The Sinner (3 page)

Her legs refused to obey her. Walking like someone on stilts,
she emerged from her tiny office and made her way across the
storeroom, then out into the yard. It was very hot outside. The
baby-faced sun was smiling down out of a cloudless sky. It was so
bright, her eyes started to water, but not, in all probability, because
of the glare.

Her parents-in-law lived in the house overlooking the street; her
own home occupied the former garden. It was a sizeable house
equipped with all mod cons, the fitted kitchen a dream in bleached
oak. As a rule she felt very proud of it all. At the moment she felt
nothing in the way of pride or self-assurance, just this terrible fear
of going mad. To her, going mad seemed worse than death.

She busied herself with housework until just before seven.
Gereon wasn't home yet. On Fridays he regularly repaired to a bar
with Manni Weber for a beer or two - never more than two, unless
he switched to alcohol-free. They joined his parents for supper at
seven on the dot.

At eight they returned to their own house, taking their son with
them, and put him straight to bed. Cora's mother-in-law had
already dressed him in his pyjamas and a nappy for the night.

Gereon sat down in front of the TV and watched the news, then
a movie. At ten he developed his nervous expression. He smoked
one more cigarette. Before lighting it he said: "I'll just smoke one
more."

His manner was tense and uncertain - he hadn't known how
to behave for weeks now After a minute or two he stubbed out
the cigarette and said: "I'll go up now." He might as well have
brandished a whip or done something equally atrocious.

"Coming, Cora? I'm through." It was all she could do to get out
of her armchair when she heard him call her from upstairs.

He'd showered and brushed his teeth, run the razor over his
cheeks and neck and dabbed himself with aftershave. Clean,
fragrant and good-looking, he was standing in the bathroom
doorway in his underpants, his erection all too apparent beneath
the thin material. He gave a sheepish grin and stroked the nape of
his neck, where his hair was still damp from the shower. "Or don't
you feel like it?" lie asked hesitantly.

It would have been easy to say no - in fact she briefly considered
doing so - but that would merely have postponed the problem, not
disposed of it for good.

She wasn't long in the bathroom. Her sleeping pills were on the
shelf above the basin - stronger ones than the first batch, and the
packet was almost full. She washed two down with half a toothmug of water. Then, after a moment's hesitation, she swallowed
the remaining sixteen in the hope that they would be enough to
finish her off. Going into the bedroom, she lay down beside Gereon
and forced a smile.

He took little trouble, being eager to get it over quickly. His
hand located the objective and checked its condition with a finger.
The outlook was unpromising, and had been ever since the night
he'd tried to kiss her there. Having become inured to this, Gereon
had acquired a tube of lubricant, which he gently applied before
mounting her and thrusting his way inside.

That was when the madness began. Absolute silence reigned,
except for Gereon's breathing. Restrained at first, it became ever
louder and more hectic. Not a sound to be heard but his breathing,
yet hear it she did, like the strains of an invisible radio. After six
months the rhythm was as familiar to her as her own heartbeat: the
rapid roll on the drums, the throb of the bass guitar and the highpitched piping of the organ. The faster Gereon's movements, the
more the tempo increased until she felt her heart must burst. Then
it was over, cut off at the very instant Gereon rolled off her.

He turned over on his side and fell asleep in no time. She stared
into the darkness, waiting for the sixteen pills to take effect.

Her stomach, which felt as if it were filled with molten lead,
rumbled and burned like fire. Then its hot, scalding contents ascended into her throat. She reached the bathroom just in time
to vomit. Afterwards she cried herself to sleep - cried her way
through a dream that rent her night into a thousand fragments.
She was still weeping when Gereon turned on the light and shook
her by the shoulder. "What's the matter?" he asked, staring at her
uncomprehendingly.

"I can't take it any more," she said. "I just can't take it any
more." At breakfast she was still feeling nauseous and had a raging
headache - she often did at weekends. Gereon made no reference
to the incident in the night, just eyed her with a mixture of doubt
and suspicion.

He'd made some coffee. It was too strong, and her tormented
stomach rebelled once more. Gereon had also got the child up.
He was holding his son on his lap and feeding him a slice of white
bread thickly spread with butter and jam. An affectionate father,
he looked after him whenever he could spare the time.

The little boy was cared for by his grandmother during the week.
He also slept at the grandparents' house, in the room that had
once been Gereon's. At the weekend Cora took him home with
her. Looking at the boy as he sat perched on Gereon's lap, she felt
he was her finest achievement in life.

Gereon wiped the jam off his son's chin and out of the corners
of his mouth. "I'll get him dressed," he said. "You're bound to
want to take him shopping."

"I won't be going out till later on," she replied, "and I'd sooner
not take him with me in this heat."

Only nine o'clock, and the thermometer was already nudging
eighty degrees. Her eyes were almost starting out of their sockets,
the pain in her head was so intense. She could scarcely think, and
everything needed careful planning and execution. A spontaneous
decision like last night's wasn't good enough: it left too much to
chance. While Gereon was cutting the grass she went across to
her mother-in-law and begged one of her strong painkillers, the
kind you could only get on prescription. After that she cleaned the
kitchen, bathroom, stairs and hallway more thoroughly than ever
before. Everything had to be spick and span.

At eleven she left the little boy with her mother-in-law and made
her way to the car with an empty shopping bag in each hand. The
car seemed the simplest solution, but she dismissed the idea as she
drove off. Gereon was dependent on the car. How else would he
get to their customers on Monday? Besides, it wasn't like her to
destroy something that had cost as much as a new car.

