The Book Thief (38 page)

Say what you will about Viktor Chemmel, but he certainly had patience and a good memory. It took him approximately five months to turn his statement into a true one.

If the summer of 1941 was walling up around the likes of Rudy and Liesel, it was writing and painting itself into the life of Max Vandenburg. In his loneliest moments in the basement, the words started piling up around him. The visions began to pour and fall and occasionally limp from out of his hands.

He had what he called just a small ration of tools:

A painted book.

A handful of pencils.

A mindful of thoughts.

Like a simple puzzle, he put them together.

Originally, Max had intended to write his own story.

The idea was to write about everything that had happened to him—all that had led him to a Himmel Street basement—but it was not what came out. Max’s exile produced something else entirely. It was a collection of random thoughts and he chose to embrace them. They felt
true
. They were more real than the letters he wrote to his family and to his friend Walter Kugler, knowing very well that he could never send them. The desecrated pages of
Mein Kampf
were
becoming a series of sketches, page after page, which to him summed up the events that had swapped his former life for another. Some took minutes. Others hours. He resolved that when the book was finished, he’d give it to Liesel, when she was old enough, and hopefully, when all this nonsense was over.

From the moment he tested the pencils on the first painted page, he kept the book close at all times. Often, it was next to him or still in his fingers as he slept.

One afternoon, after his push-ups and sit-ups, he fell asleep against the basement wall. When Liesel came down, she found the book sitting next to him, slanted against his thigh, and curiosity got the better of her. She leaned over and picked it up, waiting for him to stir. He didn’t. Max was sitting with his head and shoulder blades against the wall. She could barely make out the sound of his breath, coasting in and out of him, as she opened the book and glimpsed a few random pages ….

•   •   •

Frightened by what she saw, Liesel placed the book back down, exactly as she found it, against Max’s leg.

A voice startled her.

“Danke schön,”
it said, and when she looked across, following the trail of sound to its owner, a small sign of satisfaction was present on his Jewish lips.

“Holy Christ,” Liesel gasped. “You scared me, Max.”

He returned to his sleep, and behind her, the girl dragged the same thought up the steps.

You scared me, Max.

The same pattern continued through the end of summer and well into autumn. Rudy did his best to survive the Hitler Youth. Max did his push-ups and made his sketches. Liesel found newspapers and wrote her words on the basement wall.

It’s also worthy of mention that every pattern has at least one small bias, and one day it will tip itself over, or fall from one page to another. In this case, the dominant factor was Rudy. Or at least, Rudy and a freshly fertilized sports field.

Late in October, all appeared to be usual. A filthy boy was walking down Himmel Street. Within a few minutes, his family would expect his arrival, and he would lie that everyone in his Hitler Youth division was given extra drills in the field. His parents would even expect some laughter. They didn’t get it.

Today Rudy was all out of laughter and lies.

On this particular Wednesday, when Liesel looked more closely, she could see that Rudy Steiner was shirtless. And he was furious.

“What happened?” she asked as he trudged past.

He reversed back and held out the shirt. “Smell it,” he said.

“What?”

“Are you deaf? I said smell it.”

Reluctantly, Liesel leaned in and caught a ghastly whiff of the brown garment. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Is that—?”

The boy nodded. “It’s on my chin, too. My chin! I’m lucky I didn’t swallow it!”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”

“The field at Hitler Youth just got fertilized.” He gave his shirt another halfhearted, disgusted appraisal. “It’s cow manure, I think.”

“Did what’s-his-name—Deutscher—know it was there?”

“He says he didn’t. But he was grinning.”

“Jesus, Mary, and—”

“Could you stop saying that?!”

What Rudy needed at this point in time was a victory. He had lost in his dealings with Viktor Chemmel. He’d endured problem after problem at the Hitler Youth. All he wanted was a small scrap of triumph, and he was determined to get it.

He continued home, but when he reached the concrete step, he changed his mind and came slowly, purposefully back to the girl.

Careful and quiet, he spoke. “You know what would cheer me up?”

Liesel cringed. “If you think I’m going to—in that state …”

He seemed disappointed in her. “No, not that.” He sighed and stepped closer. “Something else.” After a moment’s thought, he raised his head, just a touch. “Look at me. I’m filthy. I stink like cow shit, or dog shit, whatever your opinion, and as usual, I’m absolutely starving.” He paused. “I need a win, Liesel. Honestly.”

Liesel knew.

She’d have gone closer but for the smell of him.

Stealing.

They had to steal something.

No.

They had to steal something
back
. It didn’t matter what. It needed only to be soon.

“Just you and me this time,” Rudy suggested. “No Chemmels, no Schmeikls. Just you and me.”

The girl couldn’t help it.

Her hands itched, her pulse split, and her mouth smiled all at the same time. “Sounds good.”

“It’s agreed, then,” and although he tried not to, Rudy could not hide the fertilized grin that grew on his face. “Tomorrow?”

Liesel nodded. “Tomorrow.”

Their plan was perfect but for one thing:

They had no idea where to start.

Fruit was out. Rudy snubbed his nose at onions and potatoes, and they drew the line at another attempt on Otto Sturm and his bikeful of farm produce. Once was immoral. Twice was complete bastardry.

