Gordimer Nadine - The House Gun

— What was your reaction?—

— I wanted to get myself back from him.—

— He saved you and then he proceeded to undermine you, is that it? He undermined your return to confidence? Why did you continue to cohabit in the cottage with him?—

How is it she can be a vulnerable woman, soft-fleshed creature with those eyes whose shape has not changed with the rest of her, stayed with the innocence of childhood, and say the things she does — I thought — I was fascinated — if I could go on living like that with him — then that was the worst thing that could ever happen to me. I’d have tested it out, and if I could survive … well, a kind of dare. I’ve had so many failures.—

— So you were desperate. You had already attempted suicide and now once again you were desperate.—

— I suppose you’d call it that.—

— Did he understand your desperation?—

— Oh yes. That was why he was always trying to find his solution for me. What he’ll never understand, doesn’t want to understand is that I can’t use someone else’s solutions hanging like a chain round my neck. He could only strangle me.—

— In what some might see as his well-meaning, would you say he was possessive? Jealous?—

— Possessive … every thought I have, every trivial action, he pored over, took to pieces.—

— Jealous of other men — their interest in you?—

— He was jealous of the air I breathe.—

— What were your relations with the men at the house?—

— They were his friends and they became mine as well. Thank heaven for them, because they didn’t take life too seriously, they were not like him and me, we could all let our hair down and have fun together. He kept me away from friends I might make for myself. They were always the wrong people for me— he decided. It wasn’t worth quarrelling about, in the end.—

— You knew he had a homosexual affair with one of the men in the house?—

— Oh yes, he told me everything about himself. Rut everyone had forgotten about it.—

— On the night of January 18th, did you have sexual intercourse with one of the men? Carl Jespersen?—

— Yes. It happened.—

— How did it come about?—

— Carl was someone you could talk to about anything. And he knew what Duncan was like. I used to go to him when Duncan and I had quarrelled and he had a way of, well, putting things in perspective. It’s not the end of the world.—

— Did you have an intimate relationship with Carl Jespersen previous to that night?—

— Good God, no. He was gay; he and David were together. He found this job for me where he worked, and that was a solution Duncan approved for me. Duncan was reassured that Carl would keep an eye on me so that I wouldn’t have anything to do with other men there. Duncan was always afraid that I’d leave. It had happened to him before; he closes his hand so tightly on what he wants that he kills it.—

The Prosecutor paused to let her mere figure of speech find its resonance in the charge before the court: murder.

— So the accused had no reason to be jealous of Carl Jespersen?—

— No reason. But that’s to say — he is jealous of everything, he broods on everything connected with me, even when he himself has chosen the solution. Carl and I got along well together, we worked together every day, he could have cooked up something in his mind even over the fact that Carl was the one who smoothed things between him — Duncan — and me. Reconciled us to each other. I mean, to what Duncan is, what Duncan was doing to me.—

— Why did your relationship as a friend with Carl Jespersen change, that night?—

— A party developed at the house and I was enjoying myself. But Duncan again wouldn’t have it, he was sure I wouldn’t get up in time for work next morning. I didn’t know whether I really was in my place in an advertising agency but Duncan was always worried that I wouldn’t take it seriously. He wanted me to go back to the cottage with him. In front of other people he was pleading and arguing — humiliating me. I’d had enough that day.—

— What had occurred that distressed you?—

— We’d talked half the night before, started again, quarrelled when we woke up in the morning, it ended the usual way. I’d had enough.—

— Was that the reason why you did not go back to the cottage with the accused when the party ended?—

— Yes.—

— You were afraid that the hostility of the accused would subject you to another night of abuse.—

— I stayed on to help Carl clean up and to get the whole scene off my chest, talking to him about it. I couldn’t bear to go back to the cottage and be reproached all over again, for my own good . I should have taken my car and driven off, right then — anywhere — as I’ve done many other times.—

— Was violence part of the accused’s reproaches to you, did he strike you?—

— No. It didn’t come to that.—

— But he threatened you?—

— Often I knew it. Not in what he said. But in the way he was; the way he looked. He was wanting to kill me. Sometimes it came out of him like a light.—

— You were sure he had the capacity of violence. You were afraid?—

— I knew he couldn’t kill me, because I was the one he had taken out of the water.—

— But you had to take refuge from him that night?—

— I just needed something without chains. Carl made me laugh instead of crying and he comforted me. Then what we did was natural. Part of it. I have never had any comfort from Duncan. I don’t know what he brought me back to life for.—

Again, why is Duncan not in the story?

He is the vortex from which, flung away, around, is the court. If he cannot understand why he did what he did, there will be the explanations of others. Versions. And there is this version of what he saw from the doorway; the first time, that is. She is on trial, not he. This is the way it was for her; natural. Part of it. A mating dance for three, first he with one and the other, then those two together. She was ‘enjoying herself’, the wildness he knew so well, that was her means of exploding the self that tormented her, that ended in the water, or with the pills she was able to charm out of doctors and pharmacists. When she said he took me to a hospital, she didn’t say how many times. Enjoying herself and he was the rescue service again, needing to take her back to the cottage and give her love, loving, no matter what she did (what other comfort is there). Not drunk, no. She doesn’t need alcohol to stimulate her, going on the attack with words is all the stimulant she needs, it can keep up her excitation through the nights. So this time she doesn’t want to be ‘saved’ as she puts it, in advance. It’s his turn to be victim.

If he could free himself (his companions the police are beside him) and walk across the well of the court to her, what is it that he would want to say?

How could you think of something so exquisitely (Motsamai’s adverb) appropriate to destroy me? The two of you; both so clever, knowing me so well.

You’ve told it to them your way: you didn’t tell them that it was in you, it was in your head, it was you who put it in me, so that was what you saw in me: you said to me more than once at three, four in the morning — there were birds beginning to call in the garden where I dropped that thing — you said, one day you’ll want to kill me, that’s what you want more than anything, to kill me to get what you want, save me and yourself.

But she’s saved herself. She got into her car and drove away from us, Carl and me. The dead and the accused. There she is up on that stand and we’ll never talk until we hear the birds, again.