The Three Sirens

by Irving Wallace

  Courtney halted, apparently reliving what had followed, and shook the ash from his pipe into a coconut tray. He considered Claire’s intent features, then resumed his narrative.

  “What Captain Rasmussen wanted to ask me was if I could still fly. He knew I’d had a fighter over the Yalu. I told him I hadn’t forgotten a thing. Then he had another question. Did I think I could manage his Vought-Sikorsky? I said I thought so, provided I had someone to brief me first. The Captain said that would be no problem. He was too unsteady to handle the plane, but he would be able to prop himself up and come along, showing me what to do, if I would execute his directions. I said fine, but I wondered why the necessity to get the amphibian up. Couldn’t he wait until he was well, and able to handle the controls himself? That was the crucial moment in our relationship. He wanted to know if he could trust me with a secret. The secret involved not only his honor, but his livelihood. He hardly waited for my reply. He knew very well that he could trust me with anything. ‘Okay, Tom,’ he said, Tm gonna spin you a yarn about a place you never heard of—even the old lady don’t know about it—a place called The Three Sirens.’ For two hours he confided the whole story to me. I sat through the recital dazzled, like a boy at the feet of Strabo or Marco Polo. Wasn’t that the way you felt when you read Professor Easterday’s letter?”

  “I’m not sure how I felt,” said Claire. “It seemed too much of a marvel in a mundane world. Our distance from Polynesia, I suppose. It seemed unreal.”

  “Well, I was closer, and it was real enough filtered through Ollie Rasmussen’s down-to-earth language,” said Courtney. “After he told me of the Sirens, he went on to say that when he had last left Paoti, there was some fear of their having the first epidemic in the islands’ history. The Captain had promised to return with needed medications. Now, he was a month overdue. He was afraid to risk a longer delay. Someone had to fly his plane to the Sirens. The upshot of this was that two days later I was at the controls, and a weak Ollie Rasmussen beside me. I managed the flight and the landing with no difficulties. My unexpected appearance on the Sirens was greeted with some hostility. When Ollie explained who I was, and what I had done, Paoti was satisfied. I was treated to a feast and welcomed as a benefactor. In the next few months, in Hapai’s place, I accompanied Ollie on every trip to the Sirens. Soon I was entirely accepted by the villagers, as much as the Captain himself. These visits began to have a peculiar effect on me. I found the very antithesis of what I despised at home. And while Tahiti, along with liquor and women, had been an escape, I had not entirely thrown off my old bitterness and feeling of strain. The Three Sirens had the effect of making me feel content and peaceful. On one visit, I asked Ollie to leave me behind until he called again. When he returned, I had shed my clothes and other inhibitions. I had no desire to return to Papeete even for my belongings. In fact, I didn’t. The Captain got them for me. Presently, I was initiated into the tribe. I had my own hut. Because of my learning, I had mana. Except for occasional forays into Tahiti, to buy reading material and tobacco, I’ve been here ever since.” He paused, and offered Claire an apologetic smile. “You’re very effective, Claire. I haven’t been so totally autobiographical in years.”

  “I’m pleased,” said Claire simply. “However, I don’t think you’ve been totally autobiographical. I think you’ve told me what you wanted to tell me, and no more.”

  “I’ve told you what I know of myself. The rest is being processed and inventoried.”

  “But you’re perfectly satisfied here?” She had put it as the slightest question, without challenge.

  “As much as a man can be—yes. Waking every morning is now something I look forward to.”

  “In other words, you don’t plan to return to Chicago?”

  “Chicago?” Courtney repeated the word as if reading from a scrawl on a lavatory wall.

  Claire saw the grimace he had made, and at once she had to be loyal to her childhood, the most treasured of her possessions. “It’s not that bad,” she said. “It was always enjoyable on the Outer Drive and swimming in Lake Michigan and going to the Loop on Saturdays. I can even remember the pony rides in Lincoln Park. Why, I—”

  “You mean you come from Chicago, too?” he said, incredulity on his face.

