The Three Sirens

by Irving Wallace

  “Are you sure about no recriminations?” asked Harriet. “I mean people are possessive, they get jealous.”

  “Not here,” said Lisa. “They’ve grown up with this custom and it’s with them all their lives. The dance woman, Oviri, said there were some adjustments sometimes, an appeal to the Hierarchy to shed one mate and take a new one, because of the festival, but rarely. I still think it’s great. Imagine, doing whatever you want for a week with no one watching you or caring, and yourself not feeling guilty.”

  “It’s fantastic. I’ve never heard anything like it.”

  “Well, we’ll be here, we’ll see it. Anyway, this Oviri said the whole festival kicks off with the ceremonial dance exhibition the first night. It is supposed to create an atmosphere of—of celebration and freedom. That’s what I saw them rehearsing an hour ago. After Oviri left me to go and work with her troupe—there were some new ones who had to be taught to perform with the group—I sat there alone, kind of apart, a little wound up by what I’d heard, but still sort of lonely and by myself. Once they started dancing, I couldn’t take my eyes off them. I know something about the dance, but, honey, I’ve never seen anything like this. Speak about our bumps and grinds. Kindergarten play. They had a fertility dance going, a line of men and a line of women, facing each other, everything synchronized and planned—a couple of musicians started with the flutes and wooden drums—and those women started clapping and chanting, throwing their heads way back, pushing their breasts and pelvises way out, all their muscles going, going in a frenzy, and the men, hips rotating, it was wild. I’m surprised it didn’t end up in an orgy. I guess I was impressed and showed it, eyes bugging, palms slapping on my hips, because Oviri skipped over and offered me her hand. Well, I had no more thought of joining them—at my age—and I haven’t really danced for years—but I got caught up in it, and there I was in that pack of strangers, swinging away. After a few minutes they took a break, thank the Lord, because my mouth was dry and my arms and legs ached and I thought I’d collapse. Drinks were passed around, some kind of milky something made of herbs, and Oviri explained the next number, and I hadn’t intended to go on, but all at once I was eager and ready. They formed a circle, and I was in it, and we began stamping, and twirling, and going in and out, and I picked up the rhythm and went crazy. I’m glad Cyrus and the old crowd couldn’t see me. What a spectacle. It got so frenzied—I was wet through and through—that I wanted to be like those Sirens women with nothing on but some grass around the middle. I still had enough sense not to be foolish, but I kicked off my ballet slippers, and as we were wheeling and grinding, I yanked out my blouse and tried to unbutton it and finally ripped it off—that’s why no buttons—and there I was in bra and skirt, a maniac. I’m a quick study and I learned the motions fast. Well, it’s been years since I felt so free, not giving a damn about anyone, even about myself, only having a ball. And when it was over, I wasn’t even tired or sore. Isn’t that something? Anyway, they liked me, I liked them, and I promised Oviri I’d come there every day. I’ll have to make notes on it for Maud … One funny thing. That kind of crazy dancing is for young people. At least, at home it is. Married women my age, and with a son in prep school, they don’t do the young Zelda Fitzgerald or Isadora bit. But you know, when I was leaving, I got up the courage to ask Oviri her age. She’s older than I am—forty-two—can you imagine that? I guess the letting-go agrees with her. I know it does with me. I can’t wait for tomorrow.”

  Listening to Lisa Hackfeld’s enthusiasm, Harriet was delighted for her. As always, she wanted everyone to be happy. She had almost forgotten her own recent sorrow, but now, visualizing the festival dance, she conjured up an image of Uata as part of it. How abandoned and alive he must have been.

  She was reminded of her duty, and halted, aware that they had gone several huts past Maud’s dwelling. “It sounds sensational, Lisa,” she said. “You’ll have to show me how it goes one day … Listen, I almost forgot, but I have to see Maud on some business. Will you excuse me?”

  “You go along. Forgive my running off at the mouth like this.”

  They had started to separate, when Lisa remembered an amenity. “Oh, Harriet, I meant to ask, what kind of a day did you have?”

  “Like you, a ball, a great big wonderful ball.” She knew that Lisa would not detect, and not understand if she did detect, the irony in her tone.

