She was looking back at herself with sparkling eyes, young and light at heart. A sensuous mouth, half-open, smiled at her with satisfaction, and when she walked on she felt the rhythmical movement of her limbs as if her feet had wings. A need for some physical release, a need to dance or run wildly, took over from the usual sedate pace of her footsteps, and now she was sorry to hear the clock on St Michael’s Church, as she hurried past, calling her home to her small, neat, tidy world. Not since girlhood had she felt so light at heart, with all her senses so animated. Nothing like it had sent sparks flying through her body, not in the first days of her marriage or in her lover’s embrace, and the idea of wasting this strange lightness, this sweet frenzy of the blood, on well-regulated hours seemed unendurable. Wearily now, she went on. She stopped outside the building where she lived, hesitating once again, wishing to expand her breast and breathe in the fiery air and confusion of the last hour once more, feeling the last, ebbing wave of her adventure deep in her heart.

Then someone touched on her shoulder. She turned around. “What … what do you want this time?” she stammered, frightened to death at the sudden sight of that hated face, and even more frightened to hear herself speak those fateful words. Hadn’t she made up her mind not to show that she recognised the woman if she ever met her again, to deny everything, to stand up to the blackmailer? And now it was too late.

“I been waiting here for you this last half-hour, Frau Wagner.”

Irene started when she heard her name. So the woman knew it, knew where she lived. All was lost now, she was helpless, at this creature’s mercy. She had words on the tip of her tongue, all those carefully prepared and calculated words, but her tongue was paralysed and could not utter a sound.

“Half-an-hour I been waiting, Frau Wagner.” The woman repeated her words menacingly. It was like an accusation.

“What do you want … what do you want from me?”

“Why, don’t you know that already, Frau Wagner?” Her own name made Irene jump with fright again. “You know what I’m here for right enough.”

“I haven’t seen him again … let me go! I never will see him again … never.”

The woman waited, composed, until the agitated Irene could say no more. Then she replied harshly, as if speaking to an inferior.

“Don’t you tell me no lies! I followed you to that caffy, didn’t I?” And seeing Irene flinch, she added in tones of derision, “Me, I got no job, see? They fired me from the shop on account of no work coming in, that’s what they say, and then there’s the hard times and all. Well, we got to spend our time somehow, so us poor girls go walking about a bit, just like you fine, respectable ladies.”

The woman spoke with a cold ill will that struck Irene to the heart. She felt defenceless against the naked brutality of such malice, and increasingly dizzy in the grip of the fearful idea that the woman might begin shouting, or her husband might happen to come by, and then all would be lost. She quickly felt in her muff, brought out her silver-mesh purse, and took from it all the money that her fingers could hold. With revulsion, she thrust it into the hand now slowly reaching out in certain expectation of its plunder.

But this time the strange hand did not withdraw humbly as soon as it had the money in its clasp, but stayed outstretched in the air, open like a claw.

“And let’s have that nice little silver purse too, for to keep my money safe in!” said the scornfully smiling mouth, with a soft chuckle of a laugh.

Irene looked her in the eye, but only for a second. The creature’s insolent, malicious scorn was past bearing. She felt revulsion run through her whole body like a burning pain. She had to get away, well away from the sight of that woman’s face! Turning aside, she quickly held out the purse, a valuable item in itself, to the woman, and then ran up the steps with horror on her heels.

Her husband was not home yet, so she was able to fling herself down on the sofa. She lay there as if felled by a hammer-blow, motionless apart from a frantic twitching that ran through her fingers and then up her arm, making it tremble all the way to her shoulder. But nothing in her whole body could put up any defence against the storming violence of the horror that had now been let loose. Only when she heard her husband’s voice outside did she pull herself together, making an enormous effort, and force herself to go into the next room, her movements automatic and her senses numbed.

 

The horror had now moved into her home and would not stir from its rooms. In the many empty hours that kept bringing the images of that terrible meeting back to her mind, wave upon wave of them, her hopeless situation became perfectly clear to her. How it could have happened she had no idea, but the woman knew her name, knew where she lived, and now that her first attempts at blackmail had been so conspicuously successful she certainly would not shun any means of making use of her knowledge to continue her campaign of extortion. She would be a burden on her victim’s life year after year, like a nightmare that no effort, however desperate, could dislodge, for although Irene was well-to-do and the wife of a prosperous man, she could not possibly raise a large enough sum to free herself of the woman once and for all without confiding in her husband. In addition, as she knew from hearing occasional stories of his about trials in which he had appeared, all agreements with base, unscrupulous persons, and any promises made to them were entirely null and void.