  “What’s so unusual about that?”

  “I don’t know. You don’t look it, whatever that means. You look more California.”

  “Because I’ve been longer in California. I was in Chicago only until I was twelve, when my dad was—when he died in an accident. He used to cart me around with him everywhere. He was wonderful. I was a fixture in the press box at Wrigley Field and Soldier’s Field—”

  “Was he a sports writer?”

  “Yes. His name was Emerson. I don’t know if you—”

  Courtney slapped his knee. “Sportorials by Alex Emerson! Your father?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Claire—I’ll be damned—how incredible to be sitting in this tropical hut speaking of Alex Emerson. I owe my literacy to him. When other kids were being raised on Tom Swift and Huck Finn and Elmer Zilch, I was loose among the great philosophers—Grant-land Rice, Warren Brown, and Alex Emerson. I’ll never forget his account—in 1937, I think—when Joe Louis knocked out James J. Braddock in the eighth.” Courtney looked at her. “How old were you then?”

  “Three weeks old,” said Claire.

  “And he died when you were twelve?”

  Claire nodded. “I’ve never stopped missing him—his lackadaisical manner—his laugh—”

  “What happened after that?”

  “We had relatives in California, in Oakland and down in Los Angeles. My mother took me to the Oakland branch, and we lived with them. When I was fourteen, my mother married again, an army career man, a colonel at the Presidio. His standard for family life was military life. I was guarded like a vestal virgin. The cloistering went on until I was graduated from high school. My stepfather wanted me to go to the University of California in Berkeley, so I could remain under his vigilant eye. I rebelled, and wheedled a compromise. I could live with my relatives in Los Angeles, and attend the University of California in Westwood. I can’t tell you the exhilaration in being half-free of the Colonel. It wasn’t easy, though. My entire experience had been lived through books. It was a jolt learning life and books don’t always match.”

  “When did you and your husband meet?”

  “I was out of school, and I wanted to be my father’s daughter. I wanted to be a reporter. I finally obtained a job as a stenographer on a Santa Monica newspaper. I kept writing and submitting features, and a few found their way into print. I began getting assignments. Mostly human-interest interviews. Then, the redoubtable Dr. Maud Hayden came down to lecture, and I was sent to interview her. She was too busy, but her son suggested that he could speak on her behalf. That’s how Marc and I met. I was terribly impressed. First of all, he was Maud Hayden’s son. Then, an anthropologist. He was over ten years my senior, and he seemed very worldly, yet settled and nice. I think he found me very naive and—well, the opposite of worldly—and apparently, he liked that. Anyway, a short time later he was in Los Angeles again, and he telephoned me for a date. And that was the start of it. We went steady for a long time. Marc had to grow used to the idea of marriage. He finally took the step. In two weeks, I’ll have two years of being Mrs. Hayden behind me.” She opened her palms. “There. Now you know all about me.”

  “All?” He doubted her, teasingly, as she had doubted the depth of his own story of himself.

  “No more, no less, than I know about you.”

  “Yes, I suppose that is so,” he said. “I bet you never dreamt you’d be spending a wedding anniversary on a tropical island. It’ll be strange, won’t it?”

  “I rather like the idea. When I first married Marc, I thought there would be a lot of exotic places in our lives. After all, he was an anthropologist. But he doesn’t like to travel outside the United States, really. It throws him off. I’d about g
iven up, when suddenly this came along. I find it all marvelous. There is so much I want to see and know about the village. Somehow, I keep feeling I can relate everything to myself, my own life. I type Maud’s letters, and they stimulate me. I catch myself saying, If only I could visit a place like that, and then I realize I am here.”

  “What would you like to see the most?”

  “Why, everything. Whatever Baedeker gave two stars, as he gave two stars to the Louvre, the Kremlin, Niagara Falls.”

  Courtney was amused. “We have no Louvre on The Three Sirens, but we have their own version of what might deserve two stars. I should say that you must visit the Sacred Hut. Everything in this society begins there. Manhood begins there, and womanhood, and the customs of the tribe itself. When would you like to seek?”

