Free Ice Cold by Andrea Maria Schenkel Page A

the big city, that’s why she’s here in Munich. She’d hoped it would be easier to find a place here than at home in the village.
    She’d met ever such a nice girl who came to the country for the hop-picking last autumn, she says, and now she was staying with her here in Munich. She has a lovely, bright apartment, says Kathie, and she, Kathie, likes it there a lot. She doesn’t want to go back home any more. Back to her strict father and her mother. She thanks Frau Hofmann again for being so helpful. Then Kathie goes away, with the piece of paper in her pocket.
    She crumples it up before she’s turned the next corner. It’s a lovely sunny day in Munich. The air is still warm, almost like spring. She sits on a park bench in the English Garden, and the sun warms her. The crumpled scrap of paper is in her coat pocket. She sits there watching the people strolling past. It’s not long before a couple of fellows sit down on the bench beside her. She laughs and jokeswith them. One of them tells her he has a motorbike, he could take her out into the country on it if she likes. Kathie is enthusiastic, of course she’d like that. They decide to make a date, he writes his name and address down on a piece of paper for her so that she won’t forget him. And she doesn’t put this note in her coat pocket with the other one. She puts it in her little black bag instead.
    In the evening she goes to Soller’s in the valley. The blond man is there again. So is Anna. She lets the blond man buy her a meal, and they go to one of the rooms for hire at Soller’s to sleep.

Herta
     
    Johann Würth, that’s my name. I work driving a truck for the firm of Friedrich Fischer. It’ll be about eight years I’ve been working for Fischer’s. I collect the milk from the dairy farms.
    Same route every day. Around three in the afternoon I drive away from the station where they load the milk. I drive out along Landsbergerstrasse to Pasing. Then it’s on to Freiham, Germering, Gilching, Argelsried and so to Wessling. I stop for a break in Wessling. I’ve done half my round when I get to Wessling, and I stop to eat a snack there. My wife packs me up a sausage sandwich, and I have tea or coffee in my thermos flask too. And about eight I drive the same way back to Munich. But not until I’ve loaded up the milk.
    Well, not exactly the same route every day, but almost. Because on the way back from Wessling by way of Gilching I use the state highway. The stretch from Wessling to Munich. By this time I’vebeen to almost all the dairy farms, and on the way back I just have to stop in Germering. Then I turn off the state highway again at Unterpfaffenhofen, and from there I go along the old road to Germering. That’s right on the road. I load up the milk there, and by the time I go on it’s nine o’clock. I do that route every day, the same round, day after day.
    And I see the woman on her bike almost every day on the road from Germering to Munich. Always at the same time. She’s always going along that stretch of road. Same as me. You could set your watch by her. I’ve often wondered what she does. For a job, I mean. Because she’s always going the same way at the same time. She must be on her way home from work, I’ve said to myself. Because if she was on her way to visit someone she wouldn’t always be going the same way at the same time. She’d be earlier sometimes and later other times, depending. I can tell it’s the woman cyclist by her woollen jacket. She wears it every day. Well, sometimes she wears it, other days she’s strapped it on the carrier of the bike behind her.
    That girl is always on her own. Always cycling along the road from Pasing to Germering, never going the other way. I’ve never seen anyone with her either, and I see her almost every day. Shecycles really fast. I’ve noticed that too. She steps on those pedals good and hard. She’s a stylish cyclist, that girl. She knows what she’s doing, she’s a good strong