Siren

by Delle Jacobs

  Siren spoke to the village in soft tones, in their language that sounded like the music of the sea. The women giggled. She spoke some more. Their giggles turned to coos of admiration and the women approached him almost with shyness, and touched the flesh of his arm. Another patted his abdomen, which had always been taut from his many years of hard work at sea, making John wonder if he had suddenly been transformed into some sort of fertility god. He decided this was not the time to comment, especially with his limited vocabulary. Too many of their words had hidden or double meanings.

  As the women returned to cleaning up their scattered village and harvesting dead fish that had washed up on the shore, the men went on to survey the storm's damage, which was surprisingly light. But Hiapo and Kekoa soon called the men together to begin the project of building a home for their goddess. Siren took her place among the women, doing the things women did as if she did the same every day, and as John watched, the full import of what she had done began to sit on him.

  She had goddess status to these people, and John could not deny she seemed like one to him, too. Yet he had never been able to determine from her answers what she really was. Were goddesses made by the gods? Or did that make her something else entirely? Who knew what a Siren was? The myth of the Sirens had been around for thousands of years and persisted to modern times, even though there was no room for it in the Christian way of thinking. He knew of no sailor who would deny it.

  It would not be good to tell the missionaries of this. Or any of the white men. If they found out about her, what would they think? What would they do to her? She looked like a white woman, with her fair skin and flaming hair, brighter golden-red than any Irishwoman he had ever seen. No, it would not be a good thing. He would have to somehow keep her hidden.

  And clothed.

  And that was only the beginning of his problems. Had she given up immortality for him? He had never even been sure she was immortal. It seemed instead that perhaps Sirens lived very long lives but in some ways were vulnerable to harm. Looking at her tiny, perfect feet, bare in the sand, he remembered.

  "If a Siren's blood touches land, she will die." This, she had told them when they were in the sea. But would it be true? What if she cut her foot on the sharp lava that lined the bay? Or on the steep cliffs that backed the village? She had said she would be like any mortal now.

  What about smallpox? It was the great killer of the Islanders, who had never encountered it before the white man came to the Islands. Would she also not be able to resist the disease that had ravaged Europe for so many centuries that white men were almost inured to it? Could he get her an inoculation? But that would expose her to other white men.

  He was responsible for her now.

  The wild thumping of his heart echoed the dread in his soul.

  Chapter 9

  Once the thatched houses were repaired, the fishermen returned to the sea. John was not at all keen on going with them, regardless of what Siren said. More than that, he understood that Siren was probably as human and vulnerable as any woman—or more so.

  So the following morning before the sun rose, John followed the coast road to Honolulu Port. The storm being over, ships were coming into harbor, and they would pay good money for dock workers. There was plenty of work cleaning up damage from the storm, but that was for the natives, and white men would not be hired for that.

  For three days he followed the road before dawn, worked until nightfall, then returned home to the small thatched hut he shared with Siren, she having refused Hiapo's too generous offer. They ate with the Islanders in the new fashion Hiapo had adopted from his king, of men and women eating together, since, as the old man said, the Ali’i who had ruled the Hawaiians for so long were no longer around to complain.

  "Our king has not died of smallpox," Hiapo said, "and they said it would be his punishment for breaking kapu. The white man's disease—it would be fitting if the kapu mattered. They said his manhood would shrivel and fall off. Pele has not sent fire from the mountains down on him. Even our Namaka does not care. So you see? We will eat with our women."

  When the night grew late, the drums beat a different rhythm, and the men began to dance. Virile and bold, their bodies told stories of wars and conquests, of taking women in wildly erotic ways. There was no secret hidden in their posturing or the masculine movements of their hands. John looked at the beautiful woman beside him and saw in sea green eyes a longing and hunger that matched his own. He hoped desperately the drums would soon stop, for his body thrummed with blood in a hot arousal.

