April 6 - "Homage"

“Homage”
by Nadine Gordimer
New Sudden Fiction (2007)

* * * (Good) Realistic

After assassinating an important state official, a man without a country, lives his life in obscurity, trapped in the city where even his name is buried with that now memorialized important official.

There are moments when this story works, and moments when things are just a bit too obscure, too secretive – moments when we see Gordimer trying too hard to be mysterious. I found it amusing that this hitman would have to find work to justify the money he was paid for this assassination, and that this dilemma could have been worse had he been paid the full amount of the contract upon completion. It is the little moments – the everyday concerns in the not-so-common situations – that make a story seem realistic. When you can string together a handful of these, you might as well be casting spells, spreading magic between the lines. Unfortunately here there was only the one moment. Still, it did make me pause; it made me take notice.