The House Gun (21 page)

M
otsamai's man, the Defence psychiatrist—in the blur of becoming aware of who comes and goes in the witness stand the appearance only of some irrelevance notes itself—wore an elaborate watch like a weapon, flash of light off his raised hand reaching Harald and Claudia. He addressed himself directly to the judge rather than the Defence Counsel. To emphasize objectivity? Or because they are equally of authority: the judge decides who is guilty, the psychiatrist decides who is mad. Motsamai has asked his opinion of the accused's mental state in relation to the events in the house on January the 18th and 19th.

—In psychiatry we look at ‘life events' as precipitating abnormal behaviour, but we also see this as consciously or subconsciously reflecting any distortion of social norms. In a society where violence is prevalent the moral taboos against violence are devalued. Where it has become, for whatever historical reasons, the way to deal with frustration, despair or injury, natural abhorrence of violence is suspended. Everyone becomes accustomed to the solution of violence, whether as victim, perpetrator or observer. You live with it. In considering abnormal behaviour, the act must take into
account the general climate of behaviour in which it has taken place.—

The judge responds to this private exchange.

—All very interesting, Doctor, but what the court expects to hear is a report on the mental state of the accused, not that of the city.—

—With respect, the act that the accused has admitted he committed did not take place in a vacuum. Just as there may be the unconscious restraint which comes from the moral climate, there may be the unconscious sanction of violence, in its general use, general resort to it. This can overcome the protective inhibitions of the individual's conscious morality in which such an act would be abhorrent. It is necessary to keep in mind this context in which events which led to the act, and the act itself, took place.—

—Are you proposing, Doctor, that hijacks, muggings and so on sanction murder as a solution to personal conflict?—

The judge's sarcasm does not disturb the man; Motsamai would not have chosen anyone easily outsmarted in urbanity.

—No such immoral proposal, Your Lordship … Simply a duty to inform the court of the methodology followed in psychiatric examination.—

There has been a rise of attention among the public, even a policeman shifts from one foot to another like a dray-horse standing by. The public is enjoying the exchange between two men who are so sure of their superiority. This free show is getting better all the time, good as a talk-show at the television studios. But Harald and Claudia are clenched to attention in a different way, they are instantly analyzing every word. This man is theirs, Duncan's, they are sure. What he will have confirmed in their son can only be his salvation.

He found the accused to have been precipitated into a state of dissociation from what he was doing on the evening of January 19th, unable to exert proper control over his actions, which culminated in the death of Carl Jespersen.

Motsamai has his attention.—Doctor, when would you say this state began?—

In the doctor's opinion it was the accused's condition before he left the cottage and entered the house. Psychiatric examination found no evidence to doubt that the accused was telling the truth when he said he went to the house to stand where he stood the previous night; his disbelief of what he had seen from there would be part of a state of dissociation from reality. Nor was there any indication that he was not truthful in telling of confusion, lack of recollection of detailed sequence of his actions when he found himself in the house and Jespersen was lying on the sofa. The accused suffers from a genuine amnesia in regard to certain events of that evening.

The judge attracts attention by moving his shoulders. Whenever he gave this signal, the court hung in balance between what had been said and what would now tip it. This time he thrust his chin forward and cocked his head.—The accused gave a detailed and coherent account of what the deceased said to him. How is it he remembers this?—

—A tremendous emotional blow is as forceful as any external blow to the head. When Jespersen said ‘Why don't you pour yourself a drink' the callousness of this attitude constituted a second such blow. He was confused before; he cannot remember what he said, if anything, to Jespersen. With the impact of these last words he recalls Jespersen saying, he would have entered a state of automatism in which inhibitions disintegrated.—

—How could he have used a gun? If he was in this state of dissociation, diminished awareness? He's testified he could not know whether or not the gun was loaded. Would he not have had to release the safety catch, if it was—and it was—loaded, and would not that have been a fully conscious act, a rational act?—

—It would be an automatic reaction, without cognition, in anyone who has ever handled a gun. Like getting on a bicycle for anyone who knows how to ride.—

With M'Lord's permission, Motsamai has questions to lead.

