Ice Cold Read online

  Gerda

  18 February was Carnival Saturday, that’s the day of the Servants’ Ball at Sedlmayer’s inn. There’s always plenty going on there, every year. The ballroom’s ever so crowded. People come from all around. Well, it’s the high point of the carnival season. You just have to be there. Of course I went too, what do you think? I danced and talked all night, and naturally I flirted a little bit too. With Franz. Franz used to be in service in Aubing, but he works in Munich now, in a factory.

  What do they make there? Can’t say, no, I don’t really know. But he’s pretty good at kissing, I can tell you that. That’s why I was back so late...or more like so early.

  He saw me to the front door and then he was off to the train station. On foot.

  It was five in the morning when I went into the kitchen. How do I know so precisely? Well, I looked at the pendulum clock hanging in the corner of our kitchen. Right beside the sofa.

  It plays ‘Germans To Arms!’ every hour on the dot. So right at the very moment when I’m opening the kitchen door it’s five a.m. and the clock strikes up ‘Germans To Arms!’ I was so startled I all but screeched out loud. Stopped myself at the last minute. I didn’t want Mother to wake up and notice I was only just home. I wouldn’t have liked that.

  I went over to the tap to wash. Icy it was, the water from the mains. The cold water really did me good. As I’m drying my face Mother comes in. She doesn’t say anything, but she gives me kind of a funny look.

  ‘Want a coffee before you go to bed? I guess that’d do you good.’

  ‘Yes, thanks, Mother, that’d be just the thing.’

  ‘Anything special going on at Sedlmayer’s, keeping you there so late?’

  ‘Oh, it was crowded, and fun like always. And I met Franz and he saw me home.’

  ‘Ah, yes, that Franz. Working in Munich now, right? Come along, girl, sit yourself down, coffee won’t be a minute, and tell me what it was like over at Sedlmayer’s!’

  So I sat on the sofa and watched Mother making coffee. When it was ready she came over to me on the sofa with two mugs. She sat down and put the coffee on the table in front of us.

  So we sat there talking. About the ball and who was there. And I started feeling sleepier all the time. I leaned up against Mother, and when I just couldn’t stop yawning she said, ‘Time you had a bit of a lie-down. This is Sunday, your day off. You can miss church for once, the Lord God won’t mind.’

  So I stood up and went to my room. I sat down on the bed, and just as I was beginning to unbutton my jacket I heard Mother calling.

  ‘My word, take a look at that! Fine goings-on there must have been last night at Sedlmayer’s! Lovers snogging right outside our garden fence, canoodling in the snow. Here, Magda! Look at this, will you?’

  So I went back to my mother in the kitchen. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I’d never have credited it. Sure enough, there was a couple lying in the snow right by our garden fence.

  ‘Well, fancy that! You’d think it’d be too cold for them, wouldn’t you?’

  Just then the man got to his feet. He buttoned up his coat, he looked around, and then he was off and away in the Aubing direction.

  The girl – well, at first she just lay there. It wasn’t till he was gone she struggled up out of the snow.

  I say girl, because now I could see she really was just a girl. Ever so young. She stood up and ran to our house.

  ‘There’s something wrong!’ says Mother. Well, anyone could see there was something wrong.

  So I buttoned up my jacket again, quick-like, got into my slippers, flung my coat on, and I was out of the house, wanting to see what was up. She ran right into my arms. What a state she was in! I put the hair back from her forehead, I looked into her face, then I saw it was little Gerda. The Meiers’ foster daughter.

  So I said, ‘Gerda, what happened? What have you been up to?’

  Then Gerda started crying.

  ‘He grabbed my throat. He grabbed my throat, he pushed my skirt up and he pulled my panties off.’

  I could hardly make out what she was saying. She was all shook up, really shook up. Just kept on saying, ‘He grabbed my throat, took my panties off, pushed me down in the snow.’

  Mother, she came out of the house right after me, took the girl in her arms, hugged little Gerda tight. She was a picture of misery, Gerda was.

  Like a little bird, I thought to myself. Gerda looked all ruffled up, like a little bird that’s only just got away from the cat. That’s how she looked when she let Mother take her into the house. Head hanging, shoulders slumped, she shook whenever she sobbed.

