The Book Thief (65 page)

It was Gelb Strasse.

On the whole, the houses sat dark and huge.

Rudy took off his shoes and held them with his left hand. He held the toolkit with his right.

Between the clouds, there was a moon. Perhaps a mile of light.

“What am I waiting for?” he asked, but Liesel didn’t reply. Again, Rudy opened his mouth, but without any words. He placed the toolbox on the ground and sat on it.

His socks grew cold and wet.

“Lucky there’s another pair in the toolbox,” Liesel suggested, and she could see him trying not to laugh, despite himself.

Rudy moved across and faced the other way, and there was room for Liesel now as well.

The book thief and her best friend sat back to back on a patchy red toolbox in the middle of the street. Each facing a different way, they remained for quite a while. When they stood up and went home, Rudy changed his socks and left the previous ones on the road. A gift, he decided, for Gelb Strasse.

A few weeks later, the toolbox ended up being good for at least something. Rudy cleared it of screwdrivers and hammers and chose instead to store in it many of the Steiners’ valuables for the next air raid. The only item that remained was the teddy bear.

On March 9, Rudy exited the house with it when the sirens made their presence felt again in Molching.

While the Steiners rushed down Himmel Street, Michael
Holtzapfel was knocking furiously at Rosa Hubermann’s door. When she and Liesel came out, he handed them his problem. “My mother,” he said, and the plums of blood were still on his bandage. “She won’t come out. She’s sitting at the kitchen table.”

As the weeks had worn on, Frau Holtzapfel had not yet begun to recover. When Liesel came to read, the woman spent most of the time staring at the window. Her words were quiet, close to motionless. All brutality and reprimand were wrested from her face. It was usually Michael who said goodbye to Liesel or gave her the coffee and thanked her. Now this.

Rosa moved into action.

She waddled swiftly through the gate and stood in the open doorway. “Holtzapfel!” There was nothing but sirens and Rosa. “Holtzapfel, get out here, you miserable old swine!” Tact had never been Rosa Hubermann’s strong point. “If you don’t come out, we’re all going to die here on the street!” She turned and viewed the helpless figures on the footpath. A siren had just finished wailing. “What now?”

Michael shrugged, disoriented, perplexed. Liesel dropped her bag of books and faced him. She shouted at the commencement of the next siren. “Can I go in?” But she didn’t wait for the answer. She ran the short distance of the path and shoved past Mama.

Frau Holtzapfel was unmoved at the table.

What do I say? Liesel thought.

How do I get her to move?

When the sirens took another breath, she heard Rosa calling out. “Just leave her, Liesel, we have to go! If she wants to die, that’s her business,” but then the sirens resumed. They reached down and tossed the voice away.

Now it was only noise and girl and wiry woman.

“Frau Holtzapfel, please!”

Much like her conversation with Ilsa Hermann on the day of the
cookies, a multitude of words and sentences were at her fingertips. The difference was that today there were bombs. Today it was slightly more urgent.

She went with the last sentence, calling the words directly through the sirens. Her hands were planted on the table.

The woman looked up and made her decision. She didn’t move.

Liesel left. She withdrew herself from the table and rushed from the house.

Rosa held open the gate and they started running to number forty-five. Michael Holtzapfel remained stranded on Himmel Street.

“Come on!” Rosa implored him, but the returned soldier hesitated. He was just about to make his way back inside when something turned him around. His mutilated hand was the only thing attached to the gate, and shamefully, he dragged it free and followed.

They all looked back several times, but there was still no Frau Holtzapfel.

The road seemed so wide, and when the final siren evaporated
into the air, the last three people on Himmel Street made their way into the Fiedlers’ basement.

“What took you so long?” Rudy asked. He was holding the toolbox.

Liesel placed her bag of books on the ground and sat on them. “We were trying to get Frau Holtzapfel.”

Rudy looked around. “Where is she?”

“At home. In the kitchen.”

In the far corner of the shelter, Michael was cramped and shivery. “I should have stayed,” he said, “I should have stayed, I should have stayed ….” His voice was close to noiseless, but his eyes were louder than ever. They beat furiously in their sockets as he squeezed his injured hand and the blood rose through the bandage.

It was Rosa who stopped him.

“Please, Michael, it’s not your fault.”

But the young man with only a few remaining fingers on his right hand was inconsolable. He crouched in Rosa’s eyes.

“Tell me something,” he said, “because I don’t understand ….” He fell back and sat against the wall. “Tell me, Rosa, how she can sit there ready to die while I still want to live.” The blood thickened. “Why do I want to live? I shouldn’t want to, but I do.”

The young man wept uncontrollably with Rosa’s hand on his shoulder for many minutes. The rest of the people watched. He could not make himself stop even when the basement door opened and shut and Frau Holtzapfel entered the shelter.

Her son looked up.

Rosa stepped away.

When they came together, Michael apologized. “Mama, I’m sorry, I should have stayed with you.”

Frau Holtzapfel didn’t hear. She only sat with her son and lifted
his bandaged hand. “You’re bleeding again,” she said, and with everyone else, they sat and waited.

Liesel reached into her bag and rummaged through the books.

The majority of children slept and didn’t hear the sirens of renewed safety. Their parents woke them or carried them up the basement steps, into the world of darkness.

Far away, fires were burning and I had picked up just over two hundred murdered souls.

I was on my way to Molching for one more.

Himmel Street was clear.

The sirens had been held off for many hours, just in case there was another threat and to allow the smoke to make its way into the atmosphere.

It was Bettina Steiner who noticed the small fire and the sliver of smoke farther down, close to the Amper River. It trailed into the sky and the girl held up her finger. “Look.”

The girl might have seen it first, but it was Rudy who reacted. In his haste, he did not relinquish his grip on the toolbox as he sprinted to the bottom of Himmel Street, took a few side roads, and entered the
trees. Liesel was next (having surrendered her books to a heavily protesting Rosa), and then a smattering of people from several shelters along the way.

“Rudy, wait!”

Rudy did not wait.

Liesel could only see the toolbox in certain gaps in the trees as he made his way through to the dying glow and the misty plane. It sat smoking in the clearing by the river. The pilot had tried to land there.

Within twenty meters, Rudy stopped.

Just as I arrived myself, I noticed him standing there, recovering his breath.

The limbs of trees were scattered in the dark.