Free Iron Gustav by Hans Fallada Page A

the clock …’
    His excitement was infectious. Almost against her will Eva placed herself as he told her. Actually she couldn’t see the clock very well and had to strain her eyes … There was a crash and a clatter nearby. She saw the salesman start and she too swung round …
    ‘Run, girl, run!’ cried the hoarse voice beside her …
    As in a dream she saw the smashed showcase, the hand clutching the jewellery.
    ‘Run, you fool!’ and the young man pushed her against the advancing salesman, who tried to grab her. Without realizing what she was doing she hit out at him and ran. Other people rushed up, she dodged round a showcase, stumbled up five or six steps, threw open a swing door …
    Behind her voices were shouting: ‘Stop thief!’
    A bell shrilled.
    She was in the crowded Food Department. Startled faces regarded her and somebody tried to seize her, but she evaded him, pushed behind a fat woman, found herself in another corridor and ran behind a stack of tinned goods. Here there was a staircase. She pushed the door open and hurried downstairs – one floor, two floors, lower …
    She stood still and listened. Were they coming? Was she being pursued? Why had she run away? She hadn’t done anything. That loathsome fellow – what impudence to use her of all people as a screen. The thief! If ever she saw him again she’d scream, attract a crowd, and the policeman would handcuff him; then she’d laugh in his impertinent face. To involve her, an innocent girl, in this dirty business! It was unheard of.
    A heavy step was coming slowly down the stairs and she fled again, pushing open a swing door, walking as if casually through a department or two and approaching the exit. Suddenly she was overwhelmed with fear. She would undoubtedly be recognized; her description must have been phoned already to every exit and they knew she was carrying a shopping bag of black American cloth. Why was that salesgirl looking at her like that?
    She pulled herself together. I’ve done nothing, she reassured herself. ‘Where is the lavatory, please?’ she asked the salesgirl.
    She went in the direction the girl told her, then changed her mind. The stairs, the good old stairs of the Food Department had saved her once before – and she went back to them. They were thronged with people going up and down but she did not show any hurry. Putting her foot on a tread, she tied and retied her shoelace …
    When at last she felt she was unobserved she picked up the
shopping bag. She knew, of course, that the name of Hackendahl was written in the lining and that she must tear it out. But she stopped. Something gleamed inside, something flashed and sparkled.
    She laid the bag down – that scoundrel had turned her into an accomplice – he had dropped part of his robbery into it. Supposing they caught her! She could never explain it away, never. Oh, if only she had him here, the swine, with his slick talk about shopping bags and making a dash for it!
    Somebody was coming down the stairs in a hurry. She peeped; it was a man in the brown uniform of the Stores, and she at once busied herself with her shoelace, having quickly covered the bag with her skirt … The man gave her a side glance – was he suspicious? In any case it was high time to leave the building. At least ten minutes had passed since the theft and it was very likely that police were now posted at the exits … No sooner had she heard the swing door clicking to below than she stuffed the jewels into the pocket of her white petticoat, spending no time in examining them but smiling when she saw the ring set with the yellow diamond. A cool customer, that chap!
    Tearing the name out of her bag, which she left behind, she went through the ground floor past counters whose glamour had waned, walked by a commissionaire and, mingling with the flood of customers, stepped into the street …
    Stepped into safety and freedom.
§ XVI
    When the boys entered the school playground for the eleven