The Sinner (53 page)

He pushed me up against the wall and kissed me some more,
and over his shoulder I could see the picture with the stairs beside
it. Tiger and Magdalena were already going down. She was
managing the stairs by herself, just holding onto the rail with one
hand. Damnation, I thought, she'll never make it. I shouldn't have
let her go down them on her own. Why doesn't she get him to help
her?

I think I know why. She must have seen Frankie as soon as she
entered the house. Maybe he'd opened the door to them; and he
was several cuts above the pink piglet.

She turned and called: "Coming, you two? You can carry on
downstairs. I bet it's cosier down there." I could hear the sound of
drums from below. AndJohnny said: "She's right, come on."

Magdalena was already sitting on the sofa when we entered the
cellar, gazing fixedly at the corner where the musical instruments were. Frankie was seated behind the drums, but he was only toying
with them. He couldn't take his eyes off Magdalena.

Tiger was standing at the bar, slicing a lemon. "First a slug of
hooch," I heard him say. He looked over at Magdalena. "How
about you?"

She shook her head. `Just a soft drink, if you have one. No hard
stuff, it would only upset my stomach again."

Then they played for us, although more for Magdalena than for
me. She was the star. I think they'd all have liked to go to bed with
her, but she only had eyes for Frankie. She told me to dance, and
I did.

Johnny was smiling at me the whole time. It was very hot down
there. Magdalena looked wonderful in that flickering, multicoloured
light. The dark blue blouse went well with her fair hair, and her
slender legs shimmered beneath the almost transparent lace. Her
skin was bluish beneath the make-up, but you couldn't see that.
She looked as if she'd just come in out of the sun.

Then Frankie tossed his drumsticks away. He went over to
the sofa and sat down beside her. Tiger returned to the bar and
knocked back a couple more glasses. Johnny turned on the stereo
rig - the tape was also one of theirs - and came over to me. We
danced, and although the music was pretty wild, he held me in his
arms and gradually undressed me.

I felt his hands on my back and his lips on my neck. Then we
were lying on the floor together. It was lovely, but I couldn't enjoy
it to the full because I simply couldn't concentrate on him. I kept
looking sideways.

Frankie had draped one arm over the back of the sofa - and
around Magdalena, or so it seemed. They were talking together,
but the music was too loud for me to hear what they were saying.
I only saw how they were looking at each other, she at him and he
at her. Eventually he kissed her. Well, why not, I thought - it won't
hurt her. Besides, he was being very gentle with her, I could see.
And then he took off her blouse ...

He naturally noticed the scars. He ran his finger over them very
lightly, very gently, and asked what they were. There was a short break in the music, so I heard every word. I also heard Magdalena's
answer.

"MyJacob's Ladder," she said.

For a while I took no more notice of her or of Tiger, who was
standing at the bar, presumably snorting his first line of coke. Then
he strolled over and stood looking down at us. I didn't like that- I'd
sooner have been alone with Johnny, but I didn't dare suggest it. I
couldn't leave Magdalena alone with two strange men.

Tiger was holding a small mirror and a drinking straw Johnny
sat up and snorted some of the stuff. Tiger turned to the sofa.
"How about you, Frankie?" he called.

Frankie wasn't interested; he was kissing Magdalena.

Then Tiger kneeled down beside me and started stroking my
breasts. I thought Johnny would tell him to get lost, but he didn't
do a thing. "Stop that," I told him. "Keep your hands to yourself, I
don't like it!" - or words to that effect.

Magdalena, who had heard me, called: "Don't be so stuffy, it
doesn't mean anything." And, to Tiger: "Give her a shot, it'll relax
her. She's a bit inhibited."

He held out the mirror, but I didn't want any of the stuff. "Don't
be a spoilsport, sweetie," Magdalena called. "It's a crazy sensation,
I've told you a hundred times. Take some. Relax and give yourself
a treat."

I wanted nothing to do with what was on that confounded mirror;
all I wanted was Johnny. He stuck a finger in my mouth and dipped
it in the powder, then rubbed it on me down below.

"Wipe it off!" I pleaded.

`Just what I had in mind," he said and slid down me.

I felt him kissing me there. It was ... It was heaven.

Magdalena was taking no notice of me. Frankie didn't give her
a chance to watch; he had pulled her half onto his lap and was
kissing and caressing her. I'll never forget the look on her face. She
was very happy, I think.

So was I. Tiger had stopped stroking my breasts. For a while he
merely kneeled beside my head and watched. Then he opened his
fly, but by that time I didn't care. It didn't disgust me - it wasn't much different from sucking one's thumb. I thought of Mother.
What would she have thought if she could see me lying on the floor
doing it with two men at once?

It was wrong - all wrong - but it was wonderful. I had fire in my
belly, champagne in my head, cocaine in my blood, and Johnny
everywhere.

At some stage I looked over at the sofa. I couldn't see much
because Tiger's leg was blocking my view I could only see a broad,
bare back. For a moment I didn't grasp its significance: Magdalena
was no longer draped across Frankie's lap, she was stretched out
beneath him. The blouse and the white skirt were trailing over the
edge of the sofa.

It all happened so fast, but I seemed to see it in slow motion.
Frankie was making love to her, slowly at first, then more and more
fiercely. All at once, he stopped short and straightened up with a
jerk, kneeled between her legs and thumped her chest with his fist.
"Breathe!" he shouted.

