The Sinner (37 page)

Father never bothered. When he came home not only late
but drunk, he would tell her his colleagues in the firm had been
celebrating and he couldn't back out every time. Mother knew as
well as I did that he'd been with another woman.

He often patronized whores after I caught him at it in the
bathroom. Then, because he felt rotten, he would drink himself
silly and take out the anger and self-contempt he felt on Mother. I
felt so sorry for her when he shooed her away from the crucifix and
made her warm up his supper, I couldn't help myself. "Leave that,
Mother," I would tell her. "I'll do it."

I could have wept sometimes when I saw her slink back into the
living room. I was only fourteen or fifteen, but I felt so old - almost as if I had two children. They were far bigger and older than me,
but that didn't alter the fact that they were children for whom I
bore a responsibility. I had to cherish and discipline them.

Mother didn't require much disciplining. She was a good girl
- no dirty thoughts, just dirty underclothes - but Father was a
bad boy deserving of the sternest reprimands. "How much did
today's whore cost you?" I asked him, aged fifteen. `A hundred
marks? Two hundred? I'll be needing three hundred this week.
Everything's getting dearer, and you aren't the only one in this
house with personal needs."

He would look at me when I put his meals in front of him. He
never said anything, just took the notes from his wallet and shoved
them across the table. He despised me for the language I used, I
knew, and he knew the feeling was mutual.

We had become enemies just as a mother and her son become
enemies in the course of time because the son does things of which
the mother disapproves, and which the son knows that the mother
herself did once - or, in my case, would do in years to come. But
the mother is the stronger of the two. As long as they live under the
same roof, she wields a great deal of power over her son. He loves
her, after all. He wishes with all his heart that she loved and took
pride in him too, however often he yells and curses and hurls his
rage and disappointment in her face, motivated solely by despair,
loneliness and fear of being abandoned by the last person on earth
capable of giving him a little love.

I was the one who broke Father's backbone, not Mother. I was
to blame that he eventually knuckled under to her; that in his
declining years he shared not only her bed but the crucifix; that he
forgot lie was a man - forgot it entirely, as if the physical evidence
of it had rotted off at last.

I often wondered afterwards how I could have brought myself to
sleep with men for money. I know why I did it: because I needed
the money. Later on I needed still more money for drugs to deaden
my disgust. But I've never found that a sufficient explanation. And
the silly thing is, I don't remember that phase of my life.

I do recall smoking pot in Horsti's car one time. He rolled a spliff and let me take a drag. Then he said I'd done it wrong because I
blew out the smoke at once. That's all I remember. The rest has
gone, whether as a result of my addiction or the head injury, I
don't know.

The doctor said it might be one or the other. He said it could
well be a case of suppression because I'd done things I knew no
normal person does. And I wanted to be normal. I didn't want to
think about the men I'd sold myself to, that's why I stowed them
all away behind the wall in my head. I didn't want them to acquire
faces and bodies and groping hands in my mind's eye. I didn't want
to see or feel them when I cast my mind back. I simply didn't want
to remember, period.

But I've often wondered whether they were old or young. To
begin with, I think most of them must have been old. Men like
Father, who got a raw deal at home and had to satisfy their needs
in the bathroom or on the street at night. Whose only wish was a
little affection and the feeling that they were still men. Sometimes
I've even wondered why I never offered that to my father.

"You can come to me if you need it so badly. Be honest, it's crossed
your mind. Don't worry, you won't be sacrificing a second lamb.
I've never been a lamb. You've no idea of all the things I've stolen
from shops the way I stole from Mother in her womb. I sucked all
the strength out of her through the umbilical cord. I desiccated her
brain and drove her mad. I'm a werewolf. I jump out of my box at
night and devour innocent children. As for old, defenceless men,
I strip the skin from their bodies and rip out their hearts. I'm evil
personified, Satan's daughter. And, since you're my father, you must
be Satan. Come into my arms, you poor thing! You said much the
same to me when I was little; now I'm saying it to you."

I never did say it, but I suppose I tried to apologize to Father in my
own way. Perhaps I saw him in every man with whom I at first had
sex in a normal way. Perhaps I really did come to understand that
men are slaves to their desires. Not everyone possesses the strength
of a Saviour capable of self-denial-capable of understanding and
pardoning even a whore like Mary Magdalene.

Her hour was up. The professor had asked her to recount her
experiences with her pious mother and weak-kneed father, and she
had. To get it over as quickly as possible, she had also unloaded the
filth. It hadn't been easy, but she'd done it. She was feeling pleased
with herself and satisfied that the professor would promptly pass
on what she'd told him to the district attorney.

Perhaps someone would get the idea that Frankie had simply
been a former client of hers. That wouldn't be a bad explanation!
She'd had to kill him before he recognized her and gave her away
to her husband.

Her eyes suddenly swam with scalding tears at the thought of
Gereon, but only for a moment. Her years with him were like the
barrettes and lipsticks she'd stolen from Woolworths and sold or
given away to other girls in the playground: over and gone forever.
Gereon would be bound to hear in court, if not before, what sort
of woman he had exchanged vows with.