  Then the pounding ceased, so suddenly John startled. The drummers and their instruments disappeared into the darkness. The villagers quietly departed the big open platform made from lava stones. A nod to John from Kekoa and Hiapo was almost too small to be what he knew it was. With a hand to Siren's waist, he led her away. In minutes, they were back in their hut, nude and engaging in the wild love-making that had been fueled by the heavy beat of the drums that had vanished in the night.

  When the white men came around the curve of the road to the village, they would find not a single drum, no scraps of leis made from ti leaves. No sign of the hula the missionaries and the law forbade. Instead, some of them would look in hut after hut, and disturb the Hawaiians in the middle of their rutting. And they would tsk to each other, having watched overly long, then return to Honolulu and report they found nothing. Maybe it had been thunder in the sky.

  John had a different problem. He had to hide Siren from them. So when he heard them coming to his hut, he covered Siren's bright red hair with a woven mat, as if he concealed from the white men his native lover. They laughed at him and went away.

  When dawn was coming, John dragged himself up to go back to the docks. Altogether, he'd had a pretty hard night. But it was not the white men's interruption that had worn him out. It was the time with Siren on his mat that had stretched nearly to the sunrise. Somehow, remembering their water gyrations that were like circus acrobats, he'd thought it had all been easier beneath the sea.

  At the docks he worked long and hard, and when they took a few minutes to eat whatever food he had brought, John went off by himself. Less and less did he wish for the company of his own kind. He was different now, yet he could hardly say how. If they knew who he was, what he was. . .

  He shook his head. It could not be said to anyone. With a frown, he attacked his meal with a new vengeance.

  Chapter 10

  When John returned from the harbor that evening, he held a gift for Siren behind his back. Spotting her, his heart tripped. Perhaps it had been a matter of destiny that they had met, or a kind of pre-destination that he would love her, but it no longer mattered to him. What he felt in his heart was no different. She looked up from where she worked with the village women pounding taro to make the poi, and she smiled.

  His heart did a funny little trip again, but this time it was more a matter of trepidation. Her feet were so beautiful, so delicate. Even he hated to cover them. But he knew he must. So he held out the package to her.

  She tilted her head to accompany her puzzled brow, and her radiant hair slung over one shoulder. He said nothing. She pulled the string and unfolded the brown paper.

  "What are these, John Wall?" she asked.

  "Shoes. For your feet. So you won't cut them on the sharp lava."

  "Hiapo's wife does not wear these shoes. Kekoa's wife does not wear them."

  "I know. But their feet are tough. They have been walking on the lava all their lives. You know it would not be good if you cut yourself."

  It took all the persuasion he could muster before she finally agreed to put on the soft moccasin-like shoes.

  "You see? You will get used to them."

  "I do not like these shoes, John Wall," she replied.

  He winced. He hadn't thought she would. He felt as guilty as if he had put a rope around her neck and led her around by it. The proud, free Siren, constrained by leather shoes. But he was not the one who had made the
kapu against a Siren's blood falling on the earth. And he would not lose her to a careless, innocent accident if he could help it.

  But even though she had promised him, twice he returned to the village and found her barefoot.

  "I do not like the shoes, John Wall," she said. “I have walked here many times before. The rock is not sharp in the village. The waves have worn it smooth, a long, long time ago."

  So John threw up his hands and made her promise to wear the shoes any time she left the village or went near the high cliffs that formed the slopes of the extinct volcano behind the village. Siren pursed her lips and walked away with an odd waddle, giving each foot a small shake as she lifted it, a subtle reminder that she had never been so encumbered any time in her life.

  He had to smile, but wanly. She was Siren. She was not used to a man telling her what to do. But she did not understand her vulnerability. He had to protect her in her childlike innocence.

  But her pout did not last long, and that night she was back in his arms as they made love with an exquisite slowness that seemed to go on long after the village fell silent. And John found it even harder than ever to rise before dawn and make his trek over the low pass to Honolulu Port.

