The Three Sirens

by Irving Wallace

  She sat across from Lisa Hackfeld. “Mrs. Hackfeld, did I overhear you ask my mother-in-law about the festival on The Three Sirens?”

  “Yes,” said Lisa. “It sounds absolutely fascinating, like a celebration we should have over here.”

  Marc paused in his serving of drinks. “We have holidays, we have the Fourth of July,” he said wryly. And then, because Lisa Hackfeld appeared bewildered, Marc hastily explained with a forced grin, “I’m only kidding, of course. But seriously, within the confines of our civilized state, we have countless means of celebration. For better or worse, we have places to—to relax with a drink, places to buy happy pills, places to seek diversion of every sort—”

  “It’s not the same, Marc,” Claire said. “It’s all sort of artificial and unnatural. You were joking about our holidays, like the Fourth of July, but that’s a great example of what separates us from the Sirens. We celebrate with firecrackers—on the Sirens they become firecrackers.”

  Lisa Hackfeld beamed at Claire. “Exactly, Mrs. Hayden! We have nothing like that at all—”

  “Because, as Dr. Hayden indicated, we’re civilized,” interrupted Garrity. His blotched face had assumed the solemnity of a cardinal reading a papal decree. “I’ve been around those islands, and they all have festivals as an excuse to revert to their old animal ways. It is their way of getting around the missionaries and governors, to indulge themselves in base passions. I have no patience with the eggheads and ethnologists who give all those holiday games and dances, those lewd pelvic displays, high and fancy esthetic interpretations. Civilization has put a stopper on their indecent behavior, and they use any excuse to pull the stopper.”

  Claire felt annoyed. “Is that bad?”

  Quickly, Marc intervened. “Really, Claire, you sound—”

  Claire beat him to it. “Uncivilized? Sometimes I wish I were, but I’m not.” She turned to Lisa Hackfeld, who had been listening, wide-eyed. “I think you’ll understand me, Mrs. Hackfeld. We’re all so kind of stepped on, squashed, pushed down, emotionally. It’s not natural. I think laws and rules and inhibitions are fine, but once in a while there should be license to shout and romp and let go. We’d all be better off.”

  “You took the words right out of my mouth,” said Lisa Hackfeld, happily. “I couldn’t agree with you more.”

  “Well, it’s all in the point of view,” Marc said, studiously. His manner had become all deliberation. “Mr. Garrity may not be far from the mark. Recent studies have indicated that the islanders most often use custom to disguise eroticism. Take the Fijians. They have this holiday game called veisolo. The idea is that young women invade the homes of young men to steal and hoard their food. But both sexes know the real object of the game. It is, unquestionably, an excuse to—to have intercourse. Basil Thomson wrote about such a game in 1908. A strapping Fiji girl entered a male hut to steal food, and found herself outnumbered by the male occupants. ‘Then followed a scene,’ said Thomson, ‘which suggests that there is a sexual significance in the custom, for the girl was stripped and cruelly assaulted in a manner not to be described.’ Now, as an anthropologist I find this very interesting. And I have no judgment to pass on it, except one—” He had turned fully toward his wife and Airs. Hackfeld. “Surely, Claire, you would not suggest this is fun or a practice desirable for—for all of us in this country?”

  Claire knew him now, knew he was repressing irritation, from the slight tipping edge to his voice, from the bunching between his eyes that did not match the half-smile on his lips, and she realized that she must handle this. “Marc, you should understand me better than that—I was joking—I wouldn’t seriously suggest such a thing.” She could hear Lisa Hackfeld’s exhalation, a disappointment, as if Lisa felt she had lost an ally. While mollifying her husband, Claire fought to hold Lisa’s faith in her. “But to go back to that festival on The Three Sirens, it must be good for them since they’ve practiced it for so long. Of course, we can’t truly judge, because no one knows much about them.” She smiled at Lisa Hackfeld, and winked at her. “I promise you a full report next August.”

  After that, the conversation was less spirited, more contrived and sluggish. Lisa Hackfeld made a few tentative inquiries about Polynesian customs in music and dancing, and Marc replied pedantically by quoting from published studies. President Loomis brought up the subject of Kabuki, but Garrity overrode him to relate an adventure he had once had with a harem of hula dancers at Waikiki.

