The Book Thief (23 page)

No one’s urine
smells as good as your own.

The days hobbled
on.

Each night,
before the descent into sleep, she would hear Mama and Papa in the kitchen,
discussing what had been done, what they were doing now, and what needed to
happen next. All the while, an image of Max hovered next to her. It was always
the injured, thankful expression on his face and the swamp-filled eyes.

Only once was
there an outburst in the kitchen.

Papa.

“I know!”

His voice was
abrasive, but he brought it back to a muffled whisper in a hurry.

“I have to keep
going, though, at least a few times a week. I can’t be here all the time. We
need the money, and if I quit playing there, they’ll get suspicious. They might
wonder why I’ve stopped. I told them you were sick last week, but now we have
to do everything like we always have.”

Therein lay the
problem.

Life had altered
in the wildest possible way, but it was imperative that they act as if nothing
at all had happened.

Imagine smiling
after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.

That was the
business of hiding a Jew.

As days turned
into weeks, there was now, if nothing else, a beleaguered acceptance of what
had transpired—all the result of war, a promise keeper, and one piano
accordion. Also, in the space of just over half a year, the Hubermanns had lost
a son and gained a replacement of epically dangerous proportions.

What shocked
Liesel most was the change in her mama. Whether it was the calculated way in
which she divided the food, or the considerable muzzling of her notorious
mouth, or even the gentler expression on her cardboard face, one thing was
becoming clear.

Even when the
arthritic Helena Schmidt canceled the washing and ironing service, a month
after Max’s debut on Himmel Street, she simply sat at the table and brought the
bowl toward her. “Good soup tonight.”

The soup was
terrible.

Every morning
when Liesel left for school, or on the days she ventured out to play soccer or
complete what was left of the washing round, Rosa would speak quietly to the
girl. “And remember, Liesel . . .” She would point to her mouth and that was
all. When Liesel nodded, she would say, “Good girl,
Saumensch.
Now get
going.”

True to Papa’s
words, and even Mama’s now, she was a good girl. She kept her mouth shut
everywhere she went. The secret was buried deep.

She town-walked
with Rudy as she always did, listening to his jabbering. Sometimes they
compared notes from their Hitler Youth divisions, Rudy mentioning for the first
time a sadistic young leader named Franz Deutscher. If Rudy wasn’t talking about
Deutscher’s intense ways, he was playing his usual broken record, providing
renditions and re-creations of the last goal he scored in the Himmel Street
soccer stadium.

“I
know,
”
Liesel would assure him. “I was
there.
”

“So what?”

“So I saw it,
Saukerl.
”

“How do I know
that? For all I know, you were probably on the ground somewhere, licking up the
mud I left behind when I scored.”

Perhaps it was
Rudy who kept her sane, with the stupidity of his talk, his lemon-soaked hair,
and his cockiness.

He seemed to
resonate with a kind of confidence that life was still nothing but a joke—an
endless succession of soccer goals, trickery, and a constant repertoire of
meaningless chatter.

Also, there was
the mayor’s wife, and reading in her husband’s library. It was cold in there
now, colder with every visit, but still Liesel could not stay away. She would
choose a handful of books and read small segments of each, until one afternoon,
she found one she could not put down. It was called
The Whistler.
She
was originally drawn to it because of her sporadic sightings of the whistler of
Himmel Street— Pfiffikus. There was the memory of him bent over in his coat and
his appearance at the bonfire on the
Führer
’s birthday.

The first event
in the book was a murder. A stabbing. A Vienna street. Not far from the
Stephansdom—the cathedral in the main square.

Liesel was
unsure whether it was the words or the open window that caused her to tremble.
Every time she picked up or delivered from the mayor’s house, she read three
pages and shivered, but she could not last forever.

Similarly, Max
Vandenburg could not withstand the basement much longer. He didn’t complain—he
had no right—but he could slowly feel himself deteriorating in the cold. As it
turned out, his rescue owed itself to some reading and writing, and a book
called
The Shoulder Shrug.

“Liesel,” said
Hans one night. “Come on.”

Since Max’s
arrival, there had been a considerable hiatus in the reading practice of Liesel
and her papa. He clearly felt that now was a good time to resume.
“Na,
komm,”
he told her. “I don’t want you slacking off. Go and get one of your
books. How about
The Shoulder Shrug
?”

The disturbing
element in all of this was that when she came back, book in hand, Papa was
motioning that she should follow him down to their old workroom. The basement.

“But, Papa,” she
tried to tell him. “We can’t—”

“What? Is there
a monster down there?”

It was early
December and the day had been icy. The basement became unfriendlier with each
concrete step.

“It’s too cold,
Papa.”

“That never
bothered you before.”

“Yes, but it was
never
this
cold. . . .”

When they made
their way down, Papa whispered to Max, “Can we borrow the lamplight, please?”

With
trepidation, the sheets and cans moved and the light was passed out, exchanging
hands. Looking at the flame, Hans shook his head and followed it with some
words. “
Es ist ja Wahnsinn, net?
This is crazy, no?” Before the hand
from within could reposition the sheets, he caught it. “Bring yourself, too.
Please, Max.”

Slowly then, the
drop sheets were dragged aside and the emaciated body and face of Max
Vandenburg appeared. In the moist light, he stood with a magic discomfort. He
shivered.

