The House Gun

by Nadine Gordimer

  For some reason that is not explained it is announced at what would have been the adjournment for lunch that the court will not sit in the afternoon; the case will continue at 9 a.m. tomorrow. The judge is not obliged to give account of what may be some urgent commitment elsewhere; or perhaps an aching tooth for which a visit to the dentist is his priority. People make the claims of these commonplace ills against matters of life and death. To hell with them. But a judge cannot be consigned in this way, by Harald, or anybody else.

  The tension Hamilton Motsamai meets in their faces, concentrated on him, must surely irk him. No, he is impervious but not indifferent; he has his interpretation of the process so far, ready for them. It is all going as expected, he tells. There are no surprises. Nothing to worry about.

  And tomorrow?

  You can’t ask him about tomorrow. Tomorrow he will have Duncan on the witness stand. Not even to Harald and Claudia will he reveal his strategy, one can only try to infer some idea, from the angle of his approach with State witnesses today, how he will conduct his case tomorrow: Duncan in those hands.

  They are right. All of them. It is so: he and she cannot distinguish which Duncan is being described in truth by the Prosecutor, the psychiatrist, by Motsamai. Perhaps he himself, back in his cell, knows. Perhaps they will know, tomorrow.

  —Although Natalie James, with whom you were cohabiting, worked in the same advertising offices with Carl Jespersen, where he had obtained a position for her, and she was travelling to-and-fro to work with him, spending her lunch hours with him daily, you were not concerned that an attachment might be forming between them?—

  At last, Duncan is about to speak. To speak for himself.

  —No.—

  —Why?—

  Motsamai’s question is a cue in a dialogue everyone knows is of his devising, rehearsed. But Duncan’s replies are not lines learnt. Harald and Claudia hear his voice coming as if Duncan is talking to himself. To them; they are overhearing their son.

  —Because Carl was not interested in women. Except as friends.—

  —Why were you sure of this?—

  —He was gay. A homosexual.—

  —How did you know?—

  Ah, but the banal question had a lawyerly purpose, Motsamai has the flair to build his scene carefully for his client.

  —He lived as a homosexual. Everyone who shared the house was homosexual.—

  —You lived on the same property. Did you share the same inclinations?—

  —At one time I had a relationship—with a man.—

  —One of the men in the house?—

  —Yes—

  —With whom?—

  —With Carl.—

  —With Carl Jespersen. So it was this experience that led you to believe that there could be nothing between Natalie James and Jespersen. Were you in love with Natalie James?—

  As it touches on his nerve-ends, Harald and Claudia shrink from the question, with him.

  —We were close.—

  —It was a love relationship, a sexual relationship between a man and a woman?—

  —Yes.—

  —Ah-hêh. If you could have a homoerotic affair, and then fall in love with a woman, enjoy a heterosexual relationship, how could you be sure that Carl Jespersen would not have sexual designs on your lover, Natalie?—

  It is difficult to trust Hamilton as he shows himself now. Harald sees Motsamai is enjoying himself, Duncan’s life is material for a professional performance. The man who brings from the Other Side the understanding of people in trouble, the man in whose hands there is the succouring glass of brandy, is left behind in chambers.

  —Because he wasn’t attracted to women. Sexually. Anatomically, he told me often, he found them repulsive. I can’t go into —repeat—some of the things he liked to say. I can only put it—their genitals—he felt disgust for women.—

  —Did he say these things to you in an attempt to dissuade you from heterosexual rotations?—

  —I suppose so. At one time.—

  —So you were absolutely confident that he could have no erotic intentions towards your woman lover?—

  —Yes, quite sure.—

  —Although you yourself had had homosexual relations with him, and then fell in love and entered into a close relationship with a woman, it did not occur to you that he might be capable of the same instincts?—

  —No. It was out of the question. I am not homosexual, not any more than any adult human being has some erotic ambivalence that may or may not—come out—in certain circumstances. I had only that one attachment. He was actively homosexual, he’d been so, he often told me, from the age of twelve.—

  —So you had absolutely no idea that he was having an affair —Natalie was having an affair with Jespersen?—

  Across the well, in the rapt, prurient silence of the court, from the target that was the witness stand there came distinctly the sharp small sound of Duncan’s tongue pressed and released against his palate. The air of the spectators tingled; they had been waiting before a cage for the creature to cry out:—There was no affair. —

  —You are completely convinced of that?—

  —I know. Carl was David’s lover, Carl was heavily involved with him.—

  —Can you describe what happened on the night of the 18th January: there was a party at the house?—

  —It was not really a party. The house is a place where people just turn up. And often Natalie and I would join the men at the house and we’d eat together at night. I suppose we were a sort of family. Better than a nuclear family, a lot of friendship and trust between us.—