  * * *

  It was a little after four in the afternoon—at home always the purgatory part of the day, when you regretted what you had or had not done up to that moment, when you suffered the approach of night with its disappointments—and Claire Hayden was glad, at this time, to be occupied.

  Since her own table would not be ready until tomorrow, she sat at Maud’s desk, finished the last of the typing on the third letter, pulled it from the machine, and fixed paper, carbon, paper for the fourth letter. Before leaving to see Paoti, Maud had dictated seven letters to colleagues in the United States and England, each short but provocative, each hinting at an amazing forthcoming study.

  Maud’s casual letters were carefully calculated to spread favorable gossip by word of mouth in anthropological circles. A Dr. So-and-So would open his letter in Dallas, flattered to hear from the legendary Maud, curious about “the secret island” from which she was writing, and he would remark to others in the field, “Sa-ay, Jim, guess who I heard from last week—Maud—Maud Hayden—the old battle-axe is out in the South Pacific on some hush-hush field trip, a big one this time—can’t count her out—she’s off and running. Got to give credit to those Boas-Kroeber gals.” Thus, artificially seeding the atmosphere, Maud would create the right climate for a dramatic appearance and paper at the American Anthropological League this fall. Thus, she would reinforce Dr. Walter Scott Macintosh’s support. Thus, she would brush aside the threat from Dr. David Rogerson. And thus, she would be enshrined as executive editor of Culture. Her daughter-in-law knew that from this day on the typewriter keys would not be still.

  Satisfied to collaborate in this promotion, to help win Maud her high post, thereby winning Marc a better position and their own privacy for the first time in their marriage—although, today, she was less sure she wanted that—Claire slipped the blank pages into her machine and rolled them through.

  She had bent to read her shorthand ciphers, when suddenly the door swung open and the bright sunlight enveloped and blinded her. She covered her eyes, heard the door close, dropped her hand, and saw that the caller looming above her was Tom Courtney, appearing congenial and attractive in a T-shirt and blue dungarees.

  He showed surprise at finding Claire behind the desk. “Hello …” he said.

  “Hello yourself.”

  “I-I guess I expected to find Maud.”

  “She’s with the Chief.” Her mind swiftly reversed itself, and she found she had no patience for work. She wanted company. “She should be back any minute,” Claire said quickly. “Why don’t you sit down?”

  “If you don’t mind? Because if you’re busy—”

  “I’m through for the day.”

  “All right.” He made for the bench, pulling pipe and pouch from his hip pocket, then sat down and packed his pipe bowl. “I should apologize for bursting in without knocking. Everything is so informal here. You gradually forget your—your American manners.”

  She watched him put the flaming lighter to his pipe. She wondered what was in his mind about her, if anything. Aside from her husband and doctor, no other white man, except this stranger, had ever seen her unclad to the waist. What had he thought?

  She slid around in the chair to face him, drawing her skirt down. He had his pipe billowing smoke, and he looked up at her, smiled crookedly, crossed his long legs.

  “Well, Mrs. Hayden—” he said.

  “I’ll trade you Claire for Tom,” she said. “It might as well be Claire. You know me practically as—as intimately as my husband.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m afraid I made a spectac
le of myself last night. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, come and see the new strip queen of The Three Sirens.’ “

  Some concern touched his features. “You’re not really worried about that, are you?”

  “I’m not. My husband is.” She did not mind being disloyal to Marc today. “He thinks the place is making me dissolute.”

  She had spoken the last lightly, but Courtney’s reply was devoid of humor. “It had to be done, and you were right to do it,” he said. “I thought you handled yourself with dignity. You made a wonderful impression on Paoti and the others.”

  “Well, hurrah for that,” she said. “I’ll have to bring you as an affidavit for my husband.”

  “Husbands are a special breed,” he said. “They are often possessive and resentful.”

  “How do you know? Were you one of the breed?”

  “Almost. Not quite.” He worried his pipe. “My knowledge of the breed is secondhand,” he said carefully, speaking to the pipe. He looked up. “I was a divorce lawyer.”

  “Sellers, Woolf and Courtney, Attorneys-at-Law, Chicago, Illinois. Northwestern and Chicago Universities. Army Air Force, Korea, 1952. En route to the Sirens, 1957.”

  He blinked steadily, and made no effort to hide his surprise. “Where did you say you were from—221B Baker Street?”

