Gordimer Nadine - The House Gun

— Ms James, are you pregnant?—

At once the judge stops Motsamai; but the flourish with which Motsamai has opened his cross examination has cut through the air.

— Mr Motsamai, what has this invasion of the witness’s privacy to do with the case — I order it withdrawn.—

— With respect, M’Lord, it is most pertinent to the relationship of the witness with the accused, and the tragic consequences of that relationship. May I have your permission to proceed?—

— Your claim to pertinence better be good, Mr Motsamai, and promptly evidenced.—

The two understand one another; both know the judge had to make the objection, both knew he would rescind it. Senior Counsel doesn’t ask questions merely to create a sensation, although the immediate effect of this one, on the temperature of the public, is just that. There are stirrings and stifled exclamations. Shame . Not shame for her antics on the sofa, which they relish the opportunity to review, but shame , poor good-looker, for having what happens to women brought out before them all by the nasty prying of a lawyer and — one of those old, officially outlawed reactions comes back — a white girl, spoken to like this by this black man with his lined face drawn tight and demanding by the years when his kind couldn’t have asked any question at all of her, a white.

In the moment the question was put to her, to the whole court, the public, her amazement swiftly had become a reluctant, ironic recognition of this wily enemy: she should never have told him, in passing, so to speak, to dramatize herself in his chambers!

Motsamai repeats the question softly; she’s heard it once.

— Yes.—

Watching her, Harald understood that the girl had not given the Prosecutor this information when he was preparing her as State witness. And Hamilton — he must have made a shrewd guess that this would be so; the Prosecutor’s moral climate, to be met by her, was one in which she knew he would want to think the best of her.

— Is Duncan Lindgard the father of the child you expect?—

She answered, no need to whisper. — I can’t say.—

— Could it be the child of Carl Jespersen?—

— Possibly.—

— You took no precautions against such an eventuality, in your impulsiveness that night after the party?—

— That’s so.—

— Is that why you can’t say whether the child is Duncan Lindgard’s, the man with whom you were cohabiting, or Carl Jespersen’s, the man with whom you were intimate that night?—

— Yes.—

— Doesn’t the date of conception, of which you must be more or less aware from your doctor’s confirmation of your pregnancy, rule out one of the two men as father?—

— It doesn’t.—

— How is that?—

— You know. I told you when you asked me in your office. Duncan made love to me in the early morning, the same day, it was the way bad nights ended.—

— Are you not worried, does it trouble you that you don’t know who is the father of the child you’re going to give birth to?—

Natalie turns her head away, first this side then that, away from them all, she escapes the court borne by the will of the public: shame . Then she comes back to answer them all. — It’s my child.—

Duncan wants to thrust the policemen against the walls and rush to hold her poor head, face, mouthing foul words at him, silenced against his chest, cradling her for the child she abandoned, Natalie/Nastasya, the death she submerged herself for and lost — but Motsamai can’t be restrained, the process can’t be halted. Ever since he, Duncan, stood in the doorway something was started that can’t be stopped.

— Doesn’t it disturb you to think of the distress this news will cause the accused, who has given you his faithful love and support, and which you have accepted from him, despite all your accusations against him, for several years?—

— Nobody’s business but mine.—

— Is that your answer to the question of whatever effect, however painful, your news will have on him?—

It is as if, for her, Motsamai and his pursuit of her don’t exist. She repeats — Nobody’s business but mine.—

— You don’t care. Very well. Ms James, I believe you are something of a writer, poems and so on, you’re familiar with many expressions. Do you know the meaning of in flagrante delicto? —

— I don’t need any explanation.—

— You don’t need any explanation. Were you found in flagrante delicto with Carl Jespersen on the sofa in the living-room where the party was held, the lights on and the doors open, anyone could have walked in, on the night of Thursday 18th of January? Was it the accused, the man who saved your life and with whom you had been cohabiting as lovers, who walked in and found you there?—

— Yes. — And the monosyllable spreads through the keen receptivity of the public: yes yes yes.

— You admit that you performed, before his eyes, the sexual act with his intimate friend. Have you not thought of the renewed anguish this latest news is going to bring him in addition to the shock and pain you caused him when he was confronted with the sight of you and Jespersen that night? You admit to intercourse with both men within the period of twenty-four hours. The child is yours . What does this mean? There is no child without a father. Are you proclaiming a miracle, Ms James? Your immaculate conception? —

Objection from the Prosecutor, upheld, Motsamai withdraws the question and proceeds with a wave of the hand.

— You have two putative fathers for your child. It doesn’t matter to you . M’Lord, I put it to the court: this callous, careless, yes, uncaring attitude is surely abhorrent to any responsible person who has due concern for the feelings of another. How is the accused supposed to accept that the woman he loves doesn’t care whether the child she is going to bear is or is not his? Isn’t this cynical coda the final, cruel afterword to the dance she led him, which evidence we shall place before this court describes as a life of hell. Finally, there was the extreme, the unendurable provocation she subjected him to on the night of January 18th, so that the attitude of her partner to that exhibition of the sexual act, when next day the accused found the man at ease on the same sofa on which it was committed, culminated in the accused as a blankout in which he committed a tragic act. The witness’s share in responsibility for that tragedy has just been confirmed out of her own mouth . It has been confirmed once and for all by the sentiments she has now openly expressed in total indifference to the abuse of the accused she commits yet again , this time taking no account of his feelings that she may be bearing his child.—

— Have you concluded, Mr Motsamai?—

Yes, like an opera singer breaking off on the top note, he knows the pitch at which to stop. The public is fickle, led by whoever has the gift to sway them, or they are such a community of voyeurs, now, that there are even factions which have developed among them. It’s the judge’s adjournment for tea, and as Harald and Claudia move out with them someone manoeuvres close and says, claiming hissing intimacy, She’s the one who ought to be up for it. Khulu has joined Harald and Claudia and he uses the tilt of his broad shoulders to make way for them in protection.

The State’s psychiatrist is a woman, while the Defence’s choice is a man. For some reason, Defence Counsel is pleased about this; Hamilton explains: a woman, even in the moral climate of an urbane judge, will be likely to be perceived as soft on the character of the woman in the case, vis-à-vis the issue of provocation, a male is likely to be accepted as more professionally objective. Claudia smiles behind a fist held at her mouth.