The Sinner (24 page)

I thought my heart had stopped beating. I knew exactly what
he meant, and Magdalena knew it too - she wasn't stupid. Her
frequent visits to the hospital had taught her a lot about her
illness and other things. She knew a great deal more than I did.
She couldn't read or write or do sums, but she knew words like
electrocardiogram, septal defect, insufficiency, aortic aneurysm,
pathology and crematorium. What was more, she knew what they
meant.

She stared at Father, hugging her doll and fingering its thick
plaits. She seemed about to say something. Her lips moved a couple
of times, but no sound emerged. At last it dawned on me. She was
mouthing a single word: Arsehole!

I don't know if Father read her lips too. He drew a deep breath.
Then he said, rather more softly: "Having made that decision,
however, we should try to make her life as bearable as we can and
give her a little pleasure, not spout pious platitudes the whole time.
They're no use to her. I'm sure she would have enjoyed Alice in
Wonderland too. Cora would surely have read some to her."

"She must sleep now," Mother said. "She's had a tiring day."
She lifted Magdalena out of the armchairs and carried her to the
door. Father watched them go, shaking his head. Then he stared at
the tabletop again. "That was my sin," he said softly. "Not to have
denied myself for once and bided my time. I'd have done better to
stick it in a mouse hole."

He raised his head and looked at me. "We'd best go to bed, don't
you think? It's your bedtime anyway, and I'm tired too."

We went upstairs. Mother was still in the bathroom with
Magdalena, washing her and brushing her teeth. Father went to
their bedroom and fetched the things he would wear to work in
the morning. I retired to our room to put on my nightie. When
Mother and Magdalena came out of the bathroom I went in there
to wash.

Mother put Magdalena to bed and went downstairs to pray.
Father came into the bathroom looking very depressed. He stood
beside the basin, watching me wash my face and comb my hair.

My hair was all tangled - I used to twist it around my finger
when I had to kneel in front of the altar for too long. Father helped
me to comb out the knots, then pillowed my head against his chest
and held me tight. "I'm so sorry," he murmured. "I'm so terribly
sorry."

"Don't be sad about the book," I told him. "I'm not all that fond
of reading. I like it better when you tell me about the old days. It's
a long time since you told me about the railway and the old school
and how they built the church."

"I've told you far too much about that," he said. `Anything,
rather than talk about today or yesterday."

He clasped my head to his chest with one hand and stroked my
back with the other. Then, quite suddenly, he pushed me away.
Turning toward the washbasin, he said "Roll on the spring, when
we're too busy working on the allotment to get any silly ideas."

It had been a silly idea to assume that Margret had betrayed
her. But although Margret could be relied on - she herself had
something to lose, after all - that realization did not detract from
Cora's fear, bewilderment and uncertainty.

When Margret and the chief left the room, the man in the sports
coat came in. On her own with him for a few minutes, she wished
he would speak to her. Just a sentence or two, to dispel the dead
feeling inside her head.

Ever since she had regained consciousness after that brief
blackout, it had been as dark and cramped in there as a coffin.
Or a cellar with the lights out. She knew she had seen and felt
something frightful, but whatever it was that had broken through
the wall in her brain had withdrawn behind it again. Only the
sensation remained - that and her father's voice, which seemed to
haunt the darkness.

She saw him sitting on the edge of her bed. He had done that
night after night during the few weeks she spent at home after her
return in November. She heard his imploring voice, suddenly so
old and unsteady. "Speak to me, Cora. Don't be like her. You must
talk to me - tell me what happened. Whatever you've done, I won't
judge you. I'll never breathe a word about it, I promise. I don't have
the right to judge you, nor does Mother. We each have something
on our conscience. I'll tell you what I've done and Mother's done,
then it'll be your turn. You must tell me, Cora. If you don't talk
about it, it'll eat you up inside. What happened, Cora? What did
you do?"

Just two or three sentences from the man in the sports coat might
have drowned Father's voice, but he merely looked at her with a
mixture of sympathy and uncertainty. Perhaps he was waiting for
her to speak first. When she remained silent he transferred his
attention to the tape recorder. He removed the cassette and added
it to the others that had accumulated in the course of the night.

The cassette! "I'll wind it on a bit," the woman beside the lake
had said and: "You'll never hear anything better."

The words flashed through her mind like an electric shock and
found an echo somewhere.

"That's the best tune I've ever heard," said Magdalena.

She was lying in bed holding a tiny cassette player connected to
her ear by a thin lead. She chuckled to herself. Her head rocked
to and fro - only her head, which was all she could move - in time
to the tune she was humming: "Bohemian Rhapsody". "I love that
number," she said. "Freddie Mercury! Some voice he's got, really
terrific. I wish I could hear it good and loud, like in a disco, but
for that we'd need a really big stereo system, and if Mother saw it,
she'd pull the plug on us as well as turn off the water. Did you find
the stopcock?"

The chief had returned. "How are you feeling, Fran Bender?"
he asked.

Still with Magdalena, she replied: `Afraid not. I'll go and get a
bucket of water from Grit, that'll do to wash with." Then, realizing
what Grovian had asked her, she said quickly: "Fine, thanks."

