“What were you doing down there?” he asks.
“Oh, nothing!” she says, without stopping. He follows her.
“But you were talking. Who were you talking to?”
“Oh, to no one in particular!”
“You were talking to Mr. Yodd, weren’t you?”
She does not deny it. She just keeps on walking.
Now he has no doubt that this is the woman for him.
She sits on the concrete bench near the war monument to put on her shoes. He sits beside her. There is a silence between them. After a while she stands up again and walks on the tarred road past the big parking lot and away from the Old Harbour area. He follows her. About half a kilometre away she takes off her shoes again and walks down the paved path that leads back to the sea. He follows. She sits on the green bench near the path, a few metres above the water. He sits down too. There is silence again. He is looking straight ahead as if something on the horizon has grabbed his attention. She looks at him intently as if she is studying the contours on his face, and bursts out laughing. He looks at her and bursts out laughing too.
“You laughed,” she says.
“You laughed first,” he says.
“I always laugh. You never do,” she says.
“You have brought laughter into my life,” he says.
There is silence once more. The world is at peace with itself. American armies are not invading third-world countries, making the world unsafe for the rest of humanity; terrorists are not engaging in the slaughter of the innocent in high-rise buildings and at holiday resorts; criminals have ceased their rapes and murders and robberies; dictators of the world have given up dictating; warlords have laid down their arms; politicians have learnt to be truthful and have stopped thieving. The world is at peace with itself. Across a small rift, not far from where the couple is enjoying the peace of the world, a cultus of tourists is engaged in the ritual of gorging quantities of seafood and gallons of wine. They are sitting in the open-air restaurant whose portico juts into the sea on stilts. They are at peace with the world.
A song can be heard among the waves below the restaurant.
“Did you hear that voice?” asks Saluni.
“I didn’t hear anything,” says the Whale Caller.
“You can hear your whales a hundred miles away but you cannot hear a boy only a few metres below us?”
“Human voices are not like the voices of whales,” he says apologetically.
In all fairness, the voice comes only in waves because the wind blows it in the opposite direction, and then suddenly when the wind subsides the voice carries to the couple on the green bench. The Whale Caller strains his ears and finally can hear something.
“It is Lunga Tubu singing to the waves,” says Saluni.
“Who is Lunga Tubu?”
“He is here at least twice a week. But you never see him because you only see whales.”
There he is, Lunga Tubu, standing on a rock and singing to the tourists on the portico above. An occasional offering of a coin is thrown in his direction. He has to catch it before it drops into the water. He has become very adept at it. The tourists seem to enjoy this part of the game most: when he jumps up to catch a coin, without missing a beat. Kindlier souls throw the coins in the clear water on the side of the portico, for him to gather after a few songs.
The Whale Caller can now hear his song very clearly: Softly a serenade, whispers I love you, Santa Lucia, Sa-a-anta-a-a-a-a Lucia-a-a-a-a. It is a boy’s voice, and has not yet broken. Yet it is so canorous that it lifts the Whale Caller to his feet. He applauds and shouts: “Bravo! Bravo!”
Unlike the Bored Twins, whose voices are those of angels, Saluni explains, Lunga Tubu’s voice is of this earth. It is a voice of a humble twelve-year-old boy from Zwelihle Township who comes down to the sea on weekends and public holidays to sing for his supper.
It seems to the Whale Caller that Saluni’s influence has now made him hear the songs of humans as well. It has also made him see things that he has never noticed before, although they have been around him all the time.
The head waiter appears on the portico and shoos Lunga Tubu away. But the boy continues his song. Saluni has seen this ritual many times before and finds it quite funny. The Whale Caller, on the other hand, is disgusted that a boy with such a pleasant voice is being driven away so unceremoniously.
“He says the boy steals his tips,” explains Saluni.
“But the boy didn’t even get within ten metres of the restaurant. Does he think the poor boy has long invisible hands?”
“He thinks that if the tourists didn’t have to throw some coins at Lunga he and the other waiters would be getting bigger tips.”
The head waiter disappears into the kitchen and returns with a fat man who is either the owner or the manager of the restaurant. The man walks down the wooden steps on the side of the portico, shouting abuse at Lunga Tubu. He picks up pebbles and throws them at the boy, who is now running away.
“Run this way, Lunga, he won’t dare come to bother you here,” shouts Saluni.
The boy runs to the green bench. He is tiny and emaciated.
“What did you do to that man?” asks the Whale Caller.
“Nothing,” says the boy. “He doesn’t want me to sing near his restaurant.”
Saluni explains to the Whale Caller that Lunga Tubu’s presence here destabilises the serenity of Hermanus — a sanctified playground of the rich. Lunga Tubu is disturbing the peace of the world. His tiny frame nags the delicate souls with what they would rather forget: that only a few kilometres away there is another world that is not at peace with itself — a whole festering world of the disillusioned, those who have no stake in the much-talked-about black economic empowerment, which is really the issue of the black middle class rather than of people like Lunga Tubu. While the town of Hermanus is raking in fortunes from tourism, the mothers and fathers of Zwelihle are unemployed. It is a world where people have lost all faith in politicians. Once, they had dreams, but they have seen politicians and trade union leaders become overnight millionaires instead. Only tiny crumbs trickle down to what used to be called “the masses” in the heyday of the revolution.
Of course only a liar can claim that things are as bad as they were during the days of apartheid, Saluni is emphatic about this. More people have been housed than ever before. Even shacks in informal settlements here and in the inland provinces have been electrified. Services such as telephones and water have been provided even in the remote villages. But in a country with such high unemployment, this has come with new problems. People are unable to pay for these services.
One little “empowerment” that exists in Zwelihle is the indigent tariff. Poor families that qualify for this tariff are relieved of paying for utilities and municipal services. But the city fathers and mothers are quick to disqualify a family as soon as it owns a fridge, a geyser or some other appliance that may be deemed a luxury. If they can afford a fridge, common wisdom dictates, they can afford to pay their utilities bills. The inspectors of the municipality discovered once that Lunga Tubu’s family owned a range of electrical appliances and gadgets. The family was immediately disqualified from the indigent tariff. It did not matter to the bureaucrats that these appliances were hand-me-downs from his mother’s employer in “the kitchens.” Hence he has to sing, not only for his supper and his fees at Lukhanyo Primary School, where he is doing Grade Six, but for service arrears as well. And this is the most crucial of his expenses. Many citizens of Zwelihle have had their houses auctioned away because of service arrears.