Ice Cold by Andrea Maria Schenkel

Author:Andrea Maria Schenkel [Schenkel, Andrea Maria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Netherlands
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2013-07-17T16:00:00+00:00

This Tuesday evening had been a quiet one for Amalia Ferch, waitress at the Lochhausen station restaurant. It was usually quiet on Tuesdays, as she will tell the police officer later. People have to be at work next day, so there’s only the regulars in the restaurant. They were sitting at their usual table, same as always. Mostly the better-off locals. They’d been playing cards, the game of ‘Sheep’s Head’, as they almost always did too. The fifty-pfennig, ten-pfennig and five-pfennig coins, no single pfennig pieces, were lying in the little saucers beside the beer-mats. They met for an evening drink most evenings, argued about politics, the Party, God knows what else. Or else they just met to play ‘Sheep’s Head’ and the other Bavarian card game called ‘Watten.’

It was different on a Friday evening, the company was usually more mixed then. The workers had been paid their wages and were mingling with the other guests and the card-players. Usually at separate tables, and the stakes were a little lower too. During the week many of them couldn’t afford more than a tankard of beer from the off-licence stall. They’d send their children for it. ‘And make sure you get good measure. Dad’s tired from his work today.’

At weekends the customers changed again. That was when the people on outings from nearby Munich came. Many on bicycles, others by train. Sometimes, not often, fine folk with their own motor cars. Those townies came in for a bite to eat. Saturdays and Sundays were the busiest times. ‘We have the tables in the garden open then, and there’s home-made cake and coffee in the afternoons. And that’s when the customers like to order an eggnog or a nice sweet Mosel.’

In the summer months some of the holiday-makers from Cologne, Berlin or other cities come here too. They arrive by train, stay a few days for the fresh summer air. Visit Munich, the ‘capital of the Movement’, and some come specially for the Oktoberfest.

That day, it was the last day of August, was even quieter than usual. Amalia Ferch didn’t mind that, it meant she could at least get home in good time. She always worked at the restaurant on Tuesdays and sometimes at weekends.

She was just wiping down the tables and tidying up the main room. The last card-players had left about ten minutes before when that man came into the restaurant at about eleven forty-five.

Amalia asked if he’d like half a litre of beer. He just nodded. She poured him his half and took it to his table.

She sat down herself at the side table next to the stove. He’d be going to catch the last train to Munich, that meant she’d have to wait another half hour until the train left. Not a very attractive prospect. She was tired this evening, she wanted to go home. Her legs ached after her long day’s work, and she had quite a way to go on her bicycle before she got home and could lie down in bed at last.

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