  During this last, there was the sound of footsteps. Cyrus Hackfeld came into the room cheerily, and made for the brandy tray, and behind him came Maud. Claire could tell by her mother-in-law’s lips, which were set in a forced public smile, that she was not happy. For an instant, she had stood between Marc and Claire and her guests, had physically blocked out these others and had her son and daughter-in-law alone, and in that instant she made a flash of a gesture, her fist turning in front of her body with her thumb down, this accompanied by the briefest grimace.

  Claire’s heart sank. Maud was telling them that Hackfeld had rejected her appeal for a more reasonable budget. Claire wondered what would happen. It did not mean the field study would be canceled, but it did mean that the trip would be skimpy, limited, pressured. Did it also mean that some of the letters that had gone out, inviting experts to join the team, would now have to be recalled? Claire wondered. She also wondered why Maud had risked announcing her failure to them. Did she still hope to appeal the decision, did she expect Claire or Marc to succeed somehow, socially, in getting what she had failed to obtain?

  Thereafter, bemused by the failure, Claire withdrew more into herself. She had lost her joyful party manners. She slumped, and she listened.

  She heard Garrity’s voice, extraordinarily loud and high-pitched, directed toward Maud.

  “Dr. Hayden,” he was saying, “I must tell you why I came to Los Angeles. My lecture agents, Busch Artist and Lyceum Bureau, have worked up a fabulous series of bookings for me for next year—but, quite frankly, on the condition that I find a new subject. As a matter of fact, I want one, too. I’ve rather tired of the old things. Well, now, I hit upon an idea, and I did some research on it. I thought it a marvelous idea. You know, in times like these, say what you will, people want to escape, put their heads in the sand. There is much to be said for ostriches, indeed there is. So it came to me that to get away from all this horrible nuclear-war-and-fallout talk, my people would like to escape with me for an evening to the City of Gold in the unexplored sections of Brazil’s Matto Grosso jungles. There was said to be such a place, you know. I decided to outfit a small, a modest expedition, guides, motion picture crew, and go up the Amazon, follow the old Fawcett trail, and make a rare adventure of it. Now a thing like this takes financing, and I thought of Cyrus, who is an old friend, and laid it in his lap, but Cyrus felt that it wasn’t scientific enough—”

  Hackfeld squirmed uncomfortably. “Not I, Rex, but the Board, the Board of the Foundation,” he said.

  “Well, be that as it may, I still think they’re wrong,” said Garrity, his tongue loosened by drink. “No matter, no matter, that’s neither here nor there now.” He was pointed toward Maud again. “Tonight you’ve convinced me, Dr. Hayden, that the City of Gold is a passe thing compared to your Sirens.”

  “It’s not my Sirens, but thank you,” said Maud.

  “You’ve got a good thing there, Dr. Hayden. It’s an adventure, it’s a titillation, and at the same time—forgive me—it can pass as scientific inquiry—you know—it is science with built-in box office.”

  Claire shuddered for her mother-in-law, but knew that Maud could manage by herself. “I can’t subscribe to your description of our anthropological study, Air. Garrity,” said Maud tightly.

  “No offense,” Garrity replied. “Only meant a compliment. Say, aren’t we both dealing with the public? Anyway, I’ll come straight to the point—you’ll find I always come to the point. I’d like to go to The Three Sirens with you. I was discussing it with Marc at
dinner. You’ve got me sold. This is a brand-new subject. It could be a sensation. Think of it—an unknown island laboratory for new modes of sex and marriage. Why, I’d double, triple my bookings—and get a bestseller that wouldn’t conflict with your own. I have a lot to offer in helping you, and, in fact, I’d pay you a royalty on all my—”

  “No,” said Maud.

  Garrity teetered on a phrase, and fell back, mouth slack. “But—”

  Marc swerved toward his mother. “Matty, maybe this is something we can take up later with Mr. Garrity.”

  “Absolutely not,” said Maud.

