The Sinner (7 page)

Everything was red. Her swimsuit, her arms, her hands - even
her hair was smeared with it. She would have liked to leave it that
way, but she didn't want to annoy the policemen so she turned
on the tap, sluiced her hands and arms, held her head under the
thin trickle and watched the blood run into the basin. It looked
paler when mixed with water, almost like the raspberryade of her
childhood. Not that it had been raspberryade, just syrup diluted
with water.

Mother had eventually capitulated and made a concession to her
sinful desires: one glass of diluted juice a day. Two, to be exact: one
for her and one for Magdalena. She saw herself standing at the
scratched and dented kitchen table; saw herself watching closely
as Mother trickled syrup into two tumblers, taking care to pour the
same amount into each; saw herself snatch the one that held maybe
a millilitre more, then hurry to the tap before Mother noticed the
minuscule difference and shooed her into the living room.

She hadn't thought of that for years, and now it seemed like only
yesterday. Father and his attempts to wrench the sin from his body and his stories about Buchholz in the old days - always the old
days, as if there were no today and no tomorrow Mother with her
coloured aprons, her stringy hair and the cross. And Magdalena,
her bluish, translucent porcelain features imbued with flawless
intensity by ever-present death.

It was over. The Saviour had shed his blood and, by his death,
taken their sins upon himself and paved their way to heaven. She
saw his face before her, the look of understanding and forgiveness
in his eyes. "Father, forgive her, for she knoweth not what she doth."
Well, no one could know everything!

She rinsed out her swimsuit and used it to swab her breasts and
stomach like a sponge. The water she wiped off with her hands.
There was a towel - it hung on a hook beside the basin - but it was
so grimy, it might have been hanging there for weeks. Then she
got dressed. The panties and T-shirt stuck to her skin, becoming
damp and transparent. She hesitated for a moment and looked
down at herself. Her breasts showed through the thin material. She
couldn't go outside like this. There were policemen waiting outside
the door. Men! It would look provocative if she confronted them
in this state. Mother would have a fit - she would feel compelled to
light the candles on the altar and force her to her knees ...

She couldn't understand why this suddenly seemed so real. And
so important! Try as she might, she couldn't shake it off. The candle
flames continued to dance before her eyes. She blinked hard to
banish the image. When that didn't help, she opened the door and
spoke to one of the policemen. "Can you lend me a jacket?"

The two men, who were only wearing their uniform shirts,
glanced at each other. The younger one lowered his gaze in embarrassment. The other, who could have been in his early forties,
managed to look into her eyes: not at the breasts showing through
the damp T-shirt. He seemed to grasp her problem. "You don't
need a jacket," he said in a gentle, fatherly tone. "There are people
over there with less on than you. Are you through? Shall we go?"

She merely nodded.

Still looking her in the eye, he asked: "Who did that to your
face?"

"My husband," she said. "But he didn't mean to. He was very
upset and lost his temper." The policeman frowned as though this
information surprised him. He took hold of her elbow but swiftly
withdrew his hand when she flinched at his touch. "Let's go," he
said.

And the candle flames went out at last.

The lido had almost emptied while she was in the washroom.
Everyone except the immediate witnesses of the incident had left.
A group of figures could still be seen in the distance, where the
green blanket with the dead man lying on it must be.

It was just after seven. Some twenty people were assembled on
the terrace adjoining the low building. They all stared at her as
she approached. She found their nervous, enquiring expressions
unpleasant.

The three survivors of the green blanket party were sitting a little
apart from the rest. The seated man was trying to comfort the two
women. Ute thrust his hand away, sobbing incessantly. Standing
beside them was a youngish man in a sports coat. He was asking
questions and jotting down their answers in a notebook. Two
medics appeared on the terrace. Ute was led away. Alice followed.

It was like a film set. Hustle and bustle everywhere, but she just
stood and watched. The older policeman escorted her over to a
chair and got one of the medics to examine her face, especially the
swollen eye. He was very friendly and stood beside her while his
younger colleague joined the man in the sports coat and exchanged
a few words with him.

Gereon was still there too, holding the boy on his lap and looking
at the dressings on his arm. The man in the sports coat went over
to him and said something. Gereon shook his head fiercely. Then
he got up and went over to the seated man. He didn't spare her
a glance, either then or a little later, when she made for the wiremesh fence flanked by the two policemen.

Parked in the shade of some trees near the entrance were two
patrol cars and another vehicle. Gereon's car was parked a long
way off in the full glare of the sun, she remembered. She stopped
short and turned to the older policeman, who looked more mature and experienced than his colleague. "Would you mind telling me
your name?"

"Berrenrath," he replied automatically.

She nodded her thanks. "Look, Herr Berrenrath, you must go
back and have a word with my husband. Tell him to air the car well
and close the windows before he drives off. I know my husband,
it won't occur to him - he never thinks of such things. Our little
boy has sensitive ears, he often gets ill. He so easily develops rigors
when he has a high temperature."

Berrenrath merely nodded, opened the rear door of one of the
patrol cars and gestured to her to get in. The younger policeman
went around the car and got in behind the wheel, then turned,
never taking his eyes off Cora. He looked almost afraid of her.

She would gladly have reassured him but she didn't know how
It was over! He wouldn't have understood that, though. She didn't
understand it herself, she merely sensed it, as though she'd inscribed
it on her forehead in the man's blood: OVER!

Berrenrath really did go back. He wasn't long. "Your husband
will see to it," he said as he got in beside her.

She felt relieved of everything. Relieved and remote and
somewhat isolated - numb with triumph, as if she'd swum out
and submerged. A grand sensation, except that it was confined to
her heart and stomach. In her brain she felt a gradual, sneaking
inclination to view what had happened from another perspective:
with the eyes of the people who had gone to the lido for an
afternoon's recreation.

