The Whale Caller (20 page)

The wind is the bearer of Lunga Tubu’s voice. There he is standing below the stilted restaurant singing
“Santa Lucia”
His voice rises above the waves even when they are at their loudest. The waves strike the rocks, creating white surf that stops at the boy’s feet and becomes the clear water in which he stands. The Whale Caller can see his corrupt waiter from the restaurant shooing the boy away, throwing objects at him. He runs away, but as soon as the waiter returns to his duties at the restaurant, the boy returns to his spot and brazenly serenades the tourists, the Whale Caller and Sharisha once again.

Suddenly Sharisha emerges from the spyhopping and swims to join the two whales that have been waiting anxiously a short distance away. The three swim further away, but they do not get far before the two whales rally around Sharisha. The Whale Caller can hear deep bellows that carry in waves under the water to where he sits with an unfinished meal. Sharisha sinks under water and disappears for some time and then emerges again. There is a struggle happening here, and it dawns for the first time on the Whale Caller that he is about to witness a birth. He nearly punches himself when he realises that all along her lethargy was due to the fact that she was with child. He should have suspected that. After all he was there when it all started last December, just before Christmas. And indeed it is December again, just before Christmas. The gestation period of southern rights is eleven to
twelve months. How silly of him to have expected Sharisha to return with a young one after only six months, and how truly silly not to realise that there was no live young one yet because she was still carrying it in her womb!

He stands up and blows his horn and dances around his altar.

He is not the only one who has become aware of the birth. The cliffs of Hermanus have suddenly come alive with spectators who are training their binoculars on Sharisha and the two midwives. A whale giving birth is not an everyday sight. Not only do southern rights mate in winter off South Africa, they give birth the following winter, off South Africa again. Sharisha bends the rules once more. She mated in full view of the Whale Caller under the glare of the December sun. And here she is again, birthing in the summer sun, to the accompaniment of the kelp horn and Lunga Tubu’s rendition of Pavarotti, Domingo and Carreras. The voice that is yet to break has now added Mario Lanza to the repertoire. The Whale Caller blows his horn harder, in an attempt to overwhelm the young singer. Only his horn has the right to be part of the miracle.

He does not hear Saluni’s raspy voice, shouting at him and calling him a no-good loser. She is standing at the tip of his peninsula. When she can’t catch his attention she wades her way through the waist-high water to the island. He stops playing for a while as they face each other.

“You have no shame,” she says. “You even stole my candle for this rubbish.”

“I told you… remember, I told you,” says the Whale Caller breathlessly, “and you didn’t believe me. You said Sharisha was male… you saw ‘his’ thingy, you said. Have you seen a male giving birth?”

“Who says the fish is giving birth?” she asks dismissively “It just wants your attention, that’s all. And you and all these stupid people have fallen for its tricks. You are all a bunch of suckers.
When you have finished making a fool of yourself you’ll find me at home. And don’t you bother waking me up. There’ll be no cleansing ceremony for you ever! At least not from me!”

She wades back to the peninsula.

“She is giving birth, Saluni. That’s what she is doing over there.”

She stops and glares at him.

“You are lying, man,” she says. “You are such a liar. Liar! Liar! Liar!”

She runs blindly through the water, and almost falls. Then she stops and glares at him again just before she reaches the tip of the peninsula.

“And by the way,” she says, “I am going to the tavern. And don’t you dare complain about it.”

The Whale Caller watches her disappear among the people who are precariously crowding his peninsula. Then he goes back to blowing his horn.

The struggle continues until late in the afternoon. Just before dusk the child is born under water, but close enough to the surface for the spectators to see the tail coming out first, and then the whole body The newborn calf is helped by the midwives to come up to the surface for the essential breath. It is white and the Whale Caller estimates that it is about five metres long. The midwives are very protective. They help the young one as they all follow Sharisha to a sheltered bay at a nearby estuary where she nurses the baby and for the first time it suckles.