  All eyes were on the pair, and immediately Marc tried to defend his position as scientist. “What I’m trying to say, Matty, is—well, I agree with you completely that we can’t get mixed up in any sort of undignified popularization—but it occurred to me that there might be some other areas—I don’t know—small areas, where Mr. Garrity could be beneficial to us, and where we could be—” He paused, lifted his palms outward, and shrugged. “I was only suggesting this is something we might explore at another time.”

  “I appreciate your trying to help, Marc,” said Maud, “but there is simply nothing to explore.” She had spoken the last with the slightest smile, but now, turning to address Garrity, the smile disappeared. “I respect your position and needs, Mr. Garrity, and you must understand my own. We are going to visit a unique people on a hitherto unknown island on the condition that their locale is never exposed to the public—”

  “But I wouldn’t!” said Garrity with fervor.

  “—and that any account of their life and customs is not distorted by sensationalism,” Maud went on. “By the very nature of your calling, that of a successful popularizer, you might exploit the Sirens in a way that could ultimately be damaging. I am determined to keep this on a purely scientific level. When I speak about it later, write about it, or members of my team do, it will be strictly in anthropological terms, and the interpretations will be sociological. This, I hope, will cast the proper light on the tribe and make the study useful. I am bound by my word not to incur any risks beyond that. Heavens forbid, I am not rebuking you, Mr. Garrity—there is a place for your—your findings—and another for ours, but I cannot see a partnership between the two … Marc, I think Mr. Hackfeld might like another brandy.”

  Thereafter, Garrity ceased contributing to the general conversation. He lapsed into sullen silence, moving only to refill his brandy glass with Armagnac. Lisa Hackfeld had become lively again, crowding Maud with more questions about what she expected to find on The Three Sirens and with still more questions about life in Polynesia, and Hackfeld seemed pleased to see his wife so entertained.

  Sometime before midnight, Claire heard Garrity hoarsely ask Marc to lead him to a telephone where he might make a business call. Obligingly, Marc rose and guided the travel writer down the hall to the phone in the room where the television set was kept. They had been gone five minutes when Hackfeld came heavily to his feet. “Honey,” he was saying to his wife, “we’ve got a long drive back.”

  “Must you go?” said Maud.

  “I certainly hate to, believe me,” said Lisa, rising. “I haven’t been so stimulated by conversation in years.”

  The Loomises were on their feet, too, and Claire hurried into the hall for the coats. From the closet, she could see Marc and Garrity standing inside the door of the small television room, engaged in an intense whispered exchange. Odd, Claire thought. Garrity had not wanted the telephone, he had wanted Marc’s ear.

  She paused, holding the heavy coats on her arm. “Mr. Garrity,” she called, “Mr. and Mrs. Hackfeld are leaving.”

  Garrity came out of the room nodding, tendered Claire a false smile, and went back through the hall to the living room. Marc was following behind him, thoughtful, when Claire stepped between her husband and Garrity. “Marc, help me with the coats.”

  As he did so, they were by themselves.

  “What goes on between you two?” Claire wanted to know.

  Marc’s eyes were bright. “He was briefing me on the lecture business. He was saying with a subject like The Three Sirens he could make over a million dollars—a million, imagine—as a starter, for all of us.”

  “All of us?”

  “I mean, if Maud let him in on this.”

  “He’d wreck the whole project. He’s horrible.”

  “Don’t make your snap judgments, Claire. He’s likable, if you get to know him. And he’s very successful. In fact, I have a hunch he’s more conservative and restrained than he sounds. I think it’s his public manner that throws you and Matty.”

  “He’s a leech,” said Claire. “There’s a whole breed of bloodsuckers, without talent, who live off people like you and Maud, who have talent. They bait you with reckless talk of big money, like this Garrity is doing, and—”

  “Easy, Claire.” Nervously, Marc looked off. “He might hear you.” ‘

  “Let him.”

