The Three Sirens

by Irving Wallace

  She went blindly across the recess area, seeing nothing, wanting only a grave and to pull the earth over her blazing face and dying heart.

  No one was following her, but she began to run. She ran all the way home, sobbing and sobbing and wildly hoping God would strike him dead, and her other parent, too, and make the hut an orphanage.

  * * *

  It was not yet three o’clock when Claire and Maud completed their climb to the point overlooking the sea where spectators were gathering to watch the opening event of the annual festival.

  The throng was the largest and noisiest that Claire had seen since coming to The Three Sirens. One hundred, maybe closer to two hundred, brown torsos were gathered, as closely packed as the crowds on the Champs-Élysées the morning of Bastille Day, all settled here along the curved rim of the ridge that dropped sharply down to the water. The members of the American group were almost all present, and had attached themselves to Chief Paoti and his wife, who sat cross-legged at the farthest brow of land in the choicest sightseeing area.

  During the short hike from the village, Claire had been oblivious both to the direction they took and the new scenery along the way, so intent was she on the inward film, passing through her mind, running in reverse, of her life with Marc. His insensitive, even brutal behavior of the night before, so loveless, even worse, so patently hateful and sick; that, and his horrid avoidance of her, of offering any softening, compromising apology or explanation this morning, these had generated the backwards unreeling of her past. What she saw, in the private projection room of her head, frightened her. For, while the past year, especially the past months, had been unsatisfying, somehow she had clung to the remembrance that the year before that, the first year, and the courting period before that, had been beautiful, or at least not unattractive, and she had clung to the belief that what had been enacted once could be lived again. That had been her hope.

  In her walk behind Maud, as the film ran backwards, the images that were brought to mind, instead of being prettified by their distance in time, had remained as enlarged and candid as pictures of the present time. Perhaps, she had told herself, the present was discoloring the images of the past. But then she was not so sure of that, either. Her married past was as marred with daily life’s acne as the present, so that none of it was fresh or handsome. The picture of her honeymoon night in Laguna, even. After the first union of their nude bodies in bed, right afterwards, he had wept, unaccountably wept. It had seemed to her then an emotional reaction of such goodness and sweetness, that she had held him, cradled him with after-love, until he slept like a child in her arms. But now, now, the rerun of the old scene was less romantic, was not romantic at all, only ill and suspect and the entire connotation somewhat ugly.

  However, the moment that Claire had reached their destination, joined the hubbub of the gallery, the film had run blank. What filled her sight and mind was the activities and drama of the moment, sans Marc, and she was distracted from her misery. She greeted Harriet Bleaska and Rachel DeJong, and waved to Lisa Hackfeld and Orville Pence.

  When Sam Karpowicz, a heavy sixteen-millimeter motion-picture camera in hand, came by, Claire spoke a hello to him, too. He saw her, yet did not see her, rudely ignored her, his features oddly twisted as if by some partial paralysis. He did not seem the gentle botanist and amateur photographer she had known these weeks. With wonder, she cast about for Estelle and Mary Karpowicz, but they were nowhere to be seen.

  A laud had come away from Paoti’s side, and Claire said to her, “What’s eating Sam Karpowicz?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He simply went past me when I said hello. Look at him shoving over there. Something must be wrong.”

  A laud dismissed it. “Nothing’s wrong. Sam’s never in a bad mood. He’s busy. He’s going to shoot the entire swimming race, and he’s always absent-minded when he has things to do.”

  Claire rejected this explanation, knowing it came from the usual blind spot in Maud’s sensitivity about individuals. Then, as if to confirm her own suspicions, Claire watched Sam’s surprising bullying continue and knew that she was right. Bad, bad mood. But, she asked herself, why not? It was a democratic prerogative—every human being’s inalienable right under God, Country, and Freud—the privilege to be moody. Wasn’t her mood bad? Damn right. Except at least she was trying to observe the civilities.

  “Come here, Claire,” she heard Maud calling. “Isn’t this a sight?”