She thought suddenly of her son and the way he'd been sitting on
the blanket, crying. The poor little fellow had witnessed the whole
thing. She consoled herself with the thought that he was too young
to have taken it in. He would forget what he had seen. He would
forget her too. He would grow up with Gereon and her parents-inlaw His grandmother was very kind to him. Even the old man, that
uncouth boor, watched over his grandson like a mother hen.

The trip didn't take long, and she was so preoccupied with her
thoughts that she didn't register any of it. When the patrol car
pulled up - when Berrenrath got out and asked her to do likewise - she surfaced for a moment, only to subside at once into thoughts
of the future so as not to have to dwell on the past.

Life imprisonment! She was quite clear about that. After all,
she'd committed a murder. She was clear about that too. She had
to be punished, but prison bars couldn't intimidate someone inured
to the Cross. There was nothing ominous about the idea of a cell.
Regular meals and a job in the kitchen or the laundry - even in an
office, perhaps, if she behaved herself and showed everyone what
she was capable of.

Prison couldn't be so different from her three years with Gereon.
It made no difference whether she was being watched by her
parents-in-law or a bunch of wardresses. The weekends would be a
thing of the past, that's all. No more cigarettes whose dying embers
in the ashtray signalled the madness to come.

The next time she surfaced she was sitting on a chair in a
whitewashed room. More chairs were scattered around at random,
and in the centre were two desks, each bearing a telephone and a
typewriter surrounded by a clutter of papers. The sight of them
worried her. She itched to tidy them up and wondered if she should
ask the policemen for permission.

The younger one was standing near the door, Berrenrath beside
a large window with two pot plants languishing on the sill. The
sunlight was still strong enough to dazzle her, and she'd forgotten
to bring her sunglasses. On the right, beside the pot plants, lay a
folder. The Cora Bender file, she thought fleetingly. It could only
be a slender file - the case was clear-cut, after all. They would have
to ask her a few questions, of course, but ...

Those plants needed attention badly. A pitiful sight, with brown
blotches on the leaves, they must have been standing in the full glare
of the afternoon sun. Ten to one the soil was bound to be bone dry.

"Listen, Herr Berrenrath," she said, "you should take those
plants off the windowsill. They can't stand the sun - it's like putting
them in a furnace. They probably need some water too. Mind if I
take a look?"

Berrenrath seemed taken aback. After a few moments he nodded
reluctantly.

There was a sink near the door with an old coffee percolator on
the draining board. An ugly brown film had formed on the glass
jug, which had probably never been rinsed properly. Beside the
percolator was a dirty coffee mug. She rinsed it out carefully, then
picked up the jug and started to rinse that too.

"No, leave that," Berrenrath said. "Please sit down again."

"Look," she protested, "you said I could water those plants, and
the jug was dirty. Why shouldn't I clean up a bit?"

Berrenrath sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "Water the plants
if you like, but cleaning up isn't your job."

"Then I won't," she said. "I meant no harm."

She filled the jug with water and went over to the window. The
soil really was as dry as dust. Leaving the jug on the windowsill, she
carried the two plants over to a desk, unobtrusively straightened a
couple of chairs and shuffled some papers into a neat pile. This
created a little more room and looked tidier. Then she fetched the
jug and gave the plants a soaking.

The policemen watched in disbelief as she refilled the jug at the
sink. "They needed it badly," she said when she'd emptied it and
resumed her seat.

A good minute's silence ensued. She strove to marshal her
thoughts and prepare herself for what would happen next. The
interrogation! Being a moviegoer, she knew the form. A confession
was all that really mattered - to the police; that was the most
important thing, so an interrogation was superfluous in her case.
She'd already confessed. All that remained was to type it out and
get her to sign it. Odd that no one was troubling to do that. She
turned to Berrenrath again. "What are we waiting for?"

"The officer in charge," he said.

`Aren't you in charge?"

"No."

She smiled at him. It was meant to be an endearing smile, but
her battered features turned it into a crooked grimace. "Look, this
is silly, one policeman's as good as another. I'd sooner we got this
over. Write down what I say, and I'll sign it, then you can knock
off."

"No, we'll wait for the officer in charge," Berrenrath said. "He
should be here any minute."

He wasn't, of course. She had often seen movies in which suspects
were left to stew in order to break down their resistance, but she
couldn't understand why this technique was being used in her case.
For one thing she wasn't just a suspect; she was definitely guilty. For
another, she had no intention of causing difficulties.

The delay was making her nervous. She couldn't help thinking of
Gereon and the way he'd acted on the terrace beside the lake - as
if she were a total stranger. But she could understand that. It must
have been a terrible shock to him. You had to put yourself in his
place. He hadn't wanted to go to the lido at all. It was far too hot,
he'd said when she broached the idea over lunch. He didn't like
swimming in any case. And then, in a few brief seconds, she'd torn
his world to shreds. No wonder he'd beaten her up like a madman.
Was he home already? What would lie have told his parents? They
must have been surprised to see him come home without her.

She could picture it. The puzzled expressions. Her mother-inlaw's voice. The old man never said much when family matters
were under discussion. Gereon, pale and bandaged, clasping their
son with his uninjured arm, would begin by asking someone to
help him unload the boot. His mother would volunteer. Outside,
where the old man couldn't hear, Gereon would say: "She stabbed
a man to death."

Later they would sit together in the living room, while Gereon
recounted what had happened, although there wasn't much to tell.
His mother would moan about what the neighbours would say
when they heard; the old man would merely wonder how it would
affect his business and who would handle the paperwork in future.