Hans touched his
arm, to bring him closer.

“Jesus, Mary,
and Joseph. You cannot stay down here. You’ll freeze to death.” He turned.
“Liesel, fill up the tub. Not too hot. Make it just like it is when it starts
cooling down.”

Liesel ran up.

“Jesus, Mary,
and Joseph.”

She heard it
again when she reached the hallway.

When he was in
the pint-sized bath, Liesel listened at the washroom door, imagining the tepid
water turning to steam as it warmed his iceberg body. Mama and Papa were at the
climax of debate in the combined bedroom and living room, their quiet voices
trapped inside the corridor wall.

“He’ll die down
there, I promise you.”

“But what if
someone sees in?”

“No, no, he only
comes up at night. In the day, we leave everything open. Nothing to hide. And
we use this room rather than the kitchen. Best to keep away from the front
door.”

Silence.

Then Mama. “All
right . . . Yes, you’re right.”

“If we gamble on
a Jew,” said Papa soon after, “I would prefer to gamble on a live one,” and
from that moment, a new routine was born.

Each night, the
fire was lit in Mama and Papa’s room, and Max would silently appear. He would
sit in the corner, cramped and perplexed, most likely by the kindness of the
people, the torment of survival, and overriding all of it, the brilliance of
the warmth.

With the
curtains clamped tight, he would sleep on the floor with a cushion beneath his
head, as the fire slipped away and turned to ash.

In the morning,
he would return to the basement.

A voiceless
human.

The Jewish rat,
back to his hole.

Christmas came
and went with the smell of extra danger. As expected, Hans Junior did not come
home (both a blessing and an ominous disappointment), but Trudy arrived as
usual, and fortunately, things went smoothly.

It was decided
that Trudy, despite her mild demeanor, could not be trusted.

“We trust only
the people we have to,” Papa stated, “and that is the three of us.”

There was extra
food and the apology to Max that this was not his religion, but a ritual
nonetheless.

He didn’t
complain.

What grounds did
he have?

He explained
that he was a Jew in upbringing, in blood, but also that Jewry was now more
than ever a label—a ruinous piece of the dumbest luck around.

It was then that
he also took the opportunity to say he was sorry that the Hubermanns’ son had
not come home. In response, Papa told him that such things were out of their
control. “After all,” he said, “you should know it yourself—a young man is
still a boy, and a boy sometimes has the right to be stubborn.”

They left it at
that.

For the first
few weeks in front of the fire, Max remained wordless. Now that he was having a
proper bath once a week, Liesel noticed that his hair was no longer a nest of
twigs, but rather a collection of feathers, flopping about on his head. Still
shy of the stranger, she whispered it to her papa.

“His hair is
like feathers.”

“What?” The fire
had distorted the words.

“I said,” she
whispered again, leaning closer, “his hair is like feathers. . . .”

Hans Hubermann
looked across and nodded his agreement. I’m sure he was wishing to have eyes
like the girl. They didn’t realize that Max had heard everything.

Occasionally he
brought the copy of
Mein Kampf
and read it next to the flames, seething
at the content. The third time he brought it, Liesel finally found the courage
to ask her question.

“Is it—good?”

He looked up
from the pages, forming his fingers into a fist and then flattening them back
out. Sweeping away the anger, he smiled at her. He lifted the feathery fringe
and dumped it toward his eyes. “It’s the best book ever.” Looking at Papa, then
back at the girl. “It saved my life.”

The girl moved a
little and crossed her legs. Quietly, she asked it.

“How?”

So began a kind
of storytelling phase in the living room each night. It was spoken just loud
enough to hear. The pieces of a Jewish fist-fighting puzzle were assembled
before them all.

Sometimes there
was humor in Max Vandenburg’s voice, though its physicality was like
friction—like a stone being gently rubbed across a large rock. It was deep in
places and scratched apart in others, sometimes breaking off altogether. It was
deepest in regret, and broken off at the end of a joke or a statement of
selfdeprecation.

“Crucified
Christ” was the most common reaction to Max Vandenburg’s stories, usually
followed by a question.

When Liesel
looked back on the events of her life, those nights in the living room were
some of the clearest memories she had. She could see the burning light on Max’s
eggshell face and even taste the human flavor of his words. The course of his
survival was related, piece by piece, as if he were cutting each part out of
him and presenting it on a plate.

“I’m so
selfish.”

When he said
that, he used his forearm to shield his face. “Leaving people behind. Coming
here. Putting all of you in danger . . .” He dropped everything out of him and
started pleading with them. Sorrow and desolation were clouted across his face.
“I’m sorry. Do you believe me? I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m—!”

His arm touched
the fire and he snapped it back.

They all watched
him, silent, until Papa stood and walked closer. He sat next to him.

“Did you burn
your elbow?”

One evening,
Hans, Max, and Liesel were sitting in front of the fire. Mama was in the
kitchen. Max was reading
Mein Kampf
again.

“You know
something?” Hans said. He leaned toward the fire. “Liesel’s actually a good
little reader herself.” Max lowered the book. “And she has more in common with
you than you might think.” Papa checked that Rosa wasn’t coming. “She likes a
good fistfight, too.”