The Three Sirens (53 page)

“I am sorry—sorry—I do not wish to disturb you—offend—”

His manner was so supplicating, that she could not bear it. “I guess it’s nothing so terrible, Nihau. I just—” She looked about. “Where can we sit?”

He gestured to the left. “There, near the Sacred Hut.”

They went in that direction, along the edge of the compound, without another word. After they had entered the small woods, he indicated the semicircle of the first shaded clearing.

“Is this all right?” he inquired.

“I mustn’t keep you,” she said. “You’ll be late for the next class.”

“Never mind.”

They sat on the cool grass, but then Mary did not know what to say. She laced her fingers, and rocked, her clear young features pained.

“I hate to tell anyone,” she said. “It makes me a child.”

“What is the matter, Mary?”

“All we just saw in the class—I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

Comprehension seemed to come to him slowly. “You mean Poma and Huatoro?”

“Yes.”

“But you have seen other people unclothed. Children. Your friends. Your parents.”

“That’s different. This was so—so—raw.”

“It must begin some way, Mary. You must learn, as we all learn.”

“I don’t know, I just can’t explain,” she said. “Maybe I’ve been too sheltered, and—and too romantic. Somehow, the way it was done, taking their things off in front of a mixed group, in the daytime, pointing to their—to each—I don’t know. It suddenly made everything about that seem so sort of unattractive. Like it was being forced on you in the wrong way. It’s like I told you about my gang—my friends—the ones I know in Albuquerque. I’m one of the outsiders in a way because—well—I don’t think you should see or do certain things just because you’re supposed to or have to, instead of wanting to. You should do things when you want to, at the right time. Do you understand me, Nihau? No. I’m mixed up right now. I mean, suddenly, at the wrong time you see and learn things and it sort of spoils love.”

She was relieved to have said this much. She tried to see if he understood. He was quiet, staring down at his hands, examining this important emotion.

After an interval, he raised his head. “I understand what you feel,” he said. “It is difficult to come from one place where things are hidden to another place where they are open, and not be confused. We are prepared for the teaching, and you are not. I have been brought up, all of us in the class, to know everything. I have always seen many women, men, all ages, unclothed. I have often seen love-making. For all of us, the seeing Poma and Huatora was not the first. They were not new to us. Manao unclothed them as in your school the instructor would pull down a chart from the wall or display a skeleton. He wanted to show exactly, as it will be for us in life, and explain exactly.” He paused to consider what he would say next. “If it is new to you, I can see it must be frightening. I am sorry to think you believe it will spoil love. That is not so, Mary. What will spoil love is shame, is fear, is ignorance. Seeing what you did see, and learning what you will learn, will not spoil anything when your heart is truly in love. Then the man you are with will be like the first man you have ever seen or known. If you are wise, not afraid, you will enjoy him more and please him more, and be happy for the good beginning.”

He had given her such a different view of it, that she felt comforted. In her mind, the photographs of Poma and Huatoro, unclad, and Mr. Manao’s vivid descriptions of their anatomies, were diffused, retouched, less harsh. Finally, the photographs were even attractive.

Nihau seemed suspended, as if awaiting a momentous decision.

Finally, her smile was as bashful as his own. “Thank you, Nihau,” she said. “You’d better get back to school.”

He hesitated. “And you?”

For her, she felt a sudden wave of Tightness—the mysteries were going, going, soon to be gone—and she would be grown and sensible, confident, superior to anyone in Albuquerque, and healthier. Fear and shame had vanished. It was as if she could not wait to become adult. She wanted to spurt, to be there all at once. She wanted the many days of learning to be one day, to bring her up overnight.

“Not today, Nihau,” she said. “I’ll just sit here and—and think. But tomorrow—yes, I’ll see you in school tomorrow.”

* * *

For more than one hour in the torrid sun of early afternoon, Harriet Bleaska, wearing her nurse’s white Dacron, had stood in tearless mourning, watching the funeral of Uata.

Before coming to the funeral, Harriet had been tremulous about her invitation. Maud had reassured her that rites of separation, on most Polynesian islands, were simple. The rites on The Three Sirens, Maud had explained, consisted primarily of separating Uata’s soul from his fleshy being and purifying it for its rise to the Valhalla of the High Spirit.

