Kathie loved searching the bags for these delights, the coloured buttons, the bows, the combs. Her mother didn’t like her to do it. ‘That stuff is for sale,’ she said. But little Kathie often opened the boxes of buttons in secret. Looked at the treasures her mother brought home from the Munich stores.
Brightly coloured buttons, mother-of-pearl buttons, Bakelite buttons. In every hue, red, blue, green. She even had silver buttons. Silver buttons that shone in the sun. Some like coins, others like little mirrors. Kathie could gaze at it all for hours on end. The buttons, the sewing silks. It wasn’t just ordinary thread her mother bought, no, she bought expensive sewing silk too. In all colours, to match the fabrics. Coloured skeins of embroidery silks, patterns for the farmers’ daughters so that they could embroider their trousseaux. So that the bridal carts would be full of linen when they left the parental home, and everyone could see what a girl was taking to her marriage with her.
Kathie watched to see just where her mother had placed the contents of the bags. She quickly put the boxes away when she heard her coming, put everything back in exactly the same place. Her mother mustn’t notice that she’d been exploring the treasures again. Her heart was in
her mouth, beating so hard that she was afraid her mother would hear it.
Once her mother brought a bead collar back from Munich. One of her customers had asked for it. These collars were the latest thing. You sewed them to your dresses. The glass beads were white, grey, and pink. Kathie held the collar in her hands. Felt the cool touch of the glass beads; the collar was so heavy lying there in her hands. She couldn’t resist. With the collar around her neck, she examined herself in the mirror. She looked like a real little lady, she talked to herself in the mirror like one lady talking to another. Deep in conversation with herself, she didn’t notice her mother. Never noticed her coming into the room. She was scared to bits when she heard her voice.
‘Keep on looking at yourself in the mirror like that and one day the Devil himself will look back at you.’
‘How can the Devil look back at me out of the mirror?’ Kathie asked.
‘Just look in it long enough and you’ll soon see. You wouldn’t be the first it happened to. And give me that collar; it’s not for you, I had to bring it back from Munich specially. It’s for a customer, and she won’t buy it if it’s grubby.’
Reluctantly, Kathie handed the collar back. Promised herself she’d have a collar like it herself some day, and not just one either. She’ll look like the film actresses, the stars in the photos put up in the display case outside the cinema.
But Kathie still looks for the Devil in the mirror every day. She peers into every corner of it, in case she can see him, maybe even spot him looking over her shoulder. Beelzebub. She’s never set eyes on him yet.
The Devil, the Devil, the Devil, the words are repeated over and over in her head, in time to the rattling wheels of the train. The Devil, the Devil, the Devil.
Maria, her companion on the way to Munich, sits opposite her. Eyes closed, tired out by the monotonous ‘chug-a-chug-a-chug’ of the train, she’s fallen asleep.
Kathie doesn’t mind, she’s glad of it. This way she can think her own thoughts undisturbed by Maria.
Dreaming of the job she’ll look for in Munich, of her new life. She’ll go to the Hofmanns, she wrote to them back in January. The Hofmanns know Kathie. Her mother always buys her fabric from them in Heysestrasse. And she’s taken Kathie there too, to the place where they sell the fabrics, the buttons, the coloured cotton reels. You only had to pick them up. Kathie still sees the cotton reel lying in her hand when she thinks of that. It was red, and she had closed her hand tightly over it. She didn’t want to put it back. Nobody noticed her fingers closing around the cotton reel. The treasure well hidden in her little fist. Outside in the street, she showed her mother the reel of cotton.
‘Stolen,’ her mother told Kathie. ‘You stole it. I can’t take you to Munich with me any more if you’ll do a thing like that.’
Kathie had to take her precious treasure back. Her mother propelled her into the shop ahead of her. Kathie can still feel the shame of it today, but Frau Hofmann didn’t scold her, she just laughed and said, ‘I like the red ones best myself. Let’s not take it so seriously, Frau Hertl, Kathie’s only little.’
She wrote to the Hofmann family asking if they could help her find a job in Munich. She wanted to work as a maid. Well, to start with. A maid in the household of a lawyer or artist or some other rich Munich family. She was sure the Hofmanns would help her, they must know such people. All the ladies came to buy from them. She’s seen that for herself when she went to Munich with her mother, buying fabrics. The ladies with their hats and their furs. They all wore shoes with high heels and silk stockings. She wanted to own such things herself. She’d buy fine shoes and silk stockings. She’d buy them with the very first money she earned. She wanted to look like one of those city ladies.
The train stops on a clear stretch of line. Kathie looks out of the window. The rain is still running down it in large, heavy drops. The train slowly starts off again. Maria sleeps deeply; neither the jolting as the train stops nor the movement when it starts again can wake her.
Like Kathie, she plans to look for a job in Munich. Kathie is not pleased to have her tagging along. But she’ll soon shake Maria off, she’s sure of that. Once they’re in Munich.
Kathie looks out of the window again; this time there are no thoughts in her head. She just sits there and watches the raindrops following their course down the window.
Just before Munich, Maria wakes up at last. They help each other to get their cases down from the baggage net. Each girl has a small case with her. Not much. But the few possessions in Kathie’s case are all she owns. She’s put on her lovely green coat with the belt and the big green buttons specially for the journey, and her little blue hat with the pale ribbons, the hat she usually wears only to church on Sundays.
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.