he had slept with her in this position, in that, in the other one, too; he had slept with her an hour, ten hours, one hundred hours, and she had clung to him, always transported, and he had let her cling, enjoying less her art than her begging need of him. His brain had swarmed with the erogenous parts of her stripped anatomy, and when he brought the parts together, the public parts and the private pans, she was always reclining, her face the face of love, and this first seduction was the moment he fantasied the most and doggedly worked toward in each day’s reality.

Now the moment was nearing. He sat, cross-legged on the grass, shading his eyes, and impatiently waited.

“—and so, when we grow up with such freedom, we must feel as I do,” she was saying. “Our life of love is simple, like everything else we do.”

He dropped his hand from his eyes. “I understand everything you’ve said, Tehura. Only one thing puzzles me. You, and everyone here, keep referring to love as an art. You did so a few minutes ago. Yet, you admit you—I mean all of you—do not believe in preliminaries, what we in America call foreplay. You do not believe in kissing or permit a partner to pet you above the waist—”

She came off her back and around, toward him, on her side, so that he could watch her breasts become full again. “I did not say that, Marc. Of course, we have what you call preliminaries. They are different than yours, that is all. In your country, women wear garments and take them off to excite the man. You do not see breasts, so when you see them uncovered, you are excited. Here we all wear the same, there is little to take off, and breasts are always exposed, so they do not excite. Here a man will show his ardor by bringing gifts—”

“Gifts?”

“Tiara flowers arranged very beautiful. Or necklaces. Or food he has hunted. If I am interested, I will meet with him. We will dance together. Do you know our dance? It excites more than your foolish custom of touching mouth to mouth. After the dance, a woman will lie down to catch her breath, and a man will stroke her hair and shoulders and thighs. With that, a woman is ready.”

“And no more? No kiss, no caressing?”

She shook her head. “Marc, Marc—when will you understand? If only we could educate you.”

Marc stirred. “I wish you would.”

“It is for your wife. She must be taught, and you must be taught, if you will understand our way.”

“I want to understand you. I want to be like you. Teach me, Tehura.”

She lay still on her side, began to speak, did not speak, then averted her eyes.

The moment, thought Marc. An old maxim played through his head: silence gives consent. Now, he thought. His entire body was filled with his craving. Slowly, he changed his position, lowering himself full-length beside her, eyes on her face, as she avoided his gaze.

“Or let me teach you,” he said in an undertone.

She remained silent and motionless.

His hand reached for her arm above the swelling breast. “Tehura, if I—if I touched your breasts, are you sure you know how you’d feel?”

“Yes. I would feel nothing.”

“You are positive?”

“It would be the same as if you touched my elbow or toe—or put your mouth on mine—nothing.”

“Let me prove you are wrong,” he said with intensity.

Her eyes, meeting his, showed confusion. “What?” she asked. “What do you mean?”

“This,” he said. He had clutched her arm, and fiercely, pulled himself over her. His mouth found her open, startled lips, and as he kissed her hard, the palm of his hand was at last upon one breast, moving over it.

It surprised him that she did not struggle, and he pressed his conquest, grinding his lips against her lips, dropping his hand to her grass skirt, then lower to her thigh. As his hand began to inch upward, she suddenly shoved hard against his chest, pushing him away.

“No,” she said, in the tone one used to rebuke a child, and then she sat up, drawing down her skirt.

Dismayed, Marc straightened. “But, Tehura, I thought—”

“What did you think?” she said, flatly, without anger. “That your advances brought me to the time of love? No, I have told you, I am not given desire by such silly touches. I let you go on to see if I would be, but I was not. When you went further, I had to stop you.”

“Why did you have to stop me? You can tell I need you, want you—”