The Whale Caller (5 page)

The girls’ parents didn’t seem unduly worried when Saluni brought them home.

“They like to wander around,” said the father, as if talking of straying chickens.

“It can be dangerous out there,” said Saluni.

“What can we do?” asked the mother. “These children get bored. We cannot look after them all the time because we are working people.”

“We are casual vineyard workers,” explained the father. “We took over this house a few months back when everyone was afraid of it. It is our base… our home. But we still have to travel to the vineyards in search of work.”

“The twins know how to look after themselves,” the mother assured Saluni. “Of course they do get bored sometimes.”

They asked Saluni to stay for the night, since it had become too dark for her to walk home. The Bored Twins, excited at having a visitor, took her on a tour of the house. Each one was holding a candle. Saluni was amazed at the number of rooms. Yes, the mansion, though dilapidated, did look imposing from the outside. But she couldn’t have imagined that inside it was such a maze. However, the Bored Twins knew their way around. They took her to all the bedrooms. Saluni counted eight of them, most with bathrooms en suite. But there was no water in the bathrooms, the girls told her. There was no running water anywhere in the house. The family drew their water from a communal tap almost a kilometre away. There were many other rooms whose original function Saluni could not determine. All devoid of furniture. All with rococo ceilings that used to be white. The ornate ceilings looked out of place in the simplicity of Cape Dutch elegance. Most of the rooms had spiders and other crawling creatures as permanent
residents. It was obvious that the family only used three rooms: the kitchen, the parents’ bedroom and the Bored Twins’ bedroom. The rest of the rooms were full of dust and spiders’ webs that ran from one wall to the other. The only other clean room was the wine cellar in the basement. Even the empty wine racks that lined its walls were dust-free. The Bored Twins told her that it was their secret room, which they used when they wanted to hide from their parents.

After a supper of snoek fish and rice, Saluni helped the mother clean the plates. Then it was time for bed. The girls became excited when Saluni offered to sleep in their room. Sponge mattresses were spread on the floor. The Bored Twins insisted on reading her their favourite bedtime story:
Dr. Seuss’s Sleep Book.

“But first we must put out the light,” said the smaller girl.

“No, don’t!” screamed Saluni. The Bored Twins were taken aback by her sudden anxiety. But she gave them a reassuring smile and asked, “How will you read me the story if it is dark?”

“We read it in the dark,” said the bigger twin.

“We know the whole book by heart,” explained the smaller twin.

“Please don’t put out the light,” pleaded Saluni.

“But Mother will be mad at us,” said the bigger twin. “She says we must not waste candles.”

Saluni took out a candle from her sequinned handbag. She lit it from the twins’ candle before putting the twins’ candle out.

“You carry a candle in your handbag?” asked the smaller twin.

“All the time,” said Saluni. “Let’s hear your story then.”

“The news/Just came in/From the County of Keck/That a very small bug/By the name of Van Vleck/Is yawning so wide/You can look down his neck,” began the smaller twin.

The bigger twin took over: “This may not seem/Very important, I know/But it
is.
So I’m bothering/Telling you so/A yawn is quite catching, you see. Like a cough/It just takes one yawn to
start other yawns off.” At this point the girls started yawning, so did Saluni. This tickled them no end. So it was true that yawning was infectious!

The story never came to an end though. The girls kept on adding their own silly details to Dr. Seuss’s well-crafted story, which made it much longer than it really was, and left Saluni in stitches. By the time the girls reached the part with the sleepwalking creatures the story trailed off and soon both girls were snoring. Saluni couldn’t help noting that even their snores sounded like distant pealing bells.

Before Saluni left the next morning, she promised the parents that she would occasionally come to check on the Bored Twins.

That was two years ago. To this day she continues to check on them, although sometimes she vows she will stop visiting their mansion as they have developed a new habit of playing silly pranks on her. She stays away for two or three days, and then finds that she misses them. She goes back to the mansion and indeed the Bored Twins have become sweet again. They sing for her. More than ever before they sing like angels. She sends them to the nearest tavern to buy her wine. After a few gulps she joins them in song. She has to be tipsy before she can open her mouth in song. Her husky voice blends well with the beatific voices. The parents are happy that an adult eye, however drunk it may often be, watches over their little angels. They reward Saluni with more bottles of cheap wine that they get from vineyard owners as part-payment for their labour.

The sun and the moon pull in unison, and the tide rises.

The Whale Caller can hear the sounds of the sea from his Wendy house. His mind wanders to the events of the day as he prepares his late lunch of macaroni and cheese. He didn’t have the
best of days. What with his concerns for the safety of Sharisha! And the harassment by the pastors! Why did the pastors have to drag him into things about which he did not care? He had not even been aware of the plays that have caused so much upheaval in the town. He is of course aware of the festival, but it is not his business. He does not need a festival to celebrate the whales.

And the silent confrontation with Saluni! He still doesn’t understand why the image of his mother flashed before his eyes. He does not remember ever thinking of his parents with any measure of nostalgia. He was quite young when his mother died, leaving him to fend for himself at the pilchard canning plants on the west coast. People said she had died from a broken heart. It was only a few months after her husband had disappeared. The Whale Caller has only vague memories of his father. A blurred picture of the sturdy fisherman who went to sea and never came back. After futile helicopter searches and a long wait, he was given up for dead. The rites for the dead were performed and the pastors declared that his soul was resting in peace in heaven.

