The Book Thief (33 page)

In your visions, you see the sloppy edges of paper still stuck to his fingers. You see a shivering blond fringe. Preemptively, you conclude, as
I would, that Rudy died that very same day, of hypothermia. He did not. Recollections like those merely remind me that he was not deserving of the fate that met him a little under two years later.

On many counts, taking a boy like Rudy was robbery—so much life, so much to live for—yet somehow, I’m certain he would have loved to see the frightening rubble and the swelling of the sky on the night he passed away. He’d have cried and turned and smiled if only he could have seen the book thief on her hands and knees, next to his decimated body. He’d have been glad to witness her kissing his dusty, bomb-hit lips.

Yes, I know it.

In the darkness of my dark-beating heart, I know. He’d have loved it, all right.

You see?

Even death has a heart.

Of course, I’m being rude. I’m spoiling the ending, not only of the entire book, but of this particular piece of it. I have given you two events in advance, because I don’t have much interest in building mystery. Mystery bores me. It chores me. I know what happens and so do you. It’s the machinations that wheel us there that aggravate, perplex, interest, and astound me.

There are many things to think of.

There is much story.

Certainly, there’s a book called
The Whistler
, which we really need to discuss, along with exactly how it came to be floating down the Amper River in the time leading up to Christmas 1941. We should deal with all of that first, don’t you think?

It’s settled, then.

We will.

It started with gambling. Roll a die by hiding a Jew and this is how you live. This is how it looks.

The Haircut: Mid-April 1941

Life was at least starting to mimic normality with more force:

Hans and Rosa Hubermann were arguing in the living room, even if it was much quieter than it used to be. Liesel, in typical fashion, was an onlooker.

The argument originated the previous night, in the basement, where Hans and Max were sitting with paint cans, words, and drop sheets. Max asked if Rosa might be able to cut his hair at some stage. “It’s getting me in the eyes,” he’d said, to which Hans had replied, “I’ll see what I can do.”

Now Rosa was riffling through the drawers. Her words were shoved back to Papa with the rest of the junk. “Where are those damn scissors?”

“Not in the one below?”

“I’ve been through that one already.”

“Maybe you missed them.”

“Do I look blind?” She raised her head and bellowed. “Liesel!”

“I’m right here.”

Hans cowered. “Goddamn it, woman, deafen me, why don’t you!”

“Quiet,
Saukerl.”
Rosa went on riffling and addressed the girl. “Liesel, where are the scissors?” But Liesel had no idea, either.
“Saumensch
, you’re useless, aren’t you?”

“Leave her out of it.”

More words were delivered back and forth, from elastic-haired woman to silver-eyed man, till Rosa slammed the drawer. “I’ll probably make a lot of mistakes on him anyway.”

“Mistakes?” Papa looked ready to tear his own hair out by that stage, but his voice became a barely audible whisper. “Who the hell’s going to
see
him?” He motioned to speak again but was distracted by
the feathery appearance of Max Vandenburg, who stood politely, embarrassed, in the doorway. He carried his own scissors and came forward, handing them not to Hans or Rosa but to the twelve-year-old girl. She was the calmest option. His mouth quivered a moment before he said, “Would you?”

Liesel took the scissors and opened them. They were rusty and shiny in different areas. She turned to Papa, and when he nodded, she followed Max down to the basement.

The Jew sat on a paint can. A small drop sheet was wrapped around his shoulders. “As many mistakes as you want,” he told her.

Papa parked himself on the steps.

Liesel lifted the first tufts of Max Vandenburg’s hair.

As she cut the feathery strands, she wondered at the sound of scissors. Not the snipping noise, but the grinding of each metal arm as it cropped each group of fibers.

When the job was done, a little severe in places, a little crooked in others, she walked upstairs with the hair in her hands and fed it into the stove. She lit a match and watched as the clump shriveled and sank, orange and red.

Again, Max was in the doorway, this time at the top of the basement steps. “Thanks, Liesel.” His voice was tall and husky, with the sound in it of a hidden smile.

No sooner had he spoken than he disappeared again, back into the ground.

The Newspaper: Early May

“There’s a Jew in my basement.”

“There’s a Jew. In my basement.”

Sitting on the floor of the mayor’s roomful of books, Liesel Meminger heard those words. A bag of washing was at her side and
the ghostly figure of the mayor’s wife was sitting hunch-drunk over at the desk. In front of her, Liesel read
The Whistler
, pages twenty-two and twenty-three. She looked up. She imagined herself walking over, gently tearing some fluffy hair to the side, and whispering in the woman’s ear:

“There’s a Jew in my basement.”

As the book quivered in her lap, the secret sat in her mouth. It made itself comfortable. It crossed its legs.

“I should be getting home.” This time, she actually spoke. Her hands were shaking. Despite a trace of sunshine in the distance, a gentle breeze rode through the open window, coupled with rain that came in like sawdust.

