The Sinner

by Petra Hammesfahr

  The DA regarded him impassively for a moment or two. "Odd sort of conversations to have with an aunt," he said. `Anyway, Grovian, she not only listed the relevant points, she skewered them."

  Grovian knew this, even though he hadn't seen it with his own eyes. He also knew that remembering such precise details was extremely rare, if not the great exception. No one committing a crime in the heat of the moment recalled the exact sequence of events, and this had been a crime of passion - it couldn't be anything else, and he wanted the DA to share his opinion. "Would you like a word with her?" he suggested. "I could send for her."

  The DA shook his head. "Let her sleep. She must have had a tough night, but mine wasn't pleasant either. I don't care to prolong it at the moment."

  Arsehole, thought Grovian.

  It was late that morning when Berrenrath woke her. She didn't know he could have been tucked up in bed at home long ago, and it wouldn't have interested her particularly if she had. Last night his kindliness had possessed a certain value. Now he was just a link in the chain with which she had been fettered to the past.

  She had a stale taste in her mouth, but her head was quite clear again. Cold, too, as if her brain had frozen in the night. Her fear - and with it every other sensation - was now encased in a block of ice.

  She asked for a glass of water and was given one. Mineral water, which did her good. She sipped it slowly. Not long afterwards Berrenrath escorted her back into the chief's office.

  There she was offered some breakfast. The chief was waiting for her, as was the other man, this time wearing pale grey slacks and a check shirt with an unobtrusive pattern. Both men looked weary, and both seemed concerned that she should really be feeling all right. On the tray set before her was a plate of open sandwiches topped with cheese and sausage. She wasn't hungry. The chief urged her to eat something, at least, so she obliged him by taking a mouthful of salami sandwich and washing it down with plenty of coffee.

  Then she asked his name. "I'm sorry, I had so many things on my mind yesterday, I didn't take it in."

  The chief stated his name, but in his case the name didn't matter. He'd driven her to the brink of insanity, thereby demonstrating the extent of his power over her and her mind. After him, no one else would be strong enough to do that to her.

  He announced that they were going take her to the district court at Bruhl and hand her over to the examining magistrate.

  "You'll have to wait a while, then," she said, looking at Werner Hoss. Expressionlessly, she went on: "You had your doubts about my story last night - rightly so."

  They listened closely, never taking their eyes off her, as she calmly proceeded to retract her whole edifice of lies aboutJohnny Guitar. She concluded with a tiny little new lie: in October five years ago she'd neglected to pay sufficient attention while crossing a road and been knocked down by a car.

  She saw Werner Hoss give a satisfied nod. The chief shot him a furious glance and shook his head. Then, very cautiously, he raised the subject of his interview with her aunt. Margret had told him she'd been terribly mistreated, he said, and she herself had hinted as much.

  It was a blow to learn that Margret had lied to her and talked after all - that she'd dished the little dirt she'd picked up from Father about the end of the affair. Terribly mistreated, yet! And she'd advised her to tell the truth about what happened from August onwards! From August onwards the truth couldn't hurt Margret. "Think of yourself for once!" Margret had been thinking of Margret, no one else.

  "What is all this nonsense?" she burst out. "I hinted at nothing. Did I say I'd been mistreated?"

  The chief smiled. "Not in so many words." He asked her to listen to a passage from one of the tapes, but only, of course, if she felt up to it.

  "Yes, sure," she said. "I feel exactly the way someone in my position should."

  He turned on the tape recorder, and she listened to her quavering voice: "He went on hitting her until she was dead - I heard her ribs snap...

  "My God," she said, "I sound awful - quite bemused. But you did badger me, you must admit. That quack you foisted on me said I'd been subjected to intense emotional pressure, that's why I fainted. Ask him if you don't believe me. Or ask Berrenrath, he heard it too. But don't worry, I won't lodge a formal complaint against you. You were doing your job, I realize that."

  Grovian nodded. He glanced at Hoss with an indefinable expression. It was either a plea for understanding or a demand for silence, which amounted to the same thing. He drew a deep breath, trying to assess her state of mind. She seemed quite lucid, and she could save him a lot of work if she wanted to. All she had to do was name the girl the fat boy had gone off with.

