The Sinner

by Petra Hammesfahr

  He shook his head, watching her series of changing expressions, the rubbing and kneading of her hands. Her voice broke, and her shoulders sagged, her head too.

  "Then you must leave him alone. What's done is done. It won't do anyone any good to discover that a girl died. All right, a girl did die, but it had nothing to do with me. I only have the man on my conscience."

  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 wit
h 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.

  The other girls in my class were thrilled by the whole thing. They thought themselves grown-up and bragged about it, even when boys were around. "I've just got my period," they would say. The boys seemed to find it a turn-on.

  Then came the magazine episode. I'd seen a girl reading it in the playground: Bravo, the Magazine for Young People. I had to have it at once, of course. I hid it in the barn and dipped into it that afternoon while Magdalena was having her rest. There were lots of articles that interested me - pieces on music, singers and rock groups, movie stars and how to apply make-up. There were also letters from teenagers asking for advice.

  One of them was from a girl only a year older than myself, but she already had a boyfriend with a room of his own, where they could spend time alone together. Whenever he put his hand inside her panties, his penis went stiff and she became wet between the legs. The girl wanted to know if this was all right. She felt ashamed of this wetness, but her boyfriend thought it was great. He was a bit older than her. Seventeen, I think.

  The reply to the letter stated that getting wet between the legs was quite normal - inevitable, in fact. To a man, the wetness signified that a woman was sexually aroused and ready for sexual intercourse.

  My God, how ashamed I felt! I wondered what Father must think of me. Did he think I was trying to turn him on? I felt quite sick. All at once, everything had changed. My world had turned upside down.

  I had to go outside the moment Father came home that evening. I couldn't bear to sit in the kitchen with him. As soon as he walked in I felt my cheeks burn. He noticed that something was the matter with me. So did Magdalena. Father drove off again after supper, and Mother retired to the living room. I did the washing up. Magdalena, who remained in the kitchen with me, asked what was wrong. "You went as red as a tomato," she said.

  I told her about the letter. Only that, to begin with. She assumed I had a boyfriend and pressed me to tell her more - every detail of what we'd so far done together.

  "No boy has ever touched me like that," I told her, "and no one will ever do it again."

  "What do you mean, again?" she asked. "That means someone already has! Come on, Cora, don't be shy. Tell me!"

  I didn't want to, but she went on pestering me until I gave in. She listened attentively. Then, when I'd finished, she said: "Show me exactly how he touched you."

  When I showed her she laughed at me. "That doesn't count! You've no need to get worked up about that. He was only checking to see if you'd wet the bed. That's nothing - after all, he's your father. It's the same as if Mother or a doctor touched you. Think how often Mother messes around with me down there when she's giving me an enema or a bed bath. That would make her a lesbian! As for the doctors, you can't imagine. They don't wait till I need to pee to take a urine sample, they simply stick a catheter into me. No, believe me, Father hasn't done anything bad. Being abused is quite different."

  She knew this from a young woman she'd shared a room with at the hospital one time. The woman had been a prostitute. She had also done drugs and drunk heavily, so her liver was shot. Her father was to blame, she told Magdalena. He had raped her even before she went to school. At first with his finger and then properly.

  "Father hasn't done that, has he?" Magdalena asked.

  I shook my head.

  "You see?" she said. "You've really no need to worry. Ask Margret if you don't believe me."
<
br />   I was loath to do that. If Father hadn't done anything bad, why should I ask Margret? The fact that I thought he had - that was my problem. Besides, I told myself, Father was an old man. Far too old to do anything like that. How wrong I was!

  Those were the true sins, the desires of the flesh. It wasn't about coveting a slice of roast beef. It was about an old man who couldn't control his physical urges - who had exposed himself to me, as Mother would have put it, at a time when I still didn't know there were two kinds of human beings. And then, when I did know perfectly well, it happened again.

  In April, three weeks before I turned fourteen, I woke up in the middle of the night needing to go to the bathroom. At first I was simply happy not to have done it in the bed. I made for the bathroom in the dark, not noticing that Father wasn't in his bed. Once there I turned on the light, and there he was, standing at the washbasin with his pyjama trousers around his ankles. He'd also pulled his underpants down and was gripping his penis. His hand was moving up and down. I knew what he was doing. The boys at school called it jerking off.

  I thought it a vulgar expression for a repulsive activity, and it was appalling that my father should be doing it after I'd decided to write him off as a harmless old man. Still more appalling was the fact that I couldn't help watching him. Worst of all, he must have known I was there - I'd opened the door and turned on the light, after all - but he carried on regardless. It was disgusting, what with the look on his face and the noises he was making.

  Suddenly he spun round. "Go back to bed!" he yelled. "What do you think you're doing, sneaking in here like a ghost?"

  "I need to go!" I shouted back.

  "Piss in the bed, then," lie yelled. "It's what you usually do."

  He shouted so loudly, he couldn't have failed to wake Mother and Magdalena, but he didn't care. I thought it was mean of him to broadcast my shame at the top of his voice. I couldn't help wetting the bed - he'd always said I couldn't. "They're the tears of the soul," he used to say, and afterwards he would go to the bathroom. Perhaps for the same reason he'd gone that night.