When Liesel placed the book back into position, the woman’s chair stubbed the floor and she made her way over. It was always like this at the end. The gentle rings of sorrowful wrinkles swelled a moment as she reached across and retrieved the book.

She offered it to the girl.

Liesel shied away.

“No,” she said, “thank you. I have enough books at home. Maybe another time. I’m rereading something else with my papa. You know, the one I stole from the fire that night.”

The mayor’s wife nodded. If there was one thing about Liesel Meminger, her thieving was not gratuitous. She only stole books on what she felt was a need-to-have basis. Currently, she had enough. She’d gone through
The Mud Men
four times now and was enjoying her reacquaintance with
The Shoulder Shrug
. Also, each night before bed, she would open a fail-safe guide to grave digging. Buried deep inside it,
The Standover Man
resided. She mouthed the words and touched the birds. She turned the noisy pages, slowly.

“Goodbye, Frau Hermann.”

She exited the library, walked down the floorboard hall and out the monstrous doorway. As was her habit, she stood for a while on the
steps, looking at Molching beneath her. The town that afternoon was covered in a yellow mist, which stroked the rooftops as if they were pets and filled up the streets like a bath.

When she made it down to Munich Street, the book thief swerved in and out of the umbrellaed men and women—a rain-cloaked girl who made her way without shame from one garbage can to another. Like clockwork.

“There!”

She laughed up at the coppery clouds, celebrating, before reaching in and taking the mangled newspaper. Although the front and back pages were streaked with black tears of print, she folded it neatly in half and tucked it under her arm. It had been like this each Thursday for the past few months.

Thursday was the only delivery day left for Liesel Meminger now, and it was usually able to provide some sort of dividend. She could never dampen the feeling of victory each time she found a
Molching Express
or any other publication. Finding a newspaper was a good day. If it was a paper in which the crossword wasn’t done, it was a great day. She would make her way home, shut the door behind her, and take it down to Max Vandenburg.

“Crossword?” he would ask.

“Empty.”

“Excellent.”

The Jew would smile as he accepted the package of paper and started reading in the rationed light of the basement. Often, Liesel would watch him as he focused on reading the paper, completed the crossword, and then started to reread it, front to back.

With the weather warming, Max remained downstairs all the time. During the day, the basement door was left open to allow the small bay of daylight to reach him from the corridor. The hall itself was not exactly bathed in sunshine, but in certain situations, you take what you can get. Dour light was better than none, and they needed
to be frugal. The kerosene had not yet approached a dangerously low level, but it was best to keep its usage to a minimum.

Liesel would usually sit on some drop sheets. She would read while Max completed those crosswords. They sat a few meters apart, speaking very rarely, and there was really only the noise of turning pages. Often, she also left her books for Max to read while she was at school. Where Hans Hubermann and Erik Vandenburg were ultimately united by music, Max and Liesel were held together by the quiet gathering of words.

“Hi, Max.”

“Hi, Liesel.”

They would sit and read.

At times, she would watch him. She decided that he could best be summed up as a picture of pale concentration. Beige-colored skin. A swamp in each eye. And he breathed like a fugitive. Desperate yet soundless. It was only his chest that gave him away for something alive.

Increasingly, Liesel would close her eyes and ask Max to quiz her on the words she was continually getting wrong, and she would swear if they still escaped her. She would then stand and paint those words to the wall, anywhere up to a dozen times. Together, Max Vandenburg and Liesel Meminger would take in the odor of paint fumes and cement.

“Bye, Max.”

“Bye, Liesel.”

In bed, she would lie awake, imagining him below, in the basement. In her bedtime visions, he always slept fully clothed, shoes included, just in case he needed to flee again. He slept with one eye open.

The Weatherman: Mid-May

Liesel opened the door and her mouth simultaneously.

On Himmel Street, her team had trounced Rudy’s 6-1, and triumphant, she burst into the kitchen, telling Mama and Papa all about the goal she’d scored. She then rushed down to the basement to describe
it blow by blow to Max, who put down his newspaper and intently listened and laughed with the girl.

When the story of the goal was complete, there was silence for a good few minutes, until Max looked slowly up. “Would you do something for me, Liesel?”

Still excited by her Himmel Street goal, the girl jumped from the drop sheets. She did not say it, but her movement clearly showed her intent to provide exactly what he wanted.

“You told me all about the goal,” he said, “but I don’t know what sort of day it is up there. I don’t know if you scored it in the sun, or if the clouds have covered everything.” His hand prodded at his short-cropped hair, and his swampy eyes pleaded for the simplest of simple things. “Could you go up and tell me how the weather looks?”

Naturally, Liesel hurried up the stairs. She stood a few feet from the spit-stained door and turned on the spot, observing the sky.