  Maud stood at the edge of the drop—“like stout Cortez … with eagle eyes”—a proprietary arm flung toward the Pacific. Claire went to her and looked off. The midafternoon view, the hot yellow of the sunrays softened and greened by the placid velvety carpet of water, was awesome. Her eyes roamed from the infinite expanse of ocean to what was directly below. She stood on the elevated center of a horseshoe of land, and this horseshoe cupped the ocean, a particle of it, into an enclosed pool of water beneath her. This pool, apparently, would be the arena for the race. To her right, the water seemed to graduate into a steep incline of rock that resembled, with its rising indented ridges, a natural stone stepladder. Past the stone stepladder could be seen a corner of one of the two small, uninhabited coral atolls that adjoined the main island of the Sirens. If one sailed on between that atoll and the shore, almost the full length of the main island, Claire guessed, one would arrive at the far beach where Rasmussen’s seaplane rested.

  Claire half-turned toward the opposite cliff enclosing the pool below, and this was sheer perpendicular. Her eyes moved along it, and at the very top she saw the contestants bunched. They were perhaps one hundred yards off, not distinct, yet clear enough so that she was immediately able to separate the blocky frame of her husband. This was easy because he, alone, was pinkish white and hairy and wearing navy blue trunks in contrast to the two dozen men of the Sirens around him who were light tan to dark brown and hairless and attired in supporters. Seeing her husband thus, in an athletic contest, she thought not of participant observer but of second childhood. Anger entered her chest again like a terrible heartburn. Consciousness of the pain spoiled the beauty of the scene. Claire turned away.

  Maud, she saw, had gone to Harriet Bleaska and Rachel DeJong, and then she saw that they were being joined by a rather short young-old native man with an intent face rather curiously Latin in profile. She recognized him as Vaiuri, the one who was the head of the hospital or clinic and Nurse Harriet’s collaborator.

  Keeping her back to Marc’s afternoon idiocy, Claire wandered from the cliff, until she came to the fringe of the group that she had been observing. With little interest in what they might be discussing, she pretended interest and social absorption.

  Vaiuri was addressing Harriet. Even in his loincloth, he seemed to have the solemn and wise manner of all the world’s physicians. He was saying,”—and because of our work together, Miss Bleaska, I was assigned to bring to you the word of the final voting. I am honored to inform you that you will be queen of the festival.”

  He waited, like a practiced public speaker who pauses for the expected burst of applause, and he was not disappointed. Harriet’s hands clapped together, and then held together at her wide mouth in a pose of prayer fulfilled, and her eyes appeared to bulge. “Oh!” she had exclaimed, and then she said, “Me? I’m going to be queen—?”

  “Yes—yes,” Vaiuri was assuring her, “it is voted in the morning by the adult males of our village. It is one of our great honors of the festival week.”

  Harriet stared uncertainly at the others. “I’m overwhelmed. Can you imagine—me a queen?”

  “It’s wonderful, wonderful,” Maud was saying.

  “Congratulations,” said Rachel.

  Harriet had faced Vaiuri again. “But why—why me?”

  “It was inevitable,” he replied seriously. “The honor every year is for the most beautiful young woman in the village—”

  “You’re embarrassing me,” Harriet interrupted with a nervous giggle. “Really, Vaiuri
, I’m no—I know my assets and defects—there are a hundred really beautiful women—Claire here—the Chiefs niece—”

  Claire realized that Vaiuri had nodded respectfully toward her, but addressed Harriet with gravity. “No disrespect to the many others, also deserving. I repeat. The men have voted you the most beautiful.”

  Claire tried to see Harriet as these men saw her. Had she heard of such a thing when she had first met Harriet, Claire might have thought the award a mean mockery. Harriet’s plainness—no, truth—absolute homeliness, had often intruded upon Claire’s attentiveness to her. Since then, Claire realized, more and more the friendliness and gaiety of the nurse’s personality had married themselves to her features and made her features acceptable. In this crowning moment, Claire could see that the nurse’s joy in it, pride in it, had indeed made her almost physically fair.

