The Sinner

by Petra Hammesfahr

  "I didn't abandon my sister. I did everything for her - everything except prostituting myself. I wanted to do it with a man I loved, and Johnny ... I thought of that while we were dancing - that I wanted to do it with him, even if it had only been the once. I wouldn't have minded. I'd have had that one time, and no one could have taken it away from me. Sing your sister a lullaby, he said, I'll wait for you. And I thought, if she gets really tired, if she goes to sleep, maybe I will ..."

  Her eyes widened. "But I was careful. I was always careful, you've got to believe me. I loved her. I'd never have done anything to harm her. I knew what to look out for. When she held her breath I stopped at once, and when she started panting I went slower. I always kept one hand on her chest, so I could feel her heartbeat. I never lay on top of her. I did it with my fingers as a rule. Very seldom with the candle, honestly. And once with my tongue ... But that was too ... She'd raved about it. I tried it that once, but it revolted me. And besides, it was too risky. I couldn't check on her breathing."

  She sucked in her lower lip and shrugged helplessly. Her voice was heavy with unshed tears. "I know it wasn't right. I oughtn't to have done it. It was contrary to nature. That's why Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. I didn't want to either, but she said only fathers and brothers were forbidden to do it to you, not sisters. She got so little out of life. She longed to have sex with a man, but all she had was me. She had feelings too."

  Her voice broke. "You won't tell the professor, will you?" she entreated between her sobs. "Promise?"

  "Of course, Frau Bender. I promise." He said it before he'd really absorbed what she'd just told him.

  "She always said an orgasm was a wonderful sensation, and I didn't know what it was like. That night I wanted to find out, but I had to go home. She saw it in my face and kept on at me. You're in a funny mood, she said. There's something the matter with you. And then she told me to finish up the bubbly by myself. She said she didn't like it - it made her feel dizzy."

  Her sobs died away. She wept dry-eyed, staring at her hands, at her twisting, writhing fingers. He had an urge to take her in his arms or at least say something comforting, but he didn't want to disrupt her train of thought. He let her stumble on.

  "I stayed with her. I did all she asked. I painted her nails and we listened to music. I don't know what happened, but I can still hear her saying `dance for me!".

  Her fingers had knotted themselves together on her lap. He heard the knuckles crack and tried to make sense of what she'd just said. A mental blackout! Her stubborn denial amounted to confirmation. His assumption was correct: she hadn't been at home when her sister died. She hadn't heard of her death until November ...

  Her voice jolted him out of his cogitations. The words came out in a breathless rush. "Dance for me! Live for me! Smoke a cigarette for me! Prostitute yourself for me - pick the ones that pay best. And, so you have something for yourself, go to the disco. Choose yourself a boyfriend and go to bed with him, then tell me what it was like. I told her about the lights in the Aladdin and the way they flickered when the music got louder. Red and green and yellow and blue."

  She paused, then blurted out: "The lights in the cellar were like that too! I can't go down there, please don't make me! I can't bear it. Do something - do something! I don't want to go down there!" She flailed the air with her arms as if trying to keep her balance.

  He ought to have sent for Professor Burthe, but he dismissed the idea as soon as it occurred to him. The professor was a busy man. It was doubtful he could spare the time to explore the cellar with her. He would probably consider a sedative injection more appropriate.

  Grovian felt quite capable of keeping the situation under control. He sat down on the bed beside her. Taking her hands, he squeezed them hard and tried to adopt a soothing tone of voice, although his heart was in his mouth. She was completely beside herself. Her eyes darted around the room; her bosom and shoulders rose and fell convulsively in time with her rapid breathing.

  "Steady, Frau Bender, steady. I'm here, I've got you. Can you feel my hands? Nothing can happen. We'll go down there together and look around. Afterwards I'll take you back upstairs again, I promise."

  It sounded crazy, but what else could he have said? Her hands clung to his, trembling so violently that his own arms shook in concert with them.

  "Tell me what you can see, Fran Bender. What's in the cellar? Who's down there?"

