The Three Sirens (8 page)

But five weeks ago, or thereabouts, something good had happened to Claire. Its effect on her whole person was immediate, but hidden from those around her. She felt awakened. She had a feeling of well-being. She felt that there was going to be more to life than unfulfillment. And she knew that the inspiring element had been the Easterday letter. She had lovingly typed abridged copies, double-spaced, of this letter. All that Easterday promised, she knew by heart.

Except for one week-long trip to Acapulco and Mexico City, with her mother and stepfather when she was fifteen (she remembered the Pyramids, the Floating Gardens, Chapultepec, she remembered not being alone one instant), Claire had never been outside the United States. And now, almost overnight, she would be transported to an unknown and exotic place in the South Seas. The promise of change was unbearably stimulating. The actual details of The Three Sirens had little reality, and therefore little meaning to her. They resembled too closely the thousands of words in Maud’s books, in countless other anthropological volumes she had perused, and they seemed like mere history and the ancient past and no part of her present life. Yet, the date was drawing nearer and nearer, and if Easterday was not the “romancer” that Marc had labeled him, if these things were real things and not word things, she would soon be in a sweltering hut, among almost naked men and women, who took food from a common storehouse, who regarded virginity as a defect and practical education in sex a necessity, who practiced love in a Social Aid Hut and at an uninhibited festival (with a nude beauty contest, no less!).

Claire glanced at the enameled clock beside the wash basin. It was nine-fifteen. Marc’s early class would be over. Today, he would have four hours before his next class. She wondered if he would return home or go on to the library. She decided that she had better dress. Reaching out, she spun the lever beneath the faucet, and the outlet clanged open and the water and suds began to gurgle down the drain.

She pulled herself erect, gingerly stepped over the side of the tub, and stood dripping on the thick white mat. As the rivulets of water rolled downward across the curves of her glistening flesh, her mind returned again to the Easterday letter. What was it that he had said of the mode of dress on The Three Sirens? The men wore pubic bags held loosely in place by strings. Of course, that wasn’t really shocking, considering how men dressed on the beach every summer. Still, just those little bags and nothing else. Yet, they were natives and that made it decent, almost clinical. She had seen hundreds of pictures of natives, some of them without even pubic bags, and it had seemed quite natural for them.

The thought occurred to her, standing as she was now in the middle of the bathroom without a stitch on, that this was the way she might be expected to appear in public on The Three Sirens. No, that could not be quite true. Easterday had written: the women wore short grass skirts “without any undergarment” and with breasts bare. But heavens, that was next to naked.

Claire swung around to face the full-length mirror on the door. She tried to imagine how she would look, this way, naked, to the natives on The Three Sirens. She was five feet four and weighed 112 pounds on the scale this morning. Her hair was dark and shiny, cut short, with the ends clustering against her cheeks. Her almond eyes were of a vague Far Eastern cast, evoking the submissive and demure girls of ancient Cathay, and yet the effect was contradicted by their color, smoke blue, “sexy,” Marc had once said. Her nose was small, with overdelicate nostrils, her lips deep red and her mouth generous, too generous. From the slope of her shoulders and chest, her breasts developed gradually. Her breasts were large—how she had hated that in adolescence—but still high and young, which was a source of gratification in her twenty-fifth year. Her ribs showed somewhat—what would the natives think?

—but her abdomen was almost flat, only slightly rounded, and the proportions of her thighs and slender legs were not too bad, not really. Still, you could not tell what other people in other cultures would feel—the Polynesians might consider her skinny, except for her bosom.

Then she remembered the grass skirt. Twelve inches. She could see that twelve inches permitted only four inches of extra modesty. Forgetting any breeze—My God—what happened when you bent over or lifted your leg to ascend a step, or, for that matter, how did you sit down? She determined to discuss the whole business of dress with Maud. In fact, since this was her first field trip, she must ask Maud what would be required of her on The Three Sirens.

