The Sunday Mail
(In the last episode of Stolen Fruits we read about Flora, the beautiful Zimbabwean film star who came to see Adam in his office to ask his help with a problem relating to women.
She was based in the States and came over to play the lead role in a local production. Now the director says he doesn’t have money to pay the actors and the crew. Flora and Adam are sitting in a coffee bar and she is continuing with her story.)
“What worries me is the women, Mr Kok. I got to know most of them. They need the money. They’re desperate — school fees and food for the children while some have sick and crippled children.
Their husbands are giving them hell. Spending nights out on the job, neglecting all the household chores, not even finding time for washing and ironing — the husbands are angry, jealous, some even violent. And after all that, no money, nothing. It’s just not acceptable!”
She was passionate. As she talked, emotion flushed her fine features like wine. She was irresistible. Adam just listened. Any man who knows women knows that when a woman has a problem, just listen to her. Don’t be in a hurry to try and solve her problem for her. Just listen. Right now, Adam knew, Flora wanted someone to listen and the better he listened, the more likely she would be to seek comfort from him later.
Her final problem was one that shocked even Adam. She had found out from talking to the others working on the film that almost all of them could count three or four films they had worked on and never been paid. It wasn’t only films.
The national broadcaster owed thousands of dollars to scores of actors and technical crew who had worked on their productions and never been paid. So it looked like this was a widespread problem in the Zimbabwean film and television industry.
From what I can see, the situation has not improved since Flora was here because someone told me a little while back that a new film was launched at a luxury venue in Harare with a lavish buffet and bar, but the actors and the crew have not been paid a cent. They still haven’t been paid, from what I hear. It seems to have become par for the course that, when local directors make films in Zimbabwe, they somehow find the money to pay all costs except the wages of the actors and film crew.
“But, Flora, I am shocked by what you have told me,” said Adam.
“I promise I’ll do my best to help you — for your sake and for the sake of the industry. But why did you come to me of all people?”
“Mr Kok, did I not tell you? You have a reputation for being able to solve women’s problems.”
“But, young lady…”
“Don’t patronise me, Adam. I’m easily old enough for you!”
Something jumped in Adam. Oh, yes, my dear, you are, you most certainly are old enough for me, he said to himself. To her he said: “But the kind of problems I usually try to help women with are those problems between men and women, which some people call ‘the affairs of the heart’ — others who are not as cultured called them ‘sexual lust’. At that, Flora’s eyes did not flicker though they seemed to cloud over with something resembling a veil.
“Mr Kok, I am a woman.”
“My God,” said Adam to himself again. “Did she really have to say that?”
Flora continued: “I have come to you as a woman and I have told you of a problem that is impacting negatively on women in particular in the film and television industry. As a man who claims to worship women” – she smiled a slightly mocking smile — “how can you refuse to help us?”
There was no way Adam could refuse. He wrote an article for The Sun. When Ngulube read it, he couldn’t believe his eyes. He told Adam that if he was to publish something like this, he must have proof. Adam told Flora and she collected testimonies from all the women and some of the men who had worked on the film. Each one of them told of films they had worked on and how much they were owed. Adam took this back to Cincinnati and he published it. I have a cutting. This was the final paragraph:
Not only is all this very illegal and a flagrant violation of the rights of artistes and media professionals to be paid for their work, it is also a fatal threat to the development of a sound, honest and transparent media industry.
Because of it, many excellent professionals are lost to the film and television industry and their places taken by less qualified and inexperienced personnel who are prepared to be taken in by empty promises.
With this being the characteristic practice in the industry, it means Zimbabwean film and television production risks degenerating into piracy and only determined union, government and National Arts Council intervention will get it back on track.
The Sun’s article provoked a furore. It was hotly denied of course by the guilty producers themselves. But The Sun then produced the testimonies of 30 Zimbabwean actors and film crew members, detailing the films and television productions they had worked on and for which they had never been paid and citing the sums owed. Many of them could produce their contracts. The total came to over $100 000. The powers that be publicly committed themselves to “doing something about it”. As we can see from the launch a little while back, to this day they have done nothing.
But at the time it looked like something might be done and when Adam and Flora met for a celebratory drink at a city hotel, they were in high spirits.
Flora was all gratitude – and Adam knew exactly how he hoped she would show her gratitude. It turned out to be a lot easier than he anticipated.
After a couple of drinks, Flora downed her glass and said, like a true convent girl: “Adam, go and get us a room. It has been so refreshing meeting and working together with a man like you. It’s been a tough time for me. Now that it’s over, I need a man and right now, my dear Adam; you are by far the most eligible.”
And off they went upstairs together. Everyone there knew Adam. He had booked for just such encounters so many times over the years that there was a suite on the 4th floor which the hotel staff jokingly referred to as… “the Adam Kok Suite”.
Adam told me it was one of the best evenings in his life. When they had finished, he had dropped Flora off at her hotel with a date lined up for the next day. He was very relieved that when he got home, Rudo, his wife, was fast asleep. If she had seen him, she would have known at once that something very special had happened to her husband.
He let himself in very quietly, undressed, had a good shower — thank goodness there was electricity and water — and slipped into bed. Lying on his side of the bed, with his hands clasped behind his head, Adam went over the events of the night. Flora had held nothing back — and neither had he.
With a shock, Adam realised he had fallen in love! Was Flora in love with him? He hoped so.
To be continued next week
