The Whale Caller Read Free Page B

thought I meant it. Last night. All the hysteria about the Japanese eating Sharisha. And all the insecurities about her deserting me. I must have sounded pathetic. I admit I was a bit rash last night, Mr. Yodd. Accusing you of things you are not capable of… such as twisting the knife in my back! I am sorry. Fortunately you do not hold a grudge. That is what is beautiful about you. A grudge can take its toll on your health. It is like a parasite that feeds on you. At first it gives you a feeling of warmth. The thought that you will get even gives youcomfort. Then the ungrateful guest begins to eat your insides. It gets fatter while you are gradually reduced to a bag of bones. It destroys you. That’s what a grudge does to one, Mr. Yodd. You thought I had lost control of myself, hey Mr. Yodd? It was the kind of night that brought hallucinations to the sanest of minds. To the soberest. It must have been the fumes of death that permeated the air. Decay. Death. I could smell it from the sea. The wind brings it from the western coast. Yes, you told me many times before, Mr. Yodd. These are not today’s smells. They have lingered for more than two hundred years. A two-hundred-year-old stench from the slaughter of the southern rights by French, American and British whalers at St. Helena Bay in 1785. Five hundred southern rights in one season! They harpooned the calves in order to get their mothers who would come to the rescue of their little ones. Seasons of mass killings! The smell still haunts these shores. Yes, they are protected now, Mr. Yodd. But only since 1935. The whales have come back since then but I cannot presume that Sharisha will be safe on her voyage from the southern seas. There are pirates and poachers! What if… There I go again with what you refer to as hysteria. I apologise, Mr. Yodd. It was not me talking last night. All right, Mr. Yodd. Go ahead and laugh. I don’t mind at all. Laugh at me as much as you like.

    He is mortified as he walks on the pavement near the parking lot. And it shows in his gait. The crowds have already gathered. They are the usual tourists with floral shirts and funereal faces. As if someone forced them to come here. Binoculars and cameras weighing down their necks. Sandals flip-flopping like soft coronach drumbeats as the feet trudge in different directions. Fat Americans, timid as individuals, but boisterous and arrogant in groups. Puny Japanese, excitable and fascinated by the most mundaneof things. Inland South Africans who look apologetic and seem to be more out of place than the Americans and Japanese. All clicking away at the slightest provocation. Following everything that moves on land and sea with camcorders.
    They are in greater numbers today, the whale-watching invaders. The town is celebrating its annual Kalfiefees—the whale calf festival. The locals, who don’t usually care much for whale watching, are also out in throngs. Some are out to flog their wares. The parking lot has been taken over by stalls and tables displaying Cape Malay delights, candyfloss machines, ostrich biltong, citrus preserves and whalebone jewellery and toys. Spicy and sweet aromas intermingle with the compound smell of salt and dead kelp that is brought by the heat from the sea.
    Many have come just to watch the spectacular street performances of jugglers, mimes, banjo-strumming buskers and dancers in grotesque whale costumes. Or to hold their collective breath as adrenalin junkies bungee-jump down awesome cliffs only to be pulled back seconds before their bodies hit the rocky shallows of the sea. Pallid boys from Zwelihle Township perform the haka, the ceremonial Maori war chants accompanying a fearsome dance learnt from the New Zealand rugby team. Others sing
Shosholoza,
the work song that has been adopted by the South African rugby team as its anthem, while performing an out-of-step gumboot dance. Processions of tourists go through the ritual of dropping coins into enamel bowls or cold drink