Ice Cold Read Free

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. Itwasn’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 Ishouted 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