  She described a room bathed in flickering, multicoloured lights. A bar against the left-hand wall, a mass of bottles on a shelf with a mirror behind it. In the opposite corner, the instruments and amplifiers on a platform. "Tiger's Song". She danced to it, danced all alone in the middle of the room. Against the right-hand wall, a sofa with an ashtray on the low table in front of it.

  "Tiger's Song". It was a wild tune, a wild dance. Frankie tossed his sticks aside, went over to the sofa and sat down beside the girl. Johnny inserted a tape, and the tune rang out once more. Tiger went to the bar. Although he'd drawn the short straw again, he didn't seem to mind.

  She was still dancing, but not by herself any more. Johnny was holding her in his arms and kissing her. It was like a dream, even when he slid his hands up her skirt. She relished his touch. Not for Magdalena this time, only for herself She couldn't always live for them both.

  Then they were lying on the floor. Johnny undressed her. Everything was fine. Frankie, still sitting on the sofa, took no notice of them. He was talking to the girl. Tiger quartered a lemon at the bar and sprinkled some white powder on the back of his hands, then licked it off, washed it down with a jigger of colourless spirit and bit into the lemon. Having done that three times, lie felt in his trouser pocket and said: "I've brought something for us. A little coke. Let's get comfy."

  Listening to her, Grovian held her hands tight and squeezed them in the hope that she could feel the pressure. She was still lying on the floor. Frankie and the girl were watchingJohnny make love to her. Tiger came sauntering over. He wanted his share. "My turn," he said.

  Johnny made no attempt to fend him off. The girl said: "Give her a shot, it'll relax her."

  The next few words were very clear: "Hey, what are you doing? I don't want any! No coke! Take it away!" She started muttering indistinctly, then jerked her head aside. "What are you doing?" she gasped. "Stop that! Stop it at once! Are you crazy? Leave her alone, damn you! Leave her alone!"

  An electric shock seemed to run through her. "No!" she yelled. "Stop it! Stop that!" Her cries were succeeded by whimpering. She turned her head abruptly and gazed at him wide-eyed, but he could have sworn she didn't see him.

  "Don't hit her! Stop it, you'll kill her! Stop it, you swine! Let go of me! Let go!"

  He was thoroughly familiar with those words, or another version of them, but he wasn't prepared for what came next. She wrenched her hands away with astonishing strength, breaking his grip, and sprang to her feet. It all happened so fast, he couldn't react in time. She clenched her right fist and drove it into his neck. "I'll break your neck, you swine!" she gasped. "I'll slit your throat!"

  She was precisely duplicating the blows listed in the pathologist's report. Once, twice, three times she struck him before lie managed to catch hold of her wrist. No sooner had he grabbed it than she lashed out with her left. It was a few moments before he succeeded in grabbing that too and getting to his feet.

  He held her at arm's length and shook her. "Frau Bender!" he shouted. "Stop it, Frau Bender!"

  She stood there for a full five seconds, staring at him with blank incomprehension. Then she muttered something unintelligible and passed out.

  Professor Burthe didn't trouble to hide his anger at the fact that a CID officer had, for the second time and in spite of warnings to the contrary, bullied a severely disturbed person into a state of collapse. "What on earth were you thinking of?" he demanded, shaking his head. "Didn't I expressly warn you not to treat Frau Bender like an ordinary criminal? That's the last time you'll interview her! Frau Bender's attempted
suicide was a direct result of your interrogation technique, don't you realize that?"

  Grovian couldn't summon up the energy to justify himself. They'd already established that he hadn't said a word to her about her father's death. Still unconscious, Cora Bender had been hurriedly carted off to undergo tests of some kind. He would have given a great deal to undo that last half-hour with her. He failed to understand how he could have indulged in such an asinine experiment. "I'll take you back upstairs again, I promise ..."

  Wrong! It wasn't as simple as that. He'd done his best, patting her cheeks, calling her name and splashing her face with cold water for several minutes before he could bring himself to leave her to the doctors. And all the time he'd been thinking, despite himself, of what would have happened had she been holding a knife.

  He was feeling rather sick. Sick but satisfied as well. Had the killing been premeditated? No, certainly not. If she hadn't happened to be peeling an apple for her son, she would only have attacked Georg Frankenberg with her fists and done what she'd been prevented from doing years before - in a situation in which every blow would have been delivered in defence of herself or someone else.

