The Sinner (4 page)

It was a peculiar feeling, standing there in the midst of all
those people. A large family lay stretched out on several blankets
behind the little tree to their rear. Father, mother, grandfather,
grandmother and two little girls of four or five in ruched bikinis. A
baby sat kicking in a bouncy chair beneath a sun umbrella.

Just as she had in the supermarket, she wondered what was
going on inside the other people's heads. The grandmother was
playing with the baby. The two men were dozing in the sun. The
grandfather had spread a newspaper over his face; the father was
wearing a cap whose peak shaded his eyes. The mother looked
harassed. She called to one of the little girls to blow her nose,
rummaging in a basket for some tissues. An elderly couple were
seated in deckchairs on their right. Some children were playing
with a ball on an open stretch of grass to their left.

Cora pulled her T-shirt over her head - she was wearing a
swimsuit underneath - and let her skirt fall around her ankles.
Then she felt in the shoulder bag for her sunglasses, put them on
and sat down on one of the chairs.

Gereon was already sitting down. "Like me to rub some sun
cream on you?" he asked.

"I already did, at home."

"You can't reach the whole of your back."

"But I'm not sitting with my back to the sun."

He shrugged, sat back and closed his eyes. She looked out over
the water, sensing its almost magnetic attraction. It wouldn't be easy, not for a good swimmer like her, but if she went on swimming
until she was utterly exhausted ... She got up and removed her
sunglasses. "I'm going in," she said. It was unnecessary to tell him
that. He didn't even open his eyes.

She walked across the grass and the narrow strip of sand and
waded out through the shallows. The water was cool and refreshing.
An agreeable frisson ran through her when she submerged and it
closed over her head.

She swam out to the boom that separated the supervised lido
from the open lake, then along it for a little way. She felt a sudden
temptation to do it at once - climb over the boom and swim out.
It wasn't prohibited. There were a few groups of figures sprawled
on blankets on the far shore, people who were reluctant to pay the
admission charge and didn't mind lying among rocks and scrub.
The lifeguard on his little wooden platform kept an eye on them too,
but he couldn't see everything and wouldn't be able to reach the spot
in time if something happened out there. Besides, a person would
have to shout for help or at least wave their arms. If a lone head in
the midst of all this turmoil simply sank beneath the surface ...

Some man was said to have drowned in the lake and never been
found; she didn't know if it was true. If it was, he must still be down
there. Then she could live with him among the fish and waterweed.
It must be nice in his watery world, where there were no tunes and
no dark dreams, where nothing could be heard but faint gurgles
and everything was a mysterious shade of green or brown. The
last thing the man in the lake had heard wasn't a drum, that was
certain, only his own heartbeat. No bass guitar or shrilling organ,
just his own blood throbbing in his ears.

After nearly an hour she swam back. It came hard, but she had
already left most of her strength in the water. Besides, she felt
she needed to play with the child for a while and explain to him,
perhaps, why she had to go away - not that he would understand.
She also wanted to bid Gereon a covert farewell.

When she got back to their patch the elderly couple on the right
had disappeared. Only the two deckchairs were still there, and the
expanse on their left was no longer unoccupied. There wasn't a sign
of the children playing ball. In their place, a pale green blanket had
been spread out so close to her folding chair that it almost touched
the tubular frame. Music was oozing into the afternoon air from a
big radio cassette in the middle of the blanket.

Distributed round the radio were four people, all of them roughly
her own and Gereon's age. Two men, two women. Two couples,
one of them seated with their knees drawn up, just talking, their
faces visible in profile. The other couple were faceless at first. They
were lying stretched out: the woman on her back, the man on top
of her.

Only the woman's hair could be seen. Platinum blond - almost
white - and very long, it reached to her waist. The man had thick,
dark hair that curled on the nape of the neck. His muscular legs
were lying between the woman's splayed thighs, his hands cupping
her head. He was kissing her.

The sight abruptly froze her heart. She found it hard to breathe
and felt the blood drain into her legs, leaving her head empty. Purely
to replenish it, she ducked beneath the umbrella and reached for a
towel, and just to drown the hammering of her heart, which had
started to beat again, she stroked the little boy's head, said a few
words to him, dug his red plastic fish out of her shoulder bag and
put it in his hand.

Then she turned her chair so that her back was towards the
foursome with the radio. Although their image continued to float
before her eyes, it gradually faded, and she grew calmer. It was
no concern of hers what the couple behind her were doing - it
was normal and innocuous, and even the music wasn't a nuisance.
Someone was singing in English.

In addition to the music she could hear a woman's high-pitched
voice and the low, unhurried voice of a man, presumably the one
sitting up. He hadn't known the woman long, from the way he
spoke. Alice, he called her. The name reminded Cora of a book
she'd owned - for one short day - as a child: Alice in Wonderland. She hadn't read it - she hadn't had a chance to, not in those few
hours. Her father had told her what it was about, but what he'd
told her was as worthless as his promise: "Things will be better
some day."

The man behind her chair was saying that he planned to become
a GE He'd been invited to join a group practice - a good offer, he
told Alice. Nothing could be heard from the couple lying down.