Out of habit she drove to the supermarket. While filling the wire
basket she debated other possibilities. Nothing occurred to her
immediately. A dozen women were waiting at the sausage counter.
She wondered how many of them were looking forward to tonight
and how many felt as she did. None, she was sure.

She was the exception. She'd always been an exception, the
outsider with the mark on her forehead. Cora Bender, twenty-five,
slim and petite, three years married, mother of a two-year-old son
to whom she'd given birth almost on her feet, just after getting into
the ambulance.

A "precipitate delivery", the doctors had called it. Her motherin-law took a different view. "You only have to whore around long
enough to pup that easily, you get so big down there. Who knows
what she got up to before? It can't have been anything good if her
parents want nothing more to do with her. They didn't even come
to the wedding. You can't help wondering why."

Cora Bender's shoulder-length auburn hair flopped across her
forehead in a way that hid the dent in her skull and the jagged
scar. Her pretty little face wore a questing, helpless expression, as if
she'd merely forgotten to put some item of shopping in her basket.
Her hands clutched the handle of the basket so tightly, the knuckles
stood out white and sharp. Her brown eyes roamed restlessly over
the contents of the basket, counted the pots of yoghurt, lingered
on the papier mache tray of apples. Six plump, juicy apples with
yellow skins. Golden Delicious, the sort she liked. She liked life
too, but hers had ceased to be a life. It had never been one, strictly
speaking. And then it occurred to her how to end it.

That afternoon, when the worst of the heat was over, Gereon drove
them down to the lake. Although he hadn't been delighted by her
suggestion, he hadn't opposed it. He manifested his displeasure in
another way, never guessing that he was only stiffening her resolve:
he spent a quarter of an hour driving vainly around the dusty car
park nearest the entrance.

There were vacant spaces further off, as Cora pointed out more
than once. "I don't feel like toting the whole caboodle all that way,"
he retorted.

It was hot inside the car. They'd driven there with the windows
up in case the child caught a cold. Cora had been calm when they
set off, but all this driving around was making her nervous. "Come
on," she said, "be quick, or it won't be worth it."

"What's the hurry? A few minutes here or there won't matter.
Maybe someone'll leave."

"Nonsense, no one goes home at this hour. Either park somewhere
or let me out and I'll go on ahead. Then you can drive around till
nightfall, for all I care."

It was four o'clock. Gereon scowled but said nothing. He put the
car into reverse and backed up for a spell, although he knew she
disliked it. At long last he parked so close to another car that the
door on her side wouldn't open fully.

She wormed her way out, relieved by the faint breeze that fanned
her forehead. Then she reached into the stuffy car, retrieved her
shoulder bag and hooked it over her shoulder, and released the
little boy from his special seat in the back. She set him on his feet
beside the car and went round the back to help Gereon unload.

They'd brought everything needed for an afternoon at the lido.
Cora didn't want anyone to assume premeditation later on. She
clamped the blanket and sun umbrella under her shoulder-bag
arm and carried the two folding chairs in her other hand. All that
remained for Gereon to carry were the towels, the cold bag and
the child.

The sunlight made her blink. The big car park was completely
devoid of shade. There were a few bushes around the edge,
more dusty than green. Her sunglasses were at the bottom of the shoulder bag. She hadn't put them on in the car, just lowered the
sun visor. The folding chairs bumped against her leg as she walked.
A protruding piece of metal scraped the bare skin unpleasantly,
leaving a red mark.

Gereon had already reached the barrier and was waiting for her.
He was pointing to the wire-mesh fence and explaining something
to the child. He was only wearing shorts and sandals. His chest was
bare, the skin tanned and smooth. He had a good figure: broad
shoulders, muscular arms and a narrow waist. Looking at him, she
felt sure he would soon find someone else. He didn't move when she
got there, nor did he make any attempt to take anything from her.

The charge for the car park covered the price of admission, but
she'd stowed the tickets away. She put the folding chairs down and
proceeded to rummage in the shoulder bag for her purse. She
groped around in nappies and a change of pants for the child,
passing two apples, a banana and a packet of biscuits on the way.
Her fingers encountered a plastic yoghurt spoon and the blade
of the little fruit knife, which almost cut her. At last she located
the leather purse and opened it. Having extracted the tickets, she
proffered them to the woman at the barrier and pushed through
the turnstile in Gereon's wake.

They had to make a long trek across the grass, which was
trampled flat, threading their way between countless blankets,
seated family circles and frolicking children. The shoulder strap
was cutting into her flesh, the arm with the blanket and umbrella
clamped beneath it going numb, and her leg hurt where the skin
was being lacerated by the chair's metal frame. But these were
only superficial sensations; they had ceased to trouble her. She
had finished with life. Her one remaining concern was to behave
normally and do nothing that might arouse Gereon's suspicions,
although it was unlikely that lie would fathom the significance of a
telltale gesture or remark.

He eventually halted at a spot that conveyed at least an illusion
of shade, thanks to a measly little tree with sparse foliage. The
leaves were drooping as though asleep; the trunk was even thinner
than a man's arm.

She deposited the blanket, shoulder bag and chairs on the grass,
put up the umbrella and stuck the end in the ground, spread out
the blanket beneath it, erected the folding chairs and arranged
them on it. Gereon stood their son on the blanket, then squatted
down and removed the boy's shoes and socks. Finally, lie peeled off
his thin shirt and pulled his coloured rompers down.

The little boy sat there with a pair of white underpants over his
nappy. His fringe made him look almost like a girl. Looking at him,
Cora wondered if he would miss her when she wasn't there any
more. She doubted it, considering that he spent most of the time
with his grandmother.