  Mother held her arm tight and just said, ‘Now you come along into the nice warm room. You’ll be fine now. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Come along in and tell me all about it.’

  When I saw the state she was in, I was downright furious. So I jumped on my bike and rode after the man. I wasn’t letting him get away, just like that. Not a fellow like him! I wasn’t scared, I just felt so furiously angry. Ever so angry. So I got on my bike and went after him. I wanted to get on his track, I wasn’t about to let him go.

  I was just in time to see him disappear along the Aubing road. I cycled for all I was worth.

  Up at Zacherl’s, there was Frau Schreiber cycling along the road ahead of me. I pedalled even faster. I wanted to draw level with her, ask if she’d seen the man.

  ‘No, there wasn’t no one came this way. I’d have been bound to see him. Must have turned off over there, in among the vegetable plots.’

  So I told Frau Schreiber – no, it was more like I shouted at her. ‘He’s gone and attacked little Gerda!’ I fair bellowed it. ‘That bastard attacked little Gerda!’ And I was already turning towards the allotments on my bike.

  I cycled along the path between the hedges, making for the allotment gardens.

  I couldn’t see the man anywhere, but I spotted the gap in the fence. And the footsteps in the snow. I didn’t see those until I got off the bike.

  They led through the gap in the fence.

  I stood there with my bike, didn’t know what to do now. Couldn’t make up my mind whether to push through the fence and leave the bike lying there. Luckily Frau Schreiber came up behind me. She was waving one arm about in the air. And shouting to me to wait for her. She didn’t like to see me going after him on my own, so she’d turned her bike and followed.

  Frau Schreiber saw the tracks in the snow too.

  ‘He’s through there. Must’ve got through the fence. This garden, it’s old Frau Glas’s allotment,’ she said. ‘She’s not here just now, she’s over at her daughter’s.’

  So I went into the garden through the gap in the fence, along with Frau Schreiber. We just left our bikes lying in the snow.

  We found him behind the garden shed. Standing with his back to us. Looked like he was cleaning his coat, rubbing it down with snow.

  He didn’t hear us coming, because when Frau Schreiber spoke to him – what was he doing here, then? – he jumped. Looked at us quite scared, but then he pulled himself together, seeing there was only the two of us, and women at that.

  ‘I’m not doing nothing here. Nothing.’

  He tried pushing past us. Shoving us aside with his shoulder, he wanted to push past. Try that on with Frau Schreiber and – well, he’d picked the wrong woman. She wasn’t having any of that. She stood right there, hands on her hips, legs planted wide apart, that’s how she stood. ‘You stop right where you are and tell me what you’re doing here!’ she barked at him.

  ‘I’m not doing nothing. Nothing.’

  The man was almost a head taller than Frau Schreiber. He gave her a push, Frau Schreiber fell over backwards in the snow, and he was off and away out of the garden plot.

  He was running now, running like the Devil was after him. In the direction of Schmied’s.

  I was out of the garden plot next moment too. Back to my bicycle as fast as I could go, and I caught up with him at Zeiler’s.

&nbs
p; He was out of breath, couldn’t hardly run any more. I cycled along beside him for quite a way. I wasn’t afraid, just angrier, and the further I cycled the angrier I grew.

  He hissed at me, told me to clear off. What did I want, he said, he hadn’t done nothing. ‘Nothing! Nothing!’

  I went on sitting on my bike, I never took my eyes off him. I was cycling along beside him all the time, very slowly.

  ‘Don’t talk so daft!’ I said. ‘I saw what you did. You just turn around and come to the police with me! They’ll pick you up anyway! So don’t be daft, you come with me.’

  I was surprised at myself, I stayed so calm. I was trembling inside, but my voice was firm.

  ‘I don’t need you there. I’ll go to the police myself.’

  ‘But I want to come with you. I want to see you go to the police. I saw what you did to that girl!’

  ‘I know what I did. You let me be. I know what I’m doing. I’ll go to the police.’

