The Book Thief (17 page)

“I’m starving,”
Rudy replied.

“And he’s fast,”
said Liesel.

Berg looked at
her. “I don’t recall asking for your opinion.” He was teenage tall and had a
long neck. Pimples were gathered in peer groups on his face. “But I like you.”
He was friendly, in a smart-mouth adolescent way. “Isn’t this the one who beat
up your brother, Anderl?” Word had certainly made its way around. A good hiding
transcends the divides of age.

Another boy—one
of the short, lean ones—with shaggy blond hair and ice-colored skin, looked
over. “I think so.”

Rudy confirmed
it. “It is.”

Andy Schmeikl
walked across and studied her, up and down, his face pensive before breaking
into a gaping smile. “Great work, kid.” He even slapped her among the bones of
her back, catching a sharp piece of shoulder blade. “I’d get whipped for it if
I did it myself.”

Arthur had moved
on to Rudy. “And you’re the Jesse Owens one, aren’t you?”

Rudy nodded.

“Clearly,” said
Arthur, “you’re an idiot—but you’re our kind of idiot. Come on.”

They were in.

When they
reached the farm, Liesel and Rudy were thrown a sack. Arthur Berg gripped his
own burlap bag. He ran a hand through his mild strands of hair. “Either of you
ever stolen before?”

“Of course,”
Rudy certified. “All the time.” He was not very convincing.

Liesel was more
specific. “I’ve stolen two books,” at which Arthur laughed, in three short
snorts. His pimples shifted position.

“You can’t eat
books, sweetheart.”

From there, they
all examined the apple trees, who stood in long, twisted rows. Arthur Berg gave
the orders. “One,” he said. “Don’t get caught on the fence. You get caught on
the fence, you get left behind. Understood?” Everyone nodded or said yes. “Two.
One in the tree, one below. Someone has to collect.” He rubbed his hands
together. He was enjoying this. “Three. If you see someone coming, you call out
loud enough to wake the dead—and we all run. Richtig? ”

“Richtig.”
It was a chorus.

TWO
DEBUTANTAPPLE THIEVES,

He pushed her
toward the fence, threw the empty sack on the wire, and they climbed over,
running toward the others. Rudy made his way up the closest tree and started
flinging down the apples. Liesel stood below, putting them into the sack. By
the time it was full, there was another problem.

“How do we get
back over the fence?”

The answer came
when they noticed Arthur Berg climbing as close to a fence post as possible.
“The wire’s stronger there.” Rudy pointed. He threw the sack over, made Liesel
go first, then landed beside her on the other side, among the fruit that
spilled from the bag.

Next to them,
the long legs of Arthur Berg stood watching in amusement.

“Not bad,”
landed the voice from above. “Not bad at all.”

When they made
it back to the river, hidden among the trees, he took the sack and gave Liesel
and Rudy a dozen apples between them.

“Good work,” was
his final comment on the matter.

That afternoon,
before they returned home, Liesel and Rudy consumed six apples apiece within
half an hour. At first, they entertained thoughts of sharing the fruit at their
respective homes, but there was considerable danger in that. They didn’t
particularly relish the opportunity of explaining just where the fruit had come
from. Liesel even thought that perhaps she could get away with only telling
Papa, but she didn’t want him thinking that he had a compulsive criminal on his
hands. So she ate.

On the riverbank
where she learned to swim, each apple was disposed of. Unaccustomed to such
luxury, they knew it was likely they’d be sick.

They ate anyway.

“Saumensch!”
Mama abused her
that night. “Why are you vomiting so much?”

“Maybe it’s the
pea soup,” Liesel suggested.

“That’s right,”
Papa echoed. He was over at the window again. “It must be. I feel a bit sick
myself.”

“Who asked you,
Saukerl?” Quickly, she turned back to face the vomiting
Saumensch.
“Well?
What is it? What is it, you filthy pig?”

But Liesel?

She said
nothing.

The apples, she
thought happily. The apples, and she vomited one more time, for luck.

THE ARYAN SHOPKEEPER

They stood
outside Frau Diller’s, against the whitewashed wall.

A piece of candy
was in Liesel Meminger’s mouth.

The sun was in
her eyes.

Despite these
difficulties, she was still able to speak and argue.

ANOTHER
CONVERSATION
*

BETWEEN RUDY AND LIESEL

At the end of
August and summer, they found one pfennig on the ground. Pure excitement.

It was sitting
half rotten in some dirt, on the washing and ironing route. A solitary corroded
coin.

“Take a look at
that!”

Rudy swooped on
it. The excitement almost stung as they rushed back to Frau Diller’s, not even
considering that a single pfennig might not be the
right price.
They
burst through the door and stood in front of the Aryan shopkeeper, who regarded
them with contempt.

“I’m waiting,”
she said. Her hair was tied back and her black dress choked her body. The
framed photo of the
Führer
kept watch from the wall.

“
Heil
Hitler,”
Rudy led.

“
Heil
Hitler,”
she responded, straightening taller behind the counter. “And you?” She glared
at Liesel, who promptly gave her a “
heil
Hitler” of her own.