  He proceeded with extreme caution, intimating that he understood what had prompted her to retract her story: a fear of having to confront some terrible truth once more.

  Her lips twisted in a mocking smile. "You haven't understood a thing. The fat boy didn't have a girl. It was Johnny who went off with her. The fat boy trailed around after them like a little doggie who's only allowed to sniff a bone."

  "So Johnny existed," said Grovian.

  "Of course, but not for me. He never even spared me a glance."

  Grovian injected a touch of paternal reproof into his voice. "Fran Bender, your aunt said

  He got no further. "Cut it out!" she snapped. "Margret doesn't have a clue, she wasn't there! Forget all that crap and listen to the first tape instead. That's where you'll find the right answers. I'd never seen Georg Frankenberg before yesterday. I overheard his friend talking about him, that's how I was able to tell you something about his music and the cellar."

  "No," he retorted. "You spoke about a cellar years ago - you dreamed about one. You aunt was certainly there then. And you didn't faint last night because I'd subjected you to pressure. I did pressure you, I don't deny it, but that wasn't why you fainted. You remembered the cellar. You couldn't bear it, you shouted, and you begged me to help you. I want to help you, Frau Bender, but you must meet me halfway. Your aunt said. . ."

  She pursed her lips and nodded. On her battered face, the grin that accompanied the nod looked strangely pathetic. "I could tell you something about my aunt that would make your ears flap. She did something - theft, I think it's called. But you'd never guess what she stole, not in your worst nightmare. Margret lied to you just as I did, take it from me. She can't afford to tell you the truth. Forget it, though, I don't want to get her into trouble. I had a few nightmares while I was staying with her, that's true, but they had nothing to do with Georg Frankenberg. They were about quite different things."

  "I know," he said. "They were about goats and pigs and tigers. And worms and suchlike. It doesn't take much imagination to interpret them. To me they sound like rape."

  Grovian couldn't have explained how he came to prompt her in this way. He caught a puzzled glance from Werner Hoss.

  She laughed aloud. "Rape? Who put that idea into your head? Margret?" She emitted another little bark of derisive laughter. "Who else! It's too annoying she only said it to you. She'd have done better to discuss it with me; I'd have had a story ready for her - one that would make me as innocent as a lamb."

  Margret often said I'd gone my own way in spite of everything. It may have looked like that to her, but it wasn't my "way", it was my test track. I sinned deliberately to see what would happen. I gambled with Magdalena's life as if death were merely a ball to be tossed from hand to hand. Thrill-seeking - that's what it was for a while. Later it became a habit.

  It started with little things. With the dream about the wolf, which made me wet my bed. I never stopped hoping the wolf would reappear because he liberated me, at least for the space of a night. And he continued to reappear for almost a year, nearly every night. Or I'd sneak over to Grit's in the afternoon, beg a sweet or a slice of cake and hastily devour it. I inspected Magdalena every time I came home, and every time her condition was unchanged. So minor sins couldn't kill her.

  Not that I wanted to kill her,
honestly not. She was a great burden to me. She compelled me to lead a life I had no wish to lead. But after that episode with the handkerchief and the Saviour's wet feet I often wished I could do more for her than talk to her or read her Bible stories.

  I think I'd begun to love my sister, yet I still cadged sweets from Grit ... Perhaps I simply wanted to prove to myself that I could sin like mad without affecting Magdalena's state of health. If little demons eventually ripped the flesh from my body with red-hot pincers, that was my problem, not hers.

  And then, in the street one day, I found a one-mark coin. I was eleven and already going to secondary school, but I'd never had any money of my own. The other girls in my class got something from their parents every Sunday, and on Mondays after school they went to a little shop and bought themselves wine gums or ice lollies. They used to tease me for never being able to go to the shop with them.

