The Book Thief (42 page)

She read for
forty-five minutes, and when the chapter was finished, a bag of coffee was
deposited on the table.

“Thank you,” the
woman said. “It’s a good story.” She turned toward the stove and started on
some potatoes. Without looking back, she said, “Are you still here, are you?”

Liesel took that
as her cue to leave. “
Danke schön,
Frau Holtzapfel.” By the door, when
she saw the framed photos of two young men in military uniform, she also threw
in a “
heil
Hitler,” her arm raised in the kitchen.

“Yes.” Frau
Holtzapfel was proud and afraid. Two sons in Russia. “
Heil
Hitler.” She
put her water down to boil and even found the manners to walk the few steps
with Liesel to the front door.
“Bis morgen?”

The next day was
Friday. “Yes, Frau Holtzapfel. Until tomorrow.”

Liesel
calculated that there were four more reading sessions like that with Frau
Holtzapfel before the Jews were marched through Molching.

They were going
to Dachau, to concentrate.

That makes two
weeks,
she
would later write in the basement.
Two
weeks to change the world, and
fourteen days to ruin it.

THE LONG WALK TO DACHAU

Some people said
that the truck had broken down, but I can personally testify that this was not
the case. I was there.

What had
happened was an ocean sky, with whitecap clouds.

Also, there was
more than just the one vehicle. Three trucks don’t all break down at once.

When the
soldiers pulled over to share some food and cigarettes and to poke at the
package of Jews, one of the prisoners collapsed from starvation and sickness. I
have no idea where the convoy had traveled from, but it was perhaps four miles
from Molching, and many steps more to the concentration camp at Dachau.

I climbed
through the windshield of the truck, found the diseased man, and jumped out the
back. His soul was skinny. His beard was a ball and chain. My feet landed
loudly in the gravel, though not a sound was heard by a soldier or prisoner.
But they could all smell me.

Recollection
tells me that there were many wishes in the back of that truck. Inner voices
called out to me.

Why him and not
me?

Thank God it
isn’t
me.

The soldiers, on
the other hand, were occupied with a different discussion. The leader squashed
his cigarette and asked the others a smoggy question. “When was the last time
we took these rats for some fresh air?”

His first
lieutenant choked back a cough. “They could sure use it, couldn’t they?”

“Well, how about
it, then? We’ve got time, don’t we?”

“We’ve always
got time, sir.”

“And it’s
perfect weather for a parade, don’t you think?”

“It is, sir.”

“So what are you
waiting for?”

On Himmel
Street, Liesel was playing soccer when the noise arrived. Two boys were
fighting for the ball in the midfield when everything stopped. Even Tommy
Müller could hear it. “What
is
that?” he asked from his position in
goal.

Everyone turned
toward the sound of shuffling feet and regimented voices as they made their way
closer.

“Is that a herd
of cows?” Rudy asked. “It can’t be. It never sounds quite like that, does it?”

Slowly at first,
the street of children walked toward the magnetic sound, up toward Frau
Diller’s. Once in a while there was added emphasis in the shouting.

In a tall
apartment just around the corner on Munich Street, an old lady with a foreboding
voice deciphered for everyone the exact source of the commotion. Up high, in
the window, her face appeared like a white flag with moist eyes and an open
mouth. Her voice was like suicide, landing with a clunk at Liesel’s feet.

She had gray
hair.

The eyes were
dark, dark blue.

“Die Juden,”
she said. “The
Jews.”

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?

PEACE

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.”