Then he threw himself on top of her, kissed her again, pinching
her nostrils, straightened up once more and went on thumping her,
this time with both fists at once. "Come on, breathe!" he shouted.
"Breathe! Breathe! Breathe!" And he thumped her chest with both
fists each time lie yelled the word.

Her head was jerking to and fro, her right leg dangling over the
edge of the sofa, her left leg resting on the back. Then it too slid off.

There was another short break between two numbers. As he hit
her again in that momentary silence I heard a cracking, splintering
sound and knew it must be her ribs breaking. But I couldn't go to
her - I couldn't do anything but think of the knife on the bar and
where I would have to stab him to stop him killing her.

Johnny was now on top of me, pinning me to the floor beneath
him, with Tiger holding my head in both hands. I couldn't even
scream with his penis in my mouth. The music started again, and
Frankie shouted above the din: "Help me! Help me! She's stopped
breathing!" There was madness in his eyes.

Johnny had finally grasped that something was wrong. `Are you
crazy?" he shouted back. "What are you doing, you idiot?" But he made no move to let me go, just stared in the direction of the
sofa.

Frankie didn't reply. Like a man possessed, he went on pounding
Magdalena's chest with both fists.

Tiger uttered a sudden yelp. "She bit me, the bitch!" I saw him
reach for the ashtray on the table and raise it above his head. The
tape was still playing "Tiger's Song". Then everything went dark
and silent.

She wept quietly to herself on the drive back. Sometimes she
shook her head, and the weeping intensified for a moment or two.
Grovian left her in peace. Standing in front of that picture, she had
spoken like someone in a trance, eyes shut, both hands clenched.
She had seemed frozen, he thought involuntarily, and now she was
gradually thawing out. He hoped she understood.

All his doubts were dispelled. Magdalena had wanted it that way.
She knew she was done for. No possibility of another operation,
her heart wouldn't have stood the strain. He wondered what would
have happened had Cora refused her request - had she said it was
out of the question. "No, we're staying at home!" Magdalena
would probably have sought death in her arms - and found it.
Cora would still have felt as guilty.

But making that clear to her wasn't his job any more. As for
what Johannes Frankenberg had told them, the court would have
to decide. "My son wasn't to blame for this ..."

Innocent he undoubtedly was. Grovian remembered what Grit
Adigar had said about Magdalena's beauty and nature's way of
compensating for her physical defects. Unfortunately, nature had
failed to allow for her willpower, which had lured a man to his
doom. Grovian could only see the matter in that light. Had lie
been able to, he would have given Magdalena a piece of his mind.
To him, she was on a par with the irresponsible idiots who choose
a stretch of motorway on which to end their lives and those of a
few innocent victims.

Georg Frankenberg had been a serious young man who
only pursued his hobby at weekends. And because his parents
disapproved, he and his two friends devoted themselves to their
passion in secret at his grandmother's house in Wedel, a Hamburg
suburb.

That house, his mother's parental home, had been empty for
months. It was on the market, but no prospective buyer had yet
been willing to pay the asking price. Georg often drove there at
weekends to check that all was well - or so he said, but his mother
had long suspected that he was motivated by something more than
filial duty.

There was this friend of his, the tubby little youth from Bonn,
Ottmar Denner. Georg had brought him to Frankfurt on two
occasions, and Fran Frankenberg hadn't cared for the sly, selfindulgent look in his eye. Then came that Saturday in May ...

Frau Frankenberg had made several attempts to reach her son
at his student digs in Cologne but without success. Shortly after
midday she called the house in Wedel, and who should answer the
phone but Ottmar Denner!

"Hey, Billy-Goat!" he blurted out. `About time too! I thought
you'd sunk without trace again. I've been waiting for you to call for
a good hour. Get a move on and pick up a bottle of hooch on the
way, Frankie forgot again. We'll get some coke this evening - make
a real night of it. Hey, man, cat got your tongue?"

Frau Frankenberg had hung up without a word and insisted on
driving to Hamburg right away. "I knew something was wrong,"
she told her husband, "but this is too much. You're going to give
Georg a serious talking-to."

They got there at two in the morning. The front door was open.
Georg was sitting on the cellar floor with a naked girl's bloodstained
head in his lap, saying over and over again: "She wouldn't breathe,
she wouldn't! She suddenly stopped breathing."

Johannes Frankenberg didn't understand what his son meant.
Although badly injured and unconscious, the girl with her head on
Frankie's lap was definitely alive -just! His wife didn't realize that
another girl must have been there until she noticed a second heap of discarded clothes. It wasn't until three days later that Georg
revealed that Hans Bueckler and Ottmar Denner had removed her
naked body shortly before his parents arrived.

Denner and Bueckler had wanted to take Cora too, but Georg
wouldn't let them. "I didn't kill the girl," he kept insisting. "She
suddenly stopped breathing."

Heart failure, thought Grovian, or the exertion had proved too
much for her aneurysm, and it burst. At all events, it had been a
natural death - and possibly, from Magdalena's point of view, a
happy one. Frankie had given her what she'd always wanted.

What Cora Bender had described sounded like an attempt to
resuscitate her. Grovian was reminded of the young female patient
Winfried Meilhofer had mentioned, the one whose ribs Frankie had
broken because lie couldn't come to terms with her death. Perhaps
he had seen her as a second Magdalena. The Saviour, thought
Grovian. That's what he had been. He had delivered Magdalena
from her sufferings and Cora from her burden of responsibility.
But he couldn't rid her of her sense of guilt. On the contrary, his
death had rendered her guilty under the law