Zakes Mda - The Whale Caller

Only then did the Bored Twins realise the serious consequence of their game. They tried to revive Saluni by pouring water on her face, all the while crying, “Sorry, auntie… sorry, auntie.” They were struck with terror when they saw a red rash erupting all over her naked body, right before their eyes. It seemed to be flaming where the millipede had walked, leaving a trail of hair that stuck out of her skin like red villi on a fruit. Her girlish breasts had the most hair and it looked almost like bristle.

After a minute or so she regained consciousness. The girls were relieved to see that she was not dead. They were all over her, confessing their crime, and accusing each other of initiating the prank. She gathered her clothes and put them on, without uttering a word to the Bored Twins, who kept on crying, “Sorry, auntie… sorry, auntie!” They were jumping all around her, hoping to hear her say that she had forgiven them. But she walked away without giving them a second look. She went back to town and back to the taverns. As she sat in a favourite watering hole, drinking wine and relating how the Bored Twins almost killed her in spite of her being a love child, her body was itching all over. She was obviously ill, and the habitués, despite the fact that they had found the story quite funny at first, became concerned. “Whose children are these who play such cruel games on the love child?” they asked. She found herself defending them: “I am sure they didn’t mean any harm. They were playing. They wouldn’t want to harm me on purpose. They are angels.”

On this grey afternoon the Whale Caller’s relentlessness weakens. He makes a determined effort to forget about Saluni for a while and pay more attention to Sharisha. He will resume the search some other day, for he cannot give her up altogether. At the very least he wants to know what became of her. For now he needs something that will raise his spirits… that will make him soar from the depths of depression in which he has been wallowing lately. And only Sharisha can do that. He goes back to the Wendy house to fetch Sharisha’s special horn.

He does not need to go to his peninsula because there are no spectators today. They have run away from the rain that is threatening to fall again. They don’t know how to deal with a wet summer, for this is a region of winter rains. He stands on one of the crags at Walker Bay and blows his horn. The whales are taking advantage of the privacy, and a group of them have assembled a hundred metres from where he stands. He performs a small jig, for he will have fun today without gawking eyes. Not only will he enjoy Sharisha’s joyful splashes, he will have a whole spectacle of magical performances by the rest of the whales. Already they are performing without any prompting from him.

He blows his horn, punctuating each splash with a siren-like wail, but suddenly stops when he notices something odd. Usually the southern rights that are seen close inshore are females, sometimes with calves. But the whales today are distinctly males, about five of them. He has learnt to spot the elusive difference. While some are engaged in the most exhibitionist breaching, others are circling around a spyhopping whale. They are lobtailing, repeatedly slapping the surface of the water with their tails. The Whale Caller blows Sharisha’s song when he sees the callosities on the head that is sticking out of the water — the snout of the spyhopping whale has a perfect bonnet of pure white callosities. It is, of course, Sharisha, and the males are competing for her attentions. Each one is displaying its best moves in an attempt to seduce her.

The Whale Caller is suddenly seized by a fit of jealousy. He yells at the males, calling them names and shooing them away from his Sharisha. He shouts: “Rapists! You are nothing but a gang of rapists!” But they do not pay any attention to him. They make a concerted effort to reach Sharisha. The Whale Caller blows his horn once again, and this time it surely catches Sharisha’s attention. She thrusts her whole body out of the water in a graceful leap, and splashes down a short distance away from the horny males. He blows once more, hoping for another breaching leap that will take her away from them once and for all. But she seems to be teasing them. She seems to want them to come and have her. The Whale Caller feels betrayed. But he does not give up. He will yet get them away from her. His confidence in her increases when he realises that Sharisha is not really inviting them for any hanky-panky but is tricking them into taking one direction while she takes an evasive action in another direction. The Whale Caller cannot help laughing and applauding and shouting: “That’s my Sharisha!”

But he has become gleeful too soon. A persistent male is in hot pursuit while others seem to give up hope. She flees into shallow waters, hoping that the male will give up the chase. But the male is eager to have her even at the risk of stranding himself. She rolls onto her back, and the male reaches her. She submits. They lie belly to belly and copulate. The Whale Caller tries to save Sharisha from this rape by blowing his horn and creating havoc in a discordant tune. The other males are not deterred by the discord; they charge towards the mating couple. The mating is brief and each of the males has her, then sails away. By the time the fourth male is lying belly to belly with her the Whale Caller has given up in exasperation. In no time the feast is over and Sharisha sails away; only her flukes can be seen above the water… sailing further and further away from him.

“They have done it! They have ravaged Sharisha!” mutters the Whale Caller as he walks back to his Wendy house.

He thinks about it at night, this ravaging of Sharisha. Perhaps it is a good thing for her. Unlike humans, whales don’t indulge in such acts for recreation but for procreation. Sharisha will have a calf next time she returns from the southern seas. And he is blessed for he was there at its conception. He was a participant with his horn. He feels like a father already.

Then a scary thought strikes him. What if Sharisha is about to go back to the southern seas? What if what he witnessed yesterday afternoon was a final romp, a farewell orgy? Southern rights mate in winter Like the rains, this friskiness in the middle of summer is unseasonable. Perhaps it is heralding her return to the southern seas, though others will be here for another month or two. Sharisha may be on her way to the southern seas already. He jumps out of bed, has a quick wash in a plastic basin, dons the black tie, grabs his horn and runs to the crag. It is dawn and he can hear the songs of the whales. Humpbacks, he concludes. The songs are structured and high-pitched. It can only be the songs of the humpbacks. They are communicating with other humpbacks that may be on breeding grounds hundreds of miles away, for their sound carries well under water. Southern rights sing their songs in a much lower frequency.

The Whale Caller is pleasantly surprised to see Sharisha close inshore, singing her big heart out. Once again she has learnt to sing like a humpback, a skill she had once acquired but unlearnt in the southern seas. How she does it remains a mystery, for only humpbacks are able to produce the pulsed clicks that Sharisha is producing now. There is a look of fulfilment about her.

The Whale Caller joins in the music with his kelp horn and together they sing until the sun rises. Sharisha has indeed managed to make him forget Saluni.

Saluni. She refuses to be forgotten. She is discovered sitting in front of the Hermanns Roll of Honour, above the Old Harbour with the brittle boats. She is guarded by two big grey guns on both sides of the stone column. Cannons of a bygone era. Both plaques of the roll of honour — nailed onto the column and freshly polished by enthusiastic war veterans for the Kalfiefees — reflect a tired yellow light that forms a halo above her head. The sun has returned today. The first panel, older and duller, has eleven names, citizens of Hermanus who died in World War One (1914–1918), and another list of twenty-eight names of those who “gave their lives for freedom” in World War Two (1939–1945). The brighter panel has only four names, citizens of Hermanus who were killed in some war that is not mentioned. It is described only as the Republic of South Africa Roll of Honour 0973–1979)- They dare not even whisper the name of the war, for they died on the border defending apartheid.