It didn’t take
Rudy long to dig the coin from his pocket and place it firmly on the counter.
He looked straight into Frau Diller’s spectacled eyes and said, “Mixed candy,
please.”

Frau Diller
smiled. Her teeth elbowed each other for room in her mouth, and her unexpected
kindness made Rudy and Liesel smile as well. Not for long.

She bent down,
did some searching, and came back. “Here,” she said, tossing a single piece of
candy onto the counter. “Mix it yourself.”

Outside, they
unwrapped it and tried biting it in half, but the sugar was like glass. Far too
tough, even for Rudy’s animal-like choppers. Instead, they had to trade sucks
on it until it was finished. Ten sucks for Rudy. Ten for Liesel. Back and
forth.

“This,” Rudy
announced at one point, with a candy-toothed grin, “is the good life,” and
Liesel didn’t disagree. By the time they were finished, both their mouths were
an exaggerated red, and as they walked home, they reminded each other to keep
their eyes peeled, in case they found another coin.

Naturally, they
found nothing. No one can be that lucky twice in one year, let alone a single
afternoon.

Still, with red
tongues and teeth, they walked down Himmel Street, happily searching the ground
as they went.

The day had been
a great one, and Nazi Germany was a wondrous place.

THE STRUGGLER, CONTINUED

We move forward
now, to a cold night struggle. We’ll let the book thief catch up later.

It was November
3, and the floor of the train held on to his feet. In front of him, he read
from the copy of
Mein Kampf.
His savior. Sweat was swimming out of his
hands. Fingermarks clutched the book.

(My Struggle)

Behind Max
Vandenburg, the city of Stuttgart opened its arms in mockery.

He was not
welcome there, and he tried not to look back as the stale bread disintegrated
in his stomach. A few times, he shifted again and watched the lights become
only a handful and then disappear altogether.

Look proud, he
advised himself. You cannot look afraid. Read the book. Smile at it. It’s a
great book—the greatest book you’ve ever read. Ignore that woman on the other
side. She’s asleep now anyway. Come on, Max, you’re only a few hours away.

As it had turned
out, the promised return visit in the room of darkness didn’t take days; it had
taken a week and a half. Then another week till the next, and another, until he
lost all sense of the passing of days and hours. He was relocated once more, to
another small storage room, where there was more light, more visits, and more
food. Time, however, was running out.

“I’m leaving
soon,” his friend Walter Kugler told him. “You know how it is—the army.”

“I’m sorry,
Walter.”

Walter Kugler,
Max’s friend from childhood, placed his hand on the Jew’s shoulder. “It could
be worse.” He looked his friend in his Jewish eyes. “I could be you.”

That was their
last meeting. A final package was left in the corner, and this time, there was
a ticket. Walter opened
Mein Kampf
and slid it inside, next to the map
he’d brought with the book itself. “Page thirteen.” He smiled. “For luck, yes?”

“For luck,” and
the two of them embraced.

When the door
shut, Max opened the book and examined the ticket.
Stuttgart to Munich to
Pasing.
It left in two days, in the night, just in time to make the last
connection. From there, he would walk. The map was already in his head, folded
in quarters. The key was still taped to the inside cover.

He sat for half
an hour before stepping toward the bag and opening it. Apart from food, a few
other items sat inside.

WALTER KUGLER’S GIFT

When he left it,
the storeroom was empty but for the floor.

“Goodbye,” he
whispered.

The last thing
Max saw was the small mound of hair, sitting casually against the wall.

Goodbye.

With a
clean-shaven face and lopsided yet neatly combed hair, he had walked out of
that building a new man. In fact, he walked out German. Hang on a second, he
was
German. Or more to the point, he
had
been.

In his stomach
was the electric combination of nourishment and nausea.

He walked to the
station.

He showed his
ticket and identity card, and now he sat in a small box compartment of the
train, directly in danger’s spotlight.

“Papers.”

That was what he
dreaded to hear.

It was bad
enough when he was stopped on the platform. He knew he could not withstand it
twice.

The shivering
hands.

The smell—no,
the stench—of guilt.

He simply
couldn’t bear it again.

Fortunately,
they came through early and only asked for the ticket, and now all that was
left was a window of small towns, the congregations of lights, and the woman
snoring on the other side of the compartment.

For most of the
journey, he made his way through the book, trying never to look up.

The words lolled
about in his mouth as he read them.

Strangely, as he
turned the pages and progressed through the chapters, it was only two words he
ever tasted.

Mein Kampf.
My struggle—

The title, over
and over again, as the train prattled on, from one German town to the next.

Of all the
things to save him.

TRICKSTERS

You could argue
that Liesel Meminger had it easy. She
did
have it easy compared to Max
Vandenburg. Certainly, her brother practically died in her arms. Her mother
abandoned her.

But anything was
better than being a Jew.

In the time
leading up to Max’s arrival, another washing customer was lost, this time the
Weingartners. The obligatory
Schimpferei
occurred in the kitchen, and
Liesel composed herself with the fact that there were still two left, and even
better, one of them was the mayor, the wife, the books.