Of the American visitors, Harriet alone had been requested to attend. Somehow, she had expected several of her companions to be present, but they were not there before Uata’s hut on the rise, a half-block from the infirmary. Harriet had found herself standing near twenty or more of the villagers, all of whom proved to be Uata’s kin. She recognized, and acknowledged, the brief bows of Chief Paoti and his wife, Moreturi, Tehura, and several others.

The beefy old gentleman and withered woman in the foreground she assumed to be Uata’s parents.

Harriet’s appearance created no inquisitive ripple of attention. For this she was grateful, but still she puzzled as to why Moreturi had personally singled her out to appear. The attention of the group was directed to Uata’s hut. After several minutes, a half-dozen young men, of Uata’s years, came into view, and made their way with their burden through the respectful mourners. They carried a long, high wicker basket in which reposed the corpse of Uata. They had brought him directly from his cubicle in the infirmary to his dwelling. With dispatch, they deposited his remains in the center of the front room of his home. Immediately upon leaving him, and locking his door, the pallbearers efficiently set about destroying his hut. Using sharpened bamboo knives, they cut the strands holding the pandanus-leaf roof and walls, allowing the branches to fall inward. A mass of pandanus leaves and broken cane lay in a heap over the deceased and his possessions. Then it was that Paoti applied a torch, and the funeral pyre became a roaring fire. The blaze was surprisingly brief, but long afterwards spiraling columns of smoke and dust climbed toward the sky. It was presumed, Harriet guessed, that Uata’s soul, burnt free and pure, had soared upwards astride the smoke columns to his final haven.

Throughout the cremation, Harriet had suffered the pangs of sorrow, yet no grief. Uata’s doom had been so absolute to her, after she had examined him, that his passing two nights before gave no surprise. She had cohabited with Uata not once but three times, gloriously, before his death, and she was proud of his last joy and without self-reproach.

When the flames had died, and the embers cooled, leaving only irregular piles of ashes, Harriet wondered what was expected of her. Should she console the parents and other kin? Should she quietly leave? However, before her decision had to be made, Moreturi stood beside her. She realized that he had been passing out drinks, and he handed her a brimming shell.

“To celebrate his arrival above,” said Moreturi. “You need but taste it.” He began to wander away, then stopped. “I thank you, Harriet.”

Perplexed, she sipped the sticky sap, and set the unfinished drink on the turf. When she straightened, she found that a line of natives, led by Uata’s parents, had formed before her. Each, in turn, paid respect to her with a gravely muttered, “Thank you,” and trudged away. Chief Paoti was next, followed by Hutia Wright, and then there were several more elders, and finally at least a dozen young men and women, all giving their verbal thanks to Harriet.

When this ceremony was done, Harriet observed that the mourners were departing. Quickly, she took her leave, too, going down into the village, confining herself to the strip of shade until she arrived at the infirmary.

Inside, she discovered Vaiuri rummaging among his medicines. At her entry, he leaped to his feet, his bearing grave and formal.

She extracted a handkerchief from her purse and patted her face. “Hot,” she said.

“Ah, the burning and the sun,” said Vaiuri. “I will fetch you water.”

“No, no—I had something to drink. I’m fine. All I need is a cigarette.” She took one from her purse, and Vaiuri was beside her to light it. She exhaled a billow of smoke. “Whew,” she said.

“How was it?”

“Sad. Very dignified.”

“Yes. Usually, there are no tears. We live. We die. Perhaps we live again.”

She drew on her cigarette, and decided to ask him. “Vaiuri, do you mind if I ask you something about the ceremony?”

“Of course, please.”

“After the cremation, almost everyone came up to me—to me—and thanked me. For what?”

Vaiuri showed his astonishment. “You do not know?”

“Haven’t the faintest idea.”

“You are famous on this island.”

“Famous?”

Vaiuri nodded. “Yes, you have mana. You were kind to Uata in his last days of life. You were good to him. You pleased him. Everyone is in your debt.”

Was he saying what she thought he was saying? “Do you mean—did Uata tell of our love-making?”

“He was proud. It was no disgrace here. He was one of those who live by the body. He was in need of only this to end his stay happily. The custom would not permit it. Only you, as an outsider, could transcend the custom, and you did. His family, those near him, hold you as a deity. Also—” He stopped suddenly. “Anyway, that is why they thanked you.”

“Also what, Vaiuri? You were going to say more.” “I do not wish to offend you, though it is not something that should give offense. It is something that should give you pride.”