In the early years, when he saw fathers play a crucial part in the lives of his friends, the Whale Caller used to have a searing longing for his own father. When he did odd jobs at the canning factories, and later when he blew the kelp horn at the Church, he would re-invent his father. He would imagine him taking one of the colourful brittle boats to sea, laughing and singing rude songs. The boat would disintegrate out there in the storms. For some time his father would be tossed by the waves while small piranha-like fish nibbled at him until they finished him. Thus he imagined his father’s demise. Thus he killed him every time he thought of him. Until the sight of fish feasting on him lost its thrill. He had finally got tired of resurrecting him only to have him devoured by the fish again.

He is chewing on his macaroni and cheese with relish when he hears a song that has a familiar ring to it. Though the sound is
quite distant and very low, he is able to isolate it from the festive noises that permeate the environment. He leaves the food on the table, takes his kelp horn and dashes out. At the gate he looks cautiously to the right and to the left, expecting to see Saluni. But she is not there. There is a tinge of disappointment in him that makes him angry with himself. Is he perhaps suffering from the syndrome of the victims of constant physical and psychological abuse who long for the abuser when the abuser is on vacation? He wades his way through the festive crowds and briskly walks to a high crag overlooking the ocean. On the horizon he sees a speck that he immediately identifies as a whale. It might be Sharisha. At a distance the whale’s song sounds like Sharisha’s. He curses himself for his failure to welcome her in style in his new tuxedo. There is no time to go back to the Wendy house to change.

He blows his horn and the whale responds. It is a haunting sound that is carried by the waves that race to the shoreline until they hit the rocks at the foot of the Whale Caller’s crag, producing white surf. His ears are trained to hear these songs even at such a great distance. As the whale sails closer its outline takes shape. Patiently, he waits, occasionally blowing the horn in response to the whale’s song. A crowd of curious tourists gathers behind him. Much as he strains his eyes he cannot see callosities on any part of the whale’s body. Instead he sees very long flippers and a small dorsal fin that is positioned far back on the body. He begins to doubt the whale’s identity. His doubts are soon confirmed by the whale’s blow, almost three metres high and pear-shaped. That cannot be Sharisha. That, in fact, is not a southern right at all. It is a humpback. The dorsal fin is a further confirmation. It is a male humpback, and he guesses that it is almost fifteen metres long. As he walks down the crag he chides himself for being furious at the deceitful humpback. He should be furious with Sharisha instead. The humpback was singing its song, as humpback males are wont to do, though traditionally they sing at
night, constantly composing new songs during the mating season. The deceitful humpback has started quite early in the day, perhaps practising for the nighttime mating rituals. But the deceitful humpback is not deceitful at all. Sharisha is the one who is an impostor in this case. After discovering that humpbacks were better singers than southern rights, the Whale Caller had taught Sharisha to sing like a humpback. The Whale Caller should rather be furious with himself, and not with the randy humpback. Not even with Sharisha. For the song, that is, not for Sharisha’s standing him up.

He is too despondent to return to his Wendy house to finish his lunch. He slowly works his way along the cobbled path that winds down the bluff. He decides to sit on a green wooden bench that is placed near the meandering path for those who want to relax and admire the sea. He has lost sight of the humpback, which decided to sail in a different direction after it could no longer hear his alluring kelp horn. He watches a father with a fishing line leading his wife and a brood of children of varying ages. The mother gingerly holds a picnic basket. They walk precariously on the steep rocks to a hillock of boulders that juts into the sea. On this peninsula they sit down and begin to fish or just watch.

Although he regards this as his peninsula, he does not mind that the fishing and picnicking family have invaded it. He does not need it today. He usually likes to stand on it when he communes with the whales, especially when Sharisha is here. It separates him from the gawkers, be they curious locals or tourists, who’d otherwise crowd around him when he blows his horn. They never come close to him when he stands on the tip of the peninsula because they do not want to risk walking on the precarious boulders. The family obviously feels quite adventurous today.

The Whale Caller is startled by Saluni, who daintily walks down the path, holding a bunch of wilting flowers. She sits on a rock just below his bench and puts the flowers next to her. She
does not give him a second look, and he decides that this time he will really stand his ground. She takes off her pencil-heel shoes and puts her feet in a pool of clear water that is separated from the rest of the ocean by a sandbank. She has given him her back and he notices her flaming locks that are tangled and are not restrained in a black net this time. He also notices that the roots are black with a few streaks of grey. He thinks she would look more dignified if she had not dyed her hair. As her dainty feet play in the water he stares at her stockings that have many runs. There are red spots in some places where Cutex nail polish was used to stop the runs. But this hasn’t helped much as the runs always manage to find their way around nail polish. The stockings are obviously not pantyhose since they are tied with elastic bands just above the knees. The Whale Caller observes this when she crosses her legs and lights a cigarette in a long black holder. Her nails are manicured and painted red. She holds the cigarette holder quite elegantly; blowing delicate smoke rings in the direction of the Whale Caller. Her whole demeanour is delicate and elegant. Her clothes are clean but almost threadbare. She wears a fawn pure-wool coat over a green taffeta dress. She always has the coat on, even in the middle of summer.

After ignoring him for some time, she turns to look at him and her sun-drenched face cracks into a smile. Later the Whale Caller will learn that she is a creature of the day, hence the sun-drenched face. He averts his eyes. Once more she has triumphed. He is highly irritated by her cheek. He stands up to leave.

“May I follow you?” she asks.

“You always do… without asking me,” he says.

“You always show anger in your eyes,” says Saluni, “so I thought today I should be nice and ask.”

She gives him the flowers. He is puzzled.

“What do I do with these?” he asks.

“It is a peace offering,” she responds.