  “It was all very simple,” said Claire. “Maud is extremely thorough, and she researched what she could, including Daniel Wright, Esquire, including Thomas Courtney, Esquire.”

  He nodded. “Yes, I see. I suppose nothing can be secret any more. There must be a file somewhere on the most non-nonentity. You know, Mrs.—are you sure I can call you Claire?—all right, Claire, you know, sometimes when I was with the firm, preparing divorce settlements, it astonished me how much I could know of a person without meeting him or her. A man would come to us, instigating divorce, and I might never see his wife, yet I would know all about her—and probably accurately—from papers, documents—things like income tax returns, leases, financial statements, clippings, just things like that, let alone what the husband would tell me. So I shouldn’t be too surprised that my life is an open book, too.”

  Claire liked him. She liked his courtesy and his intelligence. She liked his amiability. She wanted to know more, much more. “You’re not quite an open book,” she said. “Our dossier on you reveals when you left Chicago. It doesn’t tell why—or why you came here—and how—or why you’ve stayed so long. I suppose it’s none of my business—”

  “I have no real secrets,” he said. “Not any more. I have a shy streak. I’m not certain anyone is interested in—well, in motives.”

  “Very well. I am interested. I adopt you as my key informant. I’m doing an anthropological paper on divorce lawyers and their society.”

  Courtney laughed. “It’s not as dramatic as you might expect.”

  “Let me be the judge. One day you’re shooting at MIGs over Korea. The next you are back as junior partner in a big, stuffy law firm. The next you are an—an expatriate on an unknown South Seas island. Is that par for divorce lawyers?”

  “For ones who have come to distrust their fellow man, yes.”

  “Fellow man? Does that mean everyone?”

  “It means specifically women. Out of context, that sounds juvenile. Nevertheless, it is what I mean.”

  “Based on the evidence at hand—I quote Tehura, as of last night—you hardly seem misogynous to me.”

  “I’m talking past tense. Toward the last of Chicago, I was a confirmed misogynist. The Three Sirens reformed me, gave me a proper perspective on myself.”

  “Well, you’ve been to the spa. You’re healed. Why don’t you go home, American?”

  He hesitated. “I’ve become used to it here, I guess. I like it here. It’s an easy life, no demands, a man can have as much solitude or companionship as he desires. I have my work here, my books—”

  “Your women.”

  “Yes, that, too.” He shrugged. “And so I stay.”

  She stared at him. “And that is all of it?”

  “There may be other reasons,” he said slowly. He smiled. “Let’s save something so I have an excuse to talk to you again.”

  “As you wish.”

  He sat straighter. “Why did I leave Chicago? I don’t mind telling you. In fact, I’d like to. I think our attitudes harden early. I know my own, toward women, toward marriage did. My parents were hellishly married. There was one roof, but it was like two separate houses. If they met in one room, it was the same as throwing two cocks into a pit. Well, when it’s that way, you grow up with the notion that marriage is not exactly Elysium. And when your mother is the dominant shrew, that colors your attitudes, too. You get to think Disraeli was right. You know: ‘Every woman should marry—and no man.’ I spent a lot of time with girls, through school, and after, too, but always very cautiously. Then, late in ‘51, I met the one, I was smitten, and my defenses went down. We were formally engaged. Before we could be married, I was off to Korea. We swore to be true, to be chaste, to wait for one another. Sure enough, she was there waiting for me when I returned. I married her. It was only after the ceremony that I found out she had been pregnant before I came home and before we were married. She didn’t give a damn about me any more. She needed a fall guy, a sucker, someone to give her and her kid legitimacy and a name. The minute it came out, and I saw how I had been taken, I left her and had the marriage annulled. That’s why I could say to you before that my knowledge of the husband breed is secondhand. I stand by that. I don’t feel that I’ve ever been married.”

  ‘Tm sorry that happened, Tom. It shouldn’t have.” She felt comfortable with him, more familiar, now that he had revealed a personal failure.

  “No, I shouldn’t have let it happen, but I did.”

  “So it’s the crippled old cliche—one woman spoiled all women for you, soured you on everything?”