“There needn’t be any secrets, Vaiuri. We work together. Now even you know that I—I’ve made—I’ve had love with one of your patients. That’s why I was invited to the funeral, wasn’t it?”

“You were considered to be a kin of Uata.”

“Please tell me the rest.”

“From the first night, and the other nights after, Uata confessed to me, to Moreturi, to all his male visitors of his affair. He could not contain himself, he was so happy. He had known many women, many—women of passion and experience—but he said none he had ever known were your equal. He told one and all of your magnificence. He said no female possessed your ability to give pleasure. He meant not so much your skill as your warmth, your outgoing warmth. The word went to all the kin, and to all the village. You do not know it, but today you are a legend. You are regarded by all of us as the most beautiful woman, the most desirable and beautiful, on the island.”

Her mind raced through time, to the high school in Cleveland, the men at Bellevue in New York, the anesthetist and Walter Zegner in San Francisco. All the men in her history had thought her desirable and beautiful in bed, but only in bed and nowhere else. Not one had penetrated beyond The Mask to know that the beauty of her love was also the beauty of her person. Yet here—her heart pounded—perhaps here, perhaps here—The Mask had dissolved forever. Still, she could trust no one, not after Zegner. She must be cautious.

“I—I don’t know what to say, Vaiuri. Believe me, poor Uata, God rest his soul, he exaggerated. I’m not all that.”

“You need not be modest. It is true. It is proved. You are the most desirable and the most beautiful of women to everyone here.”

Unblinking, she studied the serious, artless, oddly Roman face of the practitioner. “To everyone here, Vaiuri? That’s a sweeping—”

“To
everyone
,” he said fiercely, and she knew that he meant it, and her heart sang.

* * *

Never, in all the years devoted to his study of comparative sexual behavior, had Orville Pence been more frustrated than he was this moment.

The sweat, like a bevy of transparent ants, crawled down his receding forehead, and into his eyes, so that he had to remove his shell-rimmed spectacles and wipe his eyes. His necktie, which he persisted in wearing despite Sam Karpowicz’ teasing and Marc’s entreaties that he discard it, clamped his collar to his wet neck and made breathing laborious.

At times like this, he wished that he had it all to do over again. Instead of the matrimonial bliss that had been within his grasp—damn Crystal, damn Dora, and damn Beverly whateverhername-wasnow—he had gone on this dreadful trip, and now he sat miserably on the floor of the front room of his hut surrounded by a semicircle of stone-faced, idiot semiprimitives who would not cooperate.

There were six of them, three men, three women, between twenty and fifty years of age. They had volunteered to present themselves for Orville’s projective tests. The initial test, which he had invented and developed and experimented with successfully, was his own beloved P.P.R.I.—Pence Pictorial Response Inquiry—and for the first time, it seemed inadequate.

Orville was proud of his P.P.R.I., and he hoped to write a remarkable paper on its application to a remote society, such as the one on the Sirens, a society highly preoccupied with sex. He did not deny, even in his conference last night with Rachel DeJong and Maud Hayden, that his P.P.R.I. was derivative.

“Of course, it grew out of my work with the Thematic Apperception Test, the Szondi Test, the Rosenzwig Picture Frustration Test,” he had admitted freely to Maud. “But each of them had shortcomings, at least for me. Consider the Thematic Apperception Test. I take the twenty pictures—human beings in different provocative action situations—and I ask these natives to tell me what they see. The situations are too strange for them to comment upon. I show them a man about to commit a murder with a dagger, and I ask them what has happened and will happen. When I showed it in the islands off Alaska, it was too foreign to bring response. The situation was incomprehensible. So how could I expect any revelation of their attitudes and conflicts? I showed the Szondi, those forty-eight photos of abnormal human types, and it was just as fruitless. The subjects don’t identify. They don’t know the types. Or those cartoons in the Rosenzwig—have you seen them, Maud?—always presenting two persons, one annoying the other in some way, and the subject is asked to tell what the party of the second part, the one being annoyed, would do or say. Primitive subjects don’t identify. So that’s why I conceived the Pence Pictorial Response Inquiry. There was a lot of trial and error, but I finally narrowed it down to thirty mounted photographs of classical and modern-day paintings or sculpture showing love-making. Now everyone knows what that is all about in any language or society. You stimulate real response, whether your subject is permissive or prudish. You show those pictures, and before he knows it, the subject is projecting all his wishes and anxieties, spilling out his attitudes toward himself and others. It should work perfectly here. They’ll understand”