—Doctor, in your experience of such states of diminished or total lack of capacity, what caused, what made the accused
able
to pick up and use the gun?—

—Cumulative provocation reaching its climax in the subject's total loss of control.—

—Could you explain—the morphology, the case history, so to speak, of this cumulation?—

—Lindgard is a man with a bisexual nature. That in itself is a source of personality conflict. He had suffered emotional distress when he followed his homoerotic instincts and had a love affair which his partner, Jespersen, did not take seriously and broke off at whim. He overcame the unhappiness of the rejection and turned to the other, and probably dominant side of his nature, a heterosexual alliance for which, again, he took on serious responsibility. Even more so, since the alliance was with an obviously neurotic personality with complex self-destructive tendencies for which, when crossed in what she saw as her right to pursue them, she punished him with denigration and mental aggression. When he saw her in the sexual act with his former male lover, he felt himself emasculated by them both.—

This is the model of their son put together, as a human being is comprised in X-ray plates and scans lit on a screen, by the dialectic method of a court and the knowledge of experts in the mystery of what is felt and thought and acted by the model. Duncan, led away for the judge's lunch break is the
doppelgänger.
How can they ask him, is this you, my son?

When they left the court building a man was capering about on his hunkers before them, a tame ape aiming a camera. The photograph that appeared in an evening paper was also something which put them together, each of them, from a kit of conceptions: mother and father of a murderer.

T
he Prosecutor's questions to Motsamai's man, their man, the Defence psychiatrist, became their self-questioning. His comments ran together as the desperate narrative of their own. Was the court to believe the day of inaction in the cottage was a vacuum? The accused testifies he was merely ‘thinking'. Can you think about
nothing
? Was it not clear that the day in the cottage was consistent with only one interpretation, rational premeditation of jealous intention to confront the victim in revenge—an intention duly carried out? The accused ‘found himself in the garden'; couldn't he have gone over to the house to look again at the sofa, the scene of the previous night's event, at any time during the day? Why did he choose instead to do so at an hour when the victim would have returned from work? As for the use of the gun, the accused said in evidence that he was not familiar with handguns; it was the only one he had held. How, then, could he have used it with such efficiency, ensuring that it was loaded and cocked, if he were to have been in a state of automatism? Did he not have to perform rational, deliberate actions in order to take advantage of the proximity of a weapon that would carry out his deadly intention?

What was the man saying, what were they themselves, what was the court being led to think? That the Defence had damned itself out of its own psychiatrist's mouth?

They could not ask Motsamai for an interpretation of this inference—a sign ominous, or a disguised defeat; he was in his place in the well of the court preparing to close his case.

Claudia saw Harald slide a hand into his jacket pocket and bring out a notebook when Motsamai rose to address the court. It was the small hard-backed one schoolchildren use, not the embossed leather kind with attached gilt ballpoint that lay open for him at Board meetings. It belonged to the pared, humbled other life he and she lived now, he must have gone himself to a stationer's to buy it: the sort of errand run by his secretary. Claudia had the delicacy not to give in to the distraction of covertly glancing at what he was writing while Motsamai spoke; she felt a loving empathy with him like a gentle tide, there and subsided, beneath the intent with which she was following every syllable that came from Motsamai. Not only was it Motsamai's turn to engage attention; he was, he made himself, the focus of the court. His presence asserted that the court was for him, this short man with the drylined face like a dark worn glove, that seemed hardly to contain eyes hard as glass, bright against black; from all the years he had been shut out on the Other Side of the law he claimed the right to arrogant bearing of its dignity.

—A person is said to be criminally responsible, that is to say, to have criminal capacity, when he is able to appreciate the wrongfulness of his act at the time of committing it. To assess this criminal capacity one must be in full cognizance of the events and the consequent state of mind of such a person before the act was committed. What were the events and the state of mind in the case of Duncan Lindgard?

