The Three Sirens

by Irving Wallace

  This portion of the journey had been restful. Sitting between her husband and her mother-in-law, Claire had begun to read a compact guidebook to Oceania, while Maud and Marc leafed through the free magazines in three languages furnished by TAI. Later, at reduced rates, they had ordered glasses of Mumm champagne, served by a raven-haired Tahitian stewardess wearing a blue cotton pareu.

  The champagne had given Maud a feeling of well-being, and her pudgy person relaxed and her tongue loosened. In her festive mood she had, finally, reconciled herself to the size of the team, and had even thought that the variety of experts might prove advantageous to the study. “Ten persons isn’t a record number, you know,” she had said. “Once, a wealthy young man—I think his family was in the banking business—took a team of twenty—twenty, mind you—to Africa, and I believe it worked out. This wealthy young man dressed himself as fastidiously as our Dr. Pence. In the field, he wore a dressy shirt and tie, and a Brooks Brothers suit. According to the story, one day the natives of the African tribe invited this wealthy young man to dine with them. Their piece de resistance was a fried patty-cake made up of various greens, vegetables, and mud. When the young man told the experience later, someone asked him, ‘Well, did you eat it?’ He threw up his hands. ‘Don’t be silly,’ he said, ‘I can barely eat the food at the Yale Club!’”

  Claire and Marc, and Lisa Hackfeld across the aisle, had laughed, and Maud had gone on reminiscing for another half-hour. Eventually, she had tired, and turned upon her side to doze off. Gradually, because there was nothing to do or see, lulled by the even monotony of the flight, by the champagne, by sedatives, most of the team had gone to sleep.

  At six-thirty in the morning, one by one, they had been awakened. The remnants of the night still hid Polynesia from sight, and so they had occupied themselves with the bathrooms and with packing their loose effects and having breakfast. Through all of this, the night had fled, the sun curved over the horizon, and the broad glassy ocean was to be seen far below. The loudspeaker had crackled instructions: secure safety belts, put out cigarettes, in several minutes Tahiti.

  For Claire, the legendary island had meant a jumble of all her readings, had meant Cook and Sieur de Bougainville, Bligh and Christian, Melville and Stevenson, Gauguin and Loti, Rupert Brooke and Maugham, and she had strained against her window for sight of the enchanted place. At first there was only the cloudless pale sky merging with the cerulean sea, and then, like a faint and distant color slide of an exquisite and fragile Hiroshige—in Oriental emerald-green projected on a curtain of air—there was Tahiti.

  Claire had gasped audibly at seeing the lovely print take dimension and grow in her vision. Briefly, she had felt an ache that this had been on the earth so long, and she on the earth so long, before their meeting. But she had appreciated her good fortune in possessing this for a memory at last, and she had remembered exactly, as a caption for the scene, the words of Robert Louis Stevenson: “The first love, the first sunrise, the first South Sea island, are memories apart, and touched a virginity of sense.” Silently, she had thanked him for his perception of her feelings.

  What had next dominated the view had been the velvety green of towering Mont Diademe, and suddenly they were dropping. Maud had leaned over, partially blocking the window, and Marc had engaged Claire with some instructions, and after snatching one final flash of the red-brown roofs of Papeete, she could see no more.

  There had been the rush and noise of their landing, the gradual slowing on the runway, and the final stopping. They had all come to their feet with their hand kits, and descended into the misty, tepid, early-morning air. What awaited them was an indescribable confusion of brown people and scented flowers and airport music. The chortling pretty native girls, so graceful and supple, in their vivid pareus and thong sandals, wearing white tiara blossoms on their ears like jewelry, were everywhere. One had thrown a wreath of flowers around Claire’s neck, and another had laughingly kissed Marc and called out “laorana” the Tahitian welcome.

  Claire had singled out Alexander Easterday immediately, before their introduction, and once more had marveled at Maud’s accuracy of memory and description. Observing Easterday, as he pumped Maud’s hand, Claire saw a squat and waddling Germanic type in pith helmet and neatly pressed but worn beige tropical suit. It had made her nervous to watch his precarious pince-nez and graying mustache jiggling on either end of his tomato nose. It had also seemed incredible to her that this caricature of a Herr Professor, so unlikely amid the swarm of flowers and bosoms and pareus, had been responsible for the ten of them standing here on the island of Tahiti.

