The next morning the dance continued. Spectators returned and found the Whale Caller drenched in sweat. Both his horn and Sharisha were groaning deeply like out-of-tune tubas. Both were breathless as the dance seemed to be slowly fizzling out.
It was almost midday when Sharisha sailed away waving her flipper and the Whale Caller found his steps back to the shore. The crowd was going crazy, screaming, making catcalls and applauding. As soon as he reached the shore he fell on the ground in utter exhaustion. He was drenched in sweat and other secretions of the body The front and the seat of his tuxedo pants were wet and sticky from the seed of life.
He opened his eyes and smiled at the wide eyes that were looking at him from above. The people went even wilder with applause. Saluni was among them. But she was not participating in all the excitement. She just stood there, arms akimbo, shouting at him: “You have shamed yourself… and me!”
“The people of Hermanuspietersfontein don’t seem to think so,” he said softly, and promptly fell asleep right there on the ground. The crowd gathered around them and some wondered who the people of Hermanuspietersfontein were.
“He means us,” one of them offered helpfully. “It is what this town used to be called… after the shepherd and teacher who came down the mountain past the Hemel-en-Aarde valley and set up camp here almost two hundred years ago… before the land was stolen from the Khoikhoi.”
“It is a foolish name. It belongs to an old world. Does he miss the past?”
“He does not care about the origins of the name,” said Saluni defensively. “He just likes the old name. He says it rolls nicely on the tongue.”
“He may think he hasn’t got a political agenda by insisting on a name that no one uses anymore. Everything in South Africa is political.”
“What has that got to do with his dance? I ask.”
The people were arguing about the merits of the name as they left. They had forgotten all about the satisfaction he had given them with his dance. Saluni remained there, sitting on the ground guarding him. If she had had the strength she would have carried him back to the Wendy house.
It was after this experience that Saluni decided to go along with his mad suggestion that they should welcome the dawn of a new day with a waltz on the beach. She felt that perhaps if she indulged him, and sometimes even pampered him — within reasonable limits, of course, for a man can easily get spoilt if he is too pampered — he would forget about Sharisha. So, that first morning she reluctantly went to the beach, and to her surprise found that she actually enjoyed it. She caught on very fast, and soon enough she was floating as well as the Whale Caller.
Now the dance has got into her, to the extent that she is often the one who wakes the Whale Caller up even when he is too lazy to go waltzing in the morning. She hopes that their discovery of something that they can do together will make him appreciate her more, and will bind them together, until she becomes indispensable. It also helps her keep a close eye on him lest he gets entangled with another whale. Unfortunately she can’t be with him all the time, because sometimes she needs to quench her addiction to the Bored Twins. She needs the healing voices that cleanse both her body and her soul. But she also needs the wine with which the parents reward her occasionally. Of late the bottles are becoming scarcer, because the vineyard owners are under pressure from the workers themselves to stop the practice of paying them with bottles of wine. The vineyard owners are now gradually resorting to paying their labourers with the normal currency that is legal tender in the rest of South Africa. And this is not good news for Sal uni.
She goes to the mansion, spends the day with the Bored Twins and returns empty-handed. Even though the Whale Caller has refused to buy her wine on previous occasions, she asks him all the same, and once more he says no. She pesters him as he potters around the Wendy house, but he stubbornly stands his ground.
“You can’t do this to me, man,” she pleads. “You stopped me from going to the taverns where my mates bought me all the wine in the world.”
“You stopped for your own good,” says the Whale Caller.
“I stopped for you, man… I did it for you… Now look what I get.”
The Whale Caller ignores her and continues to look for things to occupy the hands that are unable to stay idle. He sits on the bed and polishes his shoes.
“I will drink all the methylated spirits in the house if you don’t buy me a bottle of wine.”
“Ah, you have been drinking my methylated spirits! I was wondering why a bottle that used to last me for months is now getting finished so quickly.”
“Please don’t make me beg, man. I hate begging.”
“I should have known it’s you! I don’t clean my suit that often. Since she left I don’t get to wear it at all.”
“Everything is about the fish, eh? Even when it’s not here! What about me? What about my feelings? What about my needs?”
“Even when I used to light a primus stove with methylated spirits… before 1 had this Wendy house wired for electricity… the methylated spirits lasted longer than it does since you came here.”
“I am a love child, man,” she screams almost hysterically. “You can’t do this to me; 1 am a love child!”
She blurts out the story of her conception, as she has told it numerous times before in the taverns of Hermanus — with the variations that the habitués of the taverns know so well. To the Whale Caller, of course, the version he hears today is the first one.
She was conceived on a rainy day by a beautiful teenager who was involved in an illicit love affair with a married man. Under a corrugated iron roof whose noise in the rain swallowed their moans of pleasure. Rain changed to hail, and at that moment the man hit the right spot and the seed was planted. The young woman was completely smitten with him, and hoped that now she was carrying his child, she would have him all to herself forever. But it was not to be. When the older man refused to leave his aged wife for her, she was devastated. She fell into a deep depression. She was consumed by the flames of love until she lost her mind. And indeed troubadours (they are a constant!) composed songs about her unrequited love. The child was born, and was named Saluni. She — Saluni — was only six months old when her lovesick mother poured petrol all over her body and immolated herself. To this day, Saluni says with a dramatic gesture, she remembers quite vividly the yellow flames that consumed her beautiful mother in the same manner that she had been consumed by love. She is a love child, she repeats, and as a love child she cannot be denied whatever her heart desires.
It is a romantic story that overwhelms the Whale Caller with deep feelings for her. Who would not love a love child? Who would be cruel enough to deny a love child a measly bottle of wine? He goes to a nearby hotel off-sales store and buys her a bottle of expensive wine, for he believes the cheaper autumn harvests are not good for her health; they will corrode her insides. But after just one sip Saluni complains: “This wine is no good. Too smooth. It’s for sissies. It’s like drinking water. Next time you give me the money and I’ll buy real wine.”
The Whale Caller ignores her whining and occupies himself with pressing his tuxedo even though he had already pressed it yesterday and the day before.