The Whale Caller by Zakes Mda Page A

haunts, and at all sorts of touristy places, hoping she will show up. It doesn’t occur to him to search in the taverns of Hermanus. That’s where anyone else would have begun the search. Saluni is famous as a village drunk.
    If the Whale Caller had paid a visit to the taverns and pubs of Hermanus—those that are patronised by fisher folk, labourers andlayabouts rather than the bars at luxury hotels—he would have known that her disappearance has nothing to do with him. He would have heard the story, told in toothless and frothy mirth, of how Saluni had developed a rash all over her body, as if she had rolled in poison ivy. The rash, however, had not been caused by poison ivy, but by a hairy millipede that the Bored Twins found outside their bedroom window and secretly placed in her bra one morning after she had spent a night of storytelling and celestial singing and snoring with them. In the morning she dressed hurriedly without noticing the millipede snuggling in her B-cup.
    As soon as she walked out of the mansion the millipede began to take a walk in her bosom. She jumped up and down screaming. As she spun in the air and landed on the ground with great force the millipede crawled to what it deemed to be safer parts of her body, and tried to take sanctuary in any nook or cranny that it could find. She danced about in blind panic, ripping off her perpetual coat. The twins were standing just outside the kitchen door, laughing their angelic laughter and clapping their sweet little hands as she stripped her blouse, and then her skirt, all the while screaming and cursing the girls with their mother’s genitalia for laughing at her. The millipede was wiggling all over her body since even the nooks and crannies were opening and closing quite violently in her frenzied dance. Soon the petticoat was off, and then the bra. She was waving these garments about, shaking them, hoping that whatever creature was hiding in them would drop off. The shaking became frantic until she collapsed on the ground, foaming at the mouth.
    Only then did the Bored Twins realise the serious consequence of their game. They tried to revive Saluni by pouring water on her face, all the while crying, “Sorry, auntie… sorry, auntie.” They were struck with terror when they saw a red rash erupting all over her naked body, right before their eyes. It seemed to be flaming where the millipede had walked, leaving a trail of hairthat stuck out of her skin like red villi on a fruit. Her girlish breasts had the most hair and it looked almost like bristle.
    After a minute or so she regained consciousness. The girls were relieved to see that she was not dead. They were all over her, confessing their crime, and accusing each other of initiating the prank. She gathered her clothes and put them on, without uttering a word to the Bored Twins, who kept on crying, “Sorry, auntie… sorry, auntie!” They were jumping all around her, hoping to hear her say that she had forgiven them. But she walked away without giving them a second look. She went back to town and back to the taverns. As she sat in a favourite watering hole, drinking wine and relating how the Bored Twins almost killed her in spite of her being a love child, her body was itching all over. She was obviously ill, and the habitués, despite the fact that they had found the story quite funny at first, became concerned. “Whose children are these who play such cruel games on the love child?” they asked. She found herself defending them: “I am sure they didn’t mean any harm. They were playing. They wouldn’t want to harm me on purpose. They are angels.”
    On this grey afternoon the Whale Caller’s relentlessness weakens. He makes a determined effort to forget about Saluni for a while and pay more attention to Sharisha. He will resume the search some other day, for he cannot give her up altogether. At the very least he wants to know what became of her. For now he needs something that will raise his