  When he said that, gasping with the effort, at that very moment I heard Frau Schreiber calling. She was coming along on her bike quite a way behind us.

  So I turned around to her, and just for a moment I took my eyes off the man. And he saw at once I wasn’t looking at him. He swerved like a hare and he ran for it before I could react. Past the Schmied property and over the meadows towards the next allotments. All of a sudden he could run again. Me, I shouted as loud as ever I could.

  ‘Stop! Stop! Help, he’s getting away!’

  I yelled at the top of my voice, and it brought Schmied running out of his place to see what the noise was. Why was I yelling like that? he asked. Was I out of my mind? he snapped.

  I just shouted, ‘He’s getting away! Stop that man, he knocked a girl over in the snow! You must stop him, for heaven’s sake, stop him! He mustn’t get away! He mustn’t get away!’

  And Schmied, he didn’t stop to ask questions, he went haring across the fields after the fellow.

  I just stood there with my bike. Just stood there in my slippers with my coat unbuttoned. Suddenly I was so cold, chilled to the bone, trembling all over.

  And all of a sudden I was scared too, scared to death. I don’t know which made me tremble most, my fear or the cold.

  Because he could have pulled me off my bike. Pulled me off my bike and knocked me down myself. If that man had just taken a proper look at me, he’d have seen what a little half-pint I am.

  Munich, 28 February 1939

  Interrogation of Josef Kalteis by

  Chief Public Prosecutor Dr R.

  Interrogation starts: 10.30 hours

  Interrogation ends: 15.30 hours

  – Josef Kalteis, I was born on the 26th of July 1906.

  – In Aubing.

  – Since 31 December 1937.

  – My wife’s name? Walburga, Walburga Pfafflinger.

  – In Aubing. Number 2 Hauptstrasse, Aubing, that’s where we live.

  – For the Reich Railways. I work as a shunter for Reich Railways.

  – I trained as a mechanic, but I’ve worked for Reich Railways as a shunter for four years now.

  – Up till when my old works fired me, then I got this job with Reich Railways. My dad helped me, he’s with the railway too.

  – I work shifts, shunting the trains. We’re on duty all different times, that’s how it is on shift work.

  – What makes you ask a thing like that? What do you mean, what kind of relationship do I have with my wife? It’s the way it is, that’s all. What else would it be? Sometimes OK, sometimes not so good, that’s life.

  – Well, we didn’t hit it off so well at the start, not when we was first married, but we get on better these days. Better nor before.

  – No, we didn’t quarrel on Saturday. Has she said we did?

  – Yes, it’s a fact, my wife did want to go to the cinema. But after she’d seen the trailer she suddenly wanted to go home instead. Said she didn’t fancy the movie after all. She’d thought it would be different. Happens to her quite often, she changes her mind a lot.

  – What do you think I did? Took her home, that’s what. Didn’t stay with her, though. I guess she’ll have gone to bed. Said she was tired, anyway. But I wasn’t tired, didn’t want to go to bed yet, I put my coat on again and went out. Over to Schmid’s for a glass of beer. The Schmid inn.

  – I watched the card-players. The regulars playing cards at their table. I guess I drank about three dark beers. I met a man I know there, he could tell you it’s like I say.

  – His name? Can’t remember his full name now. I mean, I don’t know him all that well. Just a bloke I see now and then. Exchange a few words with him, that’s all. No, I don’t know his surname, I just know him as Kurt. Kurt what? No idea. You’ll have to ask the landlord at Schmid’s.

  – Then I went on to Huber’s place with Kurt. The Huber inn. Round about midnight. Yes, I’m certain sure it was twelve midnight. At Huber’s I met Adler. He was there at Huber’s when I came in.

  – Adler, he works with me. The three of us went on drinking.

  – What did we drink, how much? Can’t remember none too well now. Two or three lagers it’ll have been. Maybe a schnapps or so as well. Adler wanted to go on to Sedlmayer’s. Very keen to go there, he was, said there’s always something going on at Sedlmayer’s. And great women there too, wow, real wild women, he said. So we went on there, that’ll have been about one.

