The Sinner (5 page)

She mustn't fight the water. Jutting into the lake at the far end of
the lido was a small, scrub-covered headland. Once beyond it she
would be hidden from view Then out to the middle of the lake,
duck-diving from the outset. That would sap her strength.

The radio cassette was belting out a drum solo. It flailed away
at her brain, although she took no notice of it. Holding the apple
firmly in her hand, she felt the nape of her neck prickle and her
shoulder muscles tense, felt her back stiffen and go cold as if she
were lying on some hard, cold surface instead of sitting in balmy
air, felt something like an exceptionally thick thumb force its way
into her mouth, just as it had at Christmas, when Gereon had
meant to give her a special treat.

Swallowing hard, she took the knife and cut the apple into four
quarters, three of which she deposited on her lap.

Behind her, a voice she recognized as Alice's said: "It's really hot
stuff."

"Yes," said the man sitting beside her, "you wouldn't think it of
him today. It was five years ago, of course. That was Frankie's wild
and woolly phase - it only lasted a few weeks. He doesn't like being
reminded of it, but I reckon Ute's right, it's great music - nothing to
be ashamed of. Three friends, they were. A shame they never made
the big time, just played in a cellar. That's Frankie on drums."

Frankie, friends, cellar, drums ... The words rang briefly in her
head, imprinting themselves on her memory.

"Were you there at the time?" Alice asked.

"No, I hadn't met him yet."

Gereon stretched. He glanced at the piece of apple in her hand.
"He'll never eat all that. You can give me the rest."

"I'm eating the rest myself," she said. "Then I'm going for
another swim. There's another apple in the bag; you can have it." A last piece of apple! Golden Delicious, the kind she'd loved as a
child. The very thought made her mouth water.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw the blonde on the blanket sit
up. "Hang on," the woman said, pressing a button on the cassette
player, "I'll wind it on a bit. This is nothing compared to `Tiger's
Song'! You won't hear anything better."

The dark-haired man rolled over and made another grab for her
arm. Cora saw his face for the first time. It meant nothing to her.
His voice too was just as unfamiliar when lie protested again, more
vehemently this time. "No, Ute, that's enough. Not that, give me
a break!" He sounded very much in earnest, but Ute laughed and
fended him off.

Cora thought of her house. Her mother-in-law was bound to go
through it with a fine-tooth comb, but she wouldn't find any cause
for complaint. Everything was spick and span. The firm's books were
in order too. No one would be able to say she'd been slapdash.

She removed the core from the piece of apple and peeled it as
thinly as possible, then handed it to the little boy and picked up the
next piece, intending to peel and core it for herself At that moment
the music started again, even louder than before. Involuntarily, she
glanced sideways. She saw the blonde subside onto her back, grasp
the man's shoulders and pull him down on top of her, saw him
bury his fingers in her hair and adjust her head to a convenient
angle. Then he kissed her. And the drums ...

The remains of the apple fell to the grass as she jumped up.
Gereon gave a start when she began to shout.

"Stop it, you filthy swine! Stop it, let go of her! Let go of her!"

At the first words she hurled herself sideways and fell to her knees.
As the last words left her lips she stabbed the man with the knife.

Her first thrust caught him in the neck. He gave a startled cry
and swung round, grabbed her wrist and held it for a moment or
two, staring at her. Then he let go and merely went on staring. He
muttered something she didn't catch, the music was too loud.

That was it! That was the tune in her head, the prelude to madness. It rang out over the trampled grass, over the horrified faces
and frozen figures of those around her.

The second thrust caught him in the side of the throat. He stared
at her wide-eyed but made no sound, just clutched his neck with
one hand and gazed into her eyes. The blood spurted between his
fingers, red as the little plastic fish. The blonde screamed and tried
to crawl away beneath his legs.

She stabbed him again and again. Once in the throat, once in
the shoulder, once through the cheek. The knife was small but
pointed and very sharp. And the music was so loud. It filled her
head entirely.

The man who had merely been sitting there, talking with Alice,
shouted something. It sounded like "Stop that!"

Of course! That was the whole point: Stop that! Stop it, you
filthy swine! The seated man put out his hand as if to catch hold
of her, but he didn't. No one did a thing. It was as if they were all
frozen in time. Alice put both hands over her mouth. The blonde
whimpered and screamed alternately. The little girls in frilly bikinis
clung to their mother. The grandfather removed the newspaper
from his face and sat up. The grandmother snatched up the baby
and clasped it to her breast. The father started to rise.

Gereon got out of his chair at last. An instant later he was
standing over her. He punched her in the back and tried to grab the
hand with the knife just as she raised her arm once more. "Cora!"
he yelled. "Stop that! Are you crazy?"

No, her head was clear as a bell. Everything was fine, everything
was just as it should be. It had to be this way: she knew it beyond
all doubt. And the man knew it too; she could read it in his eyes.
"This is my blood, which was shed for you for the remission of
your sins."

When Gereon hurled himself at her the seated man and the
father of the little girls came to his aid. They each held an arm
while Gereon wrested the knife from her grasp. Holding her by the
hair with one hand, he forced her head back and punched her in
the face several times.

Gereon was bleeding from two or three cuts on his arm. She had
stabbed him too, although she hadn't meant to. The seated man
yelled at him to stop, which he eventually did. But he gripped her by the back of the neck and clamped her face against the other
man's bloodstained chest.

No sound was coming from inside that chest, nor was there
much sound in general. A few more rhythmical beats, a final drum
solo just before the tape ended. Then came a click. A button on the
cassette player popped up, and it was over.

She was conscious of Gereon's grip, of the numb places on
her face where his fist had struck her, of the blood on the chest
beneath her cheek and its taste on her lips. The platinum blonde
was whimpering.