As she dried, she saw herself in the mirror once more. How would she look when she was pregnant? Her belly was so small, really. Where would there be room for another person, her child? Well, there always was, and nature had its way, but it seemed absolutely impossible at this moment. Thinking of the child she would have, but did not have, her brow automatically creased. From the first she had spoken wistfully, later practically, of bearing a child, and from the first Marc had been against it. That is, he was against it for the time, he always said. His reasons seemed important when he stated them to her, but when she was alone, and free to think, they always seemed puny. They must adjust to marriage first, he once said. They must have some free years together, without added responsibilities, he said another time. And lately, it had been that they must get Maud settled, apart from them, and be on their own, before having a family.

Now, rubbing the towel along her legs, she wondered if any of these reasons was honest, let alone valid, or if they concealed the truth: that Marc did not want a child, dreaded having one, because he was still a child himself, a grown child who was too dependent to take on responsibility. She did not like the momentary suspicion, and determined not to speculate further.

There was a rap on the door behind the mirror. “Claire?” It was Marc’s voice. She started with surprise, and felt guilty with her thoughts now that Marc was so near.

“Good morning!” she called out, cheerfully.

“Did you have breakfast yet?”

“Not yet. I’m just dressing.”

“I’ll wait for you then. I had to miss it this morning. Overslept. What should I tell Suzu? Anything special?”

“The usual.”

“Okay…By the way, the last of the research came in from Los Angeles.”

“Anything exciting?”

“Haven’t had time to look at it yet. We’ll go over it together at breakfast.”

“Fine.”

After she heard Marc leave, she hurriedly fastened on her brassiere, then pulled on her panties, garter belt, rolled on her sheer stockings and secured them, and got into the pink slip. Emerging from the warm bathroom into the cooler, sunny upstairs bedroom, she wondered if the final research had turned up anything more. In minutes she would know. Quickly, she combed her hair, made up her lips, but used no cosmetics on the rest of her face, then stepped into her light cocoa-colored wool skirt, drew on the beige cashmere sweater, buttoned it, found some low-heeled shoes, shoved her feet into them, and hastened into the hall and descended the stairs.

Suzu, grinning, was putting down the breakfast, and Marc was at the kitchen table, bent over an open folder, when Claire entered. She hailed Suzu, and then brushed her palm over Marc’s crewcut as she pecked a kiss at his cheek.

She slid into a chair, gulped her grapefruit juice, grimaced, having forgotten to sweeten it. She looked across the table. “Isn’t Maud back yet?”

“Still hiking across the moors,” said Marc, without looking up.

Claire broke off the corner from a piece of toast. “Well,” she said, indicating the research, “does our Polynesian Disneyland really exist?”

Marc lifted his head, then shrugged. “Maybe yes, maybe no. I wish I could be as sure as Matty.” He tapped the papers in front of him. “Our graduate students seem to have done a thorough job, even at the Library of Congress, combed South Seas literature, published and unpublished. No mention of The Three Sirens anywhere. Absolutely not a word—”

“That shouldn’t be surprising. Easterday said it was an unknown group.”

“I’d feel more comfortable if there was something in print. Of course—” He began to leaf through the notes again. “—certain other findings tend to support Easterday a little.”

“Like what?” asked Claire, her mouth full.

“There actually was a Daniel Wright, and he did live in Skinner Street in London before 1795. Also, there was an attorney named Thomas Courtney practicing in Chicago—”

“Really? … Anything more about him?”

“Dates, mostly. He’s thirty-eight. Degrees from Northwestern and the University of Chicago. Junior partner in some old-line firm. Flew for the Air Force in Korea in 1952. Then back in practice in Chicago. The listings stop in 1957.”

“That’s when he went to the South Seas,” said Claire, flatly.

“Could be,” said Marc. “We’ll know soon enough.” He closed the folder, and devoted himself to his cereal and milk.

“Eleven shopping weeks left to Christmas,” said Claire.

“I don’t think The Three Sirens will quite be Christmas,” said Marc. “It’s no place for a woman, among those primitives. If I could leave you behind, I would.”

“Don’t you dare try,” said Claire, indignantly. “Besides, they’re not entirely primitives. Easterday said the Chief’s son spoke in perfect English.”

“Plenty of primitives speak English,” said Marc. He smiled suddenly. “Including some of our best friends. I wouldn’t want you to spend too much time with them, either.”

Pleased by his unusual concern, Claire touched his hand. “You mean you really care?”

