The Three Sirens

by Irving Wallace

  “Yes, it is,” agreed Claire. “What sort of practices does he advocate in those pages?”

  “He touches on everything that involves human society. For example, my own interest was in law. Well, old Wright was for trials and judges, but against lawyers. He got that from Sir Thomas More’s Utopia. Here, let me find it …” Courtney was turning the pages, and then his finger ran down one page. “Yes, here it is. Wright says he concurs with what Thomas More advocated in 1516. He quotes More on the Utopians: ‘They have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters and to wrest the laws; and therefore they think it is much better that every man should plead his own cause, and trust it to the judge.’ “

  “Surely, as an attorney, you don’t subscribe to that?”

  “That’s the practice today on the Sirens,” said Courtney. “Members of the village plead their own causes, not before a judge but before the Chief. Of course, this wouldn’t work in highly sophisticated societies, where laws have become so complex that it requires experts to understand them, and the experts are the members of the legal profession. If I were to play Daniel Wright back home, I would not dispense with lawyers but with juries, as we know them. Mind you, I believe in the jury system, but not as it is now constituted. What do you get on the average jury? Amateurs at law, doing their duty, trying to spare time from their work for a pittance, or loafers who have no work. You get ordinary untrained men and women steeped in the same amount of neuroses and prejudices that we all possess. In short, panels filled with some intelligence and good intentions, but dominated by inexperience and instability.”

  “At least it is democratic,” said Claire.

  “Not good enough. I’ll tell you what should be done. Just as men and women are trained to be lawyers, men and women should be trained to be jurors. Yes, being a juror should be made a profession in the United States, like law, medicine, accountancy, journalism, mathematics. A youngster should say he wants his life work to be that of juror, and go to a university to study and prepare for it, learn law, psychiatry, philosophy, learn objectivity, and when he has his diploma, he should be assigned to a federal or state pool of jurors, with graduated annual salary depending on the court or cases he is assigned to hear. Then we’d have a better judicial system. Certainly as good a system as they have on the Sirens.” Courtney paused, and smiled. “One thing I’ll say for old Wright, he makes one think.”

  “He certainly does.”

  Courtney assembled the portion of manuscript before him, laid it on the tray, and closed the case. “Of course, sixty percent of Daniel Wright’s writing pertains to courtship and marriage, every conceivable aspect of both. Wright favored sex education, disapproved of relatives marrying, favored monogamy, felt children should be taken from parents and raised in a common nursery. The Polynesians had most of these ideas already, but in less drastic form. Parents kept their children, but there were so many included in the extended kinship groups that it was almost as if each child belonged to the entire village. Wright wanted eugenic mating, but it was impossible here and he compromised, using a sort of selective mating that brought equally good results. He believed a couple that desired to marry should live together for an entire month first. Trial marriage, you know. This was a radical concept inspired only by Anglo-Saxon needs. In Polynesia, it was not necessary. There was enough sexual permissiveness and free choice and experiment without making a law to achieve the same ends. Have you heard of Wright’s marriage code?”

  “No. Whatever is that?”

  “He was hoping to make sex life happier by finding rational grounds either to improve marriage or justify obtaining a divorce. He tried to reduce sex to formula. I don’t recall the figures now—they’re in the manuscript—but he drew up performance charts, minimum requirements. All couples who marry between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five were expected to make love together at least three times a week, unless, by mutual agreement, they preferred less activity. In this age group, the minimum time for intercourse was given as five minutes, and it could be less only if both partners agreed. If either partner was dissatisfied because the love-making fell below three times a week or less than five minutes in duration, that partner could apply for and obtain a separation while the other partner went back for a probationary period of sex instruction. There was another schedule for couples between the ages of twenty-six and forty, and so on. Wright was very intent about introducing this system, but Tefaunni and his Hierarchy ridiculed it out of existence. They argued that numbers could not be applied to love, that numbers did not guarantee pleasure and happiness. Tefaunni showed that his married subjects were relatively happy all the time, and the unmarried ones had the Communal Hut. Well, Wright got interested in the Communal Hut, and saw how he could apply his sex ideas to improve that. So he convinced Tefaunni that they should add new functions to the Communal Hut and rename it the Social Aid Hut. Pretty radical stuff, too. If Maud Hayden lets out these functions in the United States, England, Europe, she’ll have a greater response than she ever bargained for.”

