All of a sudden the game stops and Sharisha rallies protectively to the young one. She has fixed her eyes on the crag behind the Whale Caller. He turns to look up and sees Saluni walking gracefully in her stilettos and fur coat down the concrete cliff path. Sharisha starts to sail away but changes her mind and moves in towards the peninsula.
“You should have seen them, Saluni,” says the Whale Caller. “They were having so much fun.”
“What kind of a man are you? You can see that I am not well and yet you leave me for these stupid whales.”
“You said you were going to sleep, Saluni. What went wrong? You were not bothered about them anymore. You promised we would not fight over Sharisha again.”
“Obviously you took advantage of that. From now on it’s either the fish or me.”
She tries to shoo Sharisha away, but the whale holds its own. It bellows deeply. It sounds more like a groan. This worries the Whale Caller. He has never seen Sharisha like this; furiously blowing and sending tremors under the water that reach the rocks of the peninsula. She seems to be gearing for a fight. If only he had brought his kelp horn with him he would have calmed her with the tune she knows so well.
“We must go home now,” says Saluni.
“We can’t leave Sharisha like this. There is something wrong.”
“Every time it is Sharisha this, Sharisha that!”
She races to the edge of the peninsula. The Whale Caller now knows that she came especially to pick a fight with Sharisha. Under the fur coat she wears nothing but her God-given skin, making her intentions very clear: she intends to flash Sharisha to death. She opens the coat, raises her leg and screams: “Take that, you foolish fish!”
But Sharisha has decided to assert herself. She does not budge. She stares Saluni straight in the eye. She does not look scandalised as she usually does when Saluni moons or flashes her. She looks defiant. Instead it is the Whale Caller who looks scandalised.
Saluni tries again. She opens her coat, raising the other leg and shouting: “You take that, stupid fish!” And then moving from one leg to the other in a frenzied dance, all the while opening and closing the front of her coat and screaming: “And that! And that!”
Still Sharisha does not move. Her defiant stare is unflinching. It is clearly a standoff that Saluni cannot win. She is devastated. She runs up the cliff path weeping, back to the Wendy house.
The Whale Caller remains confused for a while. Sharisha continues with her deep bellowing. The Whale Caller becomes frantic. He should have brought his kelp horn. Somehow he needs to calm Sharisha, to comfort her, to assure her that everything is fine. There is kelp all around him. But it is wet and even soggy. It cannot produce any music. He locks the fingers of both his hands together and shapes his hands into a roundish sound box. He blows into the hole created by his thumbs and produces deep bellows similar to Sharisha’s. It works! Sharisha seems to calm down. Her anger gradually melts as he continues to bellow. She bellows back. They exchange bellows for a long time. The child finds this game thrilling and joins with its own weak bellows. These feeble attempts leave the Whale Caller chuckling to himself. He is having such a wonderful time that he does not notice that darkness is gradually creeping in.
He had almost forgotten about the eclipse. He blows the final bellow to say goodbye and runs up the cliff path. When he gets home he is shocked to find Saluni standing outside looking at the eclipse with her naked eyes.
“You are in a warlike mood today, Saluni,” he says. “First you pick on Sharisha and now you are challenging the sun.”
“You would take her side, wouldn’t you?”
“You started the whole fight, Saluni. She was minding her own business and you came and started the fight,” he says as he reaches for her, trying to save her from her own foolishness.
“Don’t touch me.”
She opens her eyes even wider and defiantly fixes her glare on the sun, outbraving it into darkness. The Whale Caller panics.
“You will go blind, Saluni.”
She turns and looks in his direction and breaks into laughter. She laughs for a long time, jumping about in a jig of victory and joyfully shouting: “I am blind … I am already blind!”
Saluni. She lives in a world of darkness. Her eyes are wide open, yet her world remains black long after the eclipse is gone. The Whale Caller keeps on asking: “Why did you do it, Saluni, why?” She calmly responds that she went blind because there was nothing worth seeing in the world anymore. After all, she has lost Hollywood. And she has lost him to Sharisha.
“You have not lost me,” he says. “I am here with you.”
It does not escape the Whale Caller that she seems to enjoy her blindness. She has a permanent smile. There is a look of peace about her. She hopes that for the first time in her life she has banished her fear of the dark. Darkness exists as antinomy to light. If she can’t see any light, she can’t see any darkness either. This thought gives her a sense of freedom. Now she can travel the world without fear. She keeps repeating as if to convince herself: “In blindness I see no light, and without light there is no darkness.”
Two days after the eclipse she wakes up early in the morning and announces that she is leaving. She wants to get away from the town that has nothing but ugly memories for her — ranging from the insults she has suffered from whales to the pain of being banished from the Bored Twins by a heartless parent. Even the good memories are now mangled by blindness. Hermanus holds nothing for her but ugliness.
She packs her clothes in a paper bag and then dresses in her green corduroy pants, black pencil-heel boots and a red polo-neck shirt. She also wears her trusty fur coat. She sprays perfume on everything she is wearing, covering, but not quite, her sweet and mouldy smell for a while. All this time the Whale Caller thinks she can’t be serious. She wouldn’t dare go out there alone walking sightlessly and without any destination.
“It is hot, Saluni,” he says. “Your taffeta dress will be better.”
“It will ultimately get cold. I will be on the road for many seasons. I must be prepared.”
She takes her paper bag and leaves. She walks out of the gate. She is serious. The Whale Caller runs after her, calling her back. She stumbles on, almost falling. He reaches her and pleads with her to come back home. But she is adamant that she needs to put great distance between the town and herself. The Whale Caller then offers to walk the road with her, to look after her.
“No, you stay here,” she says. “I’ll find my way around the world.”
“I can’t let you go alone, Saluni. You are blind. You will get lost. Just wait here and I’ll get a few of my things. I’ll join you on the road. After all, I have walked the road before. I know a thing or two about the road.”
As he rushes back to the Wendy house she calls after him: “Don’t forget to bring the fish money from the scoff tin under the bed!” and then she mutters to herself: “I will enslave him with my blindness.”
They walk down Main Road in the easterly direction until Main Road becomes Seventh Street. They walk past the rows of beautiful houses on both sides of the street, many of them in Cape Dutch style. Some have B&B signs outside. Everyone wants to cash in on the tourism frenzy, observes the Whale Caller to himself. He holds Saluni’s hand so as to guide her safely With the other hand he holds his kelp horn. He carries a rucksack on his back containing canned fish, biscuits, his underwear and other small items. He wears his denim dungarees and hasn’t brought any change of clothes. He hopes Saluni’s road-madness will wear off and soon they will be walking back to the Wendy house.
On Saluni’s instructions they branch off from the tarred road onto a dirt road. There are thick bushes growing on both sides of the road, filling the air with mentholated scents. They walk on for a few hours on the fine gravel until they reach a green-roofed white house on the shoreline. The Whale Caller knocks but there is no response. He looks through the curtainless windows. All the rooms are empty. Saluni wonders why they should be wasting time when they have such a long way to go. He tries the door. It is not locked. He suggests that they should spend the night there. It is only midday and they are just a few kilometres from town. He hopes that common sense will prevail and she will demand to be guided back to the Wendy house. Stopping at this deserted house will buy him time. He leads her to the veranda that juts into the sea on stilts. They sit on a bench and enjoy the breeze from the sea.