The Three Sirens (12 page)

Once outside, Sam had wandered along the gravel road, nodding to a neighbor mowing his lawn, observing the University buildings some distance off, poking about several empty lots, often halting to stare at the faraway hills, and at last he had returned to his car and to the city.

He did not remain in Albuquerque overnight. He remained a week. In that week he applied for a post at the University of New Mexico, and after that he resumed his cross-country journey.

One year later, he was an instructor at the University, with a private laboratory and shining new compound microscope, and two years later he had his own adobe on South Girard Drive.

And here, on the patio of this cottage, he stood tonight. Not one day had he ever regretted the move, nor had Estelle regretted it either. The only occasions that he had ever known regret had been those occasions when he had found it necessary to leave Albuquerque on work trips.

One last time, he breathed the invigorating air, letting it fill his thin chest, and, partially revived, he went into the house through the open glass doors of the dining room. Securing the doors, he shouted, “Estelle, how about some coffee?”

“Ready and waiting!” she called back. “In the living room!”

He found Estelle curled in the wide armchair. Her purplish-gray hair was done up in curlers, and her large loose bathrobe was flung out to cover both her ample frame and the sides of the chair. She resembled, he decided, a comfortable teepee. She was reading, with the dogged intentness that denotes self-improvement, Riesman’s
Individualism Reconsidered
, and now she laid the book aside to rise and take the coffee pot from the portable hot plate. Sam made for the opposite armchair and, as if being lowered by a derrick, settled his lengthy skeleton frame creakingly into the chair. Once seated, spindly legs outstretched, he groaned pleasantly.

“You’re making sounds like an old man,” said Estelle, pouring coffee into the cup that rested on the lacquered table.

“The Torah says when a man is forty-nine, he has the license to groan with equanimity.”

“So groan then. Did you accomplish much?”

“I printed some of the stuff I shot around Little Falls. That Mexican sun is so bright you have to work like a dog to get true definition. Anyway, the
pitahaya
turned out beautifully. I’m almost at the end. I think I can wind it up in a few weeks. How’s the typing going?”

“I’m caught up to you,” said Estelle, returning to her place. “When you write the rest of the captions, I’ll do them.”

Sam tasted his coffee, noisily blew at it, and finally drank with enjoyment and set down the half-filled cup. He removed his rimless square glasses—“the Schubert glasses,” his daughter called them—because they had steamed, and then, feeling untidy, he smoothed down his mussed saffron-gray hair, ran a finger across each of his peaked eyebrows, and finally searched for and found a cigar. As he prepared it, he suddenly glanced around. “Where’s Mary? Is she back yet?”

“Sam, it’s only ten-fifteen.”

“I thought it was later. My legs feel like it’s later.” He started his cigar glowing, and drank his coffee again. “I hardly saw her today—”

“We hardly saw you, hour after hour in that black hole in the back. A human being at least comes in for dinner. Did you eat the sandwiches?”

“Darnit, I forgot to bring in the tray and dishes.” He put down his empty cup. “Yes, I cleaned the tray.” He sucked at the cigar again, erupted a cloud of smoke, and asked, “What time did she go out?”

“What?” Estelle had gone back to her reading.

“Mary. What time did she leave here?”

“Sevenish.”

“Who was it tonight—the Schaffer boy again?”

“Yes, Neal Schaffer. He took her to a birthday party at the Brophys’. Imagine, Leona Brophy is seventeen.”

“Imagine, Mary Karpowicz is sixteen. What I can’t imagine is what Mary sees in that Brophy girl. She’s absolutely vacuous, and the way she dresses—”

Estelle dropped the book to her lap. “Leona is perfectly all right. What you object to is her parents.”

Sam snorted. “Anyone who puts Americanism stickers on his car—God, how often I try to think what’s in the minds of those people. Why would anyone have to go around billboarding the fact that they are Americans in America? Of course, they’re Americans, and so are we, and so is almost everyone in this country. It’s so damn suspect. What are they trying to say—that they’re super-Americans, special Americans, more American than ordinary Americans? Do they want to prove that everyone else might want to overthrow the government some day or sell secrets to a foreign power, whereas the stickers prove that they guarantee they will not, as long as they live? What crazy dark things are inside those people, that they have to prove their citizenship and loyalty? Why doesn’t old man Brophy also wear a lapel button saying Marriedism or Manism or Godism?”