  “Meaning what?” said Claire. “By now, I have a notion of what the Social Aid Hut is for, but what are the extra functions or services everyone is always mysteriously alluding to? What goes on?”

  “It’s in the manuscript. I’ll let you read it one day.”

  “Can’t you tell me about it now?”

  Courtney’s reluctance to continue was evident. “I don’t know—”

  “Is it some wild sex thing? I’m shockproof. You don’t think I’m a prude, do you?”

  “No, I don’t believe you are, but—well, after last night—I just wouldn’t want your husband to think you’re being corrupted.”

  Claire had stiffened. “You have me on tour, not Marc,” she said.

  “Okay,” Courtney conceded quickly. “Wright had seen too much sexual maladjustment in Great Britain. While he found matters improved on the Sirens, he wanted perfection. He wanted no one dissatisfied, ever. He has some eloquent passages on this point in his manuscript. He knew that his suggested innovations would not solve all marital problems, but he felt they laid a better foundation for happiness. So he introduced the idea of a second love partner, when a second one was required.”

  Courtney waited to see if Claire understood. She did not. “I may be slow,” she said. “I still don’t grasp what you mean.”

  Courtney sighed, and went on. “Wright found that, too often, after coitus, one partner was satisfied and the other was not. Usually, the man had enjoyed his orgasm, but his mate remained unfulfilled. Sometimes, it was the other way around. Under the new custom, if this occurred, the unfulfilled mate, let us say a married woman, could tell her husband she was going to the Social Aid Hut to finish her love. If he felt that she was not justified, was just being promiscuous, he had the right to challenge her and protest to the Hierarchy for a trial. If he felt that she was justified, and this was usually the case, he would let her go, and turn over and himself go to sleep. As for the unfulfilled one, she would make her way to the Social Aid Hut. Outside there were two bamboo shoots, each with a bell on the end, each tied down. If the visitor was a man, he would untie and release one bamboo, which jumped upwards and rang the bell. If the visitor was a woman, she would release both bamboos. These would be heard inside. Having released two bells, she would proceed into a darkened room, unseen by anyone, and there would be a single man of sexual prowess waiting. What her husband had begun would now be finished by another. There you have it.”

  Claire had heard out the last with growing disbelief. “Incredible,” she said. “Does it still go on?”

  “Yes, but the practice has been modified since the turn of the century. The bells were torn down, thrown away. They were found to be too noisy—in fact, because of their sound, inhibiting. Today, the unfulfilled mate merely goes to the Social Aid Hut, quite openly selects a single man, bachelor or widower for her partner, and retires with him to a private room.”<
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  “And there is no embarrassment or humiliation in this?”

  “None whatsoever. Don’t forget, it is a revered and accepted practice. Everyone is told of it from childhood. Everyone participates, at one time or another.”

  “What of tenderness and love?” Claire demanded abruptly.

  Courtney shrugged. “I agree with you, Claire. It seems cold and mechanical, even revolting, to someone from another culture who hasn’t lived with it for generations. I felt the same way. I can only say it works for these people. You know, old Wright was no fool. He knew about the tenderness and love of which you speak—well, they were almost abstract requirements—you couldn’t touch them, measure them. His mind, materialistically oriented, wanted to solve everything in a practical way. So he came up with this custom. It never eliminated basic problems, or fully solved love needs, but it was an effort. Actually, today, mismating is not permitted to continue for long. The Hierarchy steps in fast to investigate and grant divorce, and neither partner has much trouble finding a new mate who is more suitable. There’s always someone right for every person.”