  “Whenever you’re free.”

  “I’m free right now.” Courtney uncrossed his legs, and stood up. “I really don’t have to wait for Maud Hayden. I’d rather do this. What about you?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it.” Claire had already removed the blank, curled sheets from the typewriter, and was neatly stacking them.

  In a few minutes, she accompanied Courtney into the compound. The rectangle of the day’s heat, almost solid, still filled the center of the village. But with the waning afternoon, the sun was setting, and the blaze from the sky overhead had been removed. More comfortable than earlier, Claire walked with Courtney through the village.

  “One thing has puzzled me,” Claire said. “The captain and able seamen on the brig that left Daniel Wright and his colony on the Sirens and sailed off, they must have had charts and maps of their landing. How come they never revealed the location of the Sirens to the outside world?”

  “They would have, of course, had they lived,” said Courtney. “In fact, Mrs. Wright had requested the brig’s captain to come back in two years, to take them off if Utopia had soured. But the brig was fated never to return. One day some planks and barrels—one with its name—were washed up on the beach of the Sirens. Apparently, not long after dropping off the Wright party, the brig ran into a tropical hurricane. It disintegrated in the storm and all hands perished. With this, the only knowledge of where Daniel Wright had landed was lost to the outside world. That hurricane preserved the Sirens society from 1796 until today.” Courtney pointed. “The Sacred Hut is right through those trees.”

  They entered a path winding past a dense, cooling grove of trees, and suddenly, with almost no preparation, came upon a circular, oddly peaked hut that looked as if it had been constructed after the design of a wizard’s hat.

  “This is the original Sacred Hut built under the direction of Daniel Wright and Tefaunni in 1799,” said Courtney. “Actually, I believe only the timber of the frame is original. All the thatching and cane has undoubtedly been replaced many times, after rains and winds. Let’s go inside.”

  There was a wooden catch on the high entry door. Courtney unhooked it, pulled the door out, then signaled for Claire to follow him.

  She was startled by the smallness and darkness of the round room. Then, she realized that there were no windows, only long ventilation slits high on the sides, where the curved walls bent inward as they reached toward the conical ceiling.

  “The tallest structure in the village,” said Courtney. “To bring it closer to the High Spirit.”

  “The High Spirit? Is that their God?”

  “Yes, except they don’t worship one deity. The High Spirit—there are no altars to him, no images of him—is a sort of director of all other divinities who are assigned specific powers.” He pointed to three gray idols, several feet tall, huddled in a dark curve of the room. “There you have the gods of sexual pleasure, fertility, matrimony.” To Claire, the three stone carvings vaguely reminded her of representations of Quetzalcoatl, Siva, and Isis.

  “The religion here,” Courtney went on, “a rather loose code, incorporates sex and advocates it. This is important to know, since in the West, generally, religion is against sex, except for procreation. When Daniel Wright appeared, he was clever enough not to oppose this loose religion or to insist upon imposing any beliefs of his own. Such opposition would only have made Polynesian worship stronger, and would have divided the natives from the English colonists. Instead, Wright proclaimed that all forms of worship should be permitted, each kin group to believe what it wished, with no proselytizing permitted. And so it stands today. This Sacred Hut is the closest thing to a church on the island, but, except for the coming-of-age rites, it is only a symbol of the higher powers. On special occasions, the villagers have religious ceremonies, very simple ones for birth, for death, for marriage, but these are performed under their own roofs, before their own idols.”

  Claire’s gaze had strayed from the sculptures to a large glass display case, similar to those used in jewelry shops. It was so incongruous, the modernity of it against the primitive background, that she barely muffled an exclamation.

  “What is it?” Courtney asked quickly.

  Claire indicated the showcase. “How did that get here?”

