THE SEA IS BLEEDING from the wounds of Sharisha.
But that is later. Now the tide returns in slight gentle
movements. Half-moon is the time of small tides. The
Whale Caller stands on one of the rugged cliffs that form an arena
above the bay. He has spent the better part of the day standing
there, blowing his horn. Blowing Sharisha’s special song. Blowing
louder and louder as the tide responds by receding in time to the
staccato of his call. Yet she is nowhere to be seen. His eyes have
become strained from looking into the distant waters, hoping to
see Sharisha lobtailing in the glare of the setting sun. It is September
and the southern rights have returned from the southern
seas. But Sharisha is not among them.
Night is beginning to fall. Slowly the Whale Caller makes his
way down the cliffs to pour out his pain to Mr. Yodd. He selects
the longer but safer route that traverses the concrete slipway on
which blue, green, yellow and red boats are displayed. They used
to belong to fishermen of a century ago. He makes certain that he
does not stumble against any of them for they are brittle. If he
were to trip and fall on one of them it would surely disintegrate.
Experts from Cape Town spend months trying to restore them to
their former glory, so that present and future generations,
brought up in these days of engine-powered trawlers, can see how
fishermen of old endured the stormy seas in small open boats
powered by their own muscles.
When the Whale Caller is in a happy mood he can see the
weather-beaten fishermen shrouded in the mists of time, taking
to sea in their fleet of small boats. Some are rowing back with
their catch, while others are gutting the fish or drying it on the
rocks. He can see even deeper in the mists, before there were
boats and fishermen and whalers, the Khoikhoi of old dancing
around a beached whale. Dancing their thanks to Tsiqua, He Who
Tells His Stories in Heaven, for the bountiful food he occasionally
provides for his children by allowing whales to strand themselves.
But when there are mass strandings the dance freezes and the
laughter in the eyes of the dancers melts into tears that leave
stains on the white sands. The weepers harvest the blubber for
the oil to fry meat and light lamps. They will ultimately use the
rib bones to construct the skeletons of their huts, and will roof
the houses with the baleen. Ear bones will be used as water carrying
vessels. Other bones will become furniture. Or even pillows
and beds. Nights are slept fervidly inside variable whales that
speckle the landscape.
But first the weepers will eat the meat until their stomachs
run. They will dry some of it in the sun. They cannot finish it
though. Most of it will putrefy and fill the shores with a stench.
Hence they weep for the waste. Tsiqua, He Who Tells His Stories
in Heaven, should learn to strand only one whale at a time. One
whale after seasons of migrations to the southern seas and back,
and the bodies of the weepers explode into laughter once again.
Once more the Men of Men-which is what the name Khoikhoi
means-thank He Who Tells His Stories in Heaven for the bountiful
provision.
Today the Whale Caller is not in the mood to amble in the
mists of the past. He is racked by the sadness of the present. His
whole body is pining for Sharisha.
He treads carefully down the crag until he reaches the grotto
that Mr. Yodd shares with the rock rabbits that have become so
tame that they don’t run away from people. In daytime they can
be seen scavenging in dustbins when there are no tourists to feed
them. The grotto is just above the water made brown by seaweed
that looks like dirty oil. He squats on a rock and looks into the
grotto. A rock rabbit appears, looks at him closely and languidly
walks back to its hole to resume its disturbed rest.
* * *
HOY, MR. YODD! She has not come. Like yesterday. Like the
day before. I waited and waited and waited. She stood me up.
They sail back, she does not. She lingers in the southern seas, and
she thinks I care. I’ve got news for her, Mr. Yodd. I don’t give a
damn. If she wants to play that sort of game, she will find that
two can play it just as well. She will find me ready and willing. Or
she won’t find me at all. There are plenty of fish in these seas. The
leviathan with a whore’s heart. There are plenty of fish in these
seas, Mr. Yodd. And I bought a new tuxedo. Hire purchase. Not
rental this time, but hire purchase. Six monthly instalments and I
own it. Pay-as-you-wear. I bought it specially to welcome Sharisha
back. No more hired tuxedos for me. I needed something permanent.
Something that will absorb the odours of my soul and become
part of what Sharisha associates with me. In any case, in the
long run it’s expensive to hire a tuxedo. It is cost-effective to own
your own. Variety is nice, but stability is more important. It has
never happened like this, Mr. Yodd. I fear something might have
befallen her. I worry. I am a worrier when it comes to Sharisha. She
may yet come, you say? I cannot help but entertain the unthinkable.