The previous night, towards the early hours of the morning, he is concerned for the safety of the woman he loves because she has not returned to the cottage where she lives with him in an intimate relationship. Now I want to go back a little into certain aspects of
this relationship because it is significant to the character, the consistent caring nature, the sense of human responsibility of Lindgard. Natalie James attempted suicide, to take her own life, and Duncan Lindgard saved her life. It was due to his desperate efforts that she was resuscitated. He had no emotional attachment, no sexual relation with her at the time; scarcely knew her. After that, a relationship developed and he took her in. They cohabited in the cottage in the grounds of a house where three friends of Lindgard lived, and occupied the property, as the accused has described to the court, as something like a family—not mother, father, children and so forth, but adults in loyal friendship, in harmony, the three homosexual members and the heterosexual couple. Lindgard not only brought Natalie James physically back to life; as a member of the so-called family has testified, out of love for her he took on the self-appointed burden of reconciling her to the problems of her stormy past—the child she had borne and given to adoption, and other personality problems—and devoted himself to try to help her develop her positive side, the potential he saw in her that was constantly threatened by irresponsible self-destructive tendencies. In the two years or so they had cohabited as lovers there is no evidence that he responded to her mental aggression and her various transgressions threatening the relationship, with anything but patient endurance and a willingness to help her. No provocation from her brought him ever to act violently during that period.—Motsamai flashed a look to the public for a second, holding their attention ready, then was back to the judge.—With respect, M'Lord, I am not blackening this young woman's character, I wish only to give the actual background to the accused's concern for her in the early hours of the morning, when she failed to appear. —

It is difficult for Claudia, for Harald writing with his fist shielding the page, to keep conscious of the judge's presence; he is, as she knows Harald believes God to be, there, even though one is not aware of this.

Motsamai's reminder has not lost his hold on the public.
—Duncan Lindgard crosses to the house, anxious that she may have been attacked by an intruder in the dark garden. What does he find? An open door, all the lights on, and on the sofa, Natalie James and Carl Jespersen in the throes of the sexual act. With respect, M'Lord, they are so engaged that they do not even spring apart at Lindgard's presence. Ah-hêh, What does Lindgard do? The blow is so terrible, so unbelievable, that he flees. Now why was what he came upon so devastating? To any man, any woman, the sight of his or her partner performing the sexual act with another is a painful shock. No question about that. But what Duncan Lindgard was struck with was a double betrayal of an appalling nature. For what he saw on that sofa was not only the unfaithfulness of the woman he loved, but the fact that
the man performing the sexual act with her was the very man with whom he himself had had a brief homosexual affair
, and who had caused him pain, at that past time, by abruptly breaking off the affair. He knew only too well that Jespersen did not desire women—he has told the court how Jespersen talked distastefully, even disgustingly, about their sexual characteristics, their genital organs. That Jespersen should
overcome
this revulsion specifically to perform the act with Lindgard's woman could mean only one of two things, equally horrifying: either Jespersen took some pleasure in the idea of humiliating once again the man he had already rejected, or there was an added kick to that idea in aiding Natalie in some impulse she had to take advantage of this—
exquisitely
—cruel way to humiliate and wound the lover to whom she felt some perverse resentment for owing him so much: her life. What Duncan saw was an act so
sickening
in its implications that, as he has said in his evidence of how he spent the next day thinking in the cottage, nothing could be done about it. No considered course of action would be adequate to deal with it.

He spent the next day alone in the cottage in a state of shock inconsistent with any resolution of intent. He was incapable of formulating any feelings towards either Natalie James or Carl Jespersen. As a highly-experienced psychiatrist reports, there was a
sense of amnesiac unreality, in regard to them. He was not capable, as my Learned Friend has suggested he was, of any intention to take revenge. And as he himself said in response to my Learned Friend, the Prosecutor's question: revenge for what? Her betrayal? Carl Jespersen's betrayal? The betrayal of James and Jespersen in collusion?

He had lain in the cottage all day, incapacitated. If the dog had not roused him because it was hungry, if he had not gone through the motions of feeding the dog outside, would he not have stayed on in his isolation until, maybe, someone had come to seek him out? Would he have found himself in the garden, across which he had fled in anguish the night before, if he hadn't gone out to feed the dog? He found himself in the garden, yes; and there was the house where what was unbelievable happened. He went over to that place to stand where he had seen it, to make it believable to his confused state.—

The lines in Motsamai's face became deep slashes. He drew a long breath in pretext for his calculated pause. He seemed himself to be witnessing what he was about to describe.