“So where the hell do we go?” Rudy asked.

“How should I know? This was your idea, wasn’t it?”

“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t think a little, too. I can’t think of everything.”

“You can barely think of
anything
. …”

They argued on as they walked through town. On the outskirts, they witnessed the first of the farms and the trees standing like emaciated statues. The branches were gray and when they looked up at them, there was nothing but ragged limbs and empty sky.

Rudy spat.

They walked back through Molching, making suggestions.

“What about Frau Diller?”

“What about her?”

“Maybe if we say
‘heil
Hitler’ and
then
steal something, we’ll be all right.”

After roaming Munich Street for an hour or so, the daylight was drawing to a close and they were on the verge of giving up. “It’s pointless,” Rudy said, “and I’m even hungrier now than I’ve ever been. I’m starving, for Christ’s sake.” He walked another dozen steps before he stopped and looked back. “What’s with you?” because now Liesel was standing completely still, and a moment of realization was strapped to her face.

Why hadn’t she thought of it before?

“What is it?” Rudy was becoming impatient.
“Saumensch
, what’s going on?”

At that very moment, Liesel was presented with a decision. Could she truly carry out what she was thinking? Could she really seek revenge on a person like this? Could she despise someone
this
much?

She began walking in the opposite direction. When Rudy caught up, she slowed a little in the vain hope of achieving a little more clarity. After all, the guilt was already there. It was moist. The seed was already bursting into a dark-leafed flower. She weighed up whether she could really go through with this. At a crossroad, she stopped.

“I know a place.”

They went over the river and made their way up the hill.

On Grande Strasse, they took in the splendor of the houses. The front doors glowed with polish, and the roof tiles sat like toupees, combed to perfection. The walls and windows were manicured and the chimneys almost breathed out smoke rings.

Rudy planted his feet. “The mayor’s house?”

Liesel nodded, seriously. A pause. “They fired my mama.”

When they angled toward it, Rudy asked just how in God’s
name they were going to get inside, but Liesel knew. “Local knowledge,” she answered. “Local—” But when they were able to see the window to the library at the far end of the house, she was greeted with a shock. The window was closed.

“Well?” Rudy asked.

Liesel swiveled slowly and hurried off. “Not today,” she said. Rudy laughed.

“I knew it.” He caught up. “I knew it, you filthy
Saumensch
. You couldn’t get in there even if you had the key.”

“Do you mind?” She quickened even more and brushed aside Rudy’s commentary. “We just have to wait for the right opportunity.” Internally, she shrugged away from a kind of gladness that the window was closed. She berated herself. Why, Liesel? she asked. Why did you have to explode when they fired Mama? Why couldn’t you just keep your big mouth shut? For all you know, the mayor’s wife is now completely reformed after you yelled and screamed at her. Maybe she’s straightened herself out, picked herself up. Maybe she’ll never let herself shiver in that house again and the window will be shut forever …. You stupid
Saumensch!

A week later, however, on their fifth visit to the upper part of Molching, it was there.

The open window breathed a slice of air in.

That was all it would take.

It was Rudy who stopped first. He tapped Liesel in the ribs, with the back of his hand. “Is that window,” he whispered, “open?” The eagerness in his voice leaned from his mouth, like a forearm onto Liesel’s shoulder.

“Jawohl,”
she answered. “It sure is.”

And how her heart began to heat.

•   •   •

On each previous occasion, when they found the window clamped firmly shut, Liesel’s outer disappointment had masked a ferocious relief. Would she have had the neck to go in? And who and what, in fact, was she going in for? For Rudy? To locate some food?

No, the repugnant truth was this:

She didn’t care about the food. Rudy, no matter how hard she tried to resist the idea, was secondary to her plan. It was the book she wanted.
The Whistler
. She wouldn’t tolerate having it given to her by a lonely, pathetic old woman. Stealing it, on the other hand, seemed a little more acceptable. Stealing it, in a sick kind of sense, was like earning it.

The light was changing in blocks of shade.

The pair of them gravitated toward the immaculate, bulky house. They rustled their thoughts.

“You hungry?” Rudy asked.

Liesel replied. “Starving.” For a book.

“Look—a light just came on upstairs.”

“I see it.”

“Still hungry,
Saumensch?”

They laughed nervously for a moment before going through the motions of who should go in and who should stand watch. As the male in the operation, Rudy clearly felt that he should be the aggressor, but it was obvious that Liesel knew this place. It was she who was going in. She knew what was on the other side of the window.

She said it. “It has to be me.”

Liesel closed her eyes. Tightly.

She compelled herself to remember, to see visions of the mayor
and his wife. She watched her gathered friendship with Ilsa Hermann and made sure to see it kicked in the shins and left by the wayside. It worked. She detested them.

They scouted the street and crossed the yard silently.

Now they were crouched beneath the slit in the window on the ground floor. The sound of their breathing amplified.

“Here,” Rudy said, “give me your shoes. You’ll be quieter.”

Without complaint, Liesel undid the worn black laces and left the shoes on the ground. She rose up and Rudy gently opened the window just wide enough for Liesel to climb through. The noise of it passed overhead, like a low-flying plane.