Estelle accepted her husband’s outburst patiently—the truth was, she secretly adored him in these moments of indignation—and when she saw that Sam was done, she returned with practicality to the central point. “All of which has nothing to do with Leona or her birthday party or Mary going there.”

Sam smiled. “Right you are,” he said. He studied the cigar. “This Schaffer kid—Mary ever discuss him with you?”

Estelle shook her head. “Sam, you’re not going to pick on him, are you?”

Sam smiled again. “In fact, I was, but only mildly. I don’t have much more than an impression of him, but he seems too smart and old for her.”

“They’ll all be too smart and old for her, as long as you’re her Father and she’s growing up.”

Sam was tempted to make a wisecrack, but he did not. Instead, he nodded placid agreement. “That’s right, I suppose you’re right and Mother knows best—”

“—about Father. She sure does.”

“The subject is changed.” He surveyed the lacquered table. “Any calls today—visitors—mail?”

“All quiet—nothing in the mail except an invitation to a dinner dance at the Sandia Base—some bills—a report from the Civil Liberties Union—
The New Republic
—more bills—and that’s about—” She suddenly straightened. “Oh, dear, I almost forgot—there’s a letter for you from Maud Hayden. It’s on the dining room table.”

“Maud Hayden? I wonder where the old girl is now? Maybe she’s coming out this way again.”

“I’ll get it for you.” Estelle was already on her feet and, bedroom slippers plopping, on her way to the dining room. She came back with a long envelope and handed it to Sam. “It’s from Santa Barbara.”

“She’s becoming sedentary,” said Sam, opening the envelope.

As he began to read the letter, Estelle stood beside him, stifling a yawn, but unable to leave until she knew what it was all about. “Anything important?”

“As far as I can make out …” His voice trailed off, as he read on, absorbed. “She’s going on a field trip to the South Pacific in June. She wants company.” He handed her the page he had finished, absently groped for his spectacles and hooked them on and continued to read.

Five minutes later, he had finished the letter, and waited thoughtfully, looking up at his wife, as she read to the end of the Easterday enclosure.

“What do you think, Estelle?”

“Fascinating, of course—but Sam, you promised we’d stay put this summer—and I don’t want you trotting off without us—”

“I never said I would.”

“There are a hundred things to be done to the house, and work you have to catch up on, and we’ve promised my family that this year they could come out and—”

“Estelle, relax, we’re not going anywhere. From my standpoint, I can’t see that The Three Sirens would offer anything different than the rest of Polynesia. It’s just that—well, first of all, it’s fun to be with old Maud, and it’s good to be associated with her—secondly, you’ve got to admit, sounds like a real odd place, those customs—I’d have the camera—might give me a picture book that, for a change, would sell.”

“We’re doing all right. We don’t need it. I’m sick of being either a nomad or a botanical widow. For one summer let’s be a family in a home in a place where we belong.”

“Look, I’m worn out, too. I love it here as much as you do. I was only speculating. I have no intention of budging an inch out of here.”

“Good, Sam.” She bent over and kissed him. “I can hardly keep my eyes open. Don’t stay up too late.”

“Just until Mary—”

“I gave her permission until midnight. What are you—Grover Whalen to welcome her? She has a key and she knows the way. Get some sleep, you need it.”

“Okay. Soon as you’re through with the bathroom.”

After Estelle had gone up the hallway to the bedroom, Sam Karpowicz took Maud’s letter and leisurely reread it. Aside from the war, he had visited the South Seas only once, for a short time, collecting specimens on the Fijis, the year after Maud had been there. He had collected a wonderful assortment of wild yams, several of a species unknown to him, but after painstakingly measuring them, learning their names and histories, he had done something wrong in their preservation, and they had all deteriorated on the way home. It would be valuable to have another set again, that is, if they grew on The Three Sirens. Also, there was the possibility of the picture book to supplement, even profit by, the bestseller that Maud would inevitably write. It was tempting, but Sam knew that it was not enough. Estelle was right. The family must come first, allow its own roots to grow and flourish. It would be a good summer in Albuquerque, he decided, and he did not mind; in fact, he was glad. Neatly, he folded Maud’s letter and returned it to its envelope. He turned down the lamps, leaving one on, and the front porch light on as well, for Mary.

