Zakes Mda - The Whale Caller

Saluni does not comment. She is pleased to let the men fight it out.

“What business is it of this young man whether you are clean or not?” the Whale Caller asks, tying the rope around Saluni’s waist. “We must leave at once. Imagine, comparing you to his sheep and goats!”

“It is the Bible that compares her, not me,” says the shepherd proudly. “The Bible knows the beauty of her soul that lies behind the veil of blindness, and it knows the beauty of sheep and goats.”

“Let us go, Saluni,” insists the Whale Caller. “We have a long distance to walk.”

“I can walk the extra distance for her,” declares the shepherd. “I am willing to go blind for her. Me and my sheep and my goats will all go blind for her.”

The Whale Caller picks up his rucksack and her paper bag and tugs her out of the hovel. The shepherd blocks his way and pleads: “At least let me read her one more passage from the Song of Songs.”

“Get out of my way,” shouts the Whale Caller.

“Let the man read, man,” says Saluni. “It is the Bible after all. How much harm can it do?”

“Don’t you encourage him now, Saluni,” says the Whale Caller.

The shepherd reads in the thin light of the morning: O my love, you are as beautiful as Tirzah, lovely as Jerusalem, awesome as an army with banners! Turn your eyes away from me, for they have overcome me. Tour hair is like a flock of goats going down from Gilead.

The Whale Caller breaks out into what he imagines is mocking laughter.

“She is blind, man,” he says in unconvincing guffaws, “and her hair is black. Well, it has traces of red now, but it is black in its natural state.”

“It doesn’t matter,” says Saluni. “You are just jealous that the man sees my beauty to which you are blind; How many times have you told me how lovely I am?”

“You know already that you are beautiful, Saluni,” says the Whale Caller defensively. “We all know that.”

“I can sing songs of your loveliness every day if you stay with me,” says the shepherd. “I can read you the Song of Songs every dawn before I go to tend my flock.”

“You will do no such thing,” says the Whale Caller, pushing the man very hard. He lands on the ground on his buttocks.

“That’s not a nice thing to do to a man who reads such wonderful verses from the Bible,” says Saluni, feeling around with her feet until they find the shepherd where he is sitting on the ground, still holding his Bible. She says to the shepherd: “You are a very sweet man. But don’t anger him now. I have seen him hit a man with that huge fist and he was out cold for the whole day. We left before he came to his senses. Perhaps he is still unconscious even now.”

“I don’t hit people, Saluni,” protests the Whale Caller.

“He is obviously a violent type,” says the shepherd. “But he can’t keep you by force, Saluni. You must stay with me. You must stay for my Song of Songs.”

“He is the only man who should read me the Song of Songs,” says Saluni sweetly. “The best you can do is to give us your Bible, and then he’ll read me the Song of Songs.”

The shepherd reluctantly parts with his tattered Bible. He is still sitting on the ground as he waves her goodbye: “Go well, celestial lady!” The new information that she is celestial leaves her with a broad smile that lasts for hours.

On the road the Whale Caller begins to get irritated by the smug smile.

“I could see you were enjoying the attention,” he accuses her. “Don’t deny it now; you were leading him on.”

“I don’t deny anything. I don’t know what you are talking about.”

He never thought he could nag, but now he does. He goes on about how disappointed he is in her that she should betray him at the sight of the first shepherd they come across, just like Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus. He goes on about honour and honesty and trust, until she bursts out: “Don’t talk to me like that, man, I am a love child.” And then, as usual when she has declared the fact that she is a love child, she goes into narrating the story of her conception: “It was a cloudy day as it is today.”

“No, it is not cloudy, Saluni,” he says quite spitefully.

“You were not there when I was conceived. It was cloudy.”

“Today it is not. The sun will soon come up and it will be shining and hot. Not a single cloud in the sky.”

“You like to contradict me for no reason, don’t you?”

Today he must stand his ground: “It is bright, Saluni; it is bright!”

“In my mind it is cloudy. I can make it cloudy if I want to,” she declares with finality, and then adds, breaking into that irritating smile again: “You are just jealous because the shepherd saw what you could not see in me.”

She is still smiling, and he is still sulking when, at midday, they stop on the banks of the Breede River. The sulks and the smile continue as he washes their underwear and spreads it on the rocks to dry. She feels sorry for him and assures him that she will never leave him, even for a man as wonderful as the shepherd. She reminds him that the shepherd was offering a life of romance and fulfilment, yet she is prepared to sacrifice all that for her handsome Whale Caller. The handsome Whale Caller must also try to be romantic. He must tell her how much he loves her and how celestial she is. He must read her such wonderful love poetry as is found in the Bible. He must dream about her.

He concedes to himself that it may be possible to meet her demands, however embarrassing they may be. But dreaming about her…

“You must dream about me, man, willy-nilly!” she orders.

Late in the afternoon they are still at the Breede River. Harmony has returned between them. With it the sickness. They are bathing in the water and are splashing it around. Their clothes are spread on the rocks to dry. She teaches him tavern songs — the censored version that she used to sing with the Bored Twins — and they create a ruckus that brings the fish to the surface of the water.

After this refreshing bath he brushes her hair and braids it into two long ropes.

They have been walking for many days. From the Breede River they went northwards until they reached Swellendam. There Saluni insisted that they buy a bottle of wine and a packet of cigarettes. Now she occasionally takes a sacramental drop from the bottle and a puff from her long cigarette holder, diffusing her incense in the morning air of the N2 Highway. They have changed direction and are now walking westwards along the highway. He is not bothered by the smoke because he can only catch a whiff of it. They are separated by the two-metre rope with which he leads her.

“I love you, Saluni,” he says, seemingly out of the blue. It is not easy to utter these words. He has agonised over them for a long time. He remembered the shepherd and then agonised one more time. But there, he has said it! And his nose has not fallen off. Saluni purrs like a pampered kitten. He likes the effect these words have on her. He utters them over and over again, jumping up and down in front of her and dancing with the rope that is tied around her waist. She cannot see the dance, but she can feel it and can also hear the rhythm of his feet as they hit the ground. She displays a wide toothless grin.

She expects to hear the magic words every day. Sometimes he forgets to utter them, and she reminds him: “You haven’t told me that you love me today.”

“I was going to.”

“When? After I have reminded you?”

The Whale Caller merely chuckles. Although he finds it a little stifling or even a chore when she turns it into a duty, he does not allow it to destroy their present fulfilment. He only hopes that it will not become another ritual, like her obsessing about small meaningless things such as counting the panels on the ceiling of their Wendy house. He remembers how she tried to initiate him into the rituals of her neurosis.