The Whale Caller is looking at him closely, wondering how it is possible for a man to work up so much enthusiasm for mere fish and rice. Saluni declines the invitation for them both and tells the maître d’ that they would rather enjoy his decorative delicacies with their eyes from a distance.
“We also serve sushi that doesn’t include sashimi… that doesn’t include raw fish… if that’s what you are squeamish about,” the man says. He is persuasive, but Saluni explains once more that they are only interested in eating his food with their eyes, if he doesn’t mind. The friendly face changes in a flash.
“Of course I mind. You make my customers nervous watching them like that. Please go and be spectators somewhere else,” he says as he angrily walks back into the restaurant.
“I wouldn’t like to be watched when I eat either,” says the Whale Caller. “Eating should be a private matter. Like sex.”
He startles himself with this last observation. His worst nightmare is becoming a reality: Saluni has debauched him, to the extent that a simile like that can roll out of his mouth unprovoked. But all this is lost on Saluni.
“As if it is something sinful,” says Saluni. “If they want to eat in private they mustn’t come to a restaurant.”
The maître d’ draws the blinds and the remote diners are left facing white kimono-clad outlines of Japanese beauties and leafy bamboos on a red background.
“Oh, man! What did he do that for? I wanted to taste some of that sake,” wails Saluni.
“Sake?” asks the Whale Caller.
“The wine,” she explains. “It is made from rice. I understand it is wonderfully powerful. As strong as the man next to me.”
“Don’t even think about it,” he warns her. “Otherwise I might find you swimming in the bottle again and wasting your life in the taverns.”
“You look so cute when you worry about me,” she says, cackling.
There are other restaurants. Each one boldly advertises some foreign cuisine, ranging from Indian and Chinese to French and Italian. But their curtains are drawn.
“Perhaps we should change our dining strategy next time,” says Saluni. “We should dine in the daytime. Curtains are bound to be open in the daytime.”
“Perhaps we shouldn’t dine at all,” says the Whale Caller. “We should be sitting in front of a warm heater at home.”
“Don’t give up so easily, man,” she says. “You’ll see, you’ll like it once you get the hang of it. Just like the window shopping.”
They are about to give up despite Saluni’s exhortations when they chance upon a Cape Dutch house at a corner of a nondescript street. It is the only restaurant that unashamedly boasts of specialising in South African cuisine. Everyone knows that in the Western Cape when they talk of South African cuisine they mean the Cape Malay food that is a result of the melting cultures of Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Khoikhoi and Dutch. The same kind of interbreeding that brought into existence the wonderfully coloured people of the Western Cape. As in the rest of the restaurants at this time of the night, this one’s thick maroon velvet draperies are drawn as well. But at one of the windows there has been some carelessness since there is a big gap between the curtains through which Saluni and the Whale Caller can see inside.
The glass reflects their own images because of the glare from the streetlights. Therefore they have to press their faces against the panes in order to have a good look at the chefs standing in a row — the high priest and his acolytes — cutting roast lamb, beef, chicken, pork and venison behind a long buffet counter of crayfish, langoustine, perlemoen, curries, rotis, samoosas, colourful salads, pies, boboties, sosaties, pickled snoek fish, másala fish, rice, and sweetmeats such as temeletjies and the syrupy doughnuts known as koeksisters. The priests do everything in full view of the worshippers, many of whom watch in admiration as they brandish their big knives about, slicing the roasts with pomp and ceremony. Sosaties are braaied over an open fire, while the worshippers ceremonially walk the length of the altar, serving their fancy onto their plates. Then they walk to their tables, also set up like altars, each one with a candle burning idly. Worshippers are in couples. Youthful upwardly mobile lovers and jaded old-world couples from the houses of retired millionaires that dot the district. There are hardly any tourists at this time of the year.
“I find this worshipping of food obscene,” the Whale Caller whispers.
She gives him an acid glare and says, “You should count your blessings and taste every dish instead of complaining.”
“After all, sooner or later it will be digested and will surely become stools. Then it will be scorned and despised. People forget that only a few hours back they were venerating it.”
“You are the only human being outside the doctor’s rooms who talks of stools. Normal people talk of shit, man. Not stools. Not faeces. Not waste matter. Pure unadulterated shit!”
“Ja, whatever you call it, Saluni… whatever you call it.”
“You didn’t rebel like this when I taught you window shopping. You ended up liking it.”
“Because it was private, Saluni. Not like here where people have built special temples for the ritual of eating… where eaters enact pagan rites of mating.”
“Now you are getting carried away, man,” says an astounded Saluni. “No one is mating anybody here. You are beginning to have wonderfully dirty thoughts… like me. People are just eating, that’s all.”
“It’s not just eating, Saluni. You and I know that with these people eating is part of lovemaking… part of…” He cannot bring himself to say it.
“Foreplay? You once uttered that word, man. What went wrong now? I thought you had got over your primness.”
“In private, Saluni. It was uttered between you and me… in the privacy of our bedroom.”
“I still don’t see the difference, man. We eat at supermarkets with our eyes…”
“Here, my dear Saluni, we are voyeurs of an orgy. This is where I put the full stop, Saluni. I am not going to be part of this window eating anymore.”
He steps aside. Saluni continues to stand at the window and to gormandise each of the dishes. But there is no fun in it if she can’t share the experience with him. The food tastes like paper. She is disappointed in him, and says so. He apologises and explains that this deification of food is a new experience for him. He eats to sustain himself, because if he does not eat he will die. His habits of eating are quite rudimentary. When he used to walk the coast he only needed to get fish, braai it on the open coal with maize on the cob and eat it. There was no ceremony. When he returned from the coast it became easier and cheaper to boil macaroni, sprinkle it with shredded cheese and eat. Again there was no ceremony
“You hate ceremony then, do you?” mocks Saluni. “But you are a creature of ritual. Like me, you are prone to ceremonial actions. You cannot pretend otherwise.”
The evening has been a disaster, and they walk home without a word to each other. She walks in front, almost trotting, and he follows leisurely behind. He is beginning to regret his outburst. Perhaps he should have just gone along with the ritual. It never hurts to be accommodative. But if he did Saluni would have expected them to visit the restaurants every weekend. Just as they visit the supermarkets at least once a week. He enjoys those visits. No one knows that they are eating from the displays of canned and boxed food. It is therefore private. Supermarkets are not temples built for the purpose of worshipping food. One buys the food and takes it to the privacy of one’s home. He can never bring himself to enjoy the vulgarities of public eating. He will just have to find a way of making it up to Saluni.