Gordimer Nadine - The House Gun

— 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.

— You lay in the cottage all day on that Friday, 19th of January, brooding over the event of the night before?—

— Thinking.—

— Isn’t that the same thing, going over and over in your mind the injury done to you. What you desired to do about it. Wasn’t that it?—

— Not that. Because there was nothing to be done about it.—

— Yet later in the day you went over to the house. Was that not doing something about it? It was between six and seven o’clock in the evening, there was every likelihood that Jespersen would be home from work. You knew that, didn’t you?—

— I found myself in the garden, I didn’t think about who would be in the house.—

— You ‘found yourself in the garden’ and I put it to you that it was then that you also were aware that the time was right for you to carry out what you had been thinking, planning all day — to find Jespersen, take your revenge for the wrong you felt he had done you, although he was not the first man with whom your live-in lover had been unfaithful to you. I put it to you that your thinking, all day, was the brooding of jealousy, and you went to the house in a consequent aggressive mood with the intention of confronting Jespersen violently.—

The task of the Prosecutor is to make out an accused to be a liar: that is how Harald and Claudia see his process. Claudia shifts in her seat as if unable to sit there any longer, and he crushes her knuckles a moment, comfort that comes from his own resentment.

But if they knew — perhaps they partly know; Duncan is not sure what they have learnt, are learning about him — he is a liar. A liar by omission. Because the Prosecutor cannot know, is not being told — there is no telling of the staggering conflict of his feelings towards Carl Jespersen, towards Natalie, his confusion of their betrayals, a revulsion in sorrow; that was his thinking, in the cottage. Revenge: if Natalie had come back that day, why not have thought of killing her? But she — oh Natalie — she has taken enough revenge upon herself for being herself.

The gun is in court. It has become Exhibit 1. A draught of curiosity bends the companions in the public forward to try and catch a glimpse of it.

It’s nothing but a piece of fashioned metal; Harald and Claudia don’t need to see it. The fingerprints of the accused’s left hand, the Prosecutor says, were discovered upon it by forensic tests, his fingerprints unique to him in all humanity, as he is unique to them as their only son.

— You know this handgun?—

— Yes.—

— Do you own it?—

— No.—

— Who does?—

— I don’t know in whose name it was licensed. It was the gun kept in the house so that if someone was attacked, intruders broke in, whoever it was could defend himself. Everyone.—

— Did you know where it was kept?—

— Yes. Usually in a drawer in the room David and Carl shared.—

— You lived in the cottage, not the house; how did you know this?—

— We all knew. We live — lived in the same grounds together. If the others were out, and I heard something suspicious, I’d be the one who would need it.—

— You knew how to handle a gun.—

— This one. It was the only one I’d ever touched. In the army, privates were trained on rifles. David demonstrated, when it was bought.—

— On the night of January 18th the gun was brought into the living-room and shown to one of the guests who was about to acquire one for himself. Did you show it to him, handle it?—

— No. I don’t remember who did — probably David.—

— Were you aware that the gun wasn’t put away — back in the drawer in another room where it customarily was kept?—

— No. I left while the others were tidying up.—

— But you saw the gun lying about before you left? On the table near the sofa?—

— I didn’t notice the gun.—

— How was that?—

— There were glasses and plates all over the place, I suppose it was somewhere mixed up.—

— So when you entered the room the next evening you saw for the first time that the gun had been left out, lying on the table?—

— I didn’t see it.—

— How was that?—

— I wasn’t looking anywhere, only saw Carl.—

— And at what point did you see the gun?—

— I can’t say when.—

— Was it before he said ‘Why don’t you pour yourself a drink’ as if this was just a drinking session between mates?—

— I suppose so. I don’t know.—

— Did you know if the gun was loaded?—

— I didn’t know.—

— But weren’t you present when the use of the gun was being shown to the guest? And wasn’t he shown how — wasn’t it loaded for him?—

— I didn’t see. I suppose so. I was talking to other people.—

— So when you entered the living-room the next evening you saw the gun lying there, you had every reason to know it was loaded, and you made the decision to take the opportunity perhaps to threaten Carl Jespersen with it?—

— I didn’t threaten him, I didn’t make any decision.—

— So you didn’t give him any chance? Any warning?—

— I was hearing him, I didn’t threaten—

— No. You picked up the gun and shot him in the head. A shot you knew, because you know how to handle a gun, almost certain to be fatal. In this way you satisfied the thoughts of revenge you had been occupied with all day, and that you had gone over to the house in intention of pursuing, one way or another. The gun to hand was an opportunity presented to you, so that you didn’t have to grapple with the man fist to fist, you didn’t have to plan any other way of eliminating him as a rival in your life, your desire to do so reached fulfilment of your intentions.—

Motsamai was signalling; there is a procedure for everything in this ritual: I object M’Lord. But the judge is urbane and democratic, let everyone have his say. Objection over-ruled.

Astir along the row, people making way for someone to pass, an appearance on the witness stand singling him out like a celebrity. Khulu Dladla came and sat beside them after he had given his evidence for the Defence.