  He would have liked to discuss this with Professor Burthe, but he couldn't get a word in. He was bombarded with technicalities: schizothymia, psychical detachment, a deliberate distinction between oneself and the outside world, a vulnerable, partly apathetic withdrawal from one's fellow creatures, pre-eminence accorded to the world of dreams, ideas and principles.

  Impressive though this sounded, Grovian found it thoroughly uninteresting. His own interpretation was only that of a layman but far more cogent. After five years, self-defence was out. After five years, Cora Bender's act was homicide - unless someone could demonstrate that she had been in that confounded cellar at the time of the killing, not at the Otto Maigler Lido. And he couldn't prove that. That was the professor's job.

  He submitted to Burthe's dressing-down without batting an eyelid. The professor eventually calmed down and asked what Cora Bender had been saying just before she passed out. Grovian outlined the scene in the cellar and their preceding conversation. He forbore to mention that she had attacked him, but he did touch upon the subject of self-defence and her wish to defend the other girl as well as herself.

  When he had finished the professor gave a curt nod. It didn't signify approval, far from it. Burthe was naturally familiar with the cellar scene; in fact, he had heard two versions of it, one on tape mentioning the broken ribs, and the other with the pimp on the sofa.

  There had to be a third version - one to which Cora Bender was denying all access. This third version, said Burthe, must embody what had really happened in the cellar. Her own desire had probably rebounded on her. Consequently, the cellar episode was unimportant. It was just a small part of a dark chapter in her life, and she defended that entire chapter from intruders with all her might, if necessary at the expense of her mental health. As if I didn't know that already, Grovian thought to himself.

  Professor Burthe talked at length about the difference between truth and falsehood and Cora Bender's attitude to both. When under pressure she began by telling the truth. When the pressure subsided and she had come to terms with the situation, she sought to turn it to her advantage. This she could only do by lying. However, her lies created further pressure. The agitation she then displayed might convince a layman that she was disclosing the truth at last.

  That was what had happened when Grovian questioned her, said Burthe. She had tried the same game with him, but he was an expert - she couldn't pull the wool over his eyes. No one disputed that Cora Bender had undergone some traumatic experiences at the hands of a man - several men, probably - a few years ago. It was also beyond doubt that she had been badly mistreated on one occasion. Her self-destructive tendencies must have acted as a spur to men of the appropriate disposition.

  Grovian raised his first objection at that point. "If you're implying that she went on the game, she didn't. Her sister expected or even demanded it of her, if I understood her correctly, but she couldn't do it."

  The professor smiled an omniscient smile. "Most certainly she could, Herr Grovian. After her sister's death she chose the worst form of punishment she could think of. having sex with perverts. She described a few of their practices to me. I've heard a thing or two in my time, but even I found them a bit much. No woman confesses to such activities unless she's actually engaged in them, you must admit. She was prompted by a yearning for atonement, coupled with a subconscious desire for an incestuous relationship with her father."

  "That's nonsense," Grovian protested. It sounded feeble, he could hear that himself, almost as if he were half-convinced of Burthe's point of view He wasn't. It was only helplessness that robbed him of speech - that and the self-assurance with which the professor had spoken. He sounded as if he'd been standing there watching.

  Which he had-although only, of course, in the metaphorical sense. Burthe stressed that what he was presenting to Grovian was Cora Bender's inner belief. Being a trained and observant interviewer, lie was capable of extracting grains of truth from a pack of lies.

  "I'm afraid," Grovian said dryly, "that you've extracted a few lies as well. I don't know why she told you such a load of nonsense, but her chronology is all wrong. She was ..."

  He wanted to explain what he'd just discovered - that Cora's memories leapfrogged from Magdalena's birthday to the cellar and from there to October - but Burthe silenced him with a gesture. Timing wasn't the issue here, he said, nor was prostitution. There was no reason to get worked up about it.

