The Sinner Read Online Free PDF

something she didn't catch, the music was too loud.
    That was it! That was the tune in her head, the prelude to madness. It rang out over the trampled grass, over the horrified faces
and frozen figures of those around her.

    The second thrust caught him in the side of the throat. He stared
at her wide-eyed but made no sound, just clutched his neck with
one hand and gazed into her eyes. The blood spurted between his
fingers, red as the little plastic fish. The blonde screamed and tried
to crawl away beneath his legs.
    She stabbed him again and again. Once in the throat, once in
the shoulder, once through the cheek. The knife was small but
pointed and very sharp. And the music was so loud. It filled her
head entirely.
    The man who had merely been sitting there, talking with Alice,
shouted something. It sounded like "Stop that!"
    Of course! That was the whole point: Stop that! Stop it, you
filthy swine! The seated man put out his hand as if to catch hold
of her, but he didn't. No one did a thing. It was as if they were all
frozen in time. Alice put both hands over her mouth. The blonde
whimpered and screamed alternately. The little girls in frilly bikinis
clung to their mother. The grandfather removed the newspaper
from his face and sat up. The grandmother snatched up the baby
and clasped it to her breast. The father started to rise.
    Gereon got out of his chair at last. An instant later he was
standing over her. He punched her in the back and tried to grab the
hand with the knife just as she raised her arm once more. "Cora!"
he yelled. "Stop that! Are you crazy?"
    No, her head was clear as a bell. Everything was fine, everything
was just as it should be. It had to be this way: she knew it beyond
all doubt. And the man knew it too; she could read it in his eyes.
"This is my blood, which was shed for you for the remission of
your sins."
    When Gereon hurled himself at her the seated man and the
father of the little girls came to his aid. They each held an arm
while Gereon wrested the knife from her grasp. Holding her by the
hair with one hand, he forced her head back and punched her in
the face several times.
    Gereon was bleeding from two or three cuts on his arm. She had
stabbed him too, although she hadn't meant to. The seated man
yelled at him to stop, which he eventually did. But he gripped her by the back of the neck and clamped her face against the other
man's bloodstained chest.

    No sound was coming from inside that chest, nor was there
much sound in general. A few more rhythmical beats, a final drum
solo just before the tape ended. Then came a click. A button on the
cassette player popped up, and it was over.
    She was conscious of Gereon's grip, of the numb places on
her face where his fist had struck her, of the blood on the chest
beneath her cheek and its taste on her lips. The platinum blonde
was whimpering.
    She put out a hand and rested it on the woman's leg. "Don't be
afraid," she said. "He won't hit you. Come on, come away. Let's
go. We shouldn't have come here. Can you get up by yourself, or
shall I help you?" The little boy on her blanket started to cry.

     

I didn't cry much as a child. Only once, in fact, and then I didn't
cry but screamed with fear. I haven't given it a thought in recent
years, but I remember the occasion distinctly. I'm in a dimly lit
bedroom with heavy brown curtains over the window The curtains
are stirring, so the window must be open. It's cold in there. I'm
shivering.
    I'm standing in front of a double bed. One half is neatly made
up, the other, nearest the window, is rumpled. The bed emits a
stale, sourish smell as if the sheets haven't been changed for a long
time.
    I don't like it in the bedroom. The chill, the stench of months-old
sweat, a threadbare runner on the bare floorboards. In the room
I've just come from there's a thick carpet on the floor, and it's nice
and warm. I tug at the hand holding mine, eager to go.
    Seated on the