by Zakes Mda
The spectators are ordered to move as far back as possible, and to lie flat on the ground. The Whale Caller does not move. He just sits there as if in a daze. Saluni feels like jumping out of her hiding place, grabbing him by the hand and dragging him away to sanity. But she decides against it. He is likely not to take kindly to that. It would probably only make things worse. She retreats with the rest of the onlookers to a much safer distance above the cliffs.
Like a high priest in a ritual sacrifice, a man stands over a contraption that is connected to the whale with a long red cable. With all due solemnity he triggers the explosives. Sharisha goes up in a gigantic ball of smoke and flame. Saluni is not lying down. She is watching the Whale Caller, who has steadfastly remained dangerously close to the explosion down below. He is not lying down either. He is looking intently at the red, yellow and white flames as Sharisha rises in the sky It is like Guy Fawkes fireworks. The glorious death brightens the sky like the pyrotechnics that are used by rock bands in cities like Cape Town and Johannesburg. The sounds are like those of a thousand heavy-metal bands that are particularly heavy on spandex and playing all at once, deafening as one stick of dynamite ignites another in rapid succession. The onlookers cheer and applaud like the carnival crowd they have become. Saluni throws up.
The Whale Caller sits silent and still as blubber rains on him. Until he is completely larded with it. Seagulls are attracted by the strong stench of death. They brave the black smoke and descend to scavenge on the tiny pieces that are strewn on the sand and on the rocks. The sea has become very calm.
Saluni. She is filled with remorse. She believes that somehow she has brought about Sharisha’s death. She does not know how it is her fault, but it has to be. She wished it. She willed it. She did it. Now she regrets it She wants to obliterate the picture from her mind. The big ball of fire. The black smoke. The seagulls. Wine will do it. The Bored Twins will do it. Yes, wine and the Bored Twins will do it. She turns her back on that place of death and walks away, leaving the man sitting in the middle of the stench, streams of muddy oil running down his unmoving body.
After buying three bottles of wine she flees to the mansion.
The tulips are in full bloom and the girls fill the air with peals of joy when they see Saluni. Euphoria surges once again in her chest. How did she survive for so long without these girls? They hug and kiss and cry and giggle and laugh and hold hands and skip among the tulips. The girls’ neglected state dilutes her joy with sadness. They are smudged with mud and their once white dresses are brown. She must do something about it immediately. She herds them into the house and gives them a thorough bath. They monkey around, splashing the water all over the place. In their wetness they now and then get the urge to hug her and kiss her and climb on her back, riding her like a horse. She is gratified because in her life she has never seen anyone showing so much excitement at the mere sight of her. All the months with an unappreciative man on the road are blotted out and she decides that from now on she will bask in the aura of the Bored Twins till the end of time. That man can sit there and mourn his whale until he becomes nothing but bones, for all she cares.
After thoroughly scrubbing their bodies she applies baby oil and uses Johnson’s baby powder on all their little nooks and crannies so that they don’t smell like earthworms anymore. In the built-in wardrobe in their room she finds special dresses that are reserved for special days. It is a special day because they are celebrating their reunion. She dresses them in the sparkling white dresses. She brushes their hair, and once more they look like they are going to sprout wings and fly to the sky.
They sit outside on the kitchen stoep and sing. She takes regular sips from a bottle of wine as she boisterously belts out censored versions of tavern songs. The girls back her in their angelic voices. They beat pots and pans with spoons and forks. Luckily there are no neighbours for miles around, otherwise they would have complained of the din. Or possibly they would have ignored the rackety backing instruments and bathed their battered souls in the angelic voices of the twins.
In no time Saluni has finished the first bottle and is caressing the second one, holding it to her breasts and lulling it to sleep like a baby. And then ripping off its cap and gulping down the contents like water. Her songs are now slurred and erratic. The Bored Twins soldier on and bring harmony to songs that have gone so wild that they would otherwise be classified as senseless noise. The second bottle is empty and she goes for the third one. But one of the twins snatches it from her hands and runs away. Saluni stands up and staggers after her.
The girls lure Saluni to their secret room—the basement wine cellar—and try to play a game of hide-and-seek with her. But she is too drunk. She just lies on the floor babbling. She is no fun when she is like this. They soon get bored with her and leave her there as she lies, banging the door after them. She jumps up and staggers to the door. She tries to open it. The girls have bolted it from the outside. She shouts at them, calling them names and insulting their mother’s private parts. But they can’t hear her. They have left to play in the swamps, forgetting all about her. She is too drunk to keep up the rumpus and goes to sleep on the floor.
She wakes up after many hours to find herself floating in darkness. She screams. She can’t breathe in such overwhelming darkness. Darkness seeps into her body. It runs wild in her veins, threatening to burst them open. It clogs her nostrils. She gropes around until she finds the heavy wooden door. She hits it with both her fists, shouting: “You can’t do this to me, man. I am a love child! Get me out of here!”
In between the unheeded screams she thinks of the Whale Caller. She longs for the Whale Caller. She needs another chance with him—another journey of blindness. It is not too late for her to learn the art of loving and being loved unconditionally. When she gets out of here she will go straight to the Whale Caller and smother him with so much love he won’t know what hit him. More than anything else she wants to share his grief and to comfort him. And to take care of him.
She screams again and again. She fears that her voice will become hoarse and she won’t be able to call the parents’ attention to her fate. That is her only hope now—the arrival of the parents. She must save her voice for them. She is willing to risk the mother’s anger at her returning to the mansion. But she has no idea what time it is. She fears that she will not survive the night in such darkness. She’d better scream again and again. She takes a break to imagine the wonderful things she will do for the Whale Caller once she attains her freedom. And then resumes the screaming.
The twins are returning from the swamps when they hear her hoarsening shrieks. They are unusually spotless for people who have been playing in the mud. They were very careful even as they fished out frogs from the ponds because their Aunt Saluni had taken so much trouble to make them look so beautiful. Her screeching now sends fear through their angelic bodies. Their parents will be returning soon and the mother won’t be too pleased with them to find Saluni here. Why is she making all this noise? Does she want to betray them to their mother? It must be the wine. They’d better go down to the cellar and calm her down and assure her that they will hide her there and their mother will never find out. It will be their secret, just the three of them.
As soon as they open the door a sweat-drenched Saluni bolts out. She runs blindly up the steps and along the passage. Her only thought is the Whale Caller. She must find the Whale Caller. She must get outside where the stars and perhaps the moon will bring relief to her bursting veins. She must run with all her strength until she gets to the streetlights of Hermanus. She must reach the safety of the Wendy house. If he is not there he is sure to be at the place of death. She will find him and save him from further grief. The twins are chasing her, for they fear that in her inebriated state she will do harm to herself. As she bolts out of the kitchen door to the freedom of the outside world one of the twins appeals to her: “Don’t run away, Aunt Saluni. You will trip and fall and hurt yourself.”
The bigger tw
in picks up a rock and hurls it at Saluni, hoping to make her stop. It hits her on the head and she staggers and falls to the ground. The smaller twin takes another rock and hits her on the head. This becomes a game. They are giggling in their angelic voices and pelting her with stones, as the Old Testament sinless used to do to female sinners of the flesh. Or as literal interpreters of some of the great scriptures of the world do to women they deem adulteresses. The twins’ ritual comes to an end when they realise that there is no longer any movement in her. She has stopped breathing. They kneel beside her, shaking her, trying to revive her and crying: “Sorry, auntie… sorry, auntie.”
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.
