The Three Sirens (71 page)

“And no one told me,” said Lisa, incredulously. “To think I might never have found out. Anyway, I did find out, but not through the Captain, although I’ve been talking to him about it for the last hour—”

“You mean Rasmussen is in the village already?” asked Maud. “He usually comes straight here.”

“I abducted him, Maud,” Lisa admitted, proudly. “I dragged him into my hut, and put some whiskey in front of him, and made him come clean. Right now, I’ve got him writing down everything he knows about it—for Cyrus, you know—”

“But why?” Maud asked.

“Why? Because there’s a fortune in it, that’s why.” Lisa turned to Claire, who had been half-listening, doodling. “Claire, do you know what this puai plant does?”

Claire shrugged. “I’m afraid I haven’t the vaguest—”

“It makes you feel young, act young, it rolls away the wrinkles and lubricates the creaks,” Lisa announced, her voice as falsetto and fanatical as that of an evangelist. “I tell you, with this, life can really begin at forty. Forgive me, I’m higher than a kite about my discovery.” She was addressing both Claire and Maud, and she had one of the pulpy herbs in her hand and waved it as she spoke. “It was an accident, how I found out. You know, I’ve been rehearsing with those native dancers for days, and you saw the two performances I put on this past week—”

“You’ve been remarkable, Lisa,” said Maud.

“Well, I have been, kidding aside. I’ve exceeded myself. Look, I used to be a dancer, a real high-stepper, and I was limber and pretty good, but then I was young. Let’s face it, I’m no spring chicken any more. Back home, when Cyrus took me to the club, I’d be winded after one waltz, and anything livelier laid me out for a week after. So I came here with you, and I got into this dance bit, and you know, from the first day practically, I was never tired. I just felt great, and could do anything, and I felt like a kid. I couldn’t figure it out, this kind of second wind, this rejuvenation—and then, the other night, something struck me. Just before the fertility dance, they passed around cups of some kind of greenish drink. I remembered that we’d always had that during rehearsals, even before the first night of the festival, and it wasn’t that palm juice or anything alcoholic. So I asked about it, and they told me it was an extract of the puai plant—‘puai’ means ‘strength’ in Polynesian—grows around here like a weed—and for centuries it has been given to dancers, to provide them with vigor. It’s not an intoxicant—I mean, you don’t take leave of your senses—but it’s a sort of native narcotic or stimulant, a kind of liquid kick in the fanny, and no addiction and no side effects. I found out this is the magic herb Captain Rasmussen has been exporting from here for years, and exporting from Tahiti to Hong Kong, Singapore, Indochina, the East Indies. He buys cheap, sells high. He and his wife have only a small business going, but it’s kept him in nice shape for years.

“Well, I got to thinking about it, and the more I thought, the more excited I became. Of course, you know what I have in mind—”

“You want to import it into the United States,” said Maud.

“Exactly! I could hardly contain myself until this morning, when I got my hands on the poor Captain, and I guess I overwhelmed him. I told him about Cyrus, and his pharmaceutical holdings, and how he’s always on the lookout for something new, and how maybe this was just the thing—can’t you see the label?—palm trees, silhouettes of native dancers, and something like ‘the new exotic elixir from the South Seas, tested, approved, youth-giving, energy-giving—Vitality”—how’s that for a name on the package? Vitality!”

Claire squirmed, but Maud rose bravely to the occasion. “Where can I buy some, Lisa?”

“You’ll be able to buy some in every drugstore in America next year. I’m working out a tentative deal with Captain Rasmussen right now, subject to Cyrus’ approval.” She fondled the herb lovingly. “Think of it, this little thing, it’s changed my life, it’ll help millions of women like me. Oh, I can’t wait—my own discovery—there’ll be so much to do. I even have ideas for promotion, directing and sending out Polynesian-type dance troupes, or maybe preparing them for television commercials—” She was breathless, as her lively eyes went from Maud to Claire, and back to Maud again. “I mean, I’ll have a business, I’ll be paying my way, and yet—and yet be helping others. Don’t you think it’s a stupendous idea?”

Maud inclined her head with the authority the Pope of Rome gave to a blessing. “It’s a grand idea, Lisa. I would encourage you to go right ahead.”

“I knew you’d be pleased,” said Lisa. She returned the herb to the bowl and picked up the bowl. “I’d better finish up with the Captain and fire off a cable and letter to Cyrus.” She went to the door, and then paused. “I really owe it all to you, Maud. If you hadn’t allowed me to come to The Three Sirens, I wouldn’t have had this to look forward to. I should thank you. I will. In fact, you shall have the first shipment of Vitality, gratis and on the house!”

After she had floated out, Maud sat contemplating the one fugitive herb that she still retained in her hand.

Claire lighted a cigarette, and wagged the match until the flame was extinguished. “Is that herb really that good?” she asked.

“No,” said Maud.

Claire straightened with surprise. “Did I hear you right?”

