The Sinner (30 page)

A chill ran down his spine when she raised her head and gazed
into his eyes. There was something about the look on her face. It
took him a second or two to identify it, and he did so only because
her words confirmed his impression. Insanity!

`An innocent man," she said, "and lie won't rise again on the
third day. He'll turn black, get eaten by worms and rot away. If you
insist on harassing his father, tell him to cremate him. Will you do
that? You must, and you must promise me something. I don't want
to be cremated if I die, so make sure I'm not. I want an unmarked
grave. You can bury me on the edge of a restricted area, like the
girl. Just lay me down beside her."

Restricted area, thought Grovian. He hadn't described it as such,
but he didn't pursue the matter. Her expression was still giving him the shivers. It couldn't be true, surely! She'd been in full command
of her senses at lunchtime on Sunday. Agitated, temporarily
bewildered by the gravity of her act and firmly resolved to take
the consequences, yes, but not insane. That she should have lost
her reason within two days ... No, that was impossible. She was
merely exhausted.

He changed the subject to her son, hoping that it would arouse
her fighting spirit. Only two years old! Didn't she share his opinion
that so young a child needed his mother?

"Who needs the plague?" she retorted.

"No one," he said, "just as no one needs worms or wolf's or tiger's
penises in them. I'm sorry, Fran Bender, I'd hoped we could talk
like normal people. If you either can't or won't, I understand. In
any case, I'm probably not the right person to solve your problems.
There are experts for that. I expect you'll be seeing one in the next
few days."

"What do you mean?" she demanded. "I want nothing to do
with experts," she went on fiercely before he could reply. "Don't
dare let a psychiatrist loose on me! I'll tell you something: if anyone
like that shows up here ..."

She refrained from saying what would happen then. Breaking
off in mid sentence, she wiped her brow on the back of her hand
and smiled suddenly. "But why am I getting so worked up? I don't
have to talk to anyone, least of all a shrink. Listen, you can send
along a dozen shrinks if you like, but make sure they bring a pack
of cards with them. They'll get bored otherwise."

Her outburst had a liberating effect on him. As amiably as ever,
he enquired whether she would sooner talk to a woman than a
man. If so, he might be able to arrange it. She didn't reply.

He rose and made for the door, meaning to take his leave. "I
can't prevent a psychologist being called in. It's the DAs ruling, and
I think he's right."

That broke the ice at last.

"You think!" she snarled, barring his path. "You think anything
goes! First you try to pressure me with my family and now with
your blasted expert. Do you imagine he'll get more out of me than you? I know what you want to hear. All right, you can have it. Let's
save the government a few marks. Experts need paying, and they
certainly earn more an hour than heating engineers. I don't want
anyone accusing me of wasting taxpayers' money."

"You don't have to tell me anything, Frau Bender."

She stamped her foot. "But now I want to, damn it! Now I want
to, and you'll listen. Want to take it down, or can you remember
it? Frankie's father didn't lie to you. I didn't get to know Frankie in
May; it was later. It may have been in August, I don't recall exactly.
I was dopey - I'd been on the needle for quite a while - so I didn't
know whether it was Christmas or Ramadan."

She sniffed and dabbed her eyes with her fingertips. "Would you
have a packet of tissues for me? I asked for some, but they forgot.
Perhaps they expected me to pay, and I don't have any money on
me."

He felt in his pockets, found an opened packet and handed it to
her. She removed a tissue, dabbed her eyes briefly and carefully
replaced it with the others, smiling at him. "Thanks. And forgive
me for flying off the handle just now, I didn't mean to. Oh, what
the hell, of course I did. It's a rotten feeling when you don't even
have the right to leave your own dirt under the carpet. There's a
whole heap of it, I'd better tell you right away."

He smiled too. "I'm sure I've seen bigger ones."

She shrugged. "Maybe, but I haven't." Then she squared her
shoulders. "Well," she said, "it was probably in August. I said May
at first because I was ashamed. I got involved with him the very
first night and clung to him like a limpet. He had stuff, and he had
enough money to keep me regularly supplied with it - I didn't have
to worry about that any more. In return he insisted I go to bed with
him. That was okay - I did it of my own free will - but after a few
weeks he wanted me to do it with his friends as well."

She laughed bitterly. `And I did. I did anything he asked. He
wanted to watch with that girl. I don't know her name, honestly I
don't, but it isn't important. She was some stupid cow he'd brought
from home. He didn't do anything to her - he certainly didn't hit
her. I wished he would, that's all. He was stuck on her and wanted to show her what a hell of a fellow he was - that he could do
anything he liked with me."

"Was that in August too?"

She shook her head. "No, in October."

"Where were you at that time? You weren't at home."

Another shake of the head. "It varied. Hamburg or Bremen.
I slept rough mostly, but sometimes he'd give me money for a
room. He used to come at weekends, and we'd drive around.
And once we went to that fabulous house. That was the night it
happened."

"What exactly did happen?" He didn't know whether to believe
her. Her tone was calm and composed, with an undertone of
resignation. It sounded like the truth.

"I was pregnant by him. He said if I did what he wanted, he
would arrange for a good doctor to sort it out. I cried a bit, but I
knew there wasn't much point. So I gave in."

She gave another laugh, though it was more of a sob. Her eyes
roamed the cell like hunted beasts, and she drew a hand nervously
across her brow "Can you imagine how I felt? I lay on the floor
with those two fellows mounting me in turn, and that bitch sat
beside him on the sofa and told me to do it again with both of them
at the same time ..." She gagged, and it was several seconds before
she could continue. "She said: `Don't be a spoilsport, sweetie.' And
then she told one of them: `Give her a shot, it'll relax her."'

