The Book Thief (24 page)

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
schmunzeled
, 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 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?

Thirty-three
.

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.

the standover man

featuring:
the accordionist—a promise keeper—a good girl—
a jewish fist fighter—the wrath of rosa—a lecture—
a sleeper—the swapping of nightmares—
and some pages from the basement

There was a young man standing in the kitchen. The key in his hand felt like it was rusting into his palm. He didn’t speak anything like hello, or please help, or any other such expected sentence. He asked two questions.