  I caught sight of the coin lying there while I was on my way to school that morning. I knew I was allowed to pick it up but ought to hand it in. Instead, I pocketed it. During break I left the playground, which was forbidden, and went to the shop to buy myself an ice lolly. And when the teacher asked where I'd been I said I'd had to order some candles for my mother. Taken together, I thought, that must surely amount to a mortal sin.

  I dawdled on the way home for lunch, feeling terribly apprehensive. Magdalena hadn't been at all well that morning, and I... Oh, I don't know Although I was eleven by then, and although I didn't want to believe what several people had told me - that Mother wasn't right in the head - I did still believe it - somehow

  Beliefs like that are deep-rooted, impossible to prove or disprove. You can't do much about them; you can only try. Many people think they'll be dogged by misfortune if they walk under a ladder or come to grief if a black cat crosses their path. They contrive never to walk under a ladder and turn tail if they see a black cat. But I wanted to find out.

  Instead of ringing the doorbell, as I used to when I was younger, I went around to the kitchen. I could hear Mother singing before I reached the door.

  `Almighty God, we praise Thee. Lord, we extol Thy might. The earth boweth down before Thee and marveleth at Thy works. As Thou wert in the beginning, so shalt Thou remain for all eternity. All that can extol Thee, cherubim and seraphim, sing Thy praises. All the angels that serve Thee cry: `Holy, holy, holy. . .-

  If Mother was singing that song, all had to be well. And it was. I walked into the kitchen to find Magdalena sitting in an armchair with the little bed-table across her knees, spooning up chicken broth - unaided. She winked at me, meaning get a load of what happens next. She was much better than she had been that morning.

  "I'm going to be bored stiff in heaven," she said. "I mean, singing `Holy, holy, holy' all day long."

  She was so well, she could afford to needle Mother a little. She enjoyed doing so because Mother often needled her. Magdalena wasn't a gentle child by nature. She couldn't do much when she was little. She could do equally little when she became older, but she could use her tongue. And Mother was staggered or shocked every time, perhaps because she couldn't shoo Magdalena into the living room whenever she poked fun at her opinions or at the Saviour himself, not in her condition. "Blasphemy" was Mother's verdict on such remarks, and that was another very grave sin.

  "No more singing, please," Magdalena insisted. "It'll spoil my appetite. If that's all I'm allowed to sing up there, I'd at least prefer to hear something else while I'm still down here. Cora must tell me something about school."

  As time went by, my telling her about school had developed from our wishing game into a substitute for television. Things often happened at school. Sometimes kids got into fights. Sometimes one of the bigger boys would be caught smoking. On one occasion a girl locked herself up in the toilet and swallowed some tablets. Later, an ambulance turned up. Magdalena found it exciting when I told her things like that.

  That was her life. She seldom left the house except to visit the hospital with Mother every three months. One couldn't go for a walk with her in town, and at her age she was too ashamed to be taken out in the pram.

  Father had offered to buy her a wheelchair, but she wouldn't have it. "I don't want him spending a pfennig on me," she told me, "not a man who tosses himself off three times a day because he made me."

  Father wasn't as bad as she thought, and I often told her so. I'd also offered to push her in the wheelchair, but Mother was against it. Something might happen to Magdalena while we were out, she said, and I wouldn't know what to do.

  I really wanted to do something nice for her. At eleven I felt the urge to do so almost daily, but I could only tell her what had happened at school. If it was nothing special, I made something up. She didn't know the difference.

  That day I could have told her about the one-mark coin - she wouldn't have given me away - but we were still in the kitchen with Mother. So I told her a made-up story, while Mother cleared the table and did the washing up. Magdalena was exhausted by the time Mother had finished. Mother took her upstairs to rest, but she was downstairs again by late afternoon, when Father came home.

  The next day I sinned again, only worse. Before going to school I took some money from Mother's purse: two one-mark coins. I left the playground again during break, but this time I asked the teacher's permission. Could I go and see if the candles had been delivered yet? "Of course, Cora," the teacher said. "Go by all means."

  So I went to the shop and bought myself an ice cream and a bar of chocolate. The ice I ate at once, the chocolate I hid in my jacket pocket. At lunchtime I took it into our barn and concealed it under some old potato sacks in the far corner.