  She started to go, but Marc restrained her. “Look, I stand by what I said before. We’re not interested in making a circus of our findings. It’s just that—well, you know as well as I do how much innocuous data winds up in dead files. I thought maybe we could dump the excess on Garrity, and still not compromise ourselves. I mean, if there’s all that loot floating around, why not get some of it? I’d like to get you your own car, and some new clothes—”

  “Lovely,” said Claire, “only there must be easier ways. Like holding up a bank … Stick to what you believe, Marc. Let Mephistopheles find himself another Faust.”

  “Oh, hell, honey, I was just talking.”

  “And so was Garrity.” She tugged his sleeve. “Come on, they’ll miss us.”

  Five minutes later, Maud Hayden stood in the open door, watching her guests leave. Claire came beside her, shivering at contact with the chilled night air. Outside, she observed a strange tableau.

  The Loomises had driven off, but the Hackfelds’ Cadillac limousine still was parked before the walk. Garrity had already dropped into the front seat, and the chauffeur remained at attention next to the open rear door. But Lisa Hackfeld had drawn her husband aside some distance from the car, and they appeared to be arguing, as they stood there below the house.

  “I wonder what’s going on?” asked Claire.

  “I don’t know,” said Maud. “All I know, worse luck, is that he turned me down. He said not enough was known about the Sirens to warrant the granting of extra funds.”

  “What will that mean?”

  “Well, I suppose—”

  She stopped. The ponderous figure of Cyrus Hackfeld was approaching slowly up the path, as his wife ducked into the car. Hackfeld halted some yards away. “Dr. Hayden,” he called out, “can I speak to you for a moment?”

  Quickly, Maud pushed open the screen door.

  “Wait,” said Claire, “I’ll get you a sweater.”

  “No, never mind—”

  She went down the walk. Claire watched her a moment, saw Hackfeld engage her in conversation, saw Maud nodding, and then Claire left the door so that she would not be eaves well, eaveslooking, she supposed you might call it. She assisted Marc, who was removing the bottles and glasses, and emptying the ashtrays, until at last her mother-in-law returned.

  Maud shut the front door, and leaned back against it, while the limousine outside started, warmed up, and crunched away, the sound of it receding. Both Claire and Marc tried to read Maud’s face as she came slowly to the coffee table. Her face showed relief, but no joy.

  “Well, children,” she said, “we’re getting the extra money, after all—and we’re also getting Mrs. Lisa Hackfeld.”

  Marc reacted first. “What the devil does that mean, Matty?”

  “It means that Lisa Hackfeld had the time of her life tonight. She’s a bored rich woman, and the talk about the Sirens was the first thing that has interested her in an age. Tomorrow is her birthday, and she asked her husband to give her the trip with us as her present. She wants to come
along. She insists upon it. She needs a vacation, but she also thinks she can be helpful. He says she knows something about dancing, studied it. Hackfeld will do anything to please her. As a matter of fact, I had no time to object. He said to me, ‘Of course, Dr. Hayden, if you have to take another person along, it would mean more expense, and I’d have to raise your budget anyway, wouldn’t I? Okay, let’s raise it the amount you requested after dinner, and I think I’ll personally throw in, out of my own pocket, an added five thousand. Will that do?’ ” Maud snorted. “Will that do? I’ll say it’ll do. We’ll be traveling with a big and strange company, but by God, children, we’re on our way, and that’s all that counts!”

  * * *

  Even though it was after two o’clock in the morning, and she was physically tired, Claire was not really too tired for that. She knew that he wanted her, as he always did those infrequent times when he made sly innuendos and stared at her bust.

  They had undressed, and Claire was already in the double bed, wearing the flimsy white nylon nightgown with the thin straps and full pleated skirt. He was still in the bathroom, and she lay on her back and waited. Except for the dim lamp on the table beside his end of the bed, the room was intimately darkened, and comfortably warm, yet her waiting was in her mind and not in her lower limbs, and she wondered why. Actually, she knew the answer but hated to face it. She disliked always blaming herself. The truth was, she did not enjoy the act, but enjoyed only the romantic idea that justified the act. Its accomplishment was a symbol. This participation in sex made her feel married and normal and at one with all the women on earth. The participation itself gave her no body pleasure. In recent months, she had feared that he suspected her true feelings. Otherwise, why would he come to her so infrequently?