Gordimer Nadine - The House Gun

His intermittent attention to them was a kind of rehearsal of how to approach what he has to tell them. He had been briefed — in the lay sense, as well — about these clients by the good friend Philip, so knew they were not nobodies — one of the directors of a large insurance firm with a pragmatically enlightened policy towards blacks, and the wife, evidently, a doctor. Educated people to whom he could speak plainly so that they would understand his position: that is, the limitation of his possibilities in undertaking the brief.

— I have talked to your son. Of course I’ll be seeing him again, many times. Ah-hêh … He is not an easy young man to understand. But I am sure you know that.—

The father was about to speak but the mother preceded him. — No. We’ve always had a good relationship.—

— What you’re saying is now — he’s not easy to understand now? Is that it?—

The advocate was nodding, tapping extended fingertips in a little tattoo of agreement with the father. — Exactly, that is so. But it’s only the beginning. There is often — always — difficulty when an individual is in trouble, is in shock. You know (to her) it’s like when someone comes to you after an accident, in trauma, just like that.—

— To be told your friend’s dead and to be accused of it. Yes.—

The advocate knows the accused’s mother is accusing him : of being too measured. He’s accustomed to this kind of reaction, fear turned to resentment. In her case no doubt exacerbated by the fact that she is accustomed, as he has reminded her, to being the professional adviser instead of the victim. He looks away, flicking aside the shred of irrelevancy.

— Unfortunately. Unfortunately — I have to tell you, when he (a wide gesture) when he opens up, when he begins to co-operate with me — at this moment in time he’s somewhat hostile, you know — that is when he and I will have to tackle what there is to face. — He paused, to gauge if they were ready. — I have to tell you that the evidence is overwhelming. Conclusive. With just the exception of the weapon, the question of the dirt, you know, the mud — the fingerprints. But the final report still has to come in, and there are tests that might be able to find matching traces. He’s left-handed, that’s so? If traces should he found and they match, that will be very serious for us. Very, very. You understand? It would wrap up the prosecution’s case. We have to proceed on the assumption that this is going to happen. His hostility is not a good sign. In our experience, it means there is something — everything — to hide. The person doesn’t want to co-operate with the lawyer because he doesn’t believe the lawyer can do anything for him.—

— He’s guilty.—

Counsel received the father’s interjection with the approval of an instructor for a pupil.

— The person believes or knows he’s guilty, that’s right.—

This man with his glib use of the grandiloquent nonsense ‘this moment in time’ when he means now , and his generalized evasions; Harald does not accept the impersonal version of his words: ‘the person’ is his son. — He’s guilty. Duncan. That’s what you’re saying, Mr Motsamai.—

— Wait a moment, sir. That’s not at all what I am considering. It is for the court to decide whether or not an accused is guilty, not his lawyers, not even his parents. What I am asking you to understand is that I — we — the attorney and I — have to prepare our argument for such a contingency. In the light of this, all the circumstances — from childhood, even, the background, the temperament, the character and so on, of the young man, are vitally important. Any detail may be of use to us; that’s why, if you can — just calmly — get through the hostility that he shows to me, I mean — I’m sure it doesn’t apply with you — if you can influence him to tell his lawyers everything he knows about himself, his friends, the lot — that is essential. He must understand that there is nothing he cannot tell us.—

— Hostility — I don’t know whether you could say he has no hostility towards us. What it is that he shows … But how can his father or I approach him in our usual, the old way if anything went wrong, when we see him in that room with a warder hearing everything that might be told. He didn’t even say how crazy it was. For him to be there. No protest. He only made some kind of joke, almost, about where he’s shut away. We sat there as if our tongues were cut out. There was no possibility he’d say what happened. I can’t see how we could do what you ask while we see him under those circumstances.—

I fully appreciate, I fully understand, the advocate repeated in different formulations, developing what lawyers call their arguments. Ah-hêh . But it was not possible for them to talk to their son in complete privacy; that was the regulation. No possible harm could result, however, from them indicating to him, openly, in the presence of warders, that they were convinced, in his best interests at this moment in time , that he should trust his lawyers absolutely, that he tell his lawyers everything there was to tell. The glassmarble glance flashing again, as if it should hardly he necessary to pronounce the obvious — The warder would be most unlikely to comprehend anything you talk about, anyway. Most of those chaps are still a hangover from the old days. Sheltered employment for retarded sons of the Boere . — He tosses an indiscretion he knows won’t go amiss with these people. — Our government finds you can’t change the prison system overnight — or many nights. Ah-hêh.—

During these early days they seem to repeat an inescapable ritual of departure from the same kind of compulsory encounter which leaves each waiting for the other to speak. And each is wary of the kind of interpretation that may be revealed by the other; that would set the encounter up or down on some scale of use, of hope, for them. So long as the silence lasts, this time, they do not have to face in one another what the advocate, Senior Counsel Motsamai, has said has to be faced. It is best to break the silence obliquely, as near to gently, within devastation, as you can get.

What d’you think of him?

She drops her chin towards her breasts a moment; lifts her head to speak under the still-falling avalanche of the meeting. Full of himself. Somehow arrogant. We’re in a mess that he wearily is expected to get us out of. I don’t know.

Probably what looks like arrogance is the kind of decisive presence that’s impressive in court. Judges themselves are reputed to have that kind of presence. I didn’t like him much, either. But that’s irrelevant, he’s not there to ingratiate himself with us — I respect that, he’s there to do his job.

And he’s decided what that is.

That’s what he’s briefed for, isn’t he. His expertise.

And he’s decided that Duncan killed. I can’t, can’t even hear myself say it. I can’t say to myself, Duncan killed, Duncan perfosmed a pathological act. Duncan is not a psychopath, I know enough about pathological states, grant me that, to say so. And I’m not bringing us into it, I’m not basing my disbelief on any proud idea that this can’t be because he’s our son , this isn’t what a son of ours would do. It’s Duncan, not our son , I’m talking about. There must be some explanation of how this ‘circumstantial evidence’ came about. The man doesn’t know, but he’s preparing what? — his defence, on the premise that this ‘circumstantial evidence’ means that Duncan killed. Duncan killed because that little bitch who shacked up with him, who wasn’t too particular who attracted her fancy, and he’d tolerated this before, had a tumble on a sofa with one of the other friends. I’m sure she wasn’t the first girl in Duncan’s life, don’t you remember the others — Alyse or whatever-her-name-was, happened to be a medical student who came to assist me, for the experience, two years ago — she was the favourite for a while.