Relationships: ‘A conversation with Rudo’

One day I got a telephone call from Rudo, Adam’s wife. She sounded like she’d been crying. She asked me if we could meet for a chat. She needed a shoulder to cry on, she said. Now it may seem strange that the wife of a well-known fornicator and adulterer like Adam should phone his best friend so as to pour out all the troubles of a faithful wife who knows all about her faithless husband’s misdemeanours.
At first I thought of telling Adam himself. I didn’t feel I could go behind my friend’s back with his own wife.

But then I understood why Rudo had phoned me. She knew what I thought of my friend, his philosophy — if you could call it that — his lack of all morality, his lack of respect for cultural norms, his total lack of concern for the everlasting bonfire promised by the Scriptures to such fellows as him.

Above all, he knew what I thought of his philandering and his cheating of his lovely faithful wife, Rudo — for indeed make no mistake about it.
Adam went on and on about the beauty of women but not one of them could hold a candle to Rudo. She was exquisite — and all the more ravishing for being pure and virtuous.

Rudo was a devout Christian — not the kind that goes to church as an insurance policy against all the wickedness and selfishness he or she commits the rest of the time.

She did not flaunt her religion — she lived it. And not only did she live it — she lived it not just for herself but for others.
She felt that it is no good being a Christian unless you “love your neighbour” — not in the way Adam would. Adam would have been only too happy to love his neighbour — if she was pretty.

Rudo was involved in a lot of the kind of work Jesus Christ would have approved of — with children, young people trying to find their way in life, girls who have gone astray, fallen women, the poor, the handicapped.
In short, at the risk of you saying I am in love with Rudo, let me say Rudo is an angel.

And this made me feel all the worse about how my friend treated her.
We met at her and Adam’s lovely little house. You could tell immediately you entered that the woman who ran it was good and believed in the family values. It was warm, wholesome and welcoming. It was the mirror of the lady of the house.

If this was one of Adam’s tales, my visit would have started in the lounge with a coffee and ended in the bedroom with a bottle of champagne.
But no, this was Adam’s wife, Rudo, and the tale I have to tell is quite different — for today it is I who am the teller.
I could see that, indeed, she had been crying.

Her hand shook a little as she poured the coffee and offered me a plate of home-baked scones, still warm from the oven.
I wondered what she had to tell me. I must say I dreaded the moment. There were no divided loyalties.
Adam was my friend — from toekaaf — as we used to say in South Africa. In other words, he was my friend from long ago.

But I knew he was doing Rudo wrong and I was not about to defend him.
Once Rudo had served the coffee and offered a few of her delicious scones, the discussion changed gears. It moved from small talk to more serious issues. She began telling me about a deaf girl.

I wasn’t surprised, knowing the kind of work she did. Rudo did counselling for deaf girls at Emerald School for the Deaf.
Not only did she give counselling — she was fluent in sign language — but she also raised money to assist the girls with the basic things girls need and sometimes the bigger things they do not need but which a deaf girl might aspire to.

One of her girls was called Audrey. She was a pretty girl. Her story, like that of most of the children at Emerald Hill School for the Deaf, was a harrowing one. Rudo told it to me in detail but for the sake of my story let me tell it gaga — as they say — in brief.

When she was born she seemed to be like any other child and everyone loved her. Her father’s family celebrated and congratulated her mother on the beautiful baby she had given birth to. But then one day her mother noticed that when she called her, Audrey did not respond.
That is when she started to suspect the worst.

Audrey was taken to the doctor. She was tested.
The doctor broke the painful news. Audrey had been deaf from birth! Of course, it was not long before the husband’s family got to hear of it.
Now the very same tetes who had ululated and congratulated their muroora on the birth of her lovely daughter, were virtually spitting in her face.

They spoke to their brother, Audrey’s father, saying that such a thing had never happened in their family. This wife of his had brought a monster into the family.

He must drive her away and tell her to take this deaf thing with her.
Audrey told Rudo how every night she used to cry, thinking about her deafness.
It was like she was all alone in the whole world. But the father loved his wife and they both loved Audrey.

They sent her to Emerald Hill School for the Deaf — and there she learned sign language — and then she taught her father and mother and her sisters and her brothers how to talk to her and understand what she had to say. She was no longer alone.

At Emerald Hill she grew bigger and more beautiful and then, with everything was going so well for her, she entered the Miss Deaf beauty competition and was chosen to be Miss Deaf Zimbabwe, with a visit to Croatia to the World Finals as a prize.
She needed money for clothes, for her travel and her pocket money in Croatia.

This is where Rudo came in. She personally organised a campaign and the money was raised.
Also in her counselling class Rudo used to discuss sexual abuse and warn the girls about the predators out there who would take advantage of the girls’ deafness without a twinge of conscience.

The ending was very sad. Audrey went to Croatia.
She did well in the finals — but when she came back she was a changed young woman. It seemed she had lost her power — or maybe her desire — to speak, to communicate.

It seemed she wanted to re-enter that world of loneliness she had experienced as a child.
And then she drowned herself. It turned out that the male official from the ministry who accompanied the Zimbabwean delegation to Croatia had raped her.

Nothing could be proved because the deaf girl could no longer speak but those who had been with her in Croatia knew the true story.
By the time she was finished telling me the story, Rudo was crying. I was mystified. I tried to comfort her —I couldn’t hold her in my arms of course — but I tried to talk to her.

Then I said: “You know, Rudo, when you phoned me, I knew something was wrong. I could tell you had been crying.”
“Yes, that’s why I phoned you, Baba Mshengu.
“You are not only a family friend. You are someone I knew would understand.”

“But you know what I thought, Rudo? I thought it was something to do with Adam.”
And then a strange thing happened, Rudo began to laugh. It turned out I had said just the right thing to comfort her.
She laughed and laughed and then she managed to say: “O, Sawi, you are a tonic. That is why I like you. Not only are you understanding but you make me laugh. Adam! That loveable baby husband of mine. Why should it be about Adam?”

I didn’t know how to put it so I tried to hint at it in a subtle way. “I mean, you and I know Adam. You know — the women and all that.”
“You don’t have to beat about the bush. He’s a philanderer. I know that. Men are such boys.

“They never grow up. Just as some boys collect grubby little insects and put them in jars, or go crazy over motor cars, or cut out all the “Farai” cartoons, some grown-up boys like my husband do the same with women. The women are just collector’s items. Adam couldn’t survive without me. His little hobby is harmless.”

“But what about Aids, Rudo?”
“I trust my husband to use condoms — with them. But not with me. When he does, I will know that he has betrayed me.”
No, I think you were right when you suspected I was in love with Rudo. Of course, I am. What man wouldn’t be? Her baby husband — Adam — was no exception.

“And that is why,” added Rudo, “I shall be joining the march against rape tomorrow — for Audrey’s sake, and all the other women and girls whose lives are being ruined by rapists.

You should come, Sawi. Only if the men join us, can we stop other men from doing what they are doing to us. We can’t do it by ourselves.”
And the next day I was there. I was no stranger to marches and demonstrations.

After all, was I not in the struggle and am I not a Socialist?
But Rudo had made me realise that everyone with any conscience should join the campaign against rape.
A luta continua!