She put out a hand and rested it on the woman's leg. "Don't be
afraid," she said. "He won't hit you. Come on, come away. Let's
go. We shouldn't have come here. Can you get up by yourself, or
shall I help you?" The little boy on her blanket started to cry.

I didn't cry much as a child. Only once, in fact, and then I didn't
cry but screamed with fear. I haven't given it a thought in recent
years, but I remember the occasion distinctly. I'm in a dimly lit
bedroom with heavy brown curtains over the window The curtains
are stirring, so the window must be open. It's cold in there. I'm
shivering.

I'm standing in front of a double bed. One half is neatly made
up, the other, nearest the window, is rumpled. The bed emits a
stale, sourish smell as if the sheets haven't been changed for a long
time.

I don't like it in the bedroom. The chill, the stench of months-old
sweat, a threadbare runner on the bare floorboards. In the room
I've just come from there's a thick carpet on the floor, and it's nice
and warm. I tug at the hand holding mine, eager to go.

Seated on the tidy side of the bed is a woman wearing an overcoat
and holding a baby in her arms. The baby is wrapped in a blanket.
I'm supposed to look at her. She's my sister Magdalena. I have a
new sister, I've been told, and we're going to look at her. But all I
see is the woman in the overcoat.

The woman is a total stranger to me. She's my mother, whom I
haven't seen for ages. Six months - a long time to a small child. My
memory doesn't go back that far. And now I'm supposed to remain
with this woman, who only has eyes for the bundle in the blanket.

Her face frightens me. It's hard, grey and forbidding. At last she
looks at me. Her voice sounds the way she looks. She says: "The
Lord has not forgiven our sins."

Then she folds back the blanket, and I see a tiny, blue face. "He
has put us to the test," she goes on. "We must pass that test. We
shall do what He expects of us."

I don't believe I could have registered those words at the time.
They were often told me later on, that's why I still remember them
so well.

I want to go. The woman's odd voice, the tiny, blue face in the
blanket - I want no part of them. I tug again at the hand holding
mine and start crying. Somebody picks me up and hushes me. My
mother! I'm firmly convinced that the woman who takes me in her
arms is my real mother. I cling to her and feel relieved when she
takes me back into the warm.

I was still very young - only eighteen months. It's easy to work
that out because I was one year old when Magdalena was born at
the hospital in Buchholz, like me. We were both born in the same
month: I on 9 May, and she on 16 May. My sister was a blue baby.
Immediately after her birth she was transferred to the big hospital
at Eppendorf and had an operation on her heart. The doctors
discovered that Magdalena had other things wrong with her. They
did their best for her, of course, but they couldn't put everything
right.

It was thought at first that she had only a few days to live - a few
weeks at most. The doctors didn't want Mother to take her home,
but Mother refused to leave her on her own, so she stayed on at
Eppendorf. But my sister was still alive after six months, and the
doctors couldn't keep her there indefinitely, so they sent her home
to die.

I spent those first six months living with the Adigars, our nextdoor neighbours. As a little child I firmly believed that they were my
family - that Grit Adigar was my real mother and had handed me
over to the woman in the overcoat because she wanted to get rid of
me. Grit took me back with her at first but not, alas, for long.

Although I don't have any detailed recollections of this period,
I've often wished I could remember at least a little about the weeks
and months I spent with Grit and her daughters, Kerstin and
Melanie.

Grit was still very young. She must then have been in her early
twenties, having had her first child at seventeen and her second at
nineteen. Her husband was seldom at home. Several years older
than her, lie earned a good living at sea. Grit always had plenty of
money and plenty of time for her daughters. She was a cheerful,
uncomplicated person, almost a child herself.

In later years I often saw her pounce on her daughters and roll
around on the floor with them, tickling them until they squirmed
and giggled so much they could hardly breathe. I believe that she
must have done the same to me in the days when I was in her care;
that I played with Kerstin and Melanie; that Grit took me on her
lap in the evenings and cuddled me the way she cuddled her own
children; that she fed me cake in the afternoons or told me funny
stories. And that she said: "You're a good girl, Cora."

But those six months are a blank, like the few more weeks I spent
with Grit after Mother returned from the hospital with Magdalena.
All that has lodged in my mind is a sense of having been shunted
aside - cast out and expelled from Paradise. For the only licensed
inmates of Paradise are the angels of purity who obey God's word
to the letter, question none of His commandments, never rebel
against Him and can look at the apples on the Tree of Knowledge
without coveting a bite.

I couldn't do that. Easily led astray, I was a weak, sinful little
creature unable to control the desires aroused in me and covetous
of all I set eyes on. And Grit Adigar, or so I thought, had no wish
to live under the same roof as such a person.

That was why I had to say "Mother" to a woman I disliked and
"Father" to the man who lived in our house. But him I was very
fond of. He was a sinner like me. Mother often called him that.

I carried my sin around inside me. Father's was on the outside. I
often saw it when lie relieved himself while I was sitting in the bathtub. I don't know how I came to believe that that appendage was his
sin. Perhaps because I didn't possess such a thing, nor did Kerstin
and Melanie Adigar. Because I considered myself entirely normal,
Father's bit extra meant that he wasn't. It made me feel sorry for him,
and I often got the impression that he wanted to get rid of the thing.

We slept in the same room, and one night I woke up because he
was so restless. I think I was three years old; I can't recall exactly.
I was very fond of Father, as I said. He used to buy me new shoes
when the old ones pinched, tuck me up at night, sit with me till I
went to sleep and tell me stories of long ago, when Buchholz was
still a wretched little moorland village. Just a few farmsteads, and
the soil so poor and the cattle so emaciated they couldn't make
their own way to pasture in springtime and had to be hauled there
on wagons. And then the railway came, and everything got better.