June. The southern rights have long migrated from the breeding grounds in the warm waters of Hermanus to the cold feeding grounds in the southern seas. When the whales left in January Sharisha refused to go. She lives at the sheltered bay near the estuary, a haven she used to share with other calving mothers. But
they are all gone now. Except Sharisha. By the end of February the last of the off-season whales were gone. Saluni was hoping that finally she would have peace of mind and the Whale Caller would regain his sanity, but Sharisha surprised even the Whale Caller when she decided to stay in Hermanus all year round. This, of course, presents a change of lifestyle on her part. For instance, during the whole breeding period there was no feeding. She relied on the blubber she had accumulated from the last feeding season in the southern seas. Now it is time to eat once more, and she misses the regular diet of krill and plankton that is found in the polar regions. Like Bryde’s whales, which normally remain in these warm waters throughout the year, she feasts on schooling fish—another source of excitement for the people of Hermanus. Feeding activity by southern rights is a rare sight off the coast of the Western Cape.

Saluni seems to have given up on the Whale Caller. She leads her life, he leads his. They meet at night, share the same bed, but only their behinds touch. They wake up in the morning, go through the motions of ablutions, and then go their separate ways. She goes to the mansion or to the taverns. Or even to Mr. Yodd. He goes to the sea, to follow the movements of Sharisha and her baby, and just to watch them in wonder. He plays the horn sometimes and Sharisha responds by flapping her flippers. But most times he just enjoys watching the two of them. The baby seems to grow bigger every day. It has changed from white to a dark grey. Its callosities are beginning to take shape, and they promise to look like the mother’s. The baby likes to ride on Sharisha’s back, much like the way African women carry their children.

The Whale Caller enjoys watching Sharisha open her mouth in the broad smile that displays the baleen that looks like teeth. Then she scoops up a mouthful of water and, using the baleen as a sieve, strains the plankton from the water. It is different from
the plankton of the southern seas, but since she has decided to stand her ground and not migrate, she will just have to acquire a taste for it.

Sometimes Saluni appears above the crag as he watches mother and child. She descends in a deliberate manner, making sure that he sees that she is ignoring him. She goes to where Lunga Tubu is sitting, near the stilts of the restaurant, taking a break from his singing and running away from waiters. She fusses over the boy, mothering him in full view of the Whale Caller. She aims to demonstrate to the misguided man that she has people she cares about too.

The Whale Caller is oblivious of her demonstrations. Especially now that Sharisha has begun to sing again—perhaps teaching the young one the art. He often joins in with his kelp horn. He becomes enraged when loud underwater bangs produced by seismic surveys interfere with the songs. Oil and gas explorations are carried out at this time of the year, since the government and the exploration companies believe it is safe; there are no whales to upset.

Despite these disturbances, the Whale Caller lives inside the song of whales. It is soothing inside the song, with fresh aromas that heal. He remembers telling Saluni once, long ago, when she was expressing her fear of the dark, that it is never night inside a song.

Another season. Once more they return. The ZJ whales. They find Sharisha still nursing her calf near the estuary; the Whale Caller still spending many hours of the day entranced by them; and Saluni still sneaking about, trying very hard to catch his attention, then sauntering past him only to smother whoever happens to be within reach with excessive friendliness. Lunga Tubu is often the victim of these displays, which are really performed for the Whale Caller’s benefit. The boy is not particularly fond of being fussed over by Saluni, and looks forward to the hours the Whale Caller is not in sight, for he has observed that it is only then that he gets some respite.

In one of these mothering sessions Lunga Tubu tells Saluni that the radio station people have returned and are now setting up a makeshift recording studio at the Market Square. It is, of course, Kalfiefees time again and the festivities have begun. Lunga Tubu will take his Pavarotti, Carreras, Domingo and Lanza to the festival at the Market Square, where he will earn more money from the tourists than the few coins he gets from the diners at the restaurant on stilts. But most importantly, this year he will get
his voice recorded and the whole of the Western Cape will then know of his “tenor” that he renders in an unbroken contralto or even soprano voice.

