The Book Thief (52 page)

“Did you see the sky tonight?”

“No.” Max looked at the wall and pointed. On it, they all watched
the words and the picture he’d painted more than a year earlier—the rope and the dripping sun. “Only that one tonight,” and from there, no more was spoken. Nothing but thoughts.

Max, Hans, and Rosa I cannot account for, but I know that Liesel Meminger was thinking that if the bombs ever landed on Himmel Street, not only did Max have less chance of survival than everyone else, but he would die completely alone.

In the morning, the damage was inspected. No one died, but two apartment blocks were reduced to pyramids of rubble, and Rudy’s favorite Hitler Youth field had an enormous bowl spooned out of it. Half the town stood around its circumference. People estimated its depth, to compare it with their shelters. Several boys and girls spat into it.

Rudy was standing next to Liesel. “Looks like they need to fertilize again.”

When the next few weeks were raid-free, life almost returned to normal. Two telling moments, however, were on their way.

Her wrinkles were like slander. Her voice was akin to a beating with a stick.

It was actually quite fortunate that they saw Frau Holtzapfel coming from the living room window, for her knuckles on the door were hard and decisive. They meant business.

Liesel heard the words she dreaded.

“You go and answer it,” Mama said, and the girl, knowing only too well what was good for her, did as she was told.

“Is your mama home?” Frau Holtzapfel inquired. Constructed of fifty-year-old wire, she stood on the front step, looking back every so often to view the street. “Is that swine of a mother of yours here today?”

Liesel turned and called out.

Soon, Rosa was behind her. “What do
you
want here? You want to spit on my kitchen floor now, too?”

Frau Holtzapfel was not deterred in the slightest. “Is that how you greet
everyone
who shows up at your front door? What a
G’sindel
.”

Liesel watched. She was unfortunate enough to be sandwiched between them. Rosa pulled her out of the way. “Well, are you going to tell me why you’re here or not?”

Frau Holtzapfel looked once more at the street and back. “I have an offer for you.”

Mama shifted her weight. “Is that right?”

“No, not you.” She dismissed Rosa with a shrug of the voice and focused now on Liesel. “You.”

“Why did you ask for me, then?”

“Well, I at least need your
permission.”

Oh, Maria, Liesel thought, this is all I need. What the hell can Holtzapfel want with me?

“I liked that book you read in the shelter.”

No. You’re not getting it. Liesel was convinced of that. “Yes?”

“I was hoping to hear the rest of it in the shelter, but it looks like we’re safe for now.” She rolled her shoulders and straightened the wire in her back. “So I want you to come to my place and read it to me.”

“You’ve got some nerve, Holtzapfel.” Rosa was deciding whether to be furious or not. “If you think—”

“I’ll stop spitting on your door,” she interrupted. “And I’ll give you my coffee ration.”

Rosa decided against being furious. “And some flour?”

“What, are you a Jew? Just the coffee. You can swap the coffee with someone else for the flour.”

It was decided.

By everyone but the girl.

“Good, then, it’s done.”

“Mama?”

“Quiet,
Saumensch
. Go and get the book.” Mama faced Frau Holtzapfel again. “What days suit you?”

“Monday and Friday, four o’clock. And today, right now.”

Liesel followed the regimented footsteps to Frau Holtzapfel’s lodging next door, which was a mirror image of the Hubermanns’. If anything, it was slightly larger.

When she sat down at the kitchen table, Frau Holtzapfel sat directly in front of her but faced the window. “Read,” she said.

“
Chapter two
?”

“No,
chapter eight
. Of course
chapter two
! Now get reading before I throw you out.”

“Yes, Frau Holtzapfel.”

“Never mind the ‘yes, Frau Holtzapfels.’ Just open the book. We don’t have all day.”

Good God, Liesel thought. This is my punishment for all that stealing. It’s finally caught up with me.

She read for forty-five minutes, and when the chapter was finished, a bag of coffee was deposited on the table.

“Thank you,” the woman said. “It’s a good story.” She turned toward the stove and started on some potatoes. Without looking back, she said, “Are you still here, are you?”

Liesel took that as her cue to leave.
“Danke schön
, Frau Holtzapfel.” By the door, when she saw the framed photos of two young men in military uniform, she also threw in a
“heil
Hitler,” her arm raised in the kitchen.

“Yes.” Frau Holtzapfel was proud and afraid. Two sons in Russia.
“Heil
Hitler.” She put her water down to boil and even found the manners to walk the few steps with Liesel to the front door.
“Bis morgen?”

The next day was Friday. “Yes, Frau Holtzapfel. Until tomorrow.”

Liesel calculated that there were four more reading sessions like that with Frau Holtzapfel before the Jews were marched through Molching.

They were going to Dachau, to concentrate.

That makes two weeks
, she would later write in the basement.
Two weeks to change the world, and fourteen days to ruin it
.

Some people said that the truck had broken down, but I can personally testify that this was not the case. I was there.

What had happened was an ocean sky, with whitecap clouds.

Also, there was more than just the one vehicle. Three trucks don’t all break down at once.

When the soldiers pulled over to share some food and cigarettes and to poke at the package of Jews, one of the prisoners collapsed from starvation and sickness. I have no idea where the convoy had traveled from, but it was perhaps four miles from Molching, and many steps more to the concentration camp at Dachau.

I climbed through the windshield of the truck, found the diseased man, and jumped out the back. His soul was skinny. His beard was a ball and chain. My feet landed loudly in the gravel, though not a sound was heard by a soldier or prisoner. But they could all smell me.

Recollection tells me that there were many wishes in the back of that truck. Inner voices called out to me.

Why him and not me?

Thank God it
isn’t
me.

The soldiers, on the other hand, were occupied with a different discussion. The leader squashed his cigarette and asked the others a smoggy question. “When was the last time we took these rats for some fresh air?”

His first lieutenant choked back a cough. “They could sure use it, couldn’t they?”

“Well, how about it, then? We’ve got time, don’t we?”

“We’ve always got time, sir.”

“And it’s perfect weather for a parade, don’t you think?”

“It is, sir.”

“So what are you waiting for?”

On Himmel Street, Liesel was playing soccer when the noise arrived. Two boys were fighting for the ball in the midfield when everything stopped. Even Tommy Müller could hear it. “What
is
that?” he asked from his position in goal.

Everyone turned toward the sound of shuffling feet and regimented voices as they made their way closer.

“Is that a herd of cows?” Rudy asked. “It can’t be. It never sounds quite like that, does it?”

Slowly at first, the street of children walked toward the magnetic sound, up toward Frau Diller’s. Once in a while there was added emphasis in the shouting.

In a tall apartment just around the corner on Munich Street, an old lady with a foreboding voice deciphered for everyone the exact source of the commotion. Up high, in the window, her face appeared like a white flag with moist eyes and an open mouth. Her voice was like suicide, landing with a clunk at Liesel’s feet.

She had gray hair.

The eyes were dark, dark blue.

“Die Juden,”
she said. “The Jews.”