The Book Thief (18 page)

As for Liesel’s
other activities, she was still causing havoc with Rudy Steiner. I would even
suggest that they were polishing their wicked ways.

They made a few
more journeys with Arthur Berg and his friends, keen to prove their worth and
extend their thieving repertoire. They took potatoes from one farm, onions from
another. Their biggest victory, however, they performed alone.

As witnessed
earlier, one of the benefits of walking through town was the prospect of
finding things on the ground. Another was noticing people, or more important,
the
same
people, doing identical things week after week.

A boy from
school, Otto Sturm, was one such person. Every Friday afternoon, he rode his
bike to church, carrying goods to the priests.

For a month,
they watched him, as good weather turned to bad, and Rudy in particular was determined
that one Friday, in an abnormally frosty week in October, Otto wouldn’t quite
make it.

“All those
priests,” Rudy explained as they walked through town. “They’re all too fat
anyway. They could do without a feed for a week or so.” Liesel could only
agree. First of all, she wasn’t Catholic. Second, she was pretty hungry
herself. As always, she was carrying the washing. Rudy was carrying two buckets
of cold water, or as he put it, two buckets of future ice.

Just before two
o’clock, he went to work.

Without any
hesitation, he poured the water onto the road in the exact position where Otto
would pedal around the corner.

Liesel had to
admit it.

There was a
small portion of guilt at first, but the plan was perfect, or at least as close
to perfect as it could be. At just after two o’clock every Friday, Otto Sturm
turned onto Munich Street with the produce in his front basket, at the
handlebars. On this particular Friday, that was as far as he would travel.

The road was icy
as it was, but Rudy put on the extra coat, barely able to contain a grin. It
ran across his face like a skid.

“Come on,” he
said, “that bush there.”

After
approximately fifteen minutes, the diabolical plan bore its fruit, so to speak.

Rudy pointed his
finger into a gap in the bush. “There he is.”

Otto came around
the corner, dopey as a lamb.

He wasted no
time in losing control of the bike, sliding across the ice, and lying facedown
on the road.

When he didn’t
move, Rudy looked at Liesel with alarm. “Crucified Christ,” he said, “I think
we might have
killed
him!” He crept slowly out, removed the basket, and
they made their getaway.

“Was he
breathing?” Liesel asked, farther down the street.

“Keine Ahnung,”
Rudy said,
clinging to the basket. He had no idea.

From far down
the hill, they watched as Otto stood up, scratched his head, scratched his
crotch, and looked everywhere for the basket.

“Stupid
Scheisskopf.
” Rudy grinned, and they looked through the spoils. Bread, broken eggs, and
the big one,
Speck.
Rudy held the fatty ham to his nose and breathed it
gloriously in. “Beautiful.”

As tempting as
it was to keep the victory to themselves, they were overpowered by a sense of
loyalty to Arthur Berg. They made their way to his impoverished lodging on
Kempf Strasse and showed him the produce. Arthur couldn’t hold back his
approval.

“Who did you
steal this from?”

It was Rudy who
answered. “Otto Sturm.”

“Well,” he
nodded, “whoever that is, I’m grateful to him.” He walked inside and returned
with a bread knife, a frying pan, and a jacket, and the three thieves walked
the hallway of apartments. “We’ll get the others,” Arthur Berg stated as they
made it outside. “We might be criminals, but we’re not totally immoral.” Much
like the book thief, he at least drew the line somewhere.

A few more doors
were knocked on. Names were called out to apartments from streets below, and
soon, the whole conglomerate of Arthur Berg’s fruit-stealing troop was on its
way to the Amper. In the clearing on the other side, a fire was lit and what
was left of the eggs was salvaged and fried. The bread and
Speck
were
cut. With hands and knives, every last piece of Otto Sturm’s delivery was
eaten. No priest in sight.

It was only at
the end that an argument developed, regarding the basket. The majority of boys
wanted to burn it. Fritz Hammer and Andy Schmeikl wanted to keep it, but Arthur
Berg, showing his incongruous moral aptitude, had a better idea.

“You two,” he
said to Rudy and Liesel. “Maybe you should take it back to that Sturm
character. I’d say that poor bastard probably deserves that much.”

“Oh, come on,
Arthur.”

“I don’t want to
hear it, Andy.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“
He
doesn’t
want to hear it, either.”

The group
laughed and Rudy Steiner picked up the basket. “I’ll take it back and hang it
on their mailbox.”

He had walked
only twenty meters or so when the girl caught up. She would be home far too
late for comfort, but she was well aware that she had to accompany Rudy Steiner
through town, to the Sturm farm on the other side.

For a long time,
they walked in silence.

“Do you feel
bad?” Liesel finally asked. They were already on the way home.

“About what?”

“You know.”

“Of course I do,
but I’m not hungry anymore, and I bet
he’s
not hungry, either. Don’t
think for a second that the priests would get food if there wasn’t enough to go
around at home.”

“He just hit the
ground so hard.”

“Don’t remind
me.” But Rudy Steiner couldn’t resist smiling. In years to come, he would be a
giver of bread, not a stealer—proof again of the contradictory human being. So
much good, so much evil. Just add water.

Five days after
their bittersweet little victory, Arthur Berg emerged again and invited them on
his next stealing project. They ran into him on Munich Street, on the way home
from school on a Wednesday. He was already in his Hitler Youth uniform. “We’re going
again tomorrow afternoon. You interested?”

They couldn’t
help themselves. “Where?”

“The potato
place.”

Twenty-four
hours later, Liesel and Rudy braved the wire fence again and filled their sack.

