A Pretty Little Job of Blackmail

Into the pet shop where Hetty Haberle is sheltering Enno Kluge walks Emil Borkhausen, greeting Enno with false old-friend warmth before revealing he works for the Gestapo's Inspector Escherich, who has offered a thousand-mark reward for finding him. Hetty, drawing on memories of her dead husband Walter, keeps her nerve and takes Borkhausen into the parlour for coffee, outmanoeuvring his claims to honesty — 'I'm a simple straightforward human being' — until he admits he hasn't told the Gestapo anything yet. She offers two thousand one hundred marks, but insists it be paid by postal order collectable only in Munich, to buy Enno time to vanish. Borkhausen protests, demanding to know why not just say London, but accepts. Wary of a watcher outside, Hetty makes Enno accompany them to the post office and station, then sees Borkhausen off on the Munich express in an upgraded seat, while Enno, relieved, minds the shop and jokes with customers again.

A comic set piece that still carries real stakes. Fallada lets Hetty out-negotiate a professional informer through nerve alone, reversing the novel's usual power balance between predator and prey. The Munich postal order is a small, satisfying piece of plotting whose consequences unravel almost immediately in the next chapter.