For lunch, there were mashed potatoes and some unidentifiable
vegetable boiled to a pulp. The meat, which had been dissected into
little cubes, consisted mostly of fat and gristle and was swimming
in unappetizing brown gravy. A bowl of fruit yoghurt had been
provided for afters.

Reposing on the tray was a white plastic spoon. It reminded her
of the lake and stirred everything up again. Why couldn't her son
have asked for a yoghurt? The most she could have done to Frankie
with a plastic spoon was scratch his face.

She ate a little mashed potato. It tasted of cardboard. Taking the yoghurt with her, she went and stood at the barred window,
looked up at the sky. She wondered where the occupants of
the other beds had their midday meal. Was she considered too
dangerous to eat with the others? Perhaps it was a test designed to
discover how much of her wits she had left. Perhaps the professor
would ask her at their next session how she was getting on with
her room-mates.

For a while she debated what answer to give him. Then she
devoted some thought to the Frankie scenario. If the idea that he'd
been a client of hers didn't occur to the professor spontaneously,
she would have to rub his nose in it.

Finally, she wondered whether Magdalena had been relieved
to enter the pearly gates and find that Mother wasn't there yet.
Whether she was getting bored singing "Holy, holy, holy!" all the
time, or whether she was sitting face to face with the Saviour in
some quiet corner. Magdalena had once pointed to a picture of
the Saviour in the Bible and said: "Give the fellow a shave and a
decent haircut, and he wouldn't be bad-looking."

Frankie hadn't been bad-looking either. A pretty face for a man
- pretty but masculine. They probably wouldn't believe her if she
said he'd been a client of hers. A man like him had no need to pay
for sex, nor was he a pervert.

She could still see him clearly- without any blood- sitting up and
complaining about that tune. Perhaps he'd found it as agonizing as
she had. Perhaps he'd been grateful when she put him out of his
misery. The way he'd looked at her ...

She stood at the window until just after two - just stood there,
feeling happy she hadn't been tied to the bed again. Someone
came to collect the tray and scolded her for leaving her meat and
vegetable mush untouched. She pointed to her throat with an
apologetic smile. "It still hurts when I swallow, but I've finished
the yoghurt. If there's some soup tomorrow, I'll definitely have two
helpings." Then she was alone again.

Twice she heard a sound behind her and turned to look at the
door. She knew what had caused it: a watchful eye at the spy-hole.
A few minutes later a key turned in the lock. She thought of the mugs of coffee and slices of stale cake at the hospital where she'd
spent a few days after the birth of her son. They always brought
afternoon coffee at midday and supper at teatime because they
wanted to get off early.

The door opened. The instant she turned, fear sprang at her like
a rabid dog. The chief! His neutral, almost businesslike demeanour
concealed all that he must have learned from her father.

In fact, Rudolf Grovian's impassive face merely camouflaged his
own emotions. Mea culpa! He had driven home at lunchtime, unable
to endure the office any longer, with its gleaming coffee machine
and the chair on which she'd sat. He never came home for lunch as
a rule, so Mechthild hadn't been expecting him. He didn't have to
say much; she asked what was wrong of her own accord.

After he'd explained and told her what he felt he must do next,
she said: "You're mad, Rudi. Leave the poor thing in peace. You
can't help her, you'll only make matters worse. She's fine where
she is."

"Fine? Don't make me laugh! Have you any idea what it's like in
a psychiatric ward?"

"No," she said, cracking a couple of eggs into the pan, "and I
don't want to know I already know what goes on in your outfit,
that's good enough for me. Nobody says a word if you and Hoss
come down hard on some fellow who deserves it, but a young
woman like that? Think what she's been through!"

Grovian had been thinking of nothing else. The law obliged him
not only to investigate Cora Bender but also to gather any evidence
that might exonerate her. He explained this to Mechthild. "Then
do it, Rudi," she had said. "Do it, for God's sake, and take anything
you discover to the district attorney. But not to her, certainly not
the news that her father is dying. How much more do you plan to
burden her with?"

He looked at her standing beside the window, a picture of misery: her bruised face all the colours of the rainbow, her forehead adorned with a broad strip of sticking plaster. Thinking of the
objects in his jacket pocket and the news he had to give her, he
could still hear Mechthild's voice in his head: "You're mad, Rudi.
Leave the poor thing in peace ..."

The door was locked behind him. "I'm sorry," he began, fully
expecting her to go for him with her fists and wondering how he
could prevent her from being put in a straitjacket. But her body
merely sagged a little. She stared at him moist-eyed, pursing her
tremulous lower lip like a child on the verge of tears who knows
that crying is forbidden.

"Wouldn't you prefer to sit down, Frau Bender?"

She shook her head. `A stroke?" she whispered. "How is he? Will
he get over it?"

"The doctors are very optimistic," he lied. `And your aunt never
leaves his bedside."

"That's good," she murmured. She went over to her bed and
sat down after all. He gave her a minute or two to recover from
the shock, saw her hopes revive and her shoulders straighten. She
raised her head and looked at him. "So you weren't able to speak
to him?"

"No."

A satisfied smile flitted across her face. "Good," she said. `And I
don't want to speak to you either. Go away."