Zakes Mda - The Whale Caller

Saluni. She is determined to record with the Bored Twins despite the Whale Caller’s reservations. He feels that the mother’s wishes should be respected. Her main concern is that soon the Kalfiefees will be over and the temporary recording studio of the radio station will pack and leave town. Once more fame and fortune will escape her. It mustn’t happen again, not this time.

Early in the morning she arrives at the mansion. The parents have left at dawn and the Bored Twins are still in bed. She tells them her plan about the secret mission to go to town to sing for the world. Their parents must never know about it. The twins are very thrilled to be entrusted with such a secret and they promise that they won’t tell. They do not rebel when she gives them a bath and grooms their hair. She sprays them with some of her perfume from the sequinned handbag. She dresses them in their white frocks. Once more they look like angels. She looks all over the room for their sandals and finds each one in a different place.

The three singers walk to town, confident that fame is beckoning at last. The Bored Twins walk awkwardly now they are shod because they are used to going barefoot. But Saluni insists that they wear the sandals because no one goes to town barefoot.

They practise the songs as they trot along. People stop and listen. Others decide to turn from their journeys and follow them. Labourers digging a trench on the roadside switch off their pneumatic drills, drop their tools and follow them. Soon there is a crowd of people trailing behind and alongside them. They are overwhelmed with euphoria, especially in those parts where Saluni is silent and the Bored Twins are singing on their own. Saluni’s voice, though pleasantly throaty, does dilute the euphoria since she is not a Euphoriant.

By the time they arrive in town the attendant crowd has become so big that it blocks the traffic. At first the traffic police think it is a demonstration. There are often demonstrations during the Kalfiefees season, mostly by evangelicals and sundry charismatic and fundamentalist types who do not like this or that performance because it will consign the beautiful town of Hermanns to the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, or by people from the margins of society who demand a share in the wealth that is generated by God’s whales. However, if this is a demonstration it is a strange one. No one in the crowd shows any anger. No one is chanting slogans. People are merely frolicking like spring lambs and giggling or even guffawing as if someone is tickling them. When the traffic police try to control them, announcing over a megaphone that people should keep to the pavements since cars have the right of way on the road, everyone cooperates. Some even start hugging and kissing the police, who now believe that some madness has finally caught up with the good folk of Hermanus. Perhaps they have been chewing the petals of bell-shaped moon flowers. But as soon as the police hear the voices of the girls they are caught up in the madness too. They join the crowd and jubilantly accompany it on foot, on motorbikes and on horseback. A police car with a wailing siren tries to lead the way without really knowing where the crowd is going. Twice it takes a wrong turn, but the determined sergeant drives back again to rejoin the crowd until they arrive at the Market Square where there are stalls for different products and services, including the makeshift recording studio where live broadcasts on the activities of the Kalfiefees are also being made.

Most of the crowd has to remain outside since there is not enough room for a big audience in the studio. Those who are able to get in give Saluni and the Bored Twins a prolonged standing ovation after the performance. The radio man is pleased. He tells Saluni: “As you know we are recording community singers and groups to broadcast to Hermanus and the neighbouring areas only during this festival. However, you and the girls are so good that I am going to cut a demo.”

Saluni has no idea what a demo is. The radio man explains that it is a CD that is meant to demonstrate to the record companies how good the singing is. Some record company may be interested and may sign a lucrative contract with them. He offers to be the agent and manager of the phenomenal trio: Saluni and the Bored Twins. He promises to come back in a few months’ time, after doing the rounds of festivals, with a few copies of the CD.

“Unfortunately it can’t be sooner,” he says, “because festivals are very trendy these days. There are oyster festivals and trout festivals and peach festivals… and most of them are crowded into the second half of the year. I have to cover them all for the radio station. Only after that will I be able to focus on your music career. And you can be sure, baby, I am going to take you places.”

“A few months? Can’t we get the CD sooner?” Saluni asks. “These girls’ mother doesn’t want them to record. Perhaps when she hears them sing on a CD she will change her mind. The sooner we get that CD the better.”

“It’s no big deal to get the CD to you before I go to the next festival… soon after the Kalfiefees. After all it is a live recording and I don’t have to mix or master anything. All I am saying is that the approach to record companies and the aggressive marketing of your voices can only happen after I’ve done the rounds of the festivals.”

He sets an appointment with Saluni for next week. She is ecstatic, and the Bored Twins — who really don’t seem to care much about their impending fame and have no ambition to be anything else but what they already are — are thrilled for her. They walk back home, but silently this time, even though it is a struggle to contain their joy. They do not want the crowd to follow them back to the mansion. A crowd high on euphoria may linger until the parents return from the vineyards, and the mother would know what Saluni had done.

In the evening the Whale Caller is in the bedroom waiting for Saluni to return. He lies supine on the bed fully clothed and sniffs the air hoping to catch even the faintest whiff of the mouldy and sweet smell that often lingers long after Saluni is gone. He catches himself counting the panels on the ceiling. His fears are confirmed: he is beginning to adopt Saluni’s compulsive habits. He is determined to stop this before it becomes serious. He would not like to see himself returning to the door up to five times to make sure that it is locked, and then returning to the house again on the sixth trip to make certain that the hot plate has been switched off.

Saluni bursts into the room. She is brimming with ideas now that stardom is nigh. She boasts to the Whale Caller how she is going to travel in her own jet plane, captivating audiences in the capitals of the world. But before that she wants to melodise their lives so that when the time comes they will take to the new life like the southern rights to the southern seas. The Whale Caller does not think the promises of the radio man should be taken seriously, but doesn’t want to dampen her spirits. She knows him enough to sense his scepticism.

“You are coming with me in my jet plane, are you not?”

“I will fly with you in your jet plane, Saluni, in the same way that I window shop for delicacies with you.”

“It’s not the same, man. It is not the same. We eat only with our eyes when we window shop for food. This time we won’t be flying with our eyes. Our whole bodies will be on that jet plane. We will fly out of Hermanus to Johannesburg and then to the rest of the world … to Dakar, London, Paris … to Hollywood, man. We’ll actually take Hollywood by storm. Saluni and the Bored Twins. With the radio man as our manager and agent. And you as … as what? What do you want to be in this whole set-up?”