The Weeping Girl

FIVE
38

22 July 1983

When he had passed the school again a breeze blew up from the sea, and he stopped once more.

He couldn’t be sure if what had made him pause was the breeze, or the illuminated information board with the school’s name and a map with the functions of each of the buildings pedagogically listed. But he stood there, staring at the board, and something moved inside him. A sort of diffuse feeling of security, perhaps. His place of work. As empty as a desert on a summer’s night at half past one in the morning. But still?

He flopped down on a stone bench outside one of the long walls of the gymnasium. Elbows on his knees, his head in his hands.

What am I going to do? he thought. What the hell is going to happen now? Why am I sitting here? Bugger, bugger, bugger. .

He noticed that a jumble of words was buzzing around inside his head. Not thoughts. Not action plans. Just a meaningless mish-mash of questions and desperate cries that seemed to be hovering over an abyss that he was not allowed to look down into, not at any price; that he didn’t dare to look down into — a swirl of words that only served to keep everything else at a distance. At a distance and out of sight. That’s all there was to it. It struck him that he was going out of his mind.

Home? he thought. Home to Mikaela? Why? Why have I stopped here? Why don’t I rush up to the viaduct and look her in the eye? Who? Who do I mean? Winnie? Or Sigrid? I’ve lost everything in any case. I shall never come back here. . Not to Mikaela, not to Sigrid, not to the school. I’ve lost. Just now I’ve lost everything. . At this very moment I’m losing everything on this damned bench outside this damned gymnasium. I knew it, I’ve known it ever since that damned evening, why didn’t I do anything about it, what shall I do now when everything’s too late? Damn and blast! It’s too late. Damn and blast! Everything’s too late now. .

He stood up. Keep quiet! he said to his thoughts. Shut up! He took a deep breath and tried to concentrate one last time. Last time? he thought. What do I mean, one last time?

He started walking to the viaduct again. Is she still there? Are they there? Did Sigrid go rushing there? Was that where she went? It must be nearly half an hour ago.

He increased his pace. Crossed over Birkenerstraat level with the cemetery and turned into Emserweg. And it was then, just as he came round the corner at Dorff’s bookshop and stationery store and into Dorfflenerstraat that he saw her.

She passed the illuminated entrance to the sports field on the other side of the street, walking quite fast. Energetic and resolute steps. Sigrid, his wife. She didn’t see him, and he repressed an impulse to shout out her name. Instead he stopped under the bookshop’s awning and remained standing there until she was out of sight. She’s been there, he thought. She’s been up there and met Winnie.

He hurried across Dorfflenerstraat, continued past the sports field and came down to the railway line. Once he had skirted the brewery the viaduct came into view.

But in the distance. He still couldn’t see if there was anybody standing up there. Standing and waiting for him? He slowed down. What the hell could he say? Or do? What did she expect of him? She had ruined his life. She’d crushed him by telling the facts to his wife some — he looked at his watch — thirty-five minutes ago. It was no more than that. Just over half an hour since the telephone call. What the hell did she want of him now?

Pregnant? She was pregnant, with his child. He remembered what she’d said that night. ‘Come on, Sir. . come, come, come, I’m on the pill!’

Sir, she’d said. At the height of the act, while he was screwing her, she had actually used that word.

The pill? Like hell she’d been on the pill.

He started walking along the long, curving road and stupidly enough wondered if she wanted to go to bed with him again. That was a disgusting thought which must surely say something about the kind of man he was. Deep down. And that it was probably quite justified for him to be going mad. I’m a filthy swine, he thought. Swine, swine, swine! — he could almost hear Sigrid yelling those words. Have sex with Winnie Maas? Again? Let her ride him forwards and backwards and plunge his cock into her until she gasped in ecstasy, let her give him head while he stroked her stiff little clitoris until she screamed. . What the hell was he fantasizing about? His brain was racing like a car in too low a gear. What’s happening to my head? he thought. In any case, she’s not there.

She wasn’t there.

There was nobody up there on the viaduct. Not a soul, not even that little devil Winnie Maas, and nobody else either. He paused and looked around. To both the north and the south. He had quite a good view from where he was standing. He could see the whole town — the streets, the squares, the two churches, the beach and the harbour with its breakwaters and concrete foundations and protected entrance. The little wooded area beyond the football pitches. Frieder’s Pier and Gordon’s Lighthouse furthest to the south. . Everything enveloped by the grey darkness of the summer night.

He looked down at the area below. Scanned the railway line from the distant station to where he was. There was something lying down there. Right next to the right-hand track, diagonally below where he was standing. It wasn’t quite so dark there, and a street light projected its dirty yellow beam over the street and the railway line at that point.

There was something lying there. Something white and slightly blue and a bit skin-coloured. .

It was a second or two before he realized what it was.

It took another second before he realized who it was.