She felt sure he would start questioning her again. Then she
remembered that his last question had remained unanswered:
Where had she heard the names Frankie, Billy-Goat and Tiger?
Where Frankie was concerned the answer was simple: down at the
lake.

Only the truth would do. Lies made everything worse, Mother
had told her so again and again, and she'd always been right, that
had now been proved once and for all. The Lord punished those
who incurred his wrath. He deranged them, either in speech or in
spirit.

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth! I didn't
know the man. I really didn't know him, neither his name nor his
face. I've no idea why I had to kill him. I only know I had to do it.

But the chief made no move to pursue the matter. Glancing
at the man in the sports coat, he said something about them all
being badly in need of sleep. He spoke in a tone of concern. As he
said it she felt her limbs go leaden with fatigue. At the same time,
she dreaded being left alone with the fragmentary memories that
were imposing themselves on her - scouring her soul like dirty old
cleaning rags. Everything inside her became stiff and hard. Bereft
of the energy to protest, she could hardly rise from her chair.

The chief sent for Berrenrath and his younger colleague to escort
her out. Moments later she was lying on a narrow bed, almost as
lifeless as Georg Frankenberg but unable to go to sleep.

She wondered whether Margret had called Father yet. Probably
not, at this hour of the night. There was no telephone in her
parents' house. Anyone who wanted to give them an urgent
message had to call the Adigars and ask them to go and get Father.
And Margret would never get Grit Adigar out of bed in the middle
of the night ...

She felt like an open wound. She had never experienced such
a sensation before, and now it was spreading. A yearning for the
old days, when she used to perch on Magdalena's bed and tell her
about the outside world. About the disco, with its frenzied music,
flashing lights and young men. Magdalena's questions: "What's
coke like? They say it's an incredible sensation. You feel everything much more intensely, especially sex. Have you tried it? What was
it like? Go on, tell me."

A yearning to kneel before the altar again. To fold her hands
again. To pray once more to the Saviour to grant Magdalena
another day of life and herself the gift of self-denial. Then she
would go next door to Grit, who regularly asked her: "Well, Cora,
finished all your chores for today?"

Yes, not just for today but for all time.

She had killed a man: Georg Frankenberg! Heard a tune:
"Tiger's Song"! Told a story: Father's version of Alice in Wonderland.
Invented a world of her own and some non-existent people: BillyGoat and Tiger.

Worst of all, she could feel her mind disintegrating, becoming
friable and steadily losing substance until, in the end, it could be
crumbled between finger and thumb. It was nearly five o'clock in
the morning when she fell asleep at last.

Meantime, Rudolf Grovian was lying on the sofa in his living
room. He had folded his arms behind his head and was staring up
at the dark ceiling. He could hear her imploring voice: "Turn on
the light again!"

He had got home at three, his thoughts in turmoil, exhausted and
rather depressed by the awareness that he had started something
whose completion he would have to leave to others. "Help me,
please!" He couldn't help her. All he could do was prove thatJohnny
Guitar and Georg Frankenberg were one and the same person.

Werner Hoss doubted this, and his arguments could not be so
easily dismissed. They had listened to the two most important
tapes - the first and the last - before calling it a day. Hoss argued in
favour of the first: "It was that tune." That, he said, was the answer,
and it wasn't negated by her ramblings on the last tape. They were
simply two different things. You couldn't tell what was going on in
the head of someone who had been browbeaten with the Bible for
nineteen years and smashed by a crystal paw five years ago.

Grovian had tossed and turned for so long that Mechthild had
told him: "Rudi, do me a favour and bed down on the sofa. That
way, at least I'll get some sleep."

He had long ago weaned himself from discussing his job with
her. Mechthild had her own idea of justice and the law She spent
two afternoons a week working in a charity shop, handing out
discarded overcoats and trousers to life's failures and other persons
in need. As an unpaid volunteer, of course. In the old days, when
he'd told her that one of life's failures had marched into a bank
with a loaded gun in his hand, her usual response had been: "Oh,
the poor fellow"

"Did Marita get home safely?" he asked, partly for something
to say and partly in the hope that she would ask him why he was
home so late and what the trouble was. Somehow, he had an itch
to hear her say: "Oh, the poor girl."

"I suppose so," she said.

"What did she tell you? She must have told you something. I
mean, I heard her say something about a lawyer."

"Rudi," she said in a plaintive drawl, "let's talk about it tomorrow
Look at the time."

"I won't get a chance tomorrow I want to know now"

Mechthild sighed. "She wants a divorce."

"What?" He didn't even bother to sit up with a jerk. It was just as
he'd feared. "She doesn't know when she's well off."

Mechthild heaved another sigh. "She isn't doing it for fun, Rudi,
believe you me."

"If you believe it, that's good enough for me," he said. "But you
believe any old guff she tells you."

"But she's right," said Mechthild, half-convinced. "Peter works
too hard. She's always on her own. It's no kind of life for a young
woman."

"Why not? I think she has a great life. He works too hard, and
she spends the money he earns like it's going out of fashion. It's
better than having to kneel for hours in front of a crucifix."

"Some comparison," said Mechthild. "What put that into your
head?"