The problem
showed up as they made their getaway.

“Christ!”
shouted Arthur. “The farmer!” It was his next word, however, that frightened.
He called it out as if he’d already been attacked with it. His mouth ripped
open. The word flew out, and the word was
ax.

Sure enough,
when they turned around, the farmer was running at them, the weapon held aloft.

The whole group
ran for the fence line and made their way over. Rudy, who was farthest away,
caught up quickly, but not quickly enough to avoid being last. As he pulled his
leg up, he became entangled.

“Hey!”

The sound of the
stranded.

The group
stopped.

Instinctively,
Liesel ran back.

“Hurry up!”
Arthur called out. His voice was far away, as if he’d swallowed it before it
exited his mouth.

White sky.

The others ran.

Liesel arrived
and started pulling at the fabric of his pants. Rudy’s eyes were opened wide
with fear. “Quick,” he said, “he’s coming.”

Far off, they
could still hear the sound of deserting feet when an extra hand grabbed the
wire and reefed it away from Rudy Steiner’s pants. A piece was left on the
metallic knot, but the boy was able to escape.

“Now move it,”
Arthur advised them, not long before the farmer arrived, swearing and
struggling for breath. The ax held on now, with force, to his leg. He called
out the futile words of the robbed:

“I’ll have you
arrested! I’ll find you! I’ll find out who you are!”

That was when
Arthur Berg replied.

“The name is
Owens!” He loped away, catching up to Liesel and Rudy. “Jesse Owens!”

When they made
it to safe ground, fighting to suck the air into their lungs, they sat down and
Arthur Berg came over. Rudy wouldn’t look at him. “It’s happened to all of us,”
Arthur said, sensing the disappointment. Was he lying? They couldn’t be sure
and they would never find out.

A few weeks
later, Arthur Berg moved to Cologne.

They saw him
once more, on one of Liesel’s washing delivery rounds. In an alleyway off
Munich Street, he handed Liesel a brown paper bag containing a dozen chestnuts.
He smirked. “A contact in the roasting industry.” After informing them of his
departure, he managed to proffer a last pimply smile and to cuff each of them
on the forehead. “Don’t go eating all those things at once, either,” and they
never saw Arthur Berg again.

As for me, I can
tell you that I most definitely saw him.

This time, they
played it smarter. They ate one chestnut each and sold the rest of them door to
door.

“If you have a
few pfennig to spare,” Liesel said at each house, “I have chestnuts.” They
ended up with sixteen coins.

“Now,” Rudy
grinned, “revenge.”

That same
afternoon, they returned to Frau Diller’s, “
heil
Hitlered,” and waited.

“Mixed candy
again?” She
schmunzel
ed, to which they nodded. The money splashed the
counter and Frau Diller’s smile fell slightly ajar.

“Yes, Frau Diller,”
they said in unison. “Mixed candy, please.”

The framed
Führer
looked proud of them.

Triumph before
the storm.

THE STRUGGLER, CONCLUDED

The juggling
comes to an end now, but the struggling does not. I have Liesel Meminger in one
hand, Max Vandenburg in the other. Soon, I will clap them together. Just give
me a few pages.

The struggler:

If they killed
him tonight, at least he would die alive.

The train ride
was far away now, the snorer most likely tucked up in the carriage she’d made
her bed, traveling on. Now there were only footsteps between Max and survival.
Footsteps and thoughts, and doubts.

He followed the
map in his mind, from Pasing to Molching. It was late when he saw the town. His
legs ached terribly, but he was nearly there—the most dangerous place to be.
Close enough to touch it.

Just as it was
described, he found Munich Street and made his way along the footpath.

Everything
stiffened.

Glowing pockets
of streetlights.

Dark, passive
buildings.

The town hall
stood like a giant ham-fisted youth, too big for his age. The church
disappeared in darkness the farther his eyes traveled upward.

It all watched
him.

He shivered.

He warned
himself. “Keep your eyes open.”

(German children
were on the lookout for stray coins. German Jews kept watch for possible
capture.)

In keeping with
the usage of number thirteen for luck, he counted his footsteps in groups of
that number. Just thirteen footsteps, he would tell himself. Come on, just
thirteen more. As an estimate, he completed ninety sets, till at last, he stood
on the corner of Himmel Street.

In one hand, he
held his suitcase.

The other was
still holding
Mein Kampf.

Both were heavy,
and both were handled with a gentle secretion of sweat.

Now he turned on
to the side street, making his way to number thirty-three, resisting the urge
to smile, resisting the urge to sob or even imagine the safety that might be
awaiting him. He reminded himself that this was no time for hope. Certainly, he
could almost touch it. He could feel it, somewhere just out of reach. Instead
of acknowledging it, he went about the business of deciding again what to do if
he was caught at the last moment or if by some chance the wrong person awaited
him inside.

Of course, there
was also the scratchy feeling of sin.

How could he do
this?

How could he
show up and ask people to risk their lives for him? How could he be so selfish?

They looked at
each other.

The house was
pale, almost sick-looking, with an iron gate and a brown spit-stained door.

From his pocket,
he pulled out the key. It did not sparkle but lay dull and limp in his hand.
For a moment, he squeezed it, half expecting it to come leaking toward his
wrist. It didn’t. The metal was hard and flat, with a healthy set of teeth, and
he squeezed it till it pierced him.

Slowly, then,
the struggler leaned forward, his cheek against the wood, and he removed the
key from his fist.

PART FOUR

the
standover man

featuring:

the accordionist—a promise keeper—a good girl—