  My heart was pounding as I neared the kitchen door, but before I opened it I heard Magdalena talking. She was seated in the armchair, as before, with a plateful of mashed potato and a soft-boiled egg in front of her. She was fine. After she'd rested for an hour and I'd prayed and done my homework, she insisted on playing with me. Not "I spy with my little eye" or the wishing game, but a proper game.

  Mother sent me to borrow Snakes and Ladders from Grit Adigar. Before returning to the kitchen with the cardboard box under my arm I hurried into the barn and broke off a square of chocolate. I let it dissolve slowly on my tongue. Mother would have noticed if I'd chewed it.

  Magdalena watched me as I unfolded the board and put the dice in the cup. She saw I had something in my mouth but said nothing. Later, when Mother had gone out, she said: "What were you eating just now?"

  "Chocolate."

  Magdalena thought I'd got it from Grit. "Will you bring me a piece when you take the game back? But make sure there's some silver paper around it. You must slip it under my pillow and I'll eat it when Mother has put me to bed. I'll make sure she doesn't catch me."

  Mother didn't want her eating sweet things, although she didn't invoke the Saviour, as she did in my case, but the dentist. Magdalena's teeth were a major problem: they were too soft. Once, in the hospital, they'd had to extract a molar that had developed a hole. This entailed giving her an injection, and Magdalena had reacted badly to it. The doctors had told Mother it must never happen again; that's why she was such a stickler for brushing Magdalena's teeth.

  I knew this, and I also knew you shouldn't eat anything sweet after brushing your teeth because they'd get holes in them. To put it bluntly, I knew I would harm Magdalena, genuinely harm her, if I put a piece of chocolate under her pillow. But I nodded just the same.

  Magdalena picked up the dice cup. "Let's play, then. Don't go easy on me, Cora, I'm a good loser."

  Don't go easy on me, Cora . . . I can still hear her saying that. It became my motto in life. I gave up going easy on anything or anyone. I lied to the teacher and the other children at school, even to my father. I stole anything I could. At least twice a week I took money from Mother's purse. I bought sweets, hid them in the barn and helped myself to them whenever I felt like it. Whenever I got a chance I would bring some into the house for Magdalena and put them un
der her pillow When my supplies ran out I simply stole some more money.

  At first I was afraid the people in the shop would say something to Mother, who also shopped there. My sudden prosperity must have surprised them. To guard against all eventualities I told them that my Aunt Margret had sent me some money in a letter, and she'd written that I mustn't tell Mother or she'd take it away and spend it on candles or roses. The woman behind the counter smiled and said: "I won't breathe a word."

  That was when I grasped what it meant to have money. Everyone was suddenly nice to me - everyone who had previously teased or ignored me. By the time I was twelve I was robbing Mother of at least three marks a week, and at that stage I was already getting a regular sum of pocket money from Father.

  I sometimes wondered why Mother didn't miss the money. I don't know if she'd grown neglectful as time went by, or if I'd convinced her that I was the most devout and docile child on earth. Perhaps I had. I never argued, no matter what rubbish she spouted. I helped with the housework, washed up the dishes unasked and dusted the rooms or brought in washing from the clothes line, leaving her free to look after my sister. I did those things whenever my conscience pricked me, which it often did because I had everything and could seldom pass any of it on to Magdalena.

  I went without my supper whenever I couldn't get a mouthful down after gorging myself on too many sweets in the afternoon. "I discovered a sinful desire in my heart at lunchtime today," I told Mother. "Now I want to atone for it." She was naturally delighted by such discernment.

  I was always eager to do the shopping. "Leave it to me, Mother," I used to say. "I'm young and strong. Carrying heavy shopping bags doesn't worry me, and you need all your strength for Magdalena."

  I would also tell her I'd sooner shop at the supermarket because everything was cheaper there, and "shopkeepers mustn't be encouraged to line their pockets". Mother said I was a great help and had learned a great deal from our Saviour. Sometimes she even said she was proud of me.