The Three Sirens (70 page)

“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. Meanwhile, 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.

Claire realized that Maud had begun to dictate, and quickly, she caught the words floating past, and bent to her pad, hooking in the Gregg symbols.

“Dear Walter,” Maud was saying. “I wrote you one week ago, but here I am again with a hasty note that will go out with Captain Rasmussen tonight. This is simply to tell you that these last days have surpassed all that came before in providing us with meaty information on these Sirens people … Paragraph, Claire …

Today is the final day of the annual festival, and today represents the halfway mark of our field trip, for we have been here three weeks. I wrote you earlier of the festival schedule, as I learned about it from Chief Paoti Wright. However, to have been a participant observer in the events of the festival has given me a close-up view of it, an understanding of it, that could not be acquired at second hand … Paragraph … The festival began seven days ago with an afternoon athletic event, a strenuous one-mile swimming race, which Marc was courageous enough to enter. His notes will be invaluable. I might add with motherly pride, he almost defeated the natives at their own game, barely losing out at the very finish.”

Maud’s inflection at the end of the last sentence made it clear, to Claire, that she would report no more of that fiasco. Claire looked up sharply, determined to goad Maud with her glance, force her to mention Marc’s foul, or at least chastise her with a visual reproach for omitting it, but Maud’s back was to her. Maud was staring out the window.

“That evening,” Maud went on, “a large platform was erected in the village compound, ringed with colorful torches, and our nurse here, Harriet Bleaska, opened the festival week. She had been elected to the honor by the young men of the village. After that, there was an intricate ceremonial dance and, believe it or not, one of the stars was Mrs. Lisa Hackfeld, the wife of our backer. Mrs. Hackfeld acquitted herself astonishingly well. The second afternoon, there were new games, mainly wrestling, more in the Japanese than the American style, and in the evening we were treated to a pantomimic performance, a form of fertility rite, and once again Mrs. Hackfeld was the mainstay. For her, this place has been a veritable Fountain of Youth. The feature of the third evening was the nude beauty contest, most of the young single girls of the village participating. All the young men were on hand, cheering their favorites. It was similar, somewhat, to the nude beauty contests that Peter Buck witnessed on Manikihi, in the Cook islands. In those contests, as I recollect reading, the beauties were even studied from behind, to see if their legs were close together, for if they were, it was considered a sign of virtue and much esteemed. This kind of judgment was not made here, I assure you. Chief Paoti could not trace the origin of this beauty contest, but he did not disagree when I suggested that it might be a sort of display case for young girls who wanted to show off their wares to potential suitors and husbands. Also, I suspect, it is part of the stimulant of the entire heady festival week. On the fourth night—”

Suddenly, Maud came around on her chair, holding up one pudgy hand.

“Wait, Claire, before we get into the fourth night, I want to add something to my last sentence. Can you read it back?”

“One second.” Claire found it. ” ‘Also, I suspect, it is part of the stimulant of the entire heady festival week.’ “

“Yes. Umm, add this …” She considered what she would add, and then she dictated. “Dr. Orville Pence was one of the judges of the nude beauty contest, and his choices were well received and coincided with those of the other judges, two natives, save in one instance. The last of the female entries proved to be one of our own team, the indomitable Miss Bleaska, who had been convinced by her large village following to take part. She might have won, she is a great favorite here, except for Dr. Pence’s dissenting vote. In any case, she received runner-up honors. As you can see, we are not merely observers here, but industrious participants, and have been from the very first night of our arrival, and Paoti’s feast, when my daughter-in-law volunteered for the rites of friendship.”

Claire’s head came up. “Really, Maud, do you have to mention that? It’s embarrassing enough to know I got looped and did that without—”

“Don’t be silly, Claire. It is in all my reports. I’m mentioning it with maternal pride.”

“Well, if you insist—”

“Since when have you gone Victorian on me?”

“Since my husband went Victorian on me,” Claire shot back.

Maud’s expression conceded nothing. “Oh, men, men are so possessive,” she said. And then she said quickly, “Let’s go on, we’ve a lot to do this morning. Let me see—ah, yes—” She was dictating again. “I do believe that our functionalist friend, Bronislaw Malinowski, would have been proud of the active participation of his disciples in the field … Paragraph … Each of these festival events, which we have observed and experienced, has been captured on film by Sam Karpowicz, whose darkroom here is filled to the ceiling with reels of movies, still photographs, and color slides. I am going to give our members at the American Anthropological League not only an earful, Walter, but an eyeful as well … Make that an exclamation mark, Claire…As you predicted, Walter, The Three Sirens was the shot in the arm I needed, and it will be the first fresh study to come out of Polynesia in many years … Paragraph … But, to resume with the highlights of the festival week behind us. On the fourth night—”

There was a rapping on the door, and Maud halted, disconcerted.

“Come in!” Claire called out.

The door opened partially, and more heat oozed into the hut, followed by Lisa Hackfeld, wearing a white nylon jersey dress and a broad wreath of smile. Before her, she held a small bowl filled with cut plants.

“Oh,” she said, when she saw Claire with pad and pencil, “If I’m interrupting I can—”

“It’s quite all right, Lisa,” Maud said, briskly. “I’ll be at this all morning with Claire. You seem bursting with some news—”

“I am, I am,” replied Lisa in a kind of chant. With reverence, she placed the bowl of cut plants before Maud. “Do you know what this is?”

Maud leaned forward and peered into the bowl. “Looks like some kind of seed plant—” She picked up one of the yellow-green mossy stems and examined it. “It’s a soft herb that—”

“The
puai
plant!” Lisa Hackfeld exclaimed.

“Yes, of course, that’s right,” Maud agreed.

Momentarily, Lisa was taken aback. “How do you know about it, Maud?”

“Why, it’s indigenous to the islands here and quite famous. I suppose I first heard about it from Paoti Wright. It’s the so-called drug that Captain Rasmussen takes out of here every week—in fact, I discussed it with him, too—”