Nadine Gordimer - My Son's Story

My father didn't come and look for me. Not until the judge took his tea-break. Through the doors of Court D I heard the shout 'Opstaan. Rise in court' and the stir of feet and clothing and voices as people moved to come out. I felt I would choke. I stood up. Are you ill, he said. He looked as if this would be the last thing he could bear.

I haven't touched him for a long time; I clutched his arms.

— The rockets weren't there. That launcher thing. They were never there. They planted them, like they did the other things earlier. I tell you I saw, and they weren't there.—

He believed me at once but of course the lawyers questioned me. Was I sure? Was I in the storeroom all the time during the search, that morning? Wasn't I in a state of agitation, excitement, anger? Yes, all those and more, believe me, my toes were curled rigid as my fingers in my fists and my shoulders were so tense my neck ached next day as if I'd strained a muscle. But I know what I saw, I could swear to it as many times as any court asked — I wished I'd written down a list of those weapons on a bit of paper and made those bastards sign it, that day, that day!

When the lawyers were satisfied with my reliability and had come to a satisfactory assessment of my ability to stand up to cross-examination without being intimidated by the prosecution, they agreed that mine was an important piece of evidence. It brought into question the whole allegation that Aila had hidden or knowingly allowed to be hidden (you know how they put things) a cache of arms in our storeroom. In her second statement she had said she understood that what was to be stored in the storeroom was 'disused office equipment'. She had not looked into what they left there amid the junk of a family household. On my evidence, if they had stored explosive weapons there, no RPG-7 rocket was among them.

My father surged with elation, he had the grin and strength of gaze he had when Baby and I were children, held high in the air by him, and that he had had when we went to see him shut away in prison. — They not only won't be able to prove she knew what was in the storeroom, it won't be possible for them to prove they didn't plant the lot. Not beyond reasonable doubt — can't, once it's clear they planted the rockets. All their evidence will be totally discredited! If the police have lied on the main charge, how can the case hold up? The judge'll have to throw the whole thing out — there's a good chance of that!—

We were at the lawyers' for consultation. I was at its centre for this, the only time. I was nobody's conspirator, I had found my own point of reference through my own experience. The lawyers were not as certain of the outcome as my father, but I'd become the pivot of their defence, their principal witness. I heard the aside from one of them to my father — He'll have to be two hundred percent sure he cannot be caught out in uncertainty — not even in tone of voice — on any detail, doesn't matter how small and apparently irrelevant. Because Lombard's going to play on the fact that there's special sentiment involved, a young man naturally will lie, if it's a question of family… after all, it's his mother.—

My mother — Aila — listened to everything with her new in-tentness and did not look at me. I felt strange that she wouldn't look at me. It was as if she wanted to deny this new bond of intimacy between us. I believe I began, then, to think (but I may have known all the time?) — I began to think, very deep within myself, no-one will ever get at it, that Aila knew there were those ugly and deadly things wrapped in the material she had left over when she sewed my curtains. She knew, and she didn't want me to know — I, who've known so much about her that others don't, he — my father — doesn't. When the men had all talked a great deal, the lawyers trying out my answers on one another, and my father, Aila and I had got up to leave, the Senior Counsel told Aila she and I had better come back for briefing with him next day. Aila emanated a stilling atmosphere; the parting jabber stopped. It was as if everyone found he had unnoticingly entered a strange house, and it was hers; she stood there. — I don't want Will to give evidence.—

Preposterous. So shocked, one of the lawyers laughed; they couldn't take her seriously: the lawyers, my father. Naturally the poor woman was confused, they would explain to her, she would come round, they would convince her. No harm would come to the boy. No harm. A woman, after all, she was thinking of her son—

Mama's boy! There was a thrust of rage in me; against myself, against her. Now they were raising their voices, talking over each other, about me. Any moment someone would remember and turn to ask And what are you going to be when you grow up?

I drove. She sat beside me and he behind her. I drove fast, with the slamming movements of my mood, and neither cautioned me. For once I felt in charge of them. He was leaning forward, not to be excluded from whatever she and I might say. But he would have missed nothing by being less eager. We did not speak. What I might say to her wouldn't be said before him. On the periphery of my vision I saw him squeeze her shoulder and let his hand lie a moment. Poor Aila poor Aila. Was he telling little wifey it's all right, she has her strong clever leader-of-the-people husband, turned up at last to talk her out of her foolish notions?

She asked me to drive by the chemist's. While she was in the shop, he sighed and fidgeted. — It'll be all right. She's upset. It's a bit much for her to take in. Against her nature, Will.—

She came out of the shop and smiled at us, frowning in the sun, it was as if we were expected to take her photograph. He was encouraged to begin again. — It's a matter of the truth, Aila. It's not even just a personal issue, it's not just you involved. Will has to speak the truth. That's a chance to challenge the system itself.—

I had started the engine but I let it stall with a jerk. — Let's leave all this until we get home.—

He ignored me; he was still my father. — Believe me, Aila, there'll be no action against him just because he's a witness. No question of complicity. No-one's going to arrest Will! Not because of this; not because he's my son or your son. It's the duty of any Defence to subpoena anyone they need. You know that, surely? But I'm not a lawyer, am I, ready to win my case at any cost. He's my son. He's my son, too. Would I put him in any danger? Believe me. Would I lie to you?—

And we don't challenge him. Imagine! Neither of us bursts out laughing when he finds the nerve to ask that question. Neither of us affirms, yes, yes, and yes again. Is it all forgotten then, washed up, are the three of us survivors of his shipwreck, under his command to build a new shelter for some dream of family he wants to come back to?

I tilted my head to look at her sidelong. She licked her forefinger and rubbed at a mark on the back of her other hand. She caught me looking at her, dropped the hand and turned her head away. When she knew she had shaken off my glance she spoke to my father and to me. — It's enough. It's enough.—

I don't know what he understood by this but I heard what she was saying. My father the famous Sonny, Baby the revolutionary exile, Aila the accomplice of Umkhonto weSizwe: they are our family's sacrifice for the people, there's no need of me, who needs someone like me? They are the heroes.

Nothing would change her mind. The Defence team appealed to the seasoned activist who was also the person closest to her— her husband — he must be the one to make her see reason and sense. Through the influence of all the years they had lived together; though the lawyers didn't say it: through love.

It's enough, she said. Enough: enough for her to bear without having the boy involved in any way. That was horribly distasteful to her. Frightened her. She was not afraid to act courier for ruthless, shameless Baby in Lusaka and brave enough for god knows what else she had done, but she feared this. Their boy; but it was tacitly accepted, way back, that Will was her child, and although Sonny had Lear-like lost his, his Baby— Best thou had's not been born, than not thave pleas'd me better — Aila still claimed a tender unspoken priority in matters concerning the boy.