  There was a bump that shook Claire loose from the memory of their arrival in Tahiti, and set her firmly into the bucket seat of Rasmussen’s seaplane heading for The Three Sirens. Shifting her position, Claire could see that Maud had been rocked into slight wakefulness, but with determined eyelids still hooded over tired eyes she continued to sleep. Across the aisle, Marc remained undisturbed in his slumber, but Pence had awakened and was trying to get his bearings.

  Claire’s cigarette was but one-third burned. She shook off the ash, brought the cigarette to her lips and inhaled, determined to enjoy the rest of it in Tahiti. She tried to fasten her mind on the fantasy of the day past that had gone so swiftly. It had been a kaleidoscope of a day, and in her mind she turned it and turned it, sorting the fragments of colored glass, trying to fix on the actual pattern of what she had witnessed.

  The variegated pattern would not take form, but changed in memory, so that she could see only one piece here and one piece there. They had gone through customs easily, she recalled. They had been taken, in rented Peugeots, outside the city to a cluster of thatched huts and coconut palm trees, near a lagoon, opening on the ocean, and this had been the Hotel Les Tropiques, with several huts reserved for those of them who wished to change or rest.

  The early lunch in the patio had included steamed fish, fried chicken, Martinique rum, and hot poi, consisting of taro with pineapple, banana, and papaya in coconut cream. There had been a remarkable view of Moorea, ten miles across the way, and Easterday had said that Captain Ollie Rasmussen lived on Moorea and would be coming over on the launch after dinner.

  Easterday had given Maud the schedule for her group. He had taken the liberty of arranging for everyone an auto tour of the island of Tahiti, over one hundred miles around the perimeter. This, and sightseeing and shopping in Papeete, would use up their afternoon. He had hoped that the Haydens would be his guests for dinner. The others would eat at the hotel, of course. He had left the evening open, suggesting they rest, since they would need their strength for the trip to the Sirens. At midnight, he would escort Maud, alone, to the Vaima Cafe on the waterfront to meet Rasmussen, while the others of the team, together with their baggage, would be driven to the quay and put aboard Rasmussen’s seaplane. Easterday had thought that they would take off for the Sirens an hour or two after midnight, and arrive at their destination by dawn. He had made all arrangements, through Rasmussen, with Courtney and Paoti on the Sirens. The team would be accommodated for the six-week period that had been agreed upon. There was one more thing, Easterday had added, just one thing—the pledge of secrecy about the location of the Sirens must begin this minute. There must be no loose talk. He had begged Maud to impress the need for this self-control upon every member of the team, and she had promised to do so.

  For Claire, the rest of the seventeen hours in Tahiti had been a dizzying experience. She had been given no leisure or meditative period during which to adjust to the change-over. In a single night she had gone over from the world of Raynor, Suzu, Loomis, Beverly Hilton to the world of Polynesia, Easterday, Rasmussen, Les Tropiques.

  There had been the tour, the rented autos heading northward in the heat: the tomb of Tahiti’s last King, Pomare V, such a lover of liqueur that a coral replica of a Benedictine bottle crowned the tomb amid the airo trees; the sights from Venus Point, where Captain Cook had stood in 1796 to observe the moon’s path ac
ross the sun; the far-off waterfall of Faaru, like so many white threads swaying in the breeze; the late lunch in the bamboo dining room of the Faratea Restaurant, with the smell of pink acacias all about; the coolness of the Grotto of Maraa, with its pool inside the deep cave; the walls of black lava at the Temple of Ashes, where priests recited pagan rites; the cluster of huts representing the island’s second-largest city, Taravao, with the nearby blowholes of spray.

  When they had made the full circle, and entered Papeete, the colored-glass fragments of Claire’s mental kaleidoscope reflected an odd assortment of remembrances: the foam on the coral reefs; the wayside cafe with its Algerian wine; the colonial house encircled by breadfruit trees thick with green leaves; the white churches with rust-colored steeples; the boxes, like mailboxes, along the highway, for the delivery of long French breads and pasteurized milk; the rickety native bus, packed with schoolgirls in navy blue, with blocks of ice on its roof; and everywhere, the green gorges and sparkling streams and red bougainvillaea.