  The only issues were Georg Frankenberg's death, Cora Bender's motive and her ability to distinguish right from wrong. The latter was missing. Cora Bender was incapable of guilt. She couldn't be held responsible for her act. It had nothing whatever to do with the man and his behaviour. The woman had been the trigger.

  "It was his bad luck to be lying on top ..." Although Grovian could hear her saying it, he shook his head. "I don't know what put that idea into your head, Professor, but you're making a big mistake if you dismiss the cellar episode so readily. I've now been through it twice, and I myself am a trained and observant interviewer. Frau Bender was raped and nearly killed by two men in a cellar. Another girl was killed on the same occasion, very probably by Georg Frankenberg. That's why he had to die."

  Professor Burthe had simmered down by now He leaned back in his chair and eyed Grovian thoughtfully. "What makes you so certain?" he asked. "Fran Bender's statements, or do you have proof?"

  Grovian swore under his breath. All he had was words. A few here, a few there. Horst Cremer, Melanie Adigar, Johnny Guitar ... It wasn't even certain that Hans Bockel and Johnny Guitar were one and the same person, and Bockel was his only link with Frankenberg. No attorney could cite "Tiger's Song" as an argument in court.

  "You feel sorry for the woman," the professor said when he didn't answer. The words hung in the air like an incontrovertible statement of fact. "You want to help her and are trying to find a rational explanation. You have a daughter, don't you? How old is she, Herr Grovian?"

  When Grovian still didn't reply, Burthe nodded to himself. In the same infuriatingly sympathetic tone of voice, he went on: "I've listened to all the tapes, not just the last one, so I can understand your emotional involvement. A young woman whose only wish was to lead a normal life. So helpless, so desperate. Destroyed by circumstances beyond her control, she pleads for sympathy. Completely beside herself, she utters a cry for help and collapses. You were alone with her when it happened, weren't you? Cora Bender's cry for help was addressed to you alone. You not only personified her father at that moment, you felt like him too. The same scene recurred earlier today. Every father wants to believe his daughter, Herr Grovian. Bear that in mind and ask yourself how you would assess your behaviour had a colleague engaged in it."

  Grovian involuntarily gritted his teeth. "I'm not here to be psychoanalysed," he said. "I've merely been trying to clarify some new info
rmation."

  Burthe nodded thoughtfully. `And Fran Bender was able to confirm it?"

  "Yes, in a way."

  The professor gave another thoughtful nod. He didn't enquire into the nature of this new information. "She'll confirm anything, Herr Grovian - anything and everything that establishes a connection between herself and Georg Frankenberg. She herself is seeking a rational explanation. His death had a liberating effect on her, and she's searching for the reason, trying desperately to incorporate him in her life and supply a demonstrable motive. To achieve that, she even sits him on a sofa in the role of her pimp."

  Grovian's attempt to say something was silenced by another gesture. "I'll try to explain something to you, and I very much hope you'll finally grasp where your work and commitment end and mine begin. Let's forget about Georg Frankenberg and the cellar. Fran Bender's trauma has a name: Magdalena."

  To Professor Burthe it was simple: Georg Frankenberg was only a chance victim. His fate could have been that of any man accompanied by a woman with something about her that reminded the killer of her sister. Cora Bender couldn't have brought herself to kill the woman who had ruined her life a second time. In her distress, which was very great, she had attacked the man. His death killed two birds with one stone. She had sent Magdalena her heart's desire, a good-looking man. What was more, Frankenberg's wife, deputizing for Magdalena, had pushed her hand away and thereby signalled that she no longer needed any help. Cora Bender was free at last - so free that even the certainty of life imprisonment had failed to shake her resolve. As she saw it, she deserved to be punished.

  Grovian listened to this itemized account without expression. A life like a criminal record: mendacity, deceit, theft, drugs and, to crown it all, a murder. No, not Georg Frankenberg; he was supposed to forget all about him. The victim's name was Magdalena!

  Professor Burthe didn't know whether Cora Bender had killed her sister with malice aforethought because she regarded her as the destroyer of herself - and not only of herself because her father, whom she worshipped, had also been destroyed - or whether she had done it in a drug-induced rage. The fact remained, the ribs that had snapped were Magdalena's.