Zakes Mda - The Whale Caller

When they sit in idleness under rest-stop trees he composes a song on the kelp horn for her. He blows his horn and Saluni giggles like a schoolgirl. She seeks him with her hands and feels his face with her fingers. Her unseeing eyes are glassy with unshed tears. Oh, this Saluni! She becomes so lovable and desirable when she is vulnerable. Breathless days return. On the side of the roads. In the bushes where they spend the nights. In the culverts and under highway bridges. Every time she hears Saluni’s song on the horn she becomes thirsty for him. Their sickness has taken another form. It is not searing as before. It is a mild thumping of the heart that is nevertheless as debilitating as the previous bouts that were violent on the body. It continues unabated, keeping a steady rhythm. Until they do something about it. Under the bridges breathlessness prevails.

Along the highway the walking becomes routine. To relieve the monotony that is biting on her she decides to walk backwards. For a long distance she walks facing where she has come from, with him facing ahead and tugging her with the rope that he has now tied around his own waist as well. He is struck by a brilliant idea: read the Song of Songs for her. If the presumptuous shepherd thinks he is the only one who can captivate her with biblical poems written in the voices of a maiden and her lover, he is mistaken. He too can sing about the biblical delights of physical love: How beautiful are your feet in sandals, O prince’s daughter! The curves of your thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a skilful workman. Tour navel is a rounded goblet; it lacks no blended beverage. Tour waist is a heap of wheat set about with lilies. Tour two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. Tour neck is like an ivory tower, your eyes like the pools in …

His voice is swallowed by thundering motorcycles. A big group of very fat men with greying beards and faded jeans and leather jackets sitting on proud Honda and Harley-Davidson monsters. Most have girlfriends or wives on the pillions. They stop to witness the strange sight and start laughing, calling them names and throwing empty cans of beer at them. He rallies around Saluni, protecting her with his body from the raining cans. And then the bikers happily ride away, leaving them wounded and mystified. Although the N2 is generally busy, motorists have up to now ignored them. They do not understand what they did to the drunken bikers to deserve this. The Whale Caller suggests that as soon as they get to Riviersonderend they should branch off from the highway and head north over the Hottentot Holland Mountains to escape such insults from those who have been rendered arrogant by wealth.

“It is the arrogance that has taken them to where they are today,” he says, consoling a badly shaken Saluni. “It does that, arrogance. It propels you to great heights and then leaves you crashing down. I am not sure whether these louts are on an upward whirl or a downward spiral. It does not matter. Arrogance will be their demise.”

They resume their interrupted walk. He turns once more to the Song of Songs: How fair and how pleasant you are, O love, with your delights! This stature of yours is like a palm tree, and your breasts like its clusters. I said, “I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of its branches. “ Let now your breasts be like clusters of the vine, the fragrance of your breasts like apples, and the roof of your mouth like the best wine. The wine goes down smoothly for my beloved, moving gently the lips of sleepers. I am my beloved’s, and his desire is toward me. Come, my beloved, let us go forth to the field; let us lodge in the villages.

With this they repair to the field on the side of the road. This becomes his favourite passage and he reads it whenever he feels the need to repair to the vineyards, and to the apple orchards and to the dongas and to the bushes.

The Hottentot Holland Mountains are arduous. There is some respite in breathlessness. What the Whale Caller used to refer to as the cleansing rituals back at the Wendy house. Soon breathlessness becomes routine. And boring. Even the Bible fails to arouse them to new fervour. But Saluni knows exactly how they can add excitement to what is fast becoming an obligation. She suggests that the Whale Caller should talk dirty in the middle of the cleansing ritual. At the first experiment he utters a few mild sentences that are not dirty at all: something about the laundry that must be done at the next stream. She is not pleased, and demands: “How can you expect to send me floating in the stars if you can’t talk dirty?” She asks him to repeat after her as she recites crude and pet names of male and female genitalia in all the eleven official languages of South Africa and their slang and dialects, most of which he has never even heard spoken by anyone. Although this sends her into a frenzy, the names sound so strange and funny that he breaks out laughing, losing his concentration and his precious erection. After the botched ritual she promises that at the next town she will buy him a book that will teach him how to talk dirty. He just laughs the whole thing off, for he knows he’ll never be able to talk dirty even if he were to go to the university for a degree in it.

On the mountain bridle-paths the Whale Caller is fearful that their nighttime candles will invite wild animals. He snuffs the candle out and pretends that it is still burning. When she begins to feel the darkness he assures her that it is just her imagination. The flame is still flickering. She fidgets her way to sleep under the fur coat that they both use as a blanket. Invariably when there is no light she has nightmares. The Whale Caller is bound to strike the match and light the candle once more. When he is sure that she has gone into a restful sleep he quickly smothers the life out of the flame with his fingers, lest he be betrayed by the smell of the smouldering wick. This becomes his on-and-off game for the whole night. The fear of legendary mountain lions!

When the moon is full Saluni is in her element. She sings and dances on the mountain cliffs. The Whale Caller is always fearful that she will fall. But the energy of the moon gives sight to her feet. He blows his horn and plays Saluni’s song. And they both dance until they are absolutely exhausted. Then they picnic on red prickly pears to which they have helped themselves on the mountainside prickly pear farms. In the valleys between high mountains they play on the skeletons of tractors and harvesters that died on the dirt roads many years ago. They plough vast tracts of the lands of their minds and harvest a stack of golden wheat that reaches to the clouds.

It was a freak wave that hit Herman us. It had all started on Friday morning with heavy winter rain and storms that lasted for the whole day. Gale-force winds rampaging at one hundred and fifty kilometres an hour lashed the town, leaving a trail of dejected debris. The next morning the seventeen-metre-high wave smashed down on the town. Houses were waterlogged; chairs, books and tables were seen floating out of broken windows. Fifteen minutes later a second wave vomited more jetsam from the first onslaught back into the streets of the town that prided itself on its orderliness. The water hurled massive rocks through the houses, bringing down their walls.

On the Sunday morning the Whale Caller walks among the ruins. Almost all the houses closest to the sea are damaged. He is dragging his rope along the Main Road, which is strewn with seaweed and sand. The rope is no longer tied around Saluni’s waist. She follows a few metres behind, now and then stopping to prod with her toes piles of bits of shattered trees and refuse that lie scattered on the gardens, road and pavement. Sometimes she stops to talk to the municipal workers who have started cleaning up the mess. They tell her that the storms attacked their Zwelihle Township on the outskirts of Hermanus as well. The Whale Caller does not stop. He wades on through the sodden sand until he reaches his house.