Gereon peered past her and grinned. Instinctively, Cora glanced
over her shoulder. Still with his back to her, the dark-haired man
was kneeling up beside the platinum blonde. He'd removed her
bikini top and poured some suntan oil between her breasts. The
little pool was clearly visible, and he was busy rubbing it in. The
woman stretched voluptuously under his hands. She was enjoying
it, from the look on her face. Then she sat up. "Your turn now," she
said. "But first let's have some decent music. This stuff is enough
to send you to sleep."

Lying beside the platinum blonde's legs was a brightly coloured
cloth bag. She reached into it and took out a cassette. The darkhaired man protested. "No, Ute, not that one - that's not fair.
Where did you get it from? Give it here!" He made a grab for her
arm. She toppled over backwards and he fell on top of her. They
wrestled around, almost rolling off the blanket.

Gereon was still grinning.

The man ended up underneath with the woman sitting astride
him. She held the cassette in the air, laughing. "I win, I win!" she
said breathlessly. "Don't be a spoilsport, sweetie. This is great
stuff!" She leaned over, her long fair hair brushing the man's legs,
and thrust the cassette into the slot, then pressed the start button
and turned up the volume.

The words "don't be a spoilsport, sweetie" pierced Cora like a
knife and set something inside her quivering. As the first bars of the
music rang out, the blonde bent down and cupped the man's face
between her hands. She kissed him, her hips moving rhythmically
against his crotch.

Gereon was getting his edgy expression. "Like me to oil you
now?" he asked.

"No!" She hadn't meant to be so vehement, but the woman's
movements and Gereon's reaction to them were infuriating her. It
was time to say goodbye to the child. She wanted to do so in peace,
not in the immediate proximity of a bimbo who was all too vividly
demonstrating where she herself had failed.

"They might at least turn the music down," she said. "Loud
music is forbidden here."

Gereon looked scornful. "It'll be forbidden to breathe here soon.
Don't get all worked up about nothing. I'm enjoying that music.
I'm enjoying what goes with it too. At least she's got some fire
down below."

She ignored this. Clasping the child in one arm, she picked up
the red fish with her free hand. It soothed her and did her good,
the feeling of his warm, firm body bundled up in its nappy and
little white pants, the plump arm around her neck and the baby
face so close to her own.

He flinched when she reached the lakeshore and put him down
in the shallows. He'd been sitting in the heat for so long, the water
felt cold. After a moment or two he squatted down and looked
up at her. She handed him the red fish and he dunked it in the
water.

He was a quiet, good-looking child. He didn't speak much,
although lie had a relatively large vocabulary and could express
himself clearly in short sentences. "I'm hungry." - "Papa has to
work." - "Grandma is making blancmange." - "That's Mama's
bed."

One Sunday morning shortly after they moved into their own
house, when he was just a year old, she had taken him into her bed.
He went back to sleep in her arms, and holding him had imparted
a sensation of warmth and intimacy.

Now, as she stood looking down at his slender white back, at the
little hand wiggling the red fish in the water, the bowed head and
almost white hair, the delicate little neck, that feeling returned. If
there hadn't already been reasons enough, she would have done it
for him alone, so that he could grow up free and unencumbered.
She crouched down beside him and kissed him on the shoulder. He smelled clean and fresh from the suntan oil Gereon had rubbed
into him while she was in the water.

She stood beside him in the shallows for half an hour, forgetful of
the couple on the green blanket, forgetful of everything that might
have disrupted their leave-taking. Then the lido gradually emptied.
It was nearing six o'clock, and she realized that the time had come.
If she hadn't had the child with her she would have swum out
into the lake without wasting another thought on Gereon, but she
couldn't bring herself to leave the helpless toddler alone on the
lakeshore. He might have waded in after her.

She picked him up in her arms again, feeling the chill of his little
legs and wet pants through her swimsuit and his firm, plump arm
around her neck. He was holding the red fish by the tail.

She saw as she drew nearer that nothing on the green blanket had
changed. The music was playing as loudly as before. One couple
was sitting there, chatting away without any physical contact, the
other lying down again.

Taking no notice of them, she changed the little boy into a clean
nappy and dry underpants. Just as she was about to go, she was
detained once more.

The child said: "I'm hungry."

A couple of minutes here or there wouldn't matter. She was
totally focused on these last few moments with her son. "What
would you like," she asked, "a yoghurt, a banana, a biscuit or an
apple?"

He cocked his head as though seriously debating her question.
`An apple," he said. So she resumed her seat and took an apple
and the little fruit knife from her shoulder bag.

In her absence, Gereon had moved her chair so that she no longer
had her back to the blanket but was sideways on. That way, he
could see past her more easily. He was sitting there with his legs
extended and his hands folded on his stomach, pretending to look
at the lake. In reality, he was leering at the blonde bimbo's breasts.

He was bound to choose himself a bimbo like that when she'd
gone, she reflected. The thought should have infuriated her, but
it didn't even sadden her. The part of her that could feel was
probably dead already, killed off - not that anyone had noticed
- sometime in the last six months. Her sole concern was how to
make things easier for herself.