The bedroom was already darkened when he reached it. By squinting, he could make out the mound that was Estelle in her bed. He felt his way to the bathroom, closed the door, turned up the shaving light, and prepared for the night. When he was done, he was surprised that it was already ten minutes after midnight. He pulled his faded blue robe over his pajamas, having decided to say good night to Mary.

Crossing to her bedroom, he could see that her door was open. When he reached it, he could also see that the bed was still made. Disappointed, he trudged to the cramped study, relighted the student lamp on the desk, and parted the Venetian blinds. Outside, Girard Drive was empty and desolate. This was unlike Mary, and Sam turned away troubled. He considered another cigar, but he had already brushed his teeth and so he vetoed the cigar. He sat down at his desk, puttered restlessly, leafing through some botanical journals.

After a while, he heard the approaching sound of an automobile. The mantel clock told him it was twelve thirty-four. Quickly, he jumped up, turned off the student lamp, and opened the Venetian blinds. He could make out Neal Schaffer’s Studebaker compact. It came past the house, made a U-turn, and drew up at the curb directly ahead. The engine died. Sam released the blinds as if they had burned him. A concerned parent, yes, but a spy, never.

Slowly, his heron legs carried his tall, concave person to bed. He jerked off the robe, and crawled between the covers. He lay on his back, and thought of Mary, and of her infancy, and allowed his mind to revolve to Maud, and back to the field trip that he had made with her, and then back to the war and after, and suddenly, he was back to Mary, and still wide awake. He had been listening all the while and had not heard her enter. And then, as if to chastize him, he heard the metallic rattle of the key, the squeak of the hinges, the contact of wood against wood as the door closed. He felt his face smile in the darkness. He waited to hear her footsteps go from the living room to her bedroom.

He waited for the automatic tread, and did not hear it. More awake than ever, he listened harder. Still, no sound of footsteps. Strange. He contained himself, and turned on his left side, and pretended to try to sleep, but his eardrums waited. Silence. This was unusual, and he was nervous now. At least five minutes had passed since her entrance, he was positive. He could stand the mystery no longer. Throwing off his blanket, he stuck his feet into his slippers, pulled on his robe, and went into the hallway.

Again, he went to her room. It was not occupied. He went to the living room. It was quiet, and appeared empty, and then he saw her in his chair. She had kicked off her high-heeled pumps—which he could never get used to—and she sat straight in the chair, unaware of him, staring blankly ahead.

Curiouser and curiouser, he thought, and he came around to confront her. “Mary—”

She lifted her head, and her narrow peach face was so lovely and fresh, so young, that he could see it had been marred about the eyes, as if she had been crying. “Hi, Dad,” she said in a low voice. “I thought you were sleeping.”

“I heard you come in,” he said, carefully. “When I didn’t hear you go to bed, I got worried. Are you all right?”

“Yes, I guess so.”

“This is not like you. What were you doing here, alone, like this? It’s late.”

“Thinking a little. I don’t know what.”

“You’re sure nothing happened tonight? Did you have a good time?”

“Sorta. The same as always.”

“Did young Schaffer bring you home?”

“He sure did—” She came alive, and pushed herself forward in the chair, readying to rise.

“What does that mean?”

“Oh—nothing, Dad, please—”

“Well, if you don’t want to tell me—”

“There’s nothing to tell you, really. He was just unpleasant.”

“Unpleasant. Does that mean fresh?”

“It means unpleasant. A little kissing is one thing, but when they think they own you—”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand. Or maybe I do.”

She stood up all at once. “Please,
Pa
—” Sam knew she only used Pa when she was exasperated with him, when he was being an ice cube, which in her parlance was very square, indeed. “Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill,” she was saying. “It’s embarrassing.”

He was not sure what else he should say. He was nudged by the necessity of preserving parental authority and the father image, and yet she was maturing, and deserved some privacy. As she retrieved her purse, he watched her, brown hair groomed, beautiful dark eyes set in an unblemished sweet face, new red going-out dress clinging to a slender body that revealed nearing womanhood only in the surprisingly protruding and firm bosom. What was there to say to this half-child, half-woman, who did not want to be embarrassed? “Well, if you ever want to talk—” Sam said lamely, and quit.