  Of Papeete, the city, she remembered only the sturdy laughing girls in their colored pareus, walking along in pairs; the buzzing motor scooters weaving in and out of wide baked streets; the copra schooners, yachts, fishing boats, and one gray liner in the water along the quay; the bamboo lettering that spelled “Quinn’s” over a raucous nightclub; the French and Chinese stores, and the jumble of exotic artifacts inside Easterday’s shop in the Rue Jeanne d’Arc.

  She had been weary at dinner, eye-weary, leg-weary, senses fatigued, and through dinner with Easterday at Chez Chapiteau, she had eaten her filet mignon and fried potatoes and hardly listened as Maud and Marc discussed Rasmussen and The Three Sirens with their host. Back at Les Tropiques, she had flung herself on her bed and slept hard and motionless the hours before midnight. When Marc had shaken her awake, he told her that Maud had already gone off to meet Rasmussen at the Vaima Cafe, and that a young Polynesian named Hapai was waiting outside to drive them to the seaplane.

  It had been after one o’clock in the morning when the flying boat had churned through the water, leaving behind the lights and music and shouts of Papeete, and lifted them into the sky once more toward The Three Sirens. She had met Rasmussen briefly, after the take-off. While Hapai was at the controls, Rasmussen had entered the main cabin, and Maud had made the introductions. Claire had been pleased by his appearance: a waterfront character wearing a venerable marine cap, open-collared, short-sleeved white shirt, blue jeans, and dirty tennis shoes. His bloodshot eyes had been rheumy, and his scarred, unshaved Scandinavian face a battleground of dissipation. His speech had been raspy, grammatically unpolished, but direct, serious, humorless. After the introductions, he had disappeared whence he came, into the seaplane’s nose, and had not been seen again.

  Claire’s cigarette had burned out, and she dropped it beside her feet.

  She heard the creak of a seat, caused by Maud’s plentiful person beside her, and she turned to find her mother-in-law seated erect, arms up, stretching, wagging her head to shake off drowsiness.

  “I must have been sound asleep,” said Maud, yawning. “Have you been up all this time?”

  “Yes. I’m wide awake. I had all that rest after dinner.”

  “What’s been happening? Has Rasmussen come back in here?”

  “No. Everything’s very quiet. Only Mrs. Hackfeld and I have been awake.”

  Maud was peering down at her large stainless-steel wrist watch. “It’s after six. Rasmussen said we’d be there by daybreak. We should be very near.”

  “I hope so.”

  Maud studied Claire. “Are you all right?”

  “Of course. Shouldn’t I be?”

  Maud smiled. “A young person’s first field trip is like her first date. Something new and important. She has a right to be uncertain. What is ahead? How will she react and perform?”

  “I’m all right, Maud.” She hesitated. “It’s just—” She halted.

  “Go on. You were about to say … ?”

  “My only concern is that I might be useless on this trip. I mean—what is my specialty? Wife?”

  “Heavens, Claire, sometimes the wife of an anthropologist can be ten times more important on a field trip than her husband. Countless reasons. A man-and-wife team seems less intrusive, less outsiders, more acceptable in many cultures. Furthermore, a wife can find out more about wifely things, and understand them better, than her husband. You know—household care, child rearing, nutrition—it is easier for her to recognize differences in these areas and absorb them. Perhaps more important is the fact that—well, countless societies have tabus against men, foreign men, observing and interviewing their females. I don’t know how it will be on the Sirens, but Marc might be barred from learning about—oh, menstruation, sexual intercourse, pregnancy, how these women feel about being women, their pleasures, dislikes, longings—simply because he is a male. But his wife could be acceptable, even welcomed. You know—she’s one of the girls, etcetera, just as I am, except I’ll have other tasks to keep me occupied. So you’ll have plenty to do, Claire, and real value.”

  “Pretty speech and thank you,” said Claire, drawing her sweater about her blouse and buttoning it.