  Claire pursed her lips. “Is there?”

  Courtney nodded gravely. “I believe so.” Then he added, “The only problem is, at home, convention sometimes keeps us from meeting the right person. Here, it is easier.”

  Claire looked about the room vaguely. It seemed to have darkened. “It must be late,” she said. “I’d better get back and start dinner.” She saw Courtney watching her. “All right,” she said, “I am a little confused—all those weird practices—they make the head spin. You don’t know what is right and what is wrong. What I do know, Tom, is—this has been an absorbing afternoon. I’m glad you brought me here. And I’m glad—well—that we’re friends now.”

  He had come around the glass case, and now he led her to the door. “I, too, am glad we’re friends.” At the door, he stopped, and so she did, wondering. “Claire,” he said, “I may have stated the case for the Sirens poorly, today, last night. This is not an erotic brothel, not a place of depravity. It’s a progressive experiment, the collaboration of the best and most advanced ideas of two cultures, and it has worked for a long time and it is working still.”

  Her face, so recently tightened by tension, loosened. She touched Courtney’s hand with her own with impulsive reassurance. “I know, Tom,” she said. “Just give me time.”

  After he had secured the door, they went through the trees and into the compound of the village. No disc of sun could be seen, but daylight lingered. The women and the children were gone—preparing the evening meal, Claire thought—and groups of big, almost naked men, were entering the village from the fields. Claire could hear the running of the stream ahead, and she was tempted to sit on the bank, kick off her shoes, and immerse her feet in the fresh water. But then her wrist watch reminded her of responsibility. Marc would be in the hut, famished, waiting with highball in hand. She would have to prepare her first meal in the crude earth oven.

  She turned toward their hut, and Courtney kept step alongside her. “I’ll walk with you up to Maud Hayden’s,” he said. “I should look in on her.”

  They went ahead without a further word. Although she and Courtney had bridged the gulf of unknowing between them, she still felt too conscious of his presence, too judged, and consequently awkward because of this. The worried emotion was not unfamiliar, and then she remembered when she had last felt it. One afternoon in Oakland, in the high school year when she had been a sophomore, the football captain, a senior with mana, had walked her home from school. It had been an inexplicable minor test, as was this.

  When they reached Maud’s hut, Claire said suddenly, “I think I’ll say hello, too.”

  Courtney held the door open for her, and she went inside. Her step faltered. Marc was seated behind the desk, in an attitude of distaste, listening to prim Orville Pence, who had pulled up a bench and had been addressing Marc. The unexpectedness of meeting them disconcerted her. Then she knew it was something else that made her feel ill at ease. It was the fact that Courtney had held the door open for her, a subtle intimacy, and that she had entered with Courtney unaware that her husband would be inside with a friend. She had perpetrated a small act of disloyalty, for it had been clear to her even before coming to this island that Marc had aligned himself with Pence against native debauchery, and now he considered Courtney a traitor to civilized decency.

  “Well, look who’s here,” Marc said to her, ignoring Courtney.

  “I just came by to see if Maud—” she began.

  “She’s been in and out twice,” said Marc. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I wanted to tell you that you won’t have to worry about dinner. The Chief’s son and his wife have invited Maud and ourselves to join his family at seven.”

  “Good,” said Claire nervously. “I—I was out with Mr. Courtney. He was kind enough to take me on a tour.”

  “Very considerate of him.” Marc stared past Claire. “Thank you, Mr. Courtney. Where did you go?”

  Courtney advanced amiably, until he stood beside Claire. “I took your wife through the village. Then I showed her the Sacred Hut.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard about that,” Marc said. “I gather it’s pretty much on a par with the Social Aid Hut. Orville has spent the entire day in the Social Aid—”

  “Quite an eye-opener,” Orville said to Courtney.