  “Ollie Rasmussen and I bought it in Tahiti and flew it in,” said Courtney. “Let me show you—”

  She started with him across the room, but her forward foot sank so deeply into the matting on the floor that she lost her balance and tripped. Courtney caught her by the arm before she fell.

  She surveyed the floor. “I’ve never seen such thickness of coverings. It’s like walking on a mattress.”

  “Exactly,” said Courtney. “The idea is luxurious comfort. Don’t forget, here is where adolescents are first initiated, introduced to the act of love.”

  Claire swallowed. “Oh,” she said. She tried not to look at the floor as Courtney took her elbow and guided her to the glass counter. Beneath the panes, laid out on blue velvet-lined trays, were the Daniel Wright treasures. There were a faded brown book which was Eden Resurrected by D. Wright, Esq., a light green leather-covered bookkeeper’s ledger with inked lettering that read “Daily Journal—1795-96,” and a ream of old manuscript with foxed pages.

  “When I arrived here, I found these rare items piled in a big scooped-out log on the floor here,” said Courtney. “Time and the elements had already made their inroads. I suggested to Paoti that something should be done to preserve these rarities for future generations. He was agreeable. The next time I was in Papeete, I bought the glass counter, secondhand, from a jeweler. I also ordered a gelatin solution to help preservation. Actually, Wright’s papers are in fine condition, considering their brittleness and age. They are in a dry place, removed from excessive heat and humidity, and he wrote on strong handmade rag paper—not the rotten wood-pulp we use these days—and the paper has survived. Consequently, most of Wright’s unique ideas have survived, not only in the villagers, but on the pages in this case. I occupied myself the first year making a copy of all the manuscripts here. I keep my copy in a bank vault in Tahiti. I’ve long ago given up the biography of Rufus Choate. But I have the notion that one day I’d like to do the definitive—well, really, the only full-length work on Daniel Wright of Skinner Street. I don’t think your mother-in-law’s paper will conflict much with what I plan. She’s doing the whole society that resulted. I want to do Daniel Wright himself, the idealistic Londoner who sets his family down among primitives.”

  “Did he have much of a family?”

  Courtney moved behind the case and pulled out the velvet tray. Gently, he took up the worn ledger and opened it. He showed Claire the first page. “Here, you can see, Claire: ‘Third of March, 1795…I, Daniel Wright, Esquire, philosopher of London, am aboard the vessel in the port of Kinsale, from whence we sail, within the hour, to New Holland in the Southern Sea. Because of government disapprobation of my principles, I seek a clime of compleat liberty. With me are my dear ones, my spouse Priscilla, my son John, my daughters Katherine and Joanna. With me, also, are three disciples, namely: Samuel Sparling, carpenter, Sheila Sparling, spouse, George Cover, merchant.’ “

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sp; Courtney closed the ledger, and returned it to the tray. “The colonists were prolific with offspring. Wright’s three children all intermarried with eligibles on the Sirens, and Wright had—there’s no written record, only a tradition—twenty grandchildren. The Sparlings had four girls of their own who, in several decades, gave them twenty-three grandchildren. As for the bachelor, George Cover, he successively married three Polynesian wives, taking the family name of each in turn, and they gave him fourteen children. That’s what I call integration.”

  “Who’s their fertility god?” said Claire. “Send him over some time.”

  She saw that Courtney had shot her a look, but she ignored him to bend over the glass and examine the ream of manuscript.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  “The manuscript? All of Wright’s notes suggesting ideas and practices for his ideal society. Perhaps one-third of them were applied to The Three Sirens. The rest were discarded by him in favor of the tribe’s own ways or were rejected by Tefaunni.” With care, Courtney lifted out an upper portion of the manuscript and laid it atop the glass. He turned several of the pages. “Wonderful archaisms, eighteenth-century words, phrases,” he murmured. “Listen—‘for those subject to ebullitions of ill-temper … render him a coxcomb … one suffering mortifications … scurvy tricks … speechifying…do so whilst we can … partake of its emoluments.’ ” He looked up. “Wonderful to be reading that in the original here and now.”