  —That night you had a meal together.—

  —Some other friends of David and Khulu came in for drinks and then as it got late, stayed on to eat with us. So I suppose you could say it became a spontaneous kind of party. David had done quite a lot of drinking and he went to bed when the others had gone. Khulu left with one of them—some rendez-vous of his own. Natalie had been keeping the party going with her anecdotes about experiences as a cruise hostess, she’s a devastating mimic, and she hadn’t been much help in the kitchen so she offered to stay behind and clean up with Carl. She’ll make that sort of gesture. When she’s been particularly flamboyant. Just because she hates—never does domestic chores. I know it’s necessary for the sense she has of herself, so I left her to it and went to our cottage—to bed.—

  The judge lifted his head as if he had at last found something that intrigued him.—Natalie James, in her testimony yesterday, gave a rather different version of the events. Was there not an argument between you, didn’t you try to make her return with you to the cottage?—

  —You cannot persuade Natalie when she is in that sort of state.—

  —Are you saying that there was no altercation with her before the others present?—

  —She was in the mood. So if she wouldn’t come home and give herself some rest, it was better for me to leave.—

  The judge’s glance gives Motsamai the signal to continue.

  —What time was that?—

  —About one o’clock.—

  —You expected she would follow?—

  —Naturally.—

  —Did she?—

  —No.—

  Motsamai is patient against resistance; Harald, Claudia have the sense of Duncan fleeing, fleeing, out of the cell he has occupied, out of the closed institution for the mentally incapacitated, out of the court, out of the gallery of faces whose prey he is—out of himself.

  Motsamai is in pursuit.

  —What happened then ?—

  —I woke up. She wasn’t there. I saw it was half-past two. I was worried. About her crossing the garden so late in the dark, there are intruders all over the suburb.—

  —And then?—

  Now he tells it by rote; it is something he has been told happened to him. By another self; the lawyer becomes the accused’s other self once he has absorbed, appropriated the facts.

  —I went out, through the garden,
to the house. The lights were on and the verandah door was open. I went into the living-room and she was under him on the sofa. Carl.—

  —They were making love?—

  —They were finishing. They couldn’t stop. So I saw it.—

  In the minds and memories of all, strangers, bodies side by side in the public gathering, there is the shared moment before the orgasm. They are a collective of the flesh. They know. Does the judge partake, does he recall, does he too know that moment, made love last night, so that he truly understands what it was that the accused could not help seeing, that couldn’t stop? Not even for the one standing in the doorway.

  What did they do, those two discovered, and what did he do, Motsamai is asking. The answer is Duncan doesn’t know, he left what he saw as Natalie was suddenly aware of him and Carl’s face appeared for a moment with the rise and fall of the bodies, he turned back to the dark.

  Duncan fled, flight was possible that time, as it is not now.

  For Motsamai is developing that part of the progression which is easily comprehensible: what Natalie James did was drive away, she did not return to the cottage that night or next day. Duncan did not sleep during what was left of the night. He did not go to his work at the drawing board in the morning. It was Friday. Friday, January 19th.

  —What did you do? You spent the day in the cottage?—

  —Just thinking.—

  —Were you thinking what you might do about the situation. —

  —No. No. I was looking for an explanation. A reason. Trying to work out why.—

  —Why such a thing could happen?—

  —Yes. Whether what I saw.—

  —Were you thinking of confronting Natalie? Of seeking out your friend Carl, to confront him?—

  —I didn’t want to see them. I had seen them. I was looking for the explanation, in myself. That’s all I thought of, all day. I’m used to facing crises of one kind or another with her; I can depend on myself in dealing with them.—

  —Have you done this successfully, that is to say with no ill consequences, before?—

  —Many times.—

  —So you had no thought of revenge of any kind, towards either of them?—

  —Revenge for what. I don’t own either of them, they are free to do as they like.—

  —You had no thought at all of any kind of revengeful accusation, let alone action for how their ‘doing as they like’ affected you? Your life? Your love relationship with Natalie?—

  —No.—

  —Your former relationship with Carl Jespersen?—

  Surely what he said now was not in Motsamai’s rehearsed script.

  —No. All I could remember—about seeing them there like that—was disgust, a disintegration of everything, disgust with myself, everyone.—

  —Yes?—Motsamai’s is a conductor’s gesture from the podium.

  —This was what I was trying to explain, so that I could put—things—together again, understand myself.—

  —Were you thinking about the future of your relationship with Natalie? Did you think it could continue, after what you saw—her particular use of her freedom, her reward of your love and care for her?—

  —How do I know. It had continued after so many occasions that could have put an end to it.—

  —You stayed in the cottage all that day, lying on the bed? Alone?—

  —Yes. With the dog.—

  —When did you get up, what prompted you?—

  —The dog, he was hungry, restless. I got dressed and gave him his dish of food.—

  Motsamai drew a tide of deep breath, his black gown rose over his breast, he took time, for the two of them, Duncan and himself. —And then?—

  —Outside. He eats outside. So I was in the garden.—

  —What time was this?—

  —I hadn’t looked at a watch, it must have been the time we usually fed him, about half-past six, or seven.—