What if whalers have harpooned her, and as we speak she is
being cut into pieces for Japanese palates? I think the worst. I cannot
help it. She has never done this before, Mr. Yodd. Southern
rights appear on this coast as early as June. But I am never unduly
worried when I don’t see her in June because that is not her
month. She waits for the winter rains to have their run and the
warmth of spring to return. She is always punctual. In the middle
of August she returns in all her breaching glory from the southern
seas. Now September is about to end. Yet she is nowhere to be
seen. Ya! Ya! I know that they are still coming back; that for the
whole of September and October groups of them will be coming
back. It is unlike Sharisha to be a straggler. If she comes in October,
it means I will only have a month or two with her before she
voyages back to the southern seas. She cannot give me the thrill of
her massive splashes into the new year because by January the
southern rights are almost all gone. A month or two with Sharisha
is not enough. No, Mr. Yodd, I think you are just trying to twist
the knife that she has already planted in my back. You seem to rejoice
in my pain. Three years, you say! But Sharisha … Sharisha
comes every year. Not on a three-year cycle as other southern
rights may do. Sharisha cannot live for three years without me,
Mr. Yodd. She comes every year.
* * *
HE STANDS UP and attempts to walk up the crag. He has plodded
only a few steps when he slips and falls on his knees. He is too
tired to stand up again. Or perhaps too despondent. His confession
to Mr. Yodd has failed to perform its intended function of
lifting his spirits. He touches his left knee. His fingers are wet
with warm blood. He hopes the lacerations are not too deep. In
the sunshine of the day these rocks are beautiful in their bright
yellow, grey, metallic brown and white. But they are sharp and at
night, in the emaciated light of the half-moon, they can easily be
deadly. He thanks his stars that he was not wearing his new
tuxedo today. It would have been torn at the knees like the blue
dungarees he is wearing. He is pleased with himself that he does
not feel any pain. But he is even happier that he was able to save
his horn. His options were clear: to fall on his hands and save the
rest of his body, or to fall on his knees and save the horn. In the
first option the horn would surely have broken into pieces since
he was holding it. He sacrificed his knees for his horn. He chuckles
at the silliness of it all. He can always get a new horn by making
it. He cannot get new knees. But perhaps it is not silly at all.
He has a sentimental attachment to this horn among all others
that he owns. He has used this particular horn for the last three
years. It has a special timbre that strikes a tingling chord for
Sharisha. No two horns can sound exactly the same.
He decides to spend the night in the company of the stars. He
holds his horn close to his heart. He dare not press it too hard
against his chest, lest it break. He remembers how he created it
out of the fronds of the kelp that grows among the rocks of the
sea. Storms brought it to the shoreline. He took the wet fronds
from the water and placed them on the roof of his house in the
crooked and twisted shapes suited to producing the deep and hollow
sounds of the whales. The seaweed dried up to become pipes.
He has fashioned a number of horns this way.
The little waves break with a monotonous rhythm on the
rocks, bringing with them more kelp. He remembers his first kelp
horn.
It was forty years ago. He was a strapping young man in his early
twenties. He loved the Church-as it was officially known-and
looked forward to the Sundays when he and the other congregants
would be dancing to the beat of the drums and the music of the
harps and tambourines. For him the most heavenly part of the
service, besides the snow white robes of the worshippers, was
the kelp horn that an old man blew to accompany the hymns. He
was so fascinated by the deep and hollow sounds of the horn that
he asked the old man to teach him how to play it. He became so
adept at it that His Eminence the Bishop made him official horn
player after age had stolen the old man’s breath. He inherited the
old man’s horn. That was his very first kelp horn. And he played
it so celestially that His Eminence decided to do away with harps
and tambourines, for they seemed to dilute the innocence of the
horn. This caused an argument whose proportions had never been
seen before at the Church. The Elders of the Church said that
harps were by nature heavenly. Angels sang to harps and tambourines.
To do away with them was playing into the hands of the
Prince of Darkness. But His Eminence stood his ground. A kelp
horn, he said, was a natural musical instrument that took the congregation
back to its roots. It was an instrument that celebrated
the essence of creation. God would lend a sharper ear to the
prayers of those who praised Him to the accompaniment of an
instrument that was shaped by His own hand through the agency
of the seas. This led to a schism in the Church. The Elders appointed
a new bishop among themselves, and His Eminence led
his followers to a new church that would worship God in its own
creative way. It became known as the Church of the Sacred Kelp
Horn, and the Whale Caller-who had not learnt to call whales
then-was anointed Chief Horn Player.
The Church of the Sacred Kelp Horn met every Sunday at
Hoy’s Koppie, a conical hill in the middle of the village. The flock
and its shepherd sang and danced for the Lord among the fynbos
that grew in front of the Klipgat Cave, which used to be the
home, variously, of the Khoikhoi and the San peoples long before
the village came into being. In their white robes-with
blue sashes to distinguish themselves from the members of the
Church-the worshippers waltzed and tangoed among the trees.
