The Whale Caller

by Zakes Mda

  “You are the one who always visits them,” says the Whale Caller. “Why don’t we ever see them coming here to see you?”

  “They can’t come to town on their own,” Saluni explains. “Their parents work all day long. Their mother doesn’t want them to come to town anyway, because she thinks someone will steal their voices. I go there to keep an eye on them because they are always all alone.”

  In the first week at the Wendy house she spent the evenings at the taverns drinking and singing with her mates. She staggered back to the Wendy house, sometimes at three in the morning. She found him asleep in his sleeping bag in the kitchen and never woke him up. Instead she crept into her bed, leaving the lights on. However drunk she might be, she never forgot to leave the lights on. In the morning he would patiently warn her of the dangers of walking alone at night. She would only laugh and say: “You are beginning to behave like a husband… which is rather sweet. It would be sweeter if you did other husbandly things too.”

  But by the end of the second week she had stopped going to the taverns, and she made a whole fanfare of it. She announced grandly: “I have stopped for your sake… to make you happy.” So, indeed, he should be grateful for such a wonderful gift. Now she spends all her time between the mansion and the Wendy house, and between the Wendy house and the beach.

  He has taught her to waltz to the songs of the whales. These are the most exhilarating moments of his life. Sharisha has gone back to the southern seas, but other southern rights are still here, providing the music. Sometimes a humpback visits and adds its thrilling notes. At dawn the Whale Caller wakes Saluni up and together they go to the Voelklip beach. Sometimes, more often of late, it is Saluni who wakes him up, since now she has got into the spirit of things. If the whales happen not to be there that dawn he calls them with his horn and they respond. He gets hold of Saluni and together they float on the sand as if they are riding the clouds, as he used to float, albeit on a rocky surface, during his days at the Church of the Sacred Kelp Horn.

  At first Saluni was not too excited about these early morning frolics. But she decided to indulge him, especially after he had deserted her for the whole day and night to be with Sharisha on the eve of her departure.

  Saluni had only been staying with him in the Wendy house for about ten days when one night the Whale Caller had a nightmare: Sharisha was being attacked by hordes of killer whales. The deadly oreas were concentrating mostly on the callosities, biting chunks away. The water around her was red. He woke up screaming. He knew at once that Sharisha would be leaving soon. Nightmares were her way of communicating that to him. He rushed to the bedroom and woke Saluni up to tell her of his fears. She was not pleased at all; especially because her head was pounding from a hangover. The previous night she had finished a whole bottle of wine brought from the mansion, while watching the Whale Caller cook his staple of macaroni and cheese. The drinking had continued while they ate the supper and while he washed the plates and pot. He had gone to sleep in the kitchen as usual, leaving her sitting on the bed, pretending to be in some tavern; singing colourful songs and cracking dirty jokes to herself, then rocking the Wendy house with her gruff laughter. To be woken up so early in the morning on account of bad dreams about whales was not something she was ready to entertain.

  She shouted: “You and that ugly fish! I hope it goes away… forever! Maybe we’ll have some peace when it’s gone.”

  Without another word, the Whale Caller dressed up in his tuxedo, took his horn and left Saluni in bed nursing her precious hangover.

  This time he went to his peninsula where he knew the curious could only watch from a distance. He blew his kelp horn, praying that Sharisha had not migrated yet. Her head emerged from the water, only fifty metres away. She rose out of the water and then crashed down with a loud splash. Refreshing droplets sprayed him. She rose again, turned in the air above the water, and then, with her back arched, fell backwards on the water, with a yet louder splash. Seagulls flocked to pick up from the surface of the water pieces of skin that she had shed as she breached. There would be some lice to pick up too, now that she had been infested. Sharisha breached like that repeatedly, increasing the pace as the Whale Caller got more excited.