  He was more glad than usual when work stopped for the noon meal. He sat by himself as usual, and dined on yesterday's poi and a fresh mango.

  "Keeping to yourself a lot, Wall."

  John looked up to see the American sailor who has accosted him in the tavern the night of the storm. He clamped his jaw so tight, he ought to worry about breaking a tooth. "Bartholomew," he replied with a growl.

  The stocky American squatted down beside John without so much as asking if he might want company. John tensed his shoulders at the rudeness. But he couldn't tell if the man was like most of these stray remnants of civilization and was oblivious of social conventions, or whether he was up to something. John went on eating his mango.

  "Heard you was living with the natives, Wall."

  John made the mistake of lifting an eyebrow. He had wanted to give no reaction at all. "What do you want, Bartholemew?"

  Nothing," the stocky man said with a shrug. "I guess what I was thinking is, seems strange. I mean, don't understand what you've got against your own kind."

  John felt his teeth clenching and only forced his mouth open by telling himself he was going to take another bite.

  "Heard you've got yourself a wahine there, now."

  Teeth clamping ever tighter, John forced them open and bit into the mango again.

  "Anyway, didn't mean anything by it."

  "You got something to say, Bartholomew? I wish you'd say it."

  The burly man's shoulders hunched forward, and John started to wonder, maybe something wasn't right.

  "My cousin was on the Telesto."

  Before he could stop his reaction, John flinched. "Who?"

  "Caleb Cotton."

  Telesto's bos'n. "Good man. I forgot he was an American."

  "His pa raised me after my ma died."

  "Sort of like a brother, then."

  "Any idea what happened to him, Wall?"

  John shook his head, suddenly understanding the man's pain, and feeling remorse for his hard feelings. "Last I saw, he was in the last long boat headed for the coast. Then a huge wave rose, and Telesto broke up."

  "Why wasn't you with them?"

  "Too crowded. Figured they had a better chance without me."

  "You think maybe they could of made it?"

  "It was the Skeleton coast."

  Bartholomew's shoulders heaved. "Yeah."

  John echoed the man's sigh. "I would’ve died for him, Bartholomew."

  "Yeah. He would of died for you, too. Now I think of it, I guess Caleb'd be mighty glad to know you made it if he didn't. Still can't figure out how you got here from there, though."

  "Told you, I don't know. Nothing I remember is anything anyone would believe."

  "Well, what? Where you been all this time?"

  John shook his head, then with a frustrated pout, dragged in a heavy breath. Hell. "Living beneath the sea with a Siren."

  "C'mon, Wall."

  "I told you. What I remember can't be true."

  "Yeah, well then, I guess if I was you I wouldn't want to talk about it, neither. Sea's a funny place ain't it?"

  That was for sure.

  "Well, I gotta git, Wall," Bartholomew said as he stood to go. "Be seeing you around. Try to be a bit more social, yeah?"

  John smiled through thinned lips. He guessed he didn't have anything against a man who'd had the guts to apologize. If you could call it that.

  Bartholomew took a few steps then turned back. "Oh, Wall, I got to tell you something."

  With an expectant stare, John waited.

  "They know about her. The red head."

  Chapter 11

  Before he could stop himself, John betrayed his thoughts in his dropped jaw and wide eyes.

  "That woman you've got. Word is, she's a white woman."

  "She's no white woman." But John was not about to admit he didn't know exactly what she really was.

  "If you say so. Don't know any redheads that ain't white, myself, but it ain't my business. Just warning you, they ain't happy that a white woman's living with natives. Nor they can't figure out where she come from. 'Tain't seemly to them."

  "The missionaries?

  "The white women and their husbands, more like. The bankers and plantation owners. Not that they'd ever let her into their kind anyway, not now, but they think it's some kind of sinful. Sounds like they're gonna pay you a visit. I'd be careful if I was you."

  "When?"

  "Tonight, sounds like."

  What if Bartholomew was lying to him? Or what if he wasn't?

