Free The Sinner by Petra Hammesfahr Page A

flames.

    Father shook his head that evening when I told him. Mother was
a Catholic, lie said, and Catholics are a bit stricter than most. And
later on, when we were in bed, he told me about the first school in
Buchholz.
    It had been built in 1654, he said, and consisted of only two
rooms. The schoolroom doubled as the teacher's living room.
The local inhabitants didn't send their children to school because
they needed them to work in the fields - because they themselves
couldn't read or write and didn't think it mattered much. These
days everyone knew how important it was to be able to read and
write, Father said, and it was up to every schoolchild what became
of it.
    That was his way of saying: "Make the best of things, Cora. I'm
afraid I can't help you."
    He said it didn't matter what clothes you wore, only what was in
your head. Children in the old days went to school barefoot and
in rags. Well, I possessed shoes and didn't have to wear rags on my
first day at school, but I still felt like a scarecrow compared to all
those dolled-up little girls.
    I set off with the new satchel on my back, like the rest, but in
an old, sack-like frock that Mother had dug out of the cupboard
as a penance, even though it was too small for me. I smelled of
mothballs and went to school empty-handed. All the others turned
up clutching bags of sweets in the traditional German manner.
    Luckily, Mother had no time to accompany me to school that
first day, but everyone knew It's incredible how quickly such things
get around.
    I was an outsider from the first because I had an invalid sister.
Yes, she was still alive. The doctors expressed surprise at her
survival every few months, but that didn't worry Magdalena. It
was her form of revenge, I often thought. I'd eaten up her strength
in Mother's belly, so she stubbornly lived on.
    I had no friends. Even Kerstin and Melanie Adigar wanted
nothing to do with me in the playground; they were scared of being jeered at too. During break I used to stand there alone
every day, week after week. The others played and horsed around,
whereas I had to commune with myself and pray to the Saviour
for forgiveness and strength for myself and mercy and another day
of life for Magdalena.

    Her condition had worsened since I started school. I often came
home with a cough or a cold or a sore throat. She regularly caught
them, even though I didn't go near her. I had only to sneeze, and it
would hit Magdalena like a hammer blow
    Mother attributed her more frequent illnesses to the fact that
I had less time to pray than before. The morning was out, she
said, so I must at least do my duty during break. And I did. The
knowledge that Magdalena was my own flesh and blood had
crippled me somehow It meant that I would bear the same stigma
for as long as she lived.
    I didn't wish her dead, honestly not, but I wanted to have some
girlfriends who would play with me in the schoolyard and come
home with me in the afternoons. I wanted to go for walks on
Sundays and sit in the ice-cream parlour with my parents - with
a mother who'd taken the time to wash, do her hair and put on a
pretty dress. I wouldn't even have expected her to paint her nails or
use lipstick occasionally, like Grit Adigar.
    I wanted a father who could laugh. Who didn't always tell me
about the old days, about things that had long been dead and
decayed. Who didn't have to slink into the bathroom at night to
wrestle with his sin. Who sometimes referred to tomorrow or next
weekend. Who would once, just once, say: "Let's pay a visit to
Hamburg Cathedral! Let's have some candyfloss and a ride on the
Big Wheel!"
    I wanted to go shopping with Mother. I wanted her to ask me
which I would prefer: a candy bar or a bag of crisps. I didn't want
her to tell me, again and again, that I was a bad, greedy person.
    The baby that had monopolized all the strength in her belly? I
hadn't done so deliberately, damn it all! I couldn't