  The rising sun found him sitting on a rock and blowing his kelp horn. Sharisha responded with her own love calls. She rocked in the water in a mating dance. The Whale Caller stood up and rocked on the rocks. He raised his left leg, turned and twisted on one spot, then stamped the foot down. He did the same with the right leg. He repeated this dance in rapid succession for a long time, whilst blowing the sounds of the whining wind. People gathered on the shore and watched. Even those who had regularly watched the Whale Caller at his antics with the whales had never seen anything like this before. He did not seem to tire. He just went on and on raising his legs, spinning his sturdy body in the air, and then stamping his feet on the rocks. Sharisha did not seem to tire either. She was creating a whirlwind on the water by making a complicated combination of rocking, breaching and lobtailing. The rocking part—moving from side to side, and then forwards and backwards—fascinated the onlookers most for they had never seen a whale do anything like that.

  By midday Saluni was getting very worried about him. She could hear the horn from the Wendy house. There was a particular timbre of sadness in it that she could not stand. The very thought that he was with Sharisha infuriated her. At first she wanted to go down there and drag him out of his foolish trance. But her pride would not let her do that. Instead she went to the mansion. Even as she was playing and singing with the Bored Twins, picking the tulips that grew like wild flowers among the shrubs, her mind was at the rocky peninsula, wondering what the Whale Caller and Sharisha were up to at that moment. She was confident that when she returned to the Wendy house in the late afternoon, the Whale Caller would be over his madness. He would be waiting for her with a bowl of macaroni and cheese, as he always did.

  But Saluni had not reckoned with the power of the whirlwind that Sharisha was generating in the sea, locking the Whale Caller tightly in her embrace. The sun was about to set and the Whale Caller had not returned. Saluni swallowed her pride and went down to the shore. The biggest crowd she had ever seen at his whale-calling events had gathered. People were clapping their hands in accompaniment to the kelp horn. And to Sharisha’s grunts and groans. It reminded Saluni of the charismatic church services that were sometimes held in circus-like tents by visiting superstar pastors. People babbling things whose meaning no one could fathom, then falling on the ground shouting the name of the Lord and foaming at the mouth. When they woke up they were saved and their road to Heaven was guaranteed. Only here the things they were babbling had nothing to do with the Lord. While some were egging the Whale Caller on, others were directing their encouragement to the whale. There were those who were just screaming and whimpering, as if they shared the ecstasy of the man and his whale.

  Saluni decided to stop the whole circus once and for all. She tried to walk across the precarious rocks to the tip of the peninsula where the Whale Caller continued his dance oblivious of the world around him.

  “Hey, what is she trying to do? She will fall into the water,” said a breathless spectator.

  “It’s Saluni the village drunk,” observed another. “She must be zonked as usual.”

  “Where do you think you are going, Saluni?” the people asked.

  “To stop this whole nonsense,” said Saluni, trying to keep her balance by stretching her arms out and stepping delicately on the sharp rocks.

  “She’s gone bonkers,” someone said. “She is going to kill herself in her madness.”

  It was obvious that she would not make it, especially in her state of inebriation. She walked back to the shore and stood there in front of everyone. She shouted at the Whale Caller: “Come on, man, stop your rubbish with that fish and come back home!”

  But the Whale Caller did not come home that evening. He did not come home that night either. The spectators went
to their homes and to their hotels to sleep. Sharisha and the Whale Caller continued their dance unabated. Deep in the night the wails of his horn could be heard, sometimes sounding like a muted cornet and at others like a “last post” bugle, and then picking up again in the fast-paced scatting of a demented jazz singer. In the cool breeze of the night, and with the absence of spectators, the dance became even more frenzied. His horn penetrated deep into every aperture of the whale’s body, as if in search of a soul in the midst of all the blubber.

  The next morning the dance continued. Spectators returned and found the Whale Caller drenched in sweat. Both his horn and Sharisha were groaning deeply like out-of-tune tubas. Both were breathless as the dance seemed to be slowly fizzling out.

  It was almost midday when Sharisha sailed away waving her flipper and the Whale Caller found his steps back to the shore. The crowd was going crazy, screaming, making catcalls and applauding. As soon as he reached the shore he fell on the ground in utter exhaustion. He was drenched in sweat and other secretions of the body The front and the seat of his tuxedo pants were wet and sticky from the seed of life.