  "Guess I'll be heading home, then," John said. Bartholomew nodded back and went on his way.

  John had to force himself not to break into a sprint as he walked down toward the beach road leading to Hiapo's village, but the farther away he got from the port, the faster he walked, until he was far enough from the sight of the white men that he felt he could run.

  He was gasping as he neared the starkly rising conical cliff that separated the village from the long, narrow beach and harbor near Honolulu. He paused to catch his breath, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Bartholomew running up, his wind equally gone.

  Damn the man!

  "You hiding something, Wall?" Bartholomew said between gasps.

  "Can't you mind your own business?"

  The man shook his mop of dirty, sand-colored hair. "Not this time. There's something ain't good about them. Don't know what they want, but they got The Zeal, as Pa used to say. And I figure Caleb'd want me to help you out."

  They had staggered to the crest of the road, and looked down at the village.

  "Damn," said Bartholomew.

  Damn, it was. Two black buggies with stamping teams were parked at the edge of Hiapo's village, and John counted three black-suited white men and two port men talking to Hiapo through his interpreter. Fear shoved itself into John's mouth and down his throat, sending his already rapidly beating heart to near spasms.

  Just as he and Bartholomew walked up, Siren came down the path from the cliff, with Kekoa by her side. Her Titian hair glowed copper fire in the bright sun, and she wore the gaudily flowered muu muu given to her by Hiapo's daughter. A thick lei of flowers and ti leaves crowned her hair. Her feet were bare. She walked like a queen and looked the perfect Hawaiian wahine, were it not for her coloring.

  John gulped. He wanted to run and snatch her up and carry her off to the sea. Her green eyes laughed at him while the rest of her face was solemn.

  John could feel the agitation in the villagers. But Hiapo sat calmly on his platform, listening to the white men through the interpreters as if he could not understand anything the haoles said. John had also learned much of the Hawaiian language, but he'd made a point of not telling the white men that, either.

  He recognized the shorter man
who was speaking to Hiapo as one of the town businessmen. "So that's her, is it? I'd say she's a white woman. You there, come here."

  Siren's face was the model of incomprehension. She looked to Kekoa.

  Kekoa spoke to her in the Hawaiian tongue and she nodded to him, and walked up to the owner of a dry goods store north of the harbor.

  "What's your name, girl? Where do you come from?"

  Kekoa spoke to her, and Siren responded to him in Hawaiian words that flowed as smoothly from her mouth as from an islander.

  "She is Na-Maka-o-Kaha'i-Kaikamahine-o-Kuwaha'ilo-a me-Haumea. She is from the sea."

  "Say what?" said another of the white men, his brow wrinkling like a furrow plowed by a drunken mule.

  Patiently, Kekoa repeated himself.

  "No, no," said the shopkeeper. "What ship did you come on, girl, whatever your name is. What does this man John Wall call you?"

  "I call her Serena," said John. "And she comes from the sea." He moved sideways to be closer to Siren, ready to cut off the committeemen, or whatever it was they called themselves. Bartholomew moved along with him.

  "What are you doing keeping a white woman among these natives, Wall?"

  "She's not white. And she didn't come on any ship. She belongs here."

  Bartholomew muscled in, frowning and folding his arms as he studied Siren's face. "What is she, some kind of albino? Looks like, maybe. Ain't seen those kind of lips on a white woman. Could be a mixed breed. Quadroon, maybe?"

  In another time and place, John would have slugged the man, but he picked up the creative thread. "Take a look," he added. "Just change her skin and hair color and she looks native."

  Bartholomew nodded, his brow wrinkling further. "More like albino than mixed, I'm thinking. Look at that hair. Ain't Irish. Too thick and long. She could pass, though."

  To a man, the committee turned as pale as an albatross's belly. "Pass, eh?" said the shopkeeper. "Just what're you up to, Wall? Don't know how you got her here, but don't think you're going to foist this colored woman off on decent white folk."