Girl in the Cellar Read Online Free

gets all the big rock groups to his place. Natascha met some of them when he brought them down to Hungary. She liked rock music. You know, when I was doing better financially, had a better life, we were down at the Woerthersee, oh, five or six times a year. [The Woerthersee is a favourite vacation resort, catering to more affluent Austrians, set in magnificent mountain scenery in Carinthia.]
    They were filming a famous Austrian TV series when we were there, Ein Schloβ am Woerthersee [‘A Castle by Lake Woerther’], and Natascha got to meet the cast. She was friendly with the stars, Roy Black and Franco Adolfo. They were regulars in the hotel I stayed in. All the stars went there, she experienced all this when she was a little kid. She would talk to them and was never shy. That’s why today she is not afraid of big names and the spotlight, it was nothing special to her.
    Back to the present, and he is keen to show off something. Rising from the table as if wanting to somehow share those precious moments, he walks from his small, wood-panelled kitchen into the garden, shading his eyes from the sunlight as he rummages for the key to the shed. He then pulls open the doors and wheels an electric car out on to the brick yard. ‘Of course when Natascha was here this yard was grass, some things change, but I havealways kept her car for her. The batteries are flat now, but I have always kept it clean for her,’ he says and, as if emphasising the point, pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and uses it to brush a fleck from the bonnet.
    Down the long years of her captivity this car had become a touchstone of faith when despair was all around. After the long nights tramping the more sordid areas of Vienna, he would come back to this toy that his lost daughter loved so much. It seemed that just by touching it he could summon her spirit back.
    What it cost was not important. Sometimes things went well with my businesses and sometimes things didn’t go well. Life is like that, a roller-coaster, but what was always important for me was that I did my best for my child.
    And I didn’t just give her presents. I also tried to give her good advice and warn her about life. I always told her to stay away from false friends, from people who just say yes because they want something from you. They show a friendly face but they just want to stick a knife in your back. That’s a lesson she still has with her today, as a lot of people want something from her.
    He said Natascha was never a materialistic child, and would shun fancy presents in favour of more practical ones. He recalled the time on one Hungarian trip when he took her to buy some ‘nice fancy shoes’:
    But she only glanced though the shelves and went straight to the far corner of the shop and picked a pairof Wellington boots. She didn’t care about the fancy shoes, she only wanted wellies so she could play in the garden, water the lawn and the flowers and things like that. She loved playing in the garden and the outdoors in general.
    Natascha is so much like my mother, the resemblance is incredible. She has her looks, her spirit, her intelligence. When I was watching the interview on TV, it was as if I was looking at my late mother when she was younger.
    But Natascha’s got the will to fight from me, and the stubbornness, too. That’s why she could endure everything and that is why she is now able to take control over her own fate.
    It was while she was on holiday in Hungary shortly before she was kidnapped that Natascha came closest to puppy love. Martin Bartsch, 21, son of her father’s friend Hannes, said he thought of her as a ‘little girlfriend’, and recalled how, even though she was three years younger than him, a big gap at the time, he enjoyed her company:
    She wasn’t a typical girl of her age. Usually I found them annoying, but Natascha was interesting to talk to and polite. We would go cycling all around the