  He opened his eyes and smiled at the wide eyes that were looking at him from above. The people went even wilder with applause. Saluni was among them. But she was not participating in all the excitement. She just stood there, arms akimbo, shouting at him: “You have shamed yourself… and me!”

  “The people of Hermanuspietersfontein don’t seem to think so,” he said softly, and promptly fell asleep right there on the ground. The crowd gathered around them and some wondered who the people of Hermanuspietersfontein were.

  “He means us,” one of them offered helpfully. “It is what this town used to be called… after the shepherd and teacher who came down the mountain past the Hemel-en-Aarde valley and set up camp here almost two hundred years ago… before the land was stolen from the Khoikhoi.”

  “It is a foolish name. It belongs to an old world. Does he miss the past?”

  “He does not care about the origins of the name,” said Saluni defensively. “He just likes the old name. He says it rolls nicely on the tongue.”

  “He may think he hasn’t got a political agenda by insisting on a name that no one uses anymore. Everything in South Africa is political.”

  “What has that got to do with his dance? I ask.”

  The people were arguing about the merits of the name as they left. They had forgotten all about the satisfaction he had given them with his dance. Saluni remained there, sitting on the ground guarding him. If she had had the strength she would have carried him back to the Wendy house.

  It was after this experience that Saluni decided to go along with his mad suggestion that they should welcome the dawn of a new day with a waltz on the beach. She felt that perhaps if she indulged him, and sometimes even pampered him—within reasonable limits, of course, for a man can easily get spoilt if he is too pampered—he would forget about Sharisha. So, that first morning she reluctantly went to the beach, and to her surprise found that she actually enjoyed it. She caught on very fast, and soon enough she was floating as well as the Whale Caller.

  Now the dance has got into her, to the extent that she is often the one who wakes the Whale Caller up even when he is too lazy to go waltzing in the morning. She hopes that their discovery of something that they can do together will make him appreciate her more, and will bind them together, until she becomes indispensable. It also helps her keep a close eye on him lest he gets entangled with another whale. Unfortunately she can’t be with him all the time, because sometimes she needs to quench her addiction to the Bored Twins. She needs the healing voices that cleanse both her body and her soul. But she also needs the wine with which the parents reward her occasionally. Of late the bottles are becoming scarcer, because the vineyard owners are under pressure from the workers themselves to stop the practice of paying them with bottles of wine. The vineyard owners are now gradually resorting to paying their labourers with the normal currency that is legal tender in the rest of South Africa. And this is not good news for Sal uni.

  She goes to the mansion, spends the day with the Bored Twins and returns empty-handed. Even though the Whale Caller has refused to buy her wine on previous occasions, she asks him all the same, and once more he says no. She pesters him as he potters around the Wendy house, but he stubbornly stands his ground.

  “You can’t do this to me, man,” she pleads. “You stopped me from going to the taverns where my mates bought me all the wine in the world.”

  “You stopped for your own good,” says the Whale Caller.

  “I stopped for you, man… I did it for you… Now look what I get.”

  The Whale Caller ignores her and continues to look for things to occupy the hands that are unable to stay idle. He sits on the bed and polishes his shoes.

  “I will drink all the methylated spirits in the house if you don’t buy me a bottle of wine.”

  “Ah, you have been drinking my methylated spirits! I was wondering why a bottle that used to last me for months is now getting finished so quickly.”

  “Please don’t make me beg, man. I hate begging.”

  “I should have known it’s you! I don’t clean my suit that often. Since she left I don’t get to wear it at all.”

  “Everything is about the fish, eh? Even when it’s not here! What about me? What about my feelings? What about my needs?”

  “Even when I used to light a primus stove with methylated spirits… before 1 had this Wendy house wired for electricity… the methylated spirits lasted longer than it does since you came here.”

  “I am a love child, man,” she screams almost hysterically. “You can’t do this to me; 1 am a love child!”

  She blurts out the story of her conception, as she has told it numerous times before in the taverns of Hermanus—with the variations that the habitués of the taverns know so well. To the Whale Caller, of course, the version he hears today is the first one.