—What does he see? The man, Carl Jespersen, is lounging at his ease on that same sofa. He has mixed himself his favourite drink. He smiles. He hails Duncan Lindgard, the friend, the former lover whose woman he has seduced before his eyes—he hails him as
Bra, brother
. Then he goes into a monologue, the tone is kidding along, sophisticated man-talk. That, he assumes, is the context in which the ‘incident', the coupling that couldn't stop, that concluded brazenly in Lindgard's presence, must be received, shared, by Lindgard. Pour yourself a drink, he says. Yes, let's drink on it, brother. The whole event of the night before is
nothing
. A grotesque joke!

Is this shock any less than that of the coupling itself?

The spectacle now before Lindgard comes as the culmination of total emotional stress. There is a gun lying on the table. It offers itself. He does not know whether it is loaded or not. He picks it up and fires at the source from which the tirade aimed at himself
keeps coming. What he has described as ‘the noise' stops. That is the way he becomes aware that he has shot Carl Jespersen.

I repeat, M'Lord, with your permission, the definition of criminal responsibility. A person is said to be criminally responsible, to have criminal capacity to perform an act, when he is able to appreciate the wrongfulness of his act at the time of committing it. Lack of criminal capacity, as a result neither of insanity nor youth, is recognized in our law in principle in regard to, among other things, provocation—M'Lord will see in my Heads of Argument I cite State versus Campher, 1987—and severe emotional stress—I refer the court to State versus Arnold, 1985.

Everything in the accused's attested general behaviour as an adult, his sense of moral responsibility, Christian and humanist, as inculcated since childhood by his parents, is against the performance of any violent act. Was he not provoked beyond rational endurance to loss of control when he saw a gun to hand and picked it up? In a word, did the accused know what he was doing? Did Duncan Lindgard have criminal capacity?

I submit, M'Lord, that he did not, could not.—

The voice of the judge, a private murmur, has nevertheless the authority to stop Motsamai rather than interrupt.—Mr Motsamai, are you pleading insanity?—

—No, M'Lord. I am not.—

—Temporary insanity?—

—No. The accused is a man of sound mind whose lack of criminal capacity was overcome by a brain-storm of emotional stress during which he could not be aware of the wrongfulness of his act because he was not aware of any intention to commit it.—

—What is the difference between that and temporary insanity?—

Your son is not mad.

But for Harald and Claudia, the judge may be right; insanity, perhaps that sorrow might be the explanation they have never had from their son. Not even what he has said in court has given them
what they want—it seems to replay, as if Motsamai's voice with its emphases from the rhythms of his African language is a broadcast overlaid: Duncan's presence interrupts,
it was not that, it was not exactly like that
. Nobody here knows. Perhaps there really is a frequency, coming from him where he is seated, turned away from them in the well of the court.

—Loss of self-control as inability to act in appreciation of wrongfulness, M'Lord, as against delusions confusing right and wrong. That is the difference.—

Harald felt Claudia's head disturb the space between them, stirring in denial; yes, the response seemed not to be Motsamai at his best. And perhaps he was wrong; temporary insanity, something in Duncan's brain that had been there always, the mystery that is the other individual, even the one you have created out of your own flesh? Claudia made as if to whisper something hut Harald put up the hand holding a pen; dismay was wordless, it was as if the heating up of air in the crowded space was generated between Harald, Claudia and their son, overcoming everyone.

—Duncan Lindgard had no intention whatever to kill Jespersen. There was no premeditation. He had, he has, no criminal capacity to commit such an act. Brought about by provocation under severe emotional stress, it was done in lack of criminal capacity. His confession, his past history, his testimony are indisputable proof of that.—

—Have you concluded, Mr Motsamai?—

—Thank you, M'Lord. The case for the Defence is closed.—

The judge rose, the court was adjourned. There was a coming to life among the public like that at the end of the act in any theatre; they would be back. In the corridors, Motsamai become Hamilton put a hand on the forearm each of Harald and Claudia, drawing them together with him. He had the abstracted animation he showed when he came to chambers from a lunch. It's gone well enough, he said to his confidants, leaving his attorney, Philip the good friend, standing by with an arm-load of documents. They did
not ask him about the insanity aspect, the question—what could they term it?

In his hands.

We're neither of us going to call any further witnesses, he told them, with a that-suits-me pause and shrug. We? He was in a hurry to consult with his attorney. As he left them they saw him greet his opponent, the Prosecutor; the two gowned men paused, Motsamai's arm resting briefly on the other's shoulder, shaking their heads over something, laughed together, swept past one another.