Zakes Mda - The Whale Caller

The smaller twin brings water from the kitchen and pours it on her face. They keep on repeating in their angelic voices: “Sorry, auntie… sorry, auntie.” Tears are streaming down their cheeks.

She does not wake up. Her swollen and blood-soaked sleep is permanent. They drag her petite body into the garden. It lies in state near one of the rockeries. The twins leave it there and go into the house to await their parents, who will be bringing supper with them. But they are not happy that their Aunt Saluni is exposed to the elements like that. They go back to the garden and cover her body with the petals of tulips.

The Whale Caller returns to the place where the ritual murder was committed yesterday. He grieves but takes solace in the beauty of the death. She could have lived to be fifty years old. Southern rights live that long. If he had not selfishly called her with his horn to heal wounds inflicted on him by Saluni she would not have come to such a terrible end.

Saluni. He needs her more than ever. He will forgive anything when it comes to Saluni. He is the one who needs her forgiveness actually. He was too rash. He should have been more patient with her. He shouldn’t have used such harsh words to her.

He sits down and blows Saluni’s song on the kelp horn. The song that he composed during the journey of blindness. He blows and blows but Saluni does not come. Instead, out there in the sea he can see Sharisha’s young one sailing slowly towards him, making ripples to the rhythm of his horn. He stops playing. He must not enslave the young one with his kelp horn. Softly he says: “Go, little one. You do not want to know me.” The wind will carry his words to Sharisha’s child.

He walks down the crag, past the brittle boats on the slipway, to Mr. Yodd’s grotto. He needs flagellation. He is taking his kelp horn as an expiatory offering. He has no need for it anymore. All he needs is mortification. Surely Mr. Yodd will be happy to see him. He must have missed him. Saluni was never a good substitute for him because she never let herself be mortified. Mortification becomes him.

The grotto is blocked by sand and seaweed and bits of debris.

Hoy, Mr. Yodd! Mr. Yodd? Mr. Yodd?

He is the hermanus penitent and he comes to wave goodbye to the sea. He can hear Lunga Tubu’s voice coming from the waves, singing a Pavarotti song. Maybe one day Pavarotti will adopt him. He can also hear the restaurant owner cursing the boy and chasing him away. He turns his back on Walker Bay for the last time. Even the tremendous energy of the rocks and the waves and the moon will not draw him back. He will walk from town to town flogging himself with shame and wearing a sandwich board that announces to everyone: I am the Hermanns Penitent.