The boy’s enthusiasm gives Saluni ideas. She remembers how she was foiled by the Bored Twins’ mother last year. She could have had her fame as well. Her voice could have ridden the airwaves if it were not for the foolish superstitions of the woman. She vows that this year nothing will stop her. She cannot record alone because she suspects no one will take her seriously. She can’t sing with Lunga Tubu because he sings the kind of music that leaves her cold. In any event, even if she were to convert the boy to a more decent kind of music, the boy would totally hog the mike. He is the kind of person who’d like to grab all the limelight for himself, and wouldn’t give her the least opportunity to break into a solo. She needs the angelic voices of the Bored Twins to give her bluesy voice credibility. Yes, she definitely needs the Bored Twins, and this year she will take them to the studio whether their mother likes it or not.

But first she must try to talk sense into the mother. She makes sure she has a candle and clean underwear in her sequinned handbag, and goes to the mansion. She knows that the parents always return after dark, so she will have to spend the night.

The Bored Twins are not home. They must have gone to the swamps to play with the frogs. She sits on the steps going up to the front door and waits. She occupies her time by counting the ants that have formed two long trails, one composed of fast workers heading in the direction of the rockeries and another of slow workers going in the opposite direction carrying heavy loads of meat carved with their mandibles from a dead lizard. This trail disappears around the corner. She wonders where they are going with all that food and what distance they can cover with loads heavier than their own weight before they get to their abode, but is too lazy to stand up and find out.

The trail gets thinner as the last bits of the rapidly dwindling lizard are carted away, and then there are no more ants to count. Sal uni amuses herself by imagining the panels on the ceiling of the Wendy house and counting them. Then she counts everything in the Wendy house. The bed, the portable electric stove they call the hot plate, the cups, the plates, all the seashells pasted on the wall, the table, the Whale Caller brooding on the kitchen chair. That Whale Caller! He has a lot to learn about women. She is going to make him suffer with her absence until he kicks that behemoth out of his life. Soon he will turn around and ask for her forgiveness and, of course, she will make him plead and beg and pray before she grandly forgives him. And then they will live happily ever after.

It is almost sunset when the girls return. They have been out for the whole day and they smell of the sun. As usual they are excited to see Saluni. They are even more excited when she tells them of the radio man, but their faces fall when they remember that last year their mother did not allow them to record for fear that the machines would steal their voices. Saluni assures them that somehow this year things will work out differently. The girls should not worry their pretty little heads because she will devise a plan. Anyway, it is possible that the mother has since changed her views on the matter, and will allow them to go with her to see the Kalfiefees in town.

The girls cannot contain their joy. They must start rehearsing immediately. They teach Saluni a new song that they have composed at the swamps. It is about croaking frogs in their green and brown colours and how the girls caught them and pierced their eyes with sharp sticks and set them free to hop about in wonderful blindness. It is a haunting melody. They tell Saluni that the song is all about the fun they had at the swamps today. The blinded frogs will live peacefully because now they won’t be bothered by the bright rays of the sun. They won’t have to run away
from danger, because they won’t see it. They will therefore be safe since danger catches only those who run away from it. This dissertation on blindness resonates with Saluni, but she does not make any comment to the authors.

She, in turn, teaches them new songs. She would have liked to compose a song lamenting the dying whaling tradition since the seas are polluted with the ugly creatures that are of no use to mankind and expressing the hope that one day they will all strand themselves. Unfortunately, unlike the girls, she is not much of a composer. So she teaches them censored versions of tavern songs and hymns that have been adapted to serve secular desires. The rehearsal goes on into the night under the full moon whose light is so bright it erases the stars.

When the parents finally return in their donkey cart they are pleased to see Saluni. It is gratifying to have a visitor when the father has caught a guinea fowl. Such a delicacy becomes tastier when it is shared with others. He tells them how it happened. “A miracle,” he says. “A gift of gourmet meat falling right into my hands.”