  “Besides, I hope you’ll continue to give me a hand with notes and—”

  “Of course, I will, Maud.” She was amused by her mother-in-law’s anxiety for her. “In fact, I already feel overworked.”

  “Good.” Maud lifted herself from the bucket seat. “Come on, Claire, let’s find out where we are.”

  Claire rose and preceded Maud into the aisle. Slowly, in the semidarkness of the plane’s interior, they progressed up the passageway, past the landing-gear compartment, past the mail and baggage sections and lavatory, past the main entrance hatch, and suddenly they came upon Rasmussen and Hapai in the smoke-filled cockpit of the flying boat.

  At the sound of their approach, Rasmussen quickly turned from the controls and, like a naughty boy caught with a coffin nail behind the barn, he lowered his cigar. He brushed away a bluish cloud of smoke with his free hand, and ducked his head in a greeting.

  “Hiya, there,” he said, and leaned sideways to squash his cigar stub in a metal tray on the floor.

  “I hope you don’t mind our curiosity—” Maud had begun to say.

  “Not at all, ma’am, nope. You’re payin’, so you’re entitled to a free look.”

  Claire squeezed herself beside Maud, behind the pilot chairs. Her eyes lifted from the complex instrument panel to the windshield, and sought what lay beyond the twin engines. It was still night, no longer black night but gray night, as if a dense fog were lifting and lighting. The ocean below was not yet visible.

  “It’s getting light,” Claire said to Maud.

  “Yes, but I can’t see—”

  “Give her another fifteen minutes, ma’am,” Rasmussen interrupted, “an’ you’ll have the first piece of sun and have yourself a look at the ol’ Pacific.”

  “Uh—Captain—” Even Maud found it difficult to give him rank. “Do we have very far to go?”

  “I said fifteen minutes to see the day—an’ give it five minutes after to see your first look of the Sirens.”

  Conversation with Rasmussen was as easy as sludging through a quagmire, but nevertheless Maud went on. “How did The Three Sirens get its name?”

  Rasmussen covered his mouth and belched, and mumbled an apology. “That’s the sort of thing to ask Tom Courtney, but, matter of fact, I know pretty well from him. Back in 1796, when old Wright—the first one—was sailin’ up from Down Under, lookin’ for some place to roost, he was doin’ lots of readin’ in between times, readin’ the old books. An’ when the lookout yelled that he spotted some new islands—these ones you’re goin’ to—old Wright was below in his bunk, readin’ away at the writer with one name—Homer—you know Homer—?”

  Maud and Claire nodded gravely.

  “—he was readin’ the book, never can remember the name, where the fellow is wanderin’ all around, i
n an’ outa trouble, tryin’ to get home to the old lady—”

  “The Odyssey,” said Maud tolerantly.

  “Well, whatever the name, anyways, old Wright is down there an’ he’s readin’ about where this fellow is sailin’ past the islands where vahines are singin’, tryin’ to seduce—beg your pardon—so as he’s got to put wax in his ears not to listen and gotta get hisself tied up to the mast—forgot how it goes—”

  He fell to ruminating about the passage, and Claire summoned up her courage. “Circe said to Ulysses, ‘First, you will come to the Sirens, who bewitch everyone who comes near them. If any man draws near in his innocence and listens to their voice, he never sees home again—’ “

  “Yup, that’s it!” Rasmussen shouted. He squinted at Claire as if she were an admirable discovery. “You’re mighty smart, ma’am, just as smart as Courtney.”

  She was pleased to be as smart as Courtney. “Thank you, Captain.”

  “Anyways,” Rasmussen went on, “there’s old man Wright up on deck an’ he’s sayin’ those three islands look beautiful an’ if they’re the ones, why he’s goin’ to name them what he’s readin’ which is like you said—the Sirens—an’ since there was three he always called them The Three Sirens, so that explains it.”

  For Claire, the utter incongruity of the discussion, considering both the backgrounds of the participants and their position of animated suspension somewhere between six and ten thousand feet above sea level, amused her and made her happy.

  “Captain Rasmussen,” Maud was saying, “do you mind a personal question?”

  His rough, worn face closed suspiciously, so that he appeared toothless. “Depends what,” he said.