  “I’m still practically speechless,” Harriet was saying. “What am I supposed to do, I mean as queen?”

  “You will open and close tonight’s dance,” said Vaiuri. “I shall teach you the words. There will be several other similar ceremonies in the week that you will preside over.”

  Harriet turned to Maud. “Isn’t this something? Queen—” A feminine concern passed across her face. “Vaiuri, what does the queen wear, a robe and diamonds or what?”

  Vaiuri seemed suddenly uncomfortable. He cleared his throat. “No, no robe. You—you will sit on a bench on a platform above the others. Yes.”

  Harriet bent toward him. “You haven’t answered me. What does your festival queen wear?”

  “Well—in times past, in accordance with tradition—”

  “Not times past. Last year, what did she wear?”

  Vaiuri cleared his throat again. “Nothing,” he said.

  “Nothing? You mean nothing?”

  “As I attempted to explain, it is the tradition that since the queen is the reigning beauty of the village in the men’s hearts, her beauty must reign. On the special occasions she appears in disrobe—that is—divested of all garments.” He hastened to the next. “But I must say quickly, Miss Bleaska, in your case, since you are a foreigner, it was agreed that this old tradition may be modified. You may appear as you wish.”

  Harriet had already assumed a monarch’s concern for her subjects. “What would you wish? What would please the village men most? I mean—honestly, now.”

  The medical practitioner hesitated. All interest was concentrated upon him. He massaged his jaw with one hand. “I believe it would please everyone if you made your appearance in the—the day-by-day costume of our women.”

  “You mean grass skirt and nothing else, period?”

  “Well, as I said—”

  “Is that what you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  Harriet grinned at Claire, then Maud and Rachel. “I’m not much in the balcony department, but anything once.” She winked at Vaiuri. “Tell the boys the Queen is grateful, and will be on hand in grass skirt and total decolletage. What a sight—but really, Vaiuri, I’m thrilled, I’m so thrilled.”

  The medical practitioner, relieved and more composed, had turned to Rachel DeJong beside him. “Dr. DeJong, I have been entrusted with a gift for you.”

  Rachel showed her surprise. “A gift? How very nice.”

  Vaiuri dug into a fold of his loincloth, unknotted it, and handed a gold-colored object to Rachel. She examined the object with bewilderment, then held it up. It was a highly polished, porcelainlike shell that hung from a strand. “A necklace,” she said, half to herself.

  “The festival necklace,” explained Vaiuri. “Most often they are mother-of-pearl, but sometimes they are cowries or terebras. This one is a golden cowrie.”

  Rachel remained puzzled, but Maud had quickly reached out, touched the brilliant shell, and asked the practitioner, “Is this the famous shell that solicits a meeting?” Vaiuri inclined his head in assent, and Maud seemed delighted. “Rachel, you’ve made it,” she said. “Don’t you remember? For festival week, the men prepare these and present them to women they have high esteem for all year. Like the Mabuiang tribe’s grass bracelets, these are statements of admiration and invitations to—I suppose you might say invitations to secret rendezvous—and if, after receiving one, you wear it, you give consent. The next step is a meeting, and the next step is—well, you are on your own … Am I right, Vaiuri?”

  “Absolutely, Dr. Hayden.”

  Rachel frowned down at the bulbous shell. “I’m still not sure I understand. Who is it from?”

  “Moreturi,” said the practitioner. “Now, if you will excuse me—

  Claire had watched the psychoanalyst through the last, and she could see that Rachel’s face had paled. Rachel looked up, caught Claire’s eye, and shook her head, her lips tight. “He’s untractable,” she said, with a trace of indignation. “Another act of hostility. He’s determined to fight me, embarrass me.”

  “Aw, Rachel, cut it out.” It was Harriet’s happy voice. “They love us. What more can a woman ask for?”

  Before Rachel DeJong could reply, Tom Courtney joined the group. “Hello, everyone—hello, Claire—better find your places. They’ll be off and splashing in a few minutes.”