When the winter rains came the service was conducted in the
cave, which was too small for ballroom dance. The congregants
itched for the foxtrots and rumbas of sunny Sundays.
Like His Eminence, the Chief Horn Player felt that the new
church brought the worshippers closer to nature, and in greater
communion with the spirits of the forebears that were hovering
above the tall cliffs and in the cave. He blew the horn, sometimes
to accompany the hymns, or just to arouse the spirits and to stir
the members of the congregation into a climactic frenzy until
they spoke in tongues.
The most exciting times for the Chief Horn Player were the
Sundays when the sea became a baptistery. The worshippers stood
on the white sands and sang their praises to the Lord. His Eminence
led those who were to be christened further into the sea.
The Chief Horn Player followed, blowing the sacred sounds of
baptism. His Eminence then immersed each one into the water
and out again three times, in the name of the Father, the Son and
the Holy Ghost. The Chief Horn Player accompanied each immersion
with bellows that caused tremors on the land under the
water. It was on one such occasion that a whale surfaced about a
hundred metres from the baptism. It swam closer to take a curious
look. It seemed to be attracted by the sound of the horn. The
whale stole the attention of the congregation from the baptism.
The Chief Horn Player himself was fascinated by this big creature
of the sea, which he had never seen at such close quarters. It
might have been a humpback or even a killer whale. In those days
he did not know the difference. A whale was a whale was a whale.
What intrigued him most was the notion that it was his horn that
had drawn it to the baptism.
It submerged and waved its tail above the water. It began to
lobtail-slapping the water repeatedly with its tail. The congregation
cheered. The Chief Horn Player blew the horn to the
rhythm of the splashing water. His Eminence was struck by a
brilliant idea for an instant sermon on Jonah and the whale.
“We are being sent to Nineveh, my children,” he boomed
above the din. “Like Jonah of the Bible, God is sending us to Nineveh.”
He asked for a Bible from those who were standing on the
beach. A saved woman waded in the water, raising her robe above
the knees with one hand, and lifting the Bible to the sky with the
other hand. She gave it to His Eminence and waded back. He
turned the pages to the Book of Jonah. He raised his hand, demanding
silence. And there was silence. Even the whale stopped
lobtailing. He read from the Book of Books: “`Arise, go to Nineveh,
that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is
come up before me.’ God is speaking through this whale, my children,
sending us to cry for Nineveh! Are we going to heed the call
or are we going to flee to Tarshish?”
“But where is Nineveh, Your Eminence?” asked one of the
worshippers.
“Out there in the sinful world,” responded His Eminence. “In
this very village. Wickedness is everywhere and God demands
that we cry against it.”
The congregation broke into moans and wails and screams,
crying against Nineveh’s wickedness. The whale began to sail
away.
“I think Nineveh is in Cape Town,” suggested the Chief Horn
Player, remembering the trip to Cape Town that the congregation
had been planning and postponing for the past three years. When
the Church of the Sacred Kelp Horn broke away from the Church,
the carrot His Eminence dangled to attract more followers-in
addition to the introduction of ballroom dance as an integral part
of the rites of worship-was a bus trip to Cape Town, to evangelise
the multitudes that gathered on the beaches indulging in
worldly joys and that wasted the summer nights away in nightclubs
and strip joints.
“If we flee to Tarshish,” continued His Eminence, “God will
send His whales to swallow us, for it is written, ‘Now the Lord
had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in
the belly of the fish three days and three nights.’ Of course today
we know what the writers of the Bible did not know; that a whale
is not a fish. After all those days and nights living inside a whale,
it vomited him out on dry land, and he ran straight to Nineveh to
preach to the glory of the Lord! We must not be like Jonah;
whales must not first swallow us before we can work for God. The
sceptics among you will ask, how is it possible to survive in the
stomach of a whale without being digested? But I ask you, my
children, if Jesus himself believed in the story of Jonah and the
whale, who are we to question it? In Matthew 12 verse 40 Jesus
says, ‘For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s
belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in
the heart of the earth.’ What more proof do we need that the
story of Jonah is true?”
It was obvious to all that the spirit of Jonah had taken over the
baptism. The whale had hijacked the whole ceremony, even
though the creature’s tail could now be seen sailing a distance
away.
“It is sailing away!” screeched the Chief Horn Player.
He blew his horn with great vigour and the whale stopped.
Once more it lobtailed. He was convinced that through his kelp
horn he had the power to communicate with it. This discovery excited
him no end, and he remained at the beach blowing his horn
long after the rest of the congregation had gone home.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from THE WHALE CALLER
by Zakes Mda
Copyright © 2005 by Zakes Mda.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX
Copyright © 2005
Zakes Mda
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-374-28785-6
