The girls’ parents didn’t seem unduly worried when Saluni brought them home.
“They like to wander around,” said the father, as if talking of straying chickens.
“It can be dangerous out there,” said Saluni.
“What can we do?” asked the mother. “These children get bored. We cannot look after them all the time because we are working people.”
“We are casual vineyard workers,” explained the father. “We took over this house a few months back when everyone was afraid of it. It is our base… our home. But we still have to travel to the vineyards in search of work.”
“The twins know how to look after themselves,” the mother assured Saluni. “Of course they do get bored sometimes.”
They asked Saluni to stay for the night, since it had become too dark for her to walk home. The Bored Twins, excited at having a visitor, took her on a tour of the house. Each one was holding a candle. Saluni was amazed at the number of rooms. Yes, the mansion, though dilapidated, did look imposing from the outside. But she couldn’t have imagined that inside it was such a maze. However, the Bored Twins knew their way around. They took her to all the bedrooms. Saluni counted eight of them, most with bathrooms en suite. But there was no water in the bathrooms, the girls told her. There was no running water anywhere in the house. The family drew their water from a communal tap almost a kilometre away. There were many other rooms whose original function Saluni could not determine. All devoid of furniture. All with rococo ceilings that used to be white. The ornate ceilings looked out of place in the simplicity of Cape Dutch elegance. Most of the rooms had spiders and other crawling creatures as permanent residents. It was obvious that the family only used three rooms: the kitchen, the parents’ bedroom and the Bored Twins’ bedroom. The rest of the rooms were full of dust and spiders’ webs that ran from one wall to the other. The only other clean room was the wine cellar in the basement. Even the empty wine racks that lined its walls were dust-free. The Bored Twins told her that it was their secret room, which they used when they wanted to hide from their parents.
After a supper of snoek fish and rice, Saluni helped the mother clean the plates. Then it was time for bed. The girls became excited when Saluni offered to sleep in their room. Sponge mattresses were spread on the floor. The Bored Twins insisted on reading her their favourite bedtime story: Dr. Seuss’s Sleep Book.
“But first we must put out the light,” said the smaller girl.
“No, don’t!” screamed Saluni. The Bored Twins were taken aback by her sudden anxiety. But she gave them a reassuring smile and asked, “How will you read me the story if it is dark?”
“We read it in the dark,” said the bigger twin.
“We know the whole book by heart,” explained the smaller twin.
“Please don’t put out the light,” pleaded Saluni.
“But Mother will be mad at us,” said the bigger twin. “She says we must not waste candles.”
Saluni took out a candle from her sequinned handbag. She lit it from the twins’ candle before putting the twins’ candle out.
“You carry a candle in your handbag?” asked the smaller twin.
“All the time,” said Saluni. “Let’s hear your story then.”
“The news/Just came in/From the County of Keck/That a very small bug/By the name of Van Vleck/Is yawning so wide/You can look down his neck,” began the smaller twin.
The bigger twin took over: “This may not seem/Very important, I know/But it is. So I’m bothering/Telling you so/A yawn is quite catching, you see. Like a cough/It just takes one yawn to start other yawns off.” At this point the girls started yawning, so did Saluni. This tickled them no end. So it was true that yawning was infectious!
The story never came to an end though. The girls kept on adding their own silly details to Dr. Seuss’s well-crafted story, which made it much longer than it really was, and left Saluni in stitches. By the time the girls reached the part with the sleepwalking creatures the story trailed off and soon both girls were snoring. Saluni couldn’t help noting that even their snores sounded like distant pealing bells.
Before Saluni left the next morning, she promised the parents that she would occasionally come to check on the Bored Twins.
That was two years ago. To this day she continues to check on them, although sometimes she vows she will stop visiting their mansion as they have developed a new habit of playing silly pranks on her. She stays away for two or three days, and then finds that she misses them. She goes back to the mansion and indeed the Bored Twins have become sweet again. They sing for her. More than ever before they sing like angels. She sends them to the nearest tavern to buy her wine. After a few gulps she joins them in song. She has to be tipsy before she can open her mouth in song. Her husky voice blends well with the beatific voices. The parents are happy that an adult eye, however drunk it may often be, watches over their little angels. They reward Saluni with more bottles of cheap wine that they get from vineyard owners as part-payment for their labour.
The sun and the moon pull in unison, and the tide rises.
The Whale Caller can hear the sounds of the sea from his Wendy house. His mind wanders to the events of the day as he prepares his late lunch of macaroni and cheese. He didn’t have the best of days. What with his concerns for the safety of Sharisha! And the harassment by the pastors! Why did the pastors have to drag him into things about which he did not care? He had not even been aware of the plays that have caused so much upheaval in the town. He is of course aware of the festival, but it is not his business. He does not need a festival to celebrate the whales.
And the silent confrontation with Saluni! He still doesn’t understand why the image of his mother flashed before his eyes. He does not remember ever thinking of his parents with any measure of nostalgia. He was quite young when his mother died, leaving him to fend for himself at the pilchard canning plants on the west coast. People said she had died from a broken heart. It was only a few months after her husband had disappeared. The Whale Caller has only vague memories of his father. A blurred picture of the sturdy fisherman who went to sea and never came back. After futile helicopter searches and a long wait, he was given up for dead. The rites for the dead were performed and the pastors declared that his soul was resting in peace in heaven.
In the early years, when he saw fathers play a crucial part in the lives of his friends, the Whale Caller used to have a searing longing for his own father. When he did odd jobs at the canning factories, and later when he blew the kelp horn at the Church, he would re-invent his father. He would imagine him taking one of the colourful brittle boats to sea, laughing and singing rude songs. The boat would disintegrate out there in the storms. For some time his father would be tossed by the waves while small piranha-like fish nibbled at him until they finished him. Thus he imagined his father’s demise. Thus he killed him every time he thought of him. Until the sight of fish feasting on him lost its thrill. He had finally got tired of resurrecting him only to have him devoured by the fish again.