Ice Cold by Andrea Maria Schenkel Page A

of her, that fellow. Confronting her, legs planted wide apart. His flat cap pulled down over his face – and that horrible grin. It was even broader than before. Just now, not five minutes ago, the fellow had spoken to her. He was grinning then too. Standing beside the other man. There was no sign of the other man now. Only the one with the flat cap was there.
    He’d called out something to her as she passed him. She hadn’t really heard it. Didn’t want to know what it waseither. But she’d turned, and he was grinning in her face.
    Bastard, she thought to herself. She’d heard a laugh behind her back, and she walked faster. No, she wasn’t afraid. The street was brightly lit, and she wasn’t alone. Theresa Pirzer and her husband on their bikes were still within earshot.
    But all the same, she suddenly wished she had Georg with her. She shouldn’t have told him not to come. But then he’d have had to go all the long way back. No, it would have been better to stay with him tonight. It would definitely have been better. She was sorry now she hadn’t.
    Even as she was thinking of Georg, the other man, who was wearing a peaked cap, cycled past her. And when she came to the South German Brakes factory, she met that couple with their baby. She asked why they were out so late with their child. He was sitting in his pram. His mother was pushing it and his father walking along beside her. It was just before reaching the snack bar she met them.
    She knew that snack bar well. She’d been a trainee in the factory. She bought herself something at the snack bar almost every time they had a lunch break. The other girls used to laugh at her. She always bought the same thing. Every day. A doughnut. Then she took out the middle of it. She removed the inside, the jam and the doughy bit round it, and always put it aside. After that she filled the doughnut itself with smoked sausage.
    How odd to think of that just now. They’d fired her aftershe finished her training, and she’d never bought a doughnut at that snack bar again. Now she buys her doughnuts in the works canteen. But she still hollows them out and fills them with smoked sausage. The girls in the bookkeeping department at BMW laugh at her and shake their heads, just the way they did at the South German Brakes factory.
    With all this going through her head, she hardly noticed the fellow with the sporting cap. She never saw him leave his bike beside the snack bar and stand in her way.
    Legs planted wide apart, and grinning.
    ‘Well, got time for me now? I sent my friend home.’
    ‘Leave me alone.’
    ‘Now, now, not so much of your cheek! You come along and keep quiet, and then you won’t be hurt. I need it now, here, come on, don’t make such a fuss. You and your fat arse. Wow, I fancied that the moment I saw it.’
    ‘Leave me alone, you bastard. Go away! I don’t want anything to do with you!’
    She tries to pass him.
    When she’s level with him, right beside him, he grabs her by the throat.
    So fast, so suddenly – she hadn’t been expecting it.
    She defends herself. She’s not putting up with this. She flails out. He’s stronger. All the same, he has difficulty holding on to her. He pulls her down on the ground. ‘Stop that, you’re making me even wilder for it, slut!’
    She tries everything. Twists and turns. Hits out. Tries to scratch him, bite him. Fight back, fight back, fight back, that’s all she can think.
    ‘Bastard. Let me go!.’
    ‘Keep still or I’ll finish you off! Keep still, will you?’
    She won’t keep still. She doesn’t want to keep still. Feels something cold and metallic at the back of her neck. And then pain that almost makes her faint away.
    She wants to go on fighting back. She wants to hit out. Not give in. In spite of the pain. She wants, she wants, she wants …
    But neither her arms nor her legs will obey her any more. She can’t move, can’t move at all. She can’t move any more! Panic takes her in its grip. What