The Book Thief (53 page)

More people appeared on the street, where a collection of Jews and other criminals had already been shoved past. Perhaps the death camps were kept secret, but at times, people were shown the glory of a labor camp like Dachau.

Far up, on the other side, Liesel spotted the man with his paint cart. He was running his hand uncomfortably through his hair.

“Up there,” she pointed out to Rudy. “My papa.”

They both crossed and made their way up, and Hans Hubermann attempted at first to take them away. “Liesel,” he said. “Maybe …”

He realized, however, that the girl was determined to stay, and perhaps it was something she should see. In the breezy autumn air, he stood with her. He did not speak.

On Munich Street, they watched.

Others moved in around and in front of them.

They watched the Jews come down the road like a catalog of colors. That wasn’t how the book thief described them, but I can tell you that that’s exactly what they were, for many of them would die. They would each greet me like their last true friend, with bones like smoke and their souls trailing behind.

When they arrived in full, the noise of their feet throbbed on top of the road. Their eyes were enormous in their starving skulls. And the
dirt. The dirt was molded to them. Their legs staggered as they were pushed by soldiers’ hands—a few wayward steps of forced running before the slow return to a malnourished walk.

Hans watched them above the heads of the crowding audience. I’m sure his eyes were silver and strained. Liesel looked through the gaps or over shoulders.

The suffering faces of depleted men and women reached across to them, pleading not so much for help—they were beyond that—but for an explanation. Just something to subdue this confusion.

Their feet could barely rise above the ground.

Stars of David were plastered to their shirts, and misery was attached to them as if assigned. “Don’t forget your misery …” In some cases, it grew on them like a vine.

At their side, the soldiers also made their way past, ordering them to hurry up and to stop moaning. Some of those soldiers were only boys. They had the
Führer
in their eyes.

As she watched all of this, Liesel was certain that these were the poorest souls alive. That’s what she wrote about them. Their gaunt faces were stretched with torture. Hunger ate them as they continued forward, some of them watching the ground to avoid the people on the side of the road. Some looked appealingly at those who had come to observe their humiliation, this prelude to their deaths. Others pleaded for someone, anyone, to step forward and catch them in their arms.

No one did.

Whether they watched this parade with pride, temerity, or shame, nobody came forward to interrupt it. Not yet.

Once in a while a man or woman—no, they were not men and women; they were Jews—would find Liesel’s face among the crowd. They would meet her with their defeat, and the book thief could do nothing but watch them back in a long, incurable moment before they were gone again. She could only hope they could read the depth of sorrow in her face, to recognize that it was true, and not fleeting.

I have one of you in my basement! she wanted to say. We built a snowman together! I gave him thirteen presents when he was sick!

Liesel said nothing at all.

What good would it be?

She understood that she was utterly worthless to these people. They could not be saved, and in a few minutes, she would see what would happen to those who might try to help them.

In a small gap in the procession, there was a man, older than the others.

He wore a beard and torn clothes.

His eyes were the color of agony, and weightless as he was, he was too heavy for his legs to carry.

Several times, he fell.

The side of his face was flattened against the road.

On each occasion, a soldier stood above him.
“Steh’ auf,”
he called down. “Stand up.”

The man rose to his knees and fought his way up. He walked on.

Every time he caught up sufficiently to the back of the line, he would soon lose momentum and stumble again to the ground. There were more behind him—a good truck’s worth—and they threatened to overtake and trample him.

The ache in his arms was unbearable to watch as they shook, trying to lift his body. They gave way one more time before he stood and took another group of steps.

He was dead.

The man was dead.

Just give him five more minutes and he would surely fall into the German gutter and die. They would all let him, and they would all watch.

Then, one human.

Hans Hubermann.

•   •   •

It happened so quickly.

The hand that held firmly on to Liesel’s let it drop to her side as the man came struggling by. She felt her palm slap her hip.

Papa reached into his paint cart and pulled something out. He made his way through the people, onto the road.

