The Book Thief (49 page)

When the confession registered, Liesel asked the only question available. “But why, Rudy? Why did you do it?”

He was standing with a hand on his hip, and he did not answer. There was nothing but a knowing smile and a slow walk that lolled him home. They never talked about it again.

For Liesel’s part, she often wondered what Rudy’s answer might have been had she pushed him. Perhaps three medals had shown what he’d wanted to show, or he was afraid to lose that final race. In the end, the only explanation she allowed herself to hear was an inner teenage voice.

“Because he isn’t Jesse Owens.”

Only when she got up to leave did she notice the three imitation-gold medals sitting next to her. She knocked on the Steiners’ door and held them out to him. “You forgot these.”

“No, I didn’t.” He closed the door and Liesel took the medals home. She walked with them down to the basement and told Max about her friend Rudy Steiner.

“He truly is stupid,” she concluded.

“Clearly,” Max agreed, but I doubt he was fooled.

They both started work then, Max on his sketchbook, Liesel on
The Dream Carrier
. She was in the latter stages of the novel, where the young priest was doubting his faith after meeting a strange and elegant woman.

When she placed it facedown on her lap, Max asked when she thought she’d finish it.

“A few days at the most.”

“Then a new one?”

The book thief looked at the basement ceiling. “Maybe, Max.” She closed the book and leaned back. “If I’m lucky.”

No, the dictionary comes at the end of this small trilogy, and this is only the second installment. This is the part where Liesel finishes
The Dream Carrier
and steals a story called
A Song in the Dark
. As always, it was taken from the mayor’s house. The only difference was that she made her way to the upper part of town alone. There was no Rudy that day.

It was a morning rich with both sun and frothy clouds.

Liesel stood in the mayor’s library with greed in her fingers and book titles at her lips. She was comfortable enough on this occasion to run her fingers along the shelves—a short replay of her original visit to the room—and she whispered many of the titles as she made her way along.

Under the Cherry Tree
.

The Tenth Lieutenant
.

Typically, many of the titles tempted her, but after a good minute or two in the room, she settled for
A Song in the Dark
, most likely because the book was green, and she did not yet own a book of that color. The engraved writing on the cover was white, and there was a small insignia of a flute between the title and the name of the author. She climbed with it from the window, saying thanks on her way out.

Without Rudy, she felt a good degree of absence, but on that particular morning, for some reason, the book thief was happiest alone. She went about her work and read the book next to the Amper River, far enough away from the occasional headquarters of Viktor Chemmel and the previous gang of Arthur Berg. No one came, no one interrupted, and Liesel read four of the very short chapters of
A Song in the Dark
, and she was happy.

It was the pleasure and satisfaction.

Of good stealing.

A week later, the trilogy of happiness was completed.

In the last days of August, a gift arrived, or in fact, was noticed.

It was late afternoon. Liesel was watching Kristina Müller jumping rope on Himmel Street. Rudy Steiner skidded to a stop in front of her on his brother’s bike. “Do you have some time?” he asked.

She shrugged. “For what?”

“I think you’d better come.” He dumped the bike and went to collect the other one from home. In front of her, Liesel watched the pedal spin.

They rode up to Grande Strasse, where Rudy stopped and waited.

“Well,” Liesel asked, “what is it?”

Rudy pointed. “Look closer.”

Gradually, they rode to a better position, behind a blue spruce tree. Through the prickly branches, Liesel noticed the closed window, and then the object leaning on the glass.

“Is that …?”

Rudy nodded.

They debated the issue for many minutes before they agreed it needed to be done. It had obviously been placed there intentionally, and if it was a trap, it was worth it.

Among the powdery blue branches, Liesel said, “A book thief would do it.”

She dropped the bike, observed the street, and crossed the yard. The shadows of clouds were buried among the dusky grass. Were they holes for falling into, or patches of extra darkness for hiding in? Her imagination sent her sliding down one of those holes into the evil clutches of the mayor himself. If nothing else, those thoughts distracted her and she was at the window even quicker than she’d hoped.

It was like
The Whistler
all over again.

Her nerves licked her palms.

Small streams of sweat rippled under her arms.

When she raised her head, she could read the title.
The Complete Duden Dictionary and Thesaurus
. Briefly, she turned to Rudy and mouthed the words,
It’s a dictionary
. He shrugged and held out his arms.

She worked methodically, sliding the window upward, wondering how all of this would look from inside the house. She envisioned the sight of her thieving hand reaching up, making the window rise until the book was felled. It seemed to surrender slowly, like a falling tree.

Got it.

There was barely a disturbance or sound.