Apocalypse of Jude

After telling her story, Audrey settles her glass down again in front of her, then brings her two hands close together around her mouth. Evelin takes a sip from her wine, contemplating.

“Did you get your catharsis?”

Audrey laughs with irony in her voice.

“It makes me realise who I’ve never wanted to be, but seem to have turned into. Audrey Hepburn’s just got such an ephemeral femininity to her and that’s the one thing I’ve always tried to capture so I could please my mother. But look at me Evelin. I’m a big girl. Trying to do Audrey-style, I just end up looking like a ditz without the charm.”

Evelin shakes her head smiling while Audrey goes on.

“I must show you some pictures when I was a kid. There’s this big girl in all these dainty clothes. I was a regular big Bertha.”

Both of them are laughing between themselves. Then there is a pause before Evelin resumes.

“You know who looks a bit like Audrey Hepburn.”

Audrey squirms. “Who?”

“That hairdresser below where we work.”

“Oh don’t say that.” Audrey’s voice cuts with pain. “She’s Gary’s ex-wife.”

Awareness begins rising through Evelin, rearranging her understanding of the situation with new clarity.

“You knew this before your relationship with Gary started?”

Audrey is instantly aware of the change in relation with Evelin, and realises that any distortion of truth will rupture the flowing together of their two worlds. But more than that, she wants the truth out in the open.

“I saw her once at the club, not long after I met Gary. We were talking and suddenly there was this look of anger on his face. I turned around and I saw her walk in. It was like walking into Audrey Hepburn. And then to see her dancing dress fitting her figure like she was elegance personified. I hadn’t thought much of Gary up until then. I was just putting on my ditzy show. But the way he looked at her just snapped something in me. He just got up and walked over to her. And then Paul did something strange. He just said you girls go off and get a pool table. I’m going to get Gary. Janice took my arm like that and we went. But you know Janice. She’s one for gossip, so I knew the whole story by the time we got to the pool table. So yes, I knew, and for the first time in my life, so I thought, I felt I could get at Audrey Hepburn. Stamp her into the dust and show her how worthless she is.”

Both look past each other.

“I suppose you’re going to say I got what I deserved.”

Evelin turns sharply to face Audrey. “Why would I say that?”

“Well it’s true isn’t it. My jealously got its just desserts.”

“Audrey. You made a bad judgement call on a guy based on you own prejudices. Who of us hasn’t? But you making a bad call does not justify what he did. Nothing does. Nothing nothing nothing ever justifies a rape.”

Audrey just shakes her head in disagreement.

“I’m a victim of my own stupidity. My own obsessions. What am I meant to do? Pretend that I wasn’t at fault for being where I was that allowed that to happen. I’m tired of blaming Audrey Hepburn for everything that happens to me.”

Evelin looks stonily at her.

“So you’re going to be like so many other women and take the blame?” Audrey raises her hands in a futile gesture.

“It happened Evelin. I was raped by a guy I should never have been with in the first place. Doesn’t that make me a perpetrator against myself? If I don’t convict myself of my guilt, I’ll end up living a guilty life for the rest of my life. I don’t expect you to understand me Evelin, but I’m going to need support.”

Evelin looks carefully at Audrey and takes a deep breath, determined to fill the desert that surrounds them with the inviolable nightingale’s song that sustains her.

“I do understand Audrey. I was raped. I was a naïve sixteen year old girl who got raped by two boys she thought were her friends. I cleaned up. I knew what had happened but had no way of knowing how to deal with it. So I shut up and I had to go through seeing them every day after that, laughing and smiling, no doubt joking about it between themselves. And when I heard you crying over the phone when you called me earlier, for the first time I knew some one understood me. But I’ve got to tell you Audrey. You cannot carry your own guilt. Neither can you convict yourself, nor can you absolve yourself. Neither is there a person in the world who can do so for you. But Jesus can. I can testify to that. He has given me freedom to forgive them and, it seems, redeemed that hurt they caused to be used now to show His love for you.”

Wasteland Mix: Fragment 35