  —You were in the garden; did you return to the cottage?—

  —No.—

  —Why?—

  —I just (the gesture fell back half-way; it was the first time he had used his hands, those attributes of defence given up along with admittance of guilt) I just walked over to the house.—

  —What was your purpose?—

  —I found myself in the garden. Instead of going hack into the cottage, I walked over.—

  —Did you hope to see anyone at the house, talk to someone there? One of the other friends?—

  —I didn’t want to talk to anyone.—

  —Then you mean to tell the court, you had no reason to go there?—Which one of the carefully chosen assessors, one white, one sufficiently tinctured to pass as black, was it who was speaking—both sat, either side of the judge, silent henchmen. The voice was slow and clumsy. Harald had the strange sense that it came from a medium through whose mouth the public, the people filling the court, spoke.

  —I found myself in the garden, I think then I had to find myself standing again where I stood in the doorway.—

  Motsamai leaves no moment of silence before he takes up affirmation: —So you crossed the garden to the house to stand once again from where you saw the pair, your former male lover and the woman, your present lover, coupling on the sofa. And when you reached the same doorway, what then?—

  Claudia could smell her own sweat, there is no cosmetic that can suppress anguish that only the body, primitive mute that it is, can express, hygiene is a polite convention that covers the animal powers in suburban life. Is Harald praying—is that the other kind of emanation, that comes from him; let them mingle, the brutish and the spiritual, if they can produce the solidarity promised long ago in covenant with their son.

  Duncan is now speaking by rote again. As if there is something switched off, a power cut in some part of the brain.

  Jespersen was lying on the sofa.—

  —What was his reaction when he saw you?—

  —Smiled.—

  —He smiled. Did he speak?—

  —Carl said, Oh dear. I’m sorry, Bra.—

  The judge addresses his question as if it may be answered either by the accused or his counsel.—‘Bra’, what does that signify, ‘bra’?—

  —It’s a fraternal diminutive used between us black men, M’Lord, and also extended to white men with whom blacks share fraternal bonds now, in a united country. It means you claim the person thus addressed as your brother.—And Motsamai switched in perfect timing from judge to accused:—So—he claimed you as still a brother.—

  —He. did.—

  —What was your response?—

  —I thought then, it was him I had come to.—

  —Did you confront him for an explanation of his behaviour, did you think a casual ‘I’m sorry’, the kind of apology a man makes when he bumps against someone in the street, was sufficient?—

  —He talked. We are not children, didn’t we both of us have the same credo, we don’t own each other, we want to live freely, don’t we, whether it’s going to be sex or something like taking a long walk. Never mind, he said, the walk is over the sex is over, it was a nice time, that’s it, isn’t it. Hadn’t that always been understood between him and me. Just unfortunate, he said, he and Natalie had been a bit too impulsive, she’s usually a girl who arranges things more carefully, privately. He had his good-natured laugh. He told me, all of us know it—he said—I knew it, and it hadn’t changed things with Natalie and me before. He told me: he said to me, I shouldn’t ever follow anyone around, come to look for them in their lives, that’s for people who make a prison out of what they feel and lock someone up inside. He said she was a great girl and she’d never give it another thought. And as for him, I knew his tastes—no claims, God no—he said it was just a little crazy nightcap, that’s what he called it, part of the good evening we’d all had, the drinks, the laughs he and she had, cleaning up together.—

  —What did you say to him?—

  —I don’t know. He was talking talking talking, he was
laughing, it was one of the times we had talked like this about adventures we’d had—that’s what it was. He couldn’t stop, I couldn’t stop him.—

  —And then what happened?—

  —He wanted me to drink with him as we used to.—

  —And then?—

  A necessity to present the precise formulation.

  —‘Why don’t you pour yourself a drink.’ Those words I heard out of a babble I couldn’t follow any more. The last thing I heard him say to me. I suddenly picked up the gun on the table. And then he was quiet. The noise stopped. I had shot him.—

  Duncan’s head has tipped slowly back. His eyes close against them all, Motsamai, the judge, assessors, Prosecutor, clerks, the public where some woman gasped a theatrical sob, mother and father. Harald and Claudia cannot be there for him, where he is, alone with the man shot dead in the head with a gun that was handy.

  Harald felt not fear but certainty. This man, the Prosecutor, is set to trap their son into confessing that he wished to do harm to Carl Jespersen and went to the house with that intention. And maybe, to stop the questions, stop the noise, the voice directed only at him of all the throng filling this closed space, Duncan might say yes, yes—he has already confessed to killing, what more do they want of him? And this man, the Prosecutor, is only doing his job, it’s nothing to him that Jespersen is dead, that Duncan is destroyed by himself; this is this man’s performance. To do his job he must get the conviction he wants, that’s all, as a measure of his competence, one of the daily steps in the furtherance of a career. Like climbing the corporate ladder.