  “—and he’s been explaining its purpose,” Marc continued. “Do sit down, both of you. Of course, you know more of this than we do, Mr. Courtney.”

  “No, I’m interested in Dr. Pence’s reaction.” Courtney leaned against the wall, and busied himself filling and lighting his pipe, while Claire sat gingerly on the bench some feet from Orville Pence.

  “I was just telling Marc that I examined a couple of the old bamboo shoots with bells on the end that visitors to the Social Aid once used,” Orville said to Courtney. “I must say, fascinating relics.”

  Marc shifted in his chair, a thin smile on his lips. “Only these days, if I understood you correctly, Orville, it’s all done more efficiently. No bells. They just walk straight in for service and repair.”

  “That is correct,” agreed Orville.

  Ignoring his wife and Courtney, Marc continued to stare at Orville, and he began to shake his head slowly. “I don’t know, Orville. I—” He hesitated, but quickly resumed. “Why not be frank? I keep remembering that I am a social scientist, virtually shockproof, and I must retain some vestige of my objectivity, but I feel I can pass an early judgment that may sound unduly harsh to you. I’ve never known of another place on earth as sex-obsessed as this island. Think of the land of mentality that could conceive of the Social Aid. I tell you—”

  “Not so fast, Marc,” Orville interrupted. “I’m not disagreeing with you in general, but in this specific instance you are on shaky grounds. After all, pleasure huts are—”

  “I know very well what they are,” said Marc, impatiently. “I also know what they are not. The usual Polynesian pleasure huts are letting-off-steam chambers for the young, the growing, the unattached. But this one here—” He stopped. His eyes took in Courtney and Claire. As if to bring an end to a distasteful conversation, he gripped the edge of the table and scraped his chair noisily backwards. “Well, what the devil, each to his own, and to his own opinion, and I happen to have mine. Forget the Social Aid Hut. Call it a curiosity. File it away as more grist for Matty’s mill. It’s not any single thing but the whole atmosphere of this place that I find repugnant.”

  “Mark.” It was Claire who had addressed him. “As an anthropologist—”

  “My dear, I’m perfectly aware of my outlook as an anthropologist. I also happen to be a human being, a normal and civilized human being, and as such—I repeat—I find the environment of this island repugnant. It’s all very well to be scientific about each institution and individual here, to go among subjects with calipers and pigmentation box, and treat them as guinea pigs supplying data. Well and good,
but these are supposed to be people, at least they look and move like people, yet when I try to find some link between them and us, I simply cannot. The over-all behavior patterns of this society are deplorable. They are simply not desirable by any ethnic standard.” He paused, determined to defend himself to his wife. “Yes, I know that’s a judgment, and Matty’s hair would curl, but I’m making it. I tell you, Claire, if you really knew some of the degrading practices that emanate from the Social Aid—”

  Claire had suffered this, before Courtney, but she could stand no more. “Marc, I know all about it. Mr. Courtney has been kind enough to brief me.”

  Marc’s jaw went slack, and his head swung slowly from Claire to Courtney. He considered the enemy a brief moment, his jaw closing and stiffening, and then he said with a tremor, “And I suppose you also tried to convince my wife all of this is civilization.”

  Courtney remained uncoiled against the wall. “Yes, I did,” he said quietly.

  “We’re a team of experts in many sciences,” said Marc, “and we have experience in studying many societies. I assure you this one is low down on the scale of progress. I’ve seen—”

  Claire’s hand half-reached toward her husband. “Marc, please, let’s not—”

  “If you don’t mind, Claire, I’d like to finish my statement,” said Marc firmly. He returned to Courtney. “I was trying to say, I’ve been here two days, and I doubt that I will learn more in forty-two days. What do we have on this piece of backward real estate? A handful of illiterate half-castes going about in grass skirts and athletic supporters, worshiping stone idols, their minds filled only with superstitions and fornication. And you have the nerve to call that civilization?”