  – Adler was right. There was all sorts going on at Sedlmayer’s. I drank ten or so shots of schnapps and a few beers, three or four. Well, why not, when everyone’s having a good time? How much exactly? Can’t remember no more. It was only on the way home I noticed I was all boozed up, I mean drunk. But I saw Adler home all the same. He couldn’t hardly stand no more, let alone walk. Hung on to me all the way, he did. I got him to his front door. Over in Bienenheim, that’s where he lives. You just have to ask him. He’ll bear me out.

  – Then I didn’t feel so good on the way back. All that fresh air. I puked, had to crouch there in the snow for a while, I felt so dizzy.

  – Well, when I felt better, then I went on towards Aubing. Wanted to get home. Lie down and sleep it off.

  – Just before Aubing this girl crosses my path. She was carrying a milk can. She said good morning.

  – I went along beside her for a bit. We talked. All perfectly harmless.

  – A nice girl, she was. Real friendly.

  – Yes, then I took hold of her.

  – I put my hands around her neck and I pushed her down in the snow. Can’t remember the rest of it. Only how I took hold of her around the neck and pushed her down in the snow.

  – I can’t remember no more. Why would I lie to you? I’d tell you if I could remember. You have to believe me. I’d put back a fair amount of liquor that evening. Sober I wouldn’t never have grabbed her. Wouldn’t be capable of it. I wouldn’t never have done a thing like that. Never. I mean, I’m a married man. I got kids.

  – If you say I tore her panties off, I guess that’s right. But I can’t remember for sure no more. Wasn’t myself again until I’d finished.

  – If she says so, I guess it’s right that I …that I …well, that I rubbed against her. Oh God, oh God, I feel so ashamed.

  (Puts his face in his hands.)

  – I can’t remember, just can’t remember. Can’t remember threatening her neither.

  – It’s the truth, I can’t remember. I’m not telling you no lies! You have to believe me when I say so. You have to believe me …

  (Begins weeping.)

  Yes, yes, I’ll calm down, I’ll calm down right away.

  (Takes the offered handkerchief, blows his nose.)

  – I can’t remember nothing, not till I got up out of the snow and walked away.

  – Where was I going? Home, I was going home. Where else? Where else would I be going?

  – Then these two women come after me on their bicycles. Wouldn’t leave me be, those women. They kept on following me.

  – Just
before that I went into a garden. For a pee. And then they’re suddenly standing behind me. One of them, I gave her a push, what else could I do? And the other, she kept going along beside me on her bike. Kept on telling me to turn myself in to the police. I couldn’t get rid of her, couldn’t shake her off. She wouldn’t let me be. I couldn’t even think no more. Not with all that nattering. I just wanted to get away. So I made off across the meadows, couldn’t stand it no more. That’s where the cops picked me up.

  – There was this fat man ran after me over the meadows. I don’t remember if I shouted out I was going to shoot him. I suppose I could’ve done. What was I to do? I was all whichways in my head. But I couldn’t have shot him, could I? I mean, I didn’t have no gun. I just said it so he’d clear out and leave me in peace. I wanted them to leave me in peace! In peace!

  – You just have to believe me, I’d never have thought I’d do a thing like that. Attack a girl! Me? Never! I mean, I got kids. I’m a good dad to them! But I was so drunk that day. Didn’t know if I was on my head or my heels, I was so drunk. Lost control of myself. You have to believe me. Do you believe that? Do you believe me?

  – I mean, I’d have turned myself in to the cops. When I’d sobered up I’d have turned myself in. I’m not a criminal!

  – Oh God, yes, yes, I know I made a big mistake and I can’t understand myself, can’t think what I was doing. I mean, I got a wife and kids at home. I don’t know what happened inside me.

  – No, I never did nothing like that before. I got nothing to do with those other cases. Nothing at all! I wouldn’t have done such things nor even thought of doing them, never in my life, what do you think?

  – Yes, I’ve heard of cases around here. So’s everyone who lives in these parts. But I got nothing to do with them. You can’t pin that on me. You have to believe me, I was so drunk, I’d never have done it sober, never. It was a slip, just a slip! I mean, I got a wife and kids! I’m a good father …I’m a good honest German citizen.