  “Not quite. There’s more to it. After that experience, after all not uncommon, which only reinforced what I had known of my parents, and which made me suspicious of close relationships with people, I concentrated more than I ever had on my legal work. In a short time, I was promoted to junior partner, and it was Sellers, Woolf and Courtney. But a curious drift was occurring in my work. I had been doing a good deal of tax law, advising corporations, that sort of thing. Then bit by bit, I began usurping, from others in the firm, more of the court cases, much of it divorce work. I became an expert on divorce law, handled hundreds of litigations, and soon was giving this field my entire energy. Looking back, I can see what drove me into this. It was as if I wanted firsthand evidence to buttress my own thinking about women and marriage. I didn’t want to see the best side of it—healthy, relatively happy couples in solved marriages. That would have made me the outsider, the unsuccessful one. By burying myself in the world of marital strife—and I can’t tell you how women and men look in a divorce office, the hostility, hatred, petty meanness, sheer misery—by making myself a part of this, pretending this was the norm, I justified my determined bachelorhood. I was warped to begin with. You have no idea how much more warped you can become if you live in the world of separate maintenance, property settlement, child custody, suit and countersuit, and bitter divorce. You come to say to yourself, All women are untrustworthy or sick, and all men are the same, and the devil with both. You understand?”

  “Do you still feel that way?” Claire asked.

  Courtney was thoughtful a moment. “No,” he said. “I don’t think so.” He considered the entire matter once more, a kind of communing with himself, as he absently lighted his cold pipe. “Anyway,” he said, lifting his head toward Claire, “I became so tired of the people I was in contact with daily—everything was so expected and boring—and I was so revolted by the chicanery of the life around me, that one day I studied my bank account, saw that I had enough, and quit. My partners made it a leave of absence. But for me, I quit. I hear from one of them about every six months, or did, asking if I’ve got this nonsense out of my
system., if I’m ready to come back to those dark green walls and detailed briefs, from wherever I am. I write back no. Lately, the letters have been fewer.”

  “Did you come straight here after you quit?”

  “First, I went to Carmel, California. I thought I would rest, think, and occupy myself with an attorney’s biography of Rufus Choate—I became interested in the wonderful historical coot when I was going to school, had loads of notes—but I didn’t feel like working. And Carmel was full of the same kind of people I had known in Chicago—well, like the set in Woodstock, Illinois—so I knew I had not run far enough. Finally, I went up to San Francisco, joined a Pacific cruise, and took the S. S. Mariposa for Sydney. When we stopped over in Tahiti, and went ashore, I was the only one with enthusiasm for the island. Almost all the passengers expected too much, and I expected nothing, and we were both fooled. They were disappointed at the tawdriness and commercialism. I was elated to find the first place on earth where one was infused with—with languor—all bad poisons drained out of you. You could lie in the sun and say to hell with the world. So, when the S. S. Mariposa went on, I stayed behind … There you have it, the whole Courtney saga. Do we stand adjourned?”

  Claire, who had hardly moved in her chair, protested mildly. “Objection,” she said. “I don’t have the whole saga. We last left the hero indolent on Tahiti. But the past three or four years he has been on The Three Sirens, not Tahiti. Do you want to skip the transition?”

  “Objection sustained, but really nothing to skip. I hung around Papeete several months. I drank a lot. When you hit the bottle, you make friends, and sometimes they become good friends. Captain Ollie Rasmussen was one. We drank together. We became quite close. I liked the cynical old boozer, and he liked me. I came to know about him, most everything except his work, which didn’t interest me much anyway. All I knew was that at intervals of two weeks, he was off to acquire imports. Anyway, one such interval came, and I understood him to be away, and waited for his return in a couple of days. When he didn’t show up, and when a week passed, I became concerned. Just as I began making inquiries, I received a message from his wife on Moorea. She said that Ollie was ill, and had to see me right away. I hurried over there on the launch. I found the Captain in bed, gaunt and weak. I learned he had been down with pneumonia for a couple of weeks. At the same time, his copilot, Dick Hapai, had cut a foot, suffered a bad infection, and was still in the hospital. As a result, the Captain had missed his last two trips out, and it meant that for at least a month the people he usually visited had been missing him. All the while he spoke, he kept appraising me, and suddenly, he took my wrist and said, ‘Tom, I wanna ask you somethin’—”