She shuddered. Her eyes found their way to his face at last, and
her voice sounded firm and controlled once more. "They held
me down and pumped me full of stuff. I thought they were going
to kill me, so I struggled and they punched and kicked me in the
head and stomach. Then I suddenly started to bleed. They must
have panicked, I suppose, because they all pushed off and left
me lying there. I made it to the street somehow, and that was
when I ran in front of the car. The man who drove into me was
a doctor - that was my one stroke of luck. He saw I was having
a miscarriage, and lie also saw I was drugged to the eyeballs. But
that's enough. Next you'll be asking me his name again, and that
I'll never tell you."

"Why not, Frau Bender? The man hasn't committed a criminal
offence. As things stand, he seems to be the only person able to
confirm your story."

She stared past him at the wall. "He certainly wouldn't," she
muttered. "He'd swear he'd never seen me before."

"Why should he do that?"

"Because he was a scumbag. He felt me up while I was still in
a daze - I thought he only wanted to examine me. I woke up one
night to find him masturbating beside my bed, and he'd pawed me
before that. Anything else you'd like to know?"

He saw her hand tighten on the packet of tissues. Her eyes
flashed. "He was a lecherous old goat," she blurted out. "The whole
room reeked of sweat when he came in. I tell you, if I ever had to
set eyes on that bastard again, and I would if I told you his name,
I'd stab him the way I stabbed Frankie even if the courtroom were
packed with policemen - no one could stop me. And now, leave
me alone."

She turned away, propped her arm against the wall and buried
her face in it, weeping. It was the first time Grovian had seen her cry.
An instinctive desire to do or say something consoling prompted
him to lay a hand on her shoulder. She shook it off.

`Just go away. You can't imagine what happens when I talk to
you. It all comes back to me - it all comes alive again. I can't stand
it. Go away, get lost. And leave my father alone. He's an old man,
he's sick, he's ... He never did anything to me. He still had natural
urges at his age, he couldn't help it. It was all my fault."

It was the sweets. It had never occurred to me, when I was gorging
myself on them, that they were bound to have an effect. When I
was thirteen it became obvious: I'd put on weight. Puppy fat, said
Margret, and teased me about it whenever she came to stay. I tried
to give them up, not wanting to be fat, but it wasn't easy because I
couldn't stop stealing.

The money I pinched steadily accumulated. I used to sit in the
barn and count it sometimes. Then I imagined running away with
it, far away. When I'd amassed 1,278 marks - I still remember the
exact sum - I took eight marks in small change to the station and
enquired about the price of a ticket to Hamburg. "I don't want to
buy one now," I said. "I'd just like to know"

"Single or return?" asked the man behind the counter.

"Single," I said. "I'm never coming back. And can you tell me
how much it costs to travel on a ship?"

He laughed. "Depends where you want to go. Flying is quicker,
but you have to pay for every pound of excess weight."

Excess weight, I thought as I walked away from the counter. I
took the eight marks to the ice-cream parlour and wolfed down a
big strawberry sundae topped with whipped cream. Afterwards I
went into the ladies' and stuck a finger down my throat. From then
on I did that every time I ate something sweet.

Magdalena said I had to stop. "It's an illness," she told me. "Girls
have died of it before now Spend the money on other things." She
thought it was only the pocket money I got from Father. "Like smart
clothes," she said. "You can hide those in the barn too, then you can get changed before you go out and come in. You'll see. Once
you've got something smart to wear, you'll like yourself again."

I couldn't imagine that clothes would change anything. I was far
too fat, thought I was ugly, and I still wet the bed. Not every night
but often, even though I'd stopped dreaming about the wolf long
ago. I simply failed to wake up when I needed to go.

As a rule, I didn't notice that everything was wet again until Father
came to check. He often got up two or three times a night, and the
first thing he did was to slip his hand under the bedclothes.

It sometimes puzzled me that he was so patient, that lie never got
angry or uttered a word about it. My bed stank - our whole room
stank - because my mattress got wet so often and never dried out
properly. In summer I used to prop it up in front of the window
Then I bought myself a rubber sheet.

I was growing up. Only outwardly but unmistakably. I developed a
bosom and hair in my armpits. Down below too. I felt embarrassed
when Father came to bed at the same time, not that he noticed.
When I went into the bathroom to get undressed he would follow
me in because he wanted to tell me something. Like what had
happened at work or in the car on the way there. He couldn't talk
about such things to Mother, so he discussed them all with me.
I thought that was great, but I didn't like him watching me get
undressed.

Then I got my periods. I didn't know much about what was
happening to me, although I'd naturally been acquainted with
the facts of life in school. The purely biological aspect, how you
got pregnant and so on. Margret had also spoken to me about it.
In general, though, she'd only made sure my first period wouldn't
catch me unprepared.

By the time Margret broached the subject, however, I'd long ago
learned what I was in for. Mother had briefed me thoroughly. She
told me that I must be careful not to open the gates of hell to any
man, and that I'd soon be afflicted with the curse of Eve.

It was a curse too. I got terrible stomach cramps when the
bleeding started. I was nervous for days in advance. I could sense
it coming and felt like hiding in a corner, but I had to go to school. And I was reluctant to ask to be excused games for fear of attracting
attention.

I asked Grit Adigar what to do when we had swimming.
Swimming and games in the gym were always on alternate weeks,
and I couldn't go into the pool wearing a sanitary towel. Grit
suggested I use tampons and explained what you did with them. I
found it disgusting, but I took her advice. Afterwards I washed my
hands in hot water until they were all red and swollen.