The Jew stood before him, expecting another handful of derision, but he watched with everyone else as Hans Hubermann held his hand out and presented a piece of bread, like magic.

When it changed hands, the Jew slid down. He fell to his knees and held Papa’s shins. He buried his face between them and thanked him.

Liesel watched.

With tears in her eyes, she saw the man slide farther forward, pushing Papa back to cry into his ankles.

Other Jews walked past, all of them watching this small, futile miracle. They streamed by, like human water. That day, a few would reach the ocean. They would be handed a white cap.

Wading through, a soldier was soon at the scene of the crime. He studied the kneeling man and Papa, and he looked at the crowd. After another moment’s thought, he took the whip from his belt and began.

The Jew was whipped six times. On his back, his head, and his legs. “You filth! You swine!” Blood dripped now from his ear.

Then it was Papa’s turn.

A new hand held Liesel’s now, and when she looked in horror next to her, Rudy Steiner swallowed as Hans Hubermann was whipped on the street. The sound sickened her and she expected cracks to appear on her papa’s body. He was struck four times before he, too, hit the ground.

When the elderly Jew climbed to his feet for the last time and continued on, he looked briefly back. He took a last sad glance at the
man who was kneeling now himself, whose back was burning with four lines of fire, whose knees were aching on the road. If nothing else, the old man would die like a human. Or at least with the thought that he
was
a human.

Me?

I’m not so sure if that’s such a good thing.

When Liesel and Rudy made it through and helped Hans to his feet, there were so many voices. Words and sunlight. That’s how she remembered it. The light sparkling on the road and the words like waves, breaking on her back. Only as they walked away did they notice the bread sitting rejected on the street.

As Rudy attempted to pick it up, a passing Jew snatched it from his hand and another two fought him for it as they continued on their way to Dachau.

Silver eyes were pelted then.

A cart was turned over and paint flowed onto the street.

They called him a Jew lover.

Others were silent, helping him back to safety.

Hans Hubermann leaned forward, arms outstretched against a house wall. He was suddenly overwhelmed by what had just happened.

There was an image, fast and hot.

33 Himmel Street—its basement.

Thoughts of panic were caught between the in-and-out struggle of his breath.

They’ll come now. They’ll come.

Oh, Christ, oh, crucified Christ.

He looked at the girl and closed his eyes.

“Are you hurt, Papa?”

She received questions rather than an answer.

“What was I thinking?” His eyes closed tighter and opened again. His overalls creased. There was paint and blood on his hands. And bread crumbs. How different from the bread of summer. “Oh my God, Liesel, what have I done?”

Yes.

I must agree.

What had Papa done?

At just after 11 p.m. that same night, Max Vandenburg walked up Himmel Street with a suitcase full of food and warm clothes. German air was in his lungs. The yellow stars were on fire. When he made it to Frau Diller’s, he looked back one last time to number thirty-three. He could not see the figure in the kitchen window, but
she
could see him. She waved and he did not wave back.

Liesel could still feel his mouth on her forehead. She could smell his breath of goodbye.

“I have left something for you,” he’d said, “but you will not get it until you’re ready.”

He left.

“Max?”

But he did not come back.

He had walked from her room and silently shut the door.

The hallway murmured.

He was gone.

When she made it to the kitchen, Mama and Papa stood with crooked bodies and preserved faces. They’d been standing like that for thirty seconds of forever.

How perfect.

Peace.

Somewhere near Munich, a German Jew was making his way through the darkness. An arrangement had been made to meet Hans Hubermann in four days (that is, if he wasn’t taken away). It was at a place far down the Amper, where a broken bridge leaned among the river and trees.

He would make it there, but he would not stay longer than a few minutes.

The only thing to be found there when Papa arrived four days later was a note under a rock, at the base of a tree. It was addressed to nobody and contained only one sentence.

Now more than ever, 33 Himmel Street was a place of silence, and it did not go unnoticed that the
Duden Dictionary
was completely and utterly mistaken, especially with its related words.