Gordimer Nadine - The House Gun

Hamilton Motsamai is smiling as he rises. There’s a slight inclination of the body that might be a bow in the direction of the Prosecutor. — M’Lord, the accused has not been brought before some commission on public morals, but before your court on a charge of murder.

With your permission, there is no charge preferred against him as the representative of a section of society.

He cannot be brought to account for encouragement of robberies, hijackings and rape so regrettably common in this time of transition from long eras of repression during which state brutality taught violence to our people generations before the options of freedom in solving life’s problems were opened to them. I ask M’Lord’s indulgence for this last digression …

The climate of violence bears some serious responsibility for the act the accused committed, yes; because of this climate, the gun was there. The gun was lying around in the living-room, like a house cat; on a table, like an ashtray. But the accused bears no responsibility whatever for the prevalence of violence; the court has accepted undeniable evidence that he had never before displayed any violent tendencies whatever, and heaven knows there were occasions when life with that young woman might have expected it. He was, indeed, a citizen who — to appropriate a term from my Learned Friend — upheld ‘acceptable standards’ of social order. His conduct condoned neither hijacking, robbery nor rape.

We are left with the conclusion that my Learned Friend is himself making a moral judgment on sexual preference, sexual activity, specifically homosexual activity when he speaks of the accused’s co-occupancy of ‘a house where none of the acceptable standards of order’ was maintained. He thus classifies sexual relations along with the lack of proper care of a dangerous, a lethal weapon as equal examples of transgression of such acceptable standards.

M’Lord, the accused has not appeared before you on a charge of homosexual activity with a consenting adult; neither could this be a charge, under the new Constitution, where such relations are recognized as the right of individual choice. Homosexual relationships, such as existed in the common household, are commensurate with ‘acceptable standards’ in our country.

The court has made a majority decision that the murder to which the accused has admitted was not premeditated. While regarding with its privilege of learned scepticism the conflicting testimonies of the psychiatrists, the court has come to its own opinion that, nevertheless, the crime was committed in a state of criminal responsibility and declared this decision in judgment. Yet there remains that in the course of the trial there has been much debate on this vital issue, and debate, it must be admitted, implies that a certain degree of doubt, a question mark, hangs over it. This degree of doubt merits being taken seriously as augmenting the consideration of extenuating circumstances granted in the judgment.

Ah-hêh … Finally — when calling for a sentence commensurate with the wrong-doing of the individual, the State needs to keep in mind the philosophy of punishment as rehabilitation of an individual, not as condemnation of the putative representative of society’s present ills whose punishment therefore must be harsh and heavy enough to deal with collective guilt. Our justice has suspended the death sentence; we must not seek to install in its place prejudices that inflict upon any accused punishment in addition to, in excess of that commensurate with the crime he has committed, and the circumstances in which it was committed, The mores of our society are articulated in our Constitution, and our Constitution is the highest law of the land. My Learned Friend for the State speaks with the voice of the past.—

Now there begins some preamble from the judge that will not be remembered with any accuracy because all sense is deafened in strain towards what was going to come from him: the last word.

— I have listened carefully to Counsel both for State and Defence. It should have been clear to both Counsel that the proper sentence in this case to be imposed by this court is not dependent upon the convicted person’s social or sexual morals. My function is to impose a sentence which is just both to the victim and the accused. A life has been lost. And as expression of my displeasure at the manner in which the gun in question was held without consideration of safe-keeping, I declare this gun forfeited to the State.

Although there are unusual and exceptional circumstances in this case the sentence must have a deterrent effect. The value of human life is primarily enshrined in our Constitution. The question of sentence is a very difficult one; it must not only act as a deterrent but there must also be a measure of mercy. After very careful consideration I sentence you, Duncan Peter Lindgard, to seven years imprisonment.

The court will adjourn.—

The last word. Handed down to the son, to his parents, to the assembled representatives of those other judges, the people of the city.

Over.

A decompression, a collapse of the nerves, a deep breath expelled — like the one that left Harald’s spirit when the messenger brought news something terrible has happened: but this coming full circle, as it were, expelling the breath of relief. Over.

Even the period with him, Duncan, down in that place below the court afterwards, when all the others who had been around them and who had heard out the judgment, the sentence pronounced, seven years, had trooped out of the court, filed past them respectfully, Verster the messenger pausing a moment as if to speak, not speaking, another — a woman — leaning swiftly to say, Thank God (someone aware it might have been twelve years) — even while with their son, there was this strange remission. The three exchanged shyly and gently the banalities of concern for one another, Are you all right mother, dad why don’t you sit down. Motsamai was there — in the persona of Hamilton again, shepherding the parents, how could they have done without him this one last time. On the way along corridors, he had undertoned gravely in the manner of delivery with which habitually he approached, surged to express, and overcame dangerous subjects — I must tell you we are very, very fortunate. You can’t imagine. It is the most lenient sentence possible. In my entire experience. The minimum given in a case such as Duncan’s. Seven years. We couldn’t have got away with less; it was my ambitious aim, but then one never knows, even with the right judge, about the assessors. Those fellows, sometimes! Ah-hêh. Man! If they concur on vital aspects in opposition to the judge! He has to take due cognizance … Well, here were lambs, little sheep followed him, hardly a bleat, nê.—Now it was an effort for him to keep his mood down to their subdued level although he was familiar with the way individuals stunned by the ordeal of a trial mistake their state for a kind of peace that one doesn’t want to disturb. It is the mood in which he has seen other murderers vow a religious conversion. — Duncan won’t serve the full term. Definitely not. Good behaviour, studies and so on — I suppose you could still take some other degree in your line of profession, Duncan, of course you can. He’ll be out by the time he’s — how old are you now, again, Duncan, twenty-seven? — out by the time he’s thirty-two. That’s a young man still, isn’t it? He’ll put it behind him.—

Hamilton also has plans. For them there was only the relief, Duncan is no longer the target standing set apart in the dock, strangers in intrusion of the most private event of their lives no longer press around them; they have no awareness further than this, in the twenty minutes, half-hour perhaps, with him, no sense of its limit and what waits beyond it.