  Obediently, the group splintered in different directions, except for Claire, who remained where she had been. Prepared to leave, Courtney hung back, as if waiting for her. “Mind if we watch it together?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure I want to watch it at all, but—oh, all right, yes, thank you.”

  They went to the right, toward the brink of the cliff, past Rasmussen, who was leaning over a native girl, whispering to her, and he wagged his hand at them without looking up. They found a vacant area apart from the members of the team and the villagers.

  Before sitting, Claire glanced past Courtney at the spectators. “Tom,” she said, “why all this?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the festival. The whole week. I’ve heard Maud lecture us on it a dozen times. But still, I’m not sure—”

  “Have you ever read Frazer’s The Golden Bough?”

  “Much of it, yes, in college. And Maud’s always having me type quotations from it.”

  “Maybe you’ll recognize this quotation.” He squinted up at the sky a moment, and recited it from memory, ” ‘We have seen that many peoples have been used to observe an annual period of license, when the customary restraints of law and morality are thrown aside, when the whole population give themselves up to extravagant mirth and jollity, and when the darker passions find a vent which would never be allowed them in the more staid and sober course of ordinary life. Of such periods of license the one which is best known and which in modern languages has given its name to the rest, is the Saturnalia.’ ” He paused. “There you are, Claire.”

  “Umm, I remember,” she said. “I remember wondering, the very first time I heard about it, why we didn’t have something similar at home. I wondered it aloud, at a party, and I’m afraid I committed social heresy.” Then she added, “In Marc’s eyes, I mean. He believes the Fourth of July, Christmas, Flag Day fill all our needs.” She was unable to modify this with a smile. After a moment, she peered off and could see the brown bodies and the single white one, in the distance, beginning to line up on the cliff’s edge. “The race starts it off, I’m told. How do they race?”

  Courtney followed the line of her vision. “The starter will blow a bamboo whistle. They’ll dive off into the water.”

  “That’s a terrifying dive.”

  “Sixty feet. They swim free-style, no rules, across the lagoon. It’s about one mile across, I think. I timed last year’s swim at twenty-three minutes. When they reach the opposite terraced slope, over there, they go scrambling the fifty feet to the top. First man on top is the winner, king of the hill.”

  “What’s in it for the winner?”

  “Considerable mana before the young ladies. The whole event is an important symbol of virility and quite appropriate for starting off the festival.”


  “I see,” she said. “Now it begins to make sense.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just something private. I was thinking of my husband.”

  “I hope he can swim.”

  “Oh, he can swim, that’s one thing he can do.” Then, curtly, she said, “Let’s get off our feet.”

  They sat down in the trampled grass, Courtney with his long legs folded high before him, encircled by his arms, and Claire with her arms hugging her bare knees.

  She studied Courtney’s broken bronze profile, as he looked off at the contestants readying for the event. She said, “Tom—after this—what goes on tonight, every night? That quotation from Frazer keeps sticking in my mind. It conjures up a mighty unruly week.”

  “Nothing like that at all. No need for a Saturnalia, Roman style. There is just more freedom, more license, no recriminations. It is the week of the year in which these people open the valve and let off steam, sanctioned and legalized steam. Everyone gets double rations from the communal storehouse, including fowl and pig, double amounts of intoxicants if desired, there are dances, beauty-contests, all sorts of Polynesian games to watch or participate in, and there is the giving and taking of the festival shell—”

  Claire thought of Rachel DeJong’s anger—real or feigned? probably real—at receiving a shell from Moreturi. Would she wear it? Participant observation, you know, unquote Maud Hayden. “Why that business of the shell?” she asked Courtney. “They have license all year with the Social Aid Hut.”

  “Not quite,” said Courtney. “A native can use the Social Aid only if there is a real reason to use it. If challenged, he has to prove his need of it. During festival week, no one has to prove or explain anything. If a married woman has an eye on someone else’s husband, or some single man, she need only send him a polished shell to arrange an assignation. She can send out as many as she wishes. And the same goes for the men.”