“Male duty and instinct,” said Marc. “Protect one’s mate … But seriously, field trips are not picnics. I’ve told you how much I hated the ones I’ve been on. They’re never as idyllic in real life as they sound when they’re glossed over in print. You usually find you don’t have much in common with the natives, aside from working with them. You miss all the amenities of life. Inevitably, you get laid low by dysentery or malaria or some damn fever thing. I don’t like exposing a woman to all that hardship, even for a short time.”

Claire squeezed his hand. “You are a darling. But I’m sure it won’t be as bad as you expect. After all, I’ll have you and Maud—”

“We may be very busy.”

“I’ll see that I’m very busy, too. I just want the whole experi—

“Don’t say you weren’t warned.”

Claire withdrew her hand, picked up her fork, and poked at her fried eggs thoughtfully. Knowing Marc as she did, she began to wonder if he was really concerned about her welfare, or just projecting his own private fears of an undertaking new and strange. Was Marc, like so many males, two separate men, constantly embattled, each determined to win his kind of peace? Did he secretly chafe at dull routine, yet all the while find his security in it? He was as steady, in his movements through a day, as the hands of a flawless clock. At the same time, despite the comfort of this treadmill existence, he might want to escape it. Behind his surface adjustment, Claire felt, could lurk another Marc, one who went off on journeys she would never share, voyages to secret Monte Cristos that temporarily freed him from budget prisons and nonentity dungeons. For him, perhaps, The Three Sirens offered no personal advance, only an uncomfortable tagging along. And so he would transform his dislike of his own uprooting into a worry about the one closest him. Claire could not be sure, of course, but this was her guess.

Finishing her fried eggs, Claire looked up and watched her husband as he ate. No person should ever watch another person eat, she told herself. People do not look their best when they eat. They look foolish, distorted, and they look self-indulgent. She separated Marc from his food. He always seems shorter than he is, she told herself. He is five feet ten, but there is something inside him, some perverse and uncertain hormone, that shrinks him. Yet she found him physically attractive. His features and physique were right, regular, balanced. The crewcut seemed an anachronism on a face so rigid and so often brooding, although it belonged to him when he smiled or teased or was pleased and hopeful. The eyes, opaque gray, were deep but set well apart. The nose was aquiline. The lips thin. But the general aspect was handsome, sincere, sometimes amiable, one of rugged scholarship. He had the compact, overmuscular body of an athlete who always came in second. He wore his suits loose, smart, and well. If looks were only everything, she told herself, he would be happier and she would reflect his happiness. But his inner self, she knew, too often wore different clothes, and resented their poor fit. She did not mean to sigh aloud, but she did.

Marc looked up inquiringly.

She must say something. She said, “I’m a little nervous about the dinner party tonight.”

“What’s there to be nervous about? Hackfeld has already agreed to a grant.”

“You know Maud says we need more. How can Hackfeld insist on such a big team, and then be so stingy?”

“That’s why he’s rich. Anyway, he’s got a lot of other irons in the fire.”

“I wonder how Maud’ll bring it up?” said Claire.

“You leave it to her. That’s her specialty.”

Claire’s eyes followed Suzu to the stove. “Suzu, what’s it going to be tonight?”

“Chicken Teriyaki.”

“The way to a man’s purse is through his stomach. Brilliant, Suzu.”

“You bet,” said Suzu, grinning.

“Whose purse? Whose stomach?” It was Maud Hayden in the dining room doorway. Her gray hair was indescribably tangled, apparently from the wind. Her wide old face was outdoor red. Her squat, stout body was shapeless in muffler, pea jacket, navy blue flannel skirt, and therapeutically customed, cloddish shoes. She waved her gnarled walking stick, a product of Ecuador and Jivaro country. “Who were you discussing?” she demanded to know.

“Cyrus Hackfeld, keeper of our money,” said Claire. “Did you have breakfast?”

“Hours ago,” said Maud, unwinding her muffler. “Brrr. Cold out. Sun and palm trees and still you nearly freeze to death.”

“What do you expect in March?” said Marc.

“I expect California weather, my son.” She smiled at Claire. “Anyway, in not so many weeks we’ll have all the tropical weather we can stand.”