“It’s a harmless, half-fraud, almost inert, of little therapeutic value, according to Rasmussen’s pharmacologists. Field trips are always turning up something—back home, among the Indians, cascara bark as a laxative—or down in these parts, turmeric as a medicine—or stems of the kava plant, marindinum, as a sleeping aid—but most of the stuff is second-rate and really useless. Sometimes a good one comes along. Quinine, for example, from the cinchona bark. We acquired it from the natives of Peru and Bolivia.” She shook her head. “But the puai plant—the minute that Paoti mentioned it, I had Sam Karpowicz find some and he knew what it was. It’s the most mild form of narcotic stimulant. Its real strength is in its tradition. Truthfully, the magic of suggestion has always been more potent than drugs in primitive societies. The natives have always believed that the puai picks them up, so, needless to say, Claire, it picks them up. But Rasmussen took no chances with selling a tradition, just as the old dispensers of the mandragora herb knew it was too nonvolatile for an anesthetic unless mixed with opium. What Rasmussen did from the beginning, does even now, is mix the ingredients of the puai with ingredients of bêche-de-mer—”

“I think I’ve heard of that last one. What is it?”

“Bêche-de-mer? It’s a sea slug. The natives go into three or four feet of water, pull the slugs off the reefs, cut them open, boil the innards, cure them in the sun. Very popular in Fiji, I remember, where they export the stuff to China. Bêche-de-mer is a stronger stimulant, something that peps up what Morrell used to call ‘the immoderate voluptuary.’ Sam Karpowicz says we have a hundred better drugs that induce the same results back home. I know nothing about selling a product. I suppose this silly thing has the right label, and it won’t hurt anyone, actually. The Hackfelds will make a billion and maybe remember to support other field trips in the future.”

“If puai is such a low-grade, ordinary drug, Maud, why did you encourage Lisa to go ahead with the—the half-fraud, as you put it?”

“I repeat, my dear, it won’t hurt a soul, and it may do some good. It makes these natives feel younger. It makes Lisa feel younger.

Maybe it’ll help others in the same way, too. It could be a psychological boost for its buyers.”

“Still, I don’t—”

“Another thing, Claire. When a woman reaches forty, and feels forty or more, and is sensible enough to act her age in a society such as ours that is only attentive to those of twenty, I think she should be encouraged to do anything reasonable to make herself busy and active. She should put her mind where her heart is, not where her body is. With Vitality, Lisa will be a young forty, not an old forty, and she’ll be a young fifty and sixty, too, and have a place and a way of life. I speak from experience, Claire. One day you’ll understand. Lisa is on the right road, and I will encourage her.”

Sitting across from Maud, listening to her, Claire drew on her cigarette and began to understand. Maud had found her own puai plant, and it was The Three Sirens. Claire had sympathy for both Lisa and Maud. Claire was twenty-five, and Lisa was fifteen years older than she and Maud was thirty-five years older than she, and yet Claire felt as old as both of them, for age was not only reckoned by years but also by the telltale wood rings of feeling unwanted, neglected, discarded. Claire knew that technically, she had the advantage of fewer used-up years of the allotted number, therefore the promise of a longer time on the planet—the one unchallengeable snobbery and arrogance of the almost-young in their twenties and thirties—but this advantage was not enough, for no use was being made of this advantage, and she had no Vitality, no Sirens field trip badge, either.

“Now where were we?” Maud was saying.

Claire retrieved her pad and pencil, but before she could find their place in the dictation, there was a loud voice outside, female, then voices, female and male, some kind of exchange, and Harriet Bleaska came through the door, her face uncharacteristically knotted by some sudden annoyance.

“That Orville Pence, I tell you, Maud,” she muttered, and then became aware that there were two in the room. “Oh, hi, Claire.” She turned to Maud. “Any chance of seeing you alone sometime today? I need your advice, and I thought—”

“There’s no time like the present,” said Maud.

Claire stood up immediately. “I’ll leave you two alone.”

“All right, Claire,” said Maud. “Why don’t we resume the dictation in—let’s say in fifteen minutes?”

* * *

After Claire had left the room, Maud gyrated in her chair and gave her entire matriarchal attention to her ugliest duckling. “You were speaking of Orville Pence when you came in,” she said. “Does this concern Orville?”

“Orville?” Harriet Bleaska repeated. “Oh, him—” She shook her head, crossed to the bench, and sat down. “He’s become nutty as a fruit cake,” she said. “I don’t get it. He was such a nice guy. Now, he’s always making sarcastic remarks to me, and just now, outside, he came bounding up, actually hurt my arm the way he grabbed it, and tried to drag me off somewhere to have a talk. I told him it would have to wait, I had something more urgent on my mind I had to discuss with you, and he got nasty all over again. So I simply turned my back on him and came in.”

Through this, Maud had been nodding. “Yes,” she said, “these field trips sometimes affect some of the—the members—adversely. The change of environment, trying to perform properly in a totally different culture, this can make some people edgy.” She thought of her discussion, during the week, with Sam Karpowicz, and his vehemence at the Sirens teaching curriculum, and his anger over the exposure of Mary to that one study. She also remembered an earlier exchange with Orville himself and the missionary priggishness in his comments on the Sirens society and on Harriet’s affair with the native patient who had died. Even Rachel DeJong, usually so remote and objective, had given evidence of being distraught the entire week. And then, thought Maud, there were her own son and daughter-in-law, who presented anything but the picture of connubial bliss when they were publicly together.

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.”