  She was conceived on a rainy day by a beautiful teenager who was involved in an illicit love affair with a married man. Under a corrugated iron roof whose noise in the rain swallowed their moans of pleasure. Rain changed to hail, and at that moment the man hit the right spot and the seed was planted. The young woman was completely smitten with him, and hoped that now she was carrying his child, she would have him all to herself forever. But it was not to be. When the older man refused to leave his aged wife for her, she was devastated. She fell into a deep depression. She was consumed by the flames of love until she lost her mind. And indeed troubadours (they are a constant!) composed songs about her unrequited love. The child was born, and was named Saluni. She—Saluni—was only six months old when her lovesick mother poured petrol all over her body and immolated herself. To this day, Saluni says with a dramatic gesture, she remembers quite vividly the yellow flames that consumed her beautiful mother in the same manner that she had been consumed by love. She is a love child, she repeats, and as a love child she cannot be denied whatever her heart desires.

  It is a romantic story that overwhelms the Whale Caller with deep feelings for her. Who would not love a love child? Who would be cruel enough to deny a love child a measly bottle of wine? He goes to a nearby hotel off-sales store and buys her a bottle of expensive wine, for he believes the cheaper autumn harvests are not good for her health; they will corrode her insides. But after just one sip Saluni complains: “This wine is no good. Too smooth. It’s for sissies. It’s like drinking water. Next time you give me the money and I’ll buy real wine.”

  The Whale Caller ignores her whining and occupies himself with pressing his tuxedo even though he had already pressed it yesterday and the day before.

  Besides dancing at dawn there are other things that Saluni and the Whale Caller do together. They go to the biggest supermarket in town to “window shop,” as they call it, for food. This began as Saluni’s project; her attempt to initiate him into what she refers to as civilised living. It started with decorating the walls w
ith seashells. Then she bought a vase and a tablecloth from the flea market that is held on Saturdays at the parking lot. She brings tulips from the mansion and arranges them in the vase on the wobbly table. She rearranges the flowers every day, according to their colours, and as she does so the Whale Caller feels his own life being rearranged.

  Civilised living includes a number of rituals against which his whole body rebels. But he goes along with them, especially because she reminds him all the time that she went along with his waltz at dawn. All of a sudden eating has become a ritual. Before this the Whale Caller used to eat in order to fill his stomach and didn’t attach much importance to the process. He could eat standing outside the Wendy house watching the distant waves, relaxing on the bed or even walking to Walker Bay. Now they sit down at the table. The table itself looks like an altar, with a white tablecloth, flowers and a candle. Although in most instances their diet comprises pasta and cheese, she makes a whole ceremony of eating it, in a number of courses—the same macaroni and cheese served as a starter, entrée and dessert—for she is keen to teach him how to eat a meal of many courses, which she says they are destined to do one day. Whenever he starts mumbling a complaint she reminds him: “We were born for better things. At least I was.”

  He learns table manners, although he suspects that the whole ritual is geared towards arousing him. He is well aware that in the “civilised world” the ritual of eating is some kind of foreplay. That is why gentlemen and ladies have candlelight dinners before bedding each other. He remembers from his travels along the coast that in the African languages he came across the crudest word for sex, which literally translated into “eating.” In this garish language of the gutter a man eats a woman. The Whale Caller surmised it should have been the other way round—although that still leaves his body cringing from the rawness of it all.

  The eating rituals extend to “window shopping” at the supermarket. This entails strolling along the aisles, stopping at the shelves displaying food they like, and then eating it with their eyes. They walk together pushing a trolley. Saluni stops in front of a shelf containing cans of beef stew. She looks at the pieces of meat, tomatoes, carrots and potatoes swimming in brown onion gravy on the label. She swallows hard as she eats the stew with her eyes. Then she moves on to the next shelf, and this one is stacked with cans of corned beef with a picture of the beef, potatoes and fried eggs sunny-side up. And then to cans of chicken à la king in thick mushroom sauce. Food fit for a queen. She gormandises it all with her greedy eyes. She takes a look at the Whale Caller, who has been staring at canned ravioli in tomato sauce. She is disgusted with him.