Siren (9 page)

"Bartholomew," John acknowledged, but it sounded like he was growling again.

"Wall. Good to see you."

John grunted. He'd never been fond of social lies. "What are you doing here?"

"Come to see Hiapo. Haven't been here in a long time. Used to have me a
wahine
—she died. Measles."

"Sorry," John replied.

"Should of come a long time ago. Just couldn't make myself do it. But it was good to see him again the other day. I should of stayed. I lived here oncet."

There was nothing for it but to invite the man to eat with them. But Hiapo had already done it, and this time Batholomew had agreed to stay.

The old man called for a feast to celebrate the visit of his
haole
friend. Bartholomew sat with John and Siren in the place of honor on Hiapo's platform while they were served the traditional foods, and drums and rattles played the sounds of the feast. John could tell by the sounds that tonight would be one of those nights Hiapo called for the hula. And as tired as he was, John wished they could have simply gone to bed in their little hut without even eating. But he would honor Hiapo above all men, and Hiapo had taught him hospitality was to be honored above all, in dealings with other men.

Bartholomew could hardly keep his eyes off Siren, and John seethed quietly. But it was not polite for Bartholomew to address her directly, so he did not. John wished he could punch the man in the gut for his ogling, but that too would be disrespectful to the old man.

Bartholomew set down the wooden bowl that had held his poi. "Did you hear the wind last night, Wall?"

John frowned at the man. He'd heard the wind and a hell of a lot more. "Yes."

"Sound strange to you?"

"Thought it sounded beautiful."

"So did I. Thought it sounded like the Siren's song. Ever hear the Siren singing, Wall?"

"Yes."

"Never heard anything more beautiful. People all over Honolulu are talking about it. They're saying it was the wind whistling through the trees, but it wasn't. I thought it was like the Siren's song. But it wasn't that, either."

Throwing the man a guarded glance, John asked, "Why do you say that?"

"Because the Siren's song is so beautiful it makes me weep. Makes me want to jump into the ocean and join her. Didn't feel that, quite."

"I heard, maybe there are many Sirens," John replied. "And maybe a man hears only the one who calls to him."

"Scares me so much I almost piss," Bartholomew said. "I seen men walk right up to the gunwale and jump into the sea. That's what I want to do when I hear her. Or see her. Ever see a Siren, Wall?"

"I've seen her."

"I ain't ready to die, Wall. She calls me. She devils my dreams with her flowing blonde hair. I can't sleep. That's why I gave up sailing, because I was afraid I'd go overboard, and I ain't ready to go."

Siren rose from where she sat against her heels beside John, and crossed in front of them. From the still-laden low table, she scooped up thick gray poi into their koa wood bowls and brought them back to the two men. She knelt before Bartholomew and sat the bowl before him.

"Do not fear the Siren's call, Tom Bartholomew. If it is not your time, you will not go. If it is your time, you will go."

His stare at her was a mix of deadly fear and horror, then softened to mere astonishment.

"Hiapo calls you Namaka-o-Kaha'i," he said. The sea goddess." He sent a wide-eyed sidelong glance at John. "T'ain't possible."

"I know," John replied.

"How come you're alive, then, Wall? Is this it?"

"I told you there's no explaining it."

"Yeah. Yeah, I surely do see why you don't say much."

"Do not fear, Tom Bartholomew," Siren said again. "There is much you do not know, but you will not regret what you must do."

Then she returned to her place beside John.

The drums, the deep-toned ones they kept hidden in dark caves, came out. The hula began. This time, when the singer began his tale of the sea goddess, three women wearing short, thickly bunched skirts and leis circling ankles and wrists and crowning their heads, began a fluid, swaying dance. The story, John now understood, was told in the hands.

It was told in the hula that Namaka-o-Kaha-I, was sister to the goddess Pele, who was the fire of the great volcanoes, or the ancient homeland of Tahiti. When Pele stole her sister's husband, she fled, and Namaka-o-Kaha'i followed in anger. Pele came to the Islands of Hawaii, first to Kauai in the north, but her sister followed and everywhere Pele put her digging stick in the ground, Namaka-o-Kaha'i caused the waves to rise up and fill the hole. And so Pele fled to the next island, and the next. But each time the sea goddess raised the sea against her sister. Finally, when Pele reached the biggest island, Hawaii, she hurried high up the mountain to thrust her stick into the ground, flinging fire at her sister the whole way, and causing the sea goddess's hair to burst into flames. Try as she might, Namaka could not make the waves reach her sister, who thrust her stick into the land, and there she stayed, raising the enormous volcanoes that spew fire to this day. Namaka-o-Kaha'i returned to the sea, where she had dominion, and Pele never again dared to go near the water where her flame-haired sister awaited. And to this day, the sea goddess, Namaka-o-Kaha'i is recognized by her hair that burns in the daylight.

John privately wondered what had happened to the lover, but he thought it wise not to make mention of it.

"Is it true?" he quietly asked Siren, for he no longer thought such things were nonsense. He himself had heard the sea singing back to Siren.

"Men tell the stories they can understand," she replied.

It would have been proper for John to invite Bartholomew to stay the night in his hut with Siren, but it was the last thing he wanted to do. He had found it hard enough to sleep within hearing distance of the Oahuans. A white man, he didn't think he could handle. But Hiapo spoke of it first, and insisted the man not return over the coast road to Honolulu in the night when the spirits of the old warriors who had been slain by King Kamehameha roamed along the cliffs and valleys near the Pali. John breathed relief.

Although he made love with Siren that night, it was very quiet, almost tentative, for something about Bartholomew troubled him deeply. John only wanted to hold on to his beloved through the night, more for fear that he would disappear than she, he thought.

In the morning, he rose at dawn and saw Bartholomew waiting for him near the dusty road that wound up the hill and around the old crater called Diamond Head. He shrugged, and joined the stocky American he'd just as soon not see again. For a long time, they just walked, saying nothing.

"No dock work today," Bartholomew said. "Don't know why we're going. The
Galinda
is still repairing her yardarms. Got the mast done, though. Hull scraped. She'll be going out in a few more days. Guess we'll load her by tomorrow, maybe."

John grunted. He hadn't planned on working the docks today. He'd only gone along because Bartholomew seemed to need something.

"Captain Sligh needs a bos'n. Told him I'm done with the sea."

"Thinking of changing your mind?"

"Don't know." Bartholomew's eyes were fixed on the dirt path ahead of them, but John could see the man's longing for the sea, or perhaps it was for his Siren, etched in every weathered crevice of his face.

Silence came upon them again, and only the muffled shuffle of their footsteps sounded against the loudly singing birds and quiet lapping of a gently rolling incoming tide. The day was growing bright, but early thunderclouds were coming in, already rapidly growing tall and rimed in bright silver by the sun. John knew to expect a warm downpour before he returned to the village.

"She's very beautiful," Bartholomew said at last.

John nodded, as if his silence could speak for him, knowing who the man meant.

"Think you're right, Wall. There's more than one Siren. She's a Siren, ain't she? Only she ain't my Siren."

"How do you know?"

"My Siren sounds different. And she's got blonde hair, not red. Just as long, though. Just as beautiful. You think she's right? About following the Siren, I mean?"

John shrugged. It seemed like nodding and shrugging were becoming the better part of his half of the conversation.

"Did you really live beneath the sea, then? Does that explain how you got from Africa to here? What was it like? Was it cold and dark?"

"Siren comes from the Summer Sea. The water is never cold, and there seemed to be light wherever we were. Don't ask me how. I don't understand it. I just know it's an impossible, beautiful world."

"Why ain't you still there then?"

"Because I was stupid. Seemed to me like she was telling me what to do and I had no choice. Didn't sit well with me."

"Don't usually sit well with a man. She do that now?"

"If she does, I don't notice it. Maybe she's become slyer and I just don't know it now. I don't think I care anymore. It's worth about anything to be with her. And I thought I had to be with people. I missed my own kind. Only now I'm here, and I don't want to be with them at all." He frowned deeply. Until he had said it aloud, he hadn't known how much he felt that.

"Yeah, I know. I don't like them much either. But why us? Why not some other man instead? And why did she come ashore? To be with you?"

"I don't know. I don't understand her. Except that last. Yes. She says I am for her and she is for me. I never really understood what that means."

"Sounds like she's saying she loves you."

"Maybe. I don't understand her most of the time. She's something beyond my ken. If she's a goddess or immortal–I just don't understand."

"Most men don't understand women, Wall."

That was true. But he shook his head. It wasn't explainable, none of it. Not even to this gruff, coarse man who at least knew John wasn't crazy. "I only know, the only thing in the world I really want is to be with her."

Bartholomew stopped in the road and assessed John, his head cocked and brow wrinkled. He sighed, and they turned back to their walking. Soon the skeletal masts of the tall ships in the harbor came into view.

Bartholomew had a strange look on his face that seemed half fear, half fate. "If she wanted you to go back to the sea with her, would you do it?"

A shiver ran up John's spine. Did he feel Bart's fear or his own? "I don't think she can go back now," he said. "I think she gave up her sea. Maybe immortality, too, I'm not sure. That singing you heard, that was her."

"Thought so."

"We climbed to the top of the Diamond Head so she could see the sea, and she sang to it all night long. I've never felt such deep yearning, and it seemed the sea sang back to her, like lovers forever parted."

Was that it? Was he jealous of her love for her sea?

"It surely was beautiful," Bartholomew said, his head slowly shaking as if at some great wonder that was beyond belief. "Surely was."

"Used to be, no one else could hear her song but me. Now everyone can. That's why I think she's given up everything to be just human. She can die, now that she's on land."

"That would surely be a shame. Frightening thought."

"I think she'd die in the sea now. Just like me."

"But she told me not to fear it. You think I'd be like you, swimming in the sea? Be with my Siren forever?"

The sudden memory of the drowning sailors struck him. He didn't know. Damn it all, he didn't know. They'd had no Siren to kiss their lips and take them to a paradise beneath the waves. He didn't know how to answer.

"But she told me not to fear it," Bartholomew repeated.

"She doesn't lie," John said. It was the only answer he was sure of. And he knew what hunger and torture the man was going through. But it wasn't up to him to say what the rough American ought to do.

Closer to the docks, their pace slowed, as if trepidation dragged Bartholomew's steps. The five masts of the Clipper
Galinda
towered above the water of the harbor. Bartholomew moved as if in a trance. At last, after he had stared at the ship for several minutes, he huffed out a resigned sigh, and reached into his pocket. Out came a necklace of silver gray pearls.

"Don't know why I have this," he said. "Maybe you should give it to your Siren."

John shook his head again, as he had done so many times this morning. "She never was much one for trinkets."

"Got to give it to someone. Don't think I'm going to have much use for it."

John frowned. He'd thought so much lately that he had no gift for Siren, after she had given so much to him. But this was not what he needed for her. Not a gift that was nothing more than something given by another man.

"Save it. Give it to your Siren," he said. "Maybe that's why you have it. You'll be glad you have something you can share with her."

Bartholomew pinched his lips together and slowly nodded. "Tell your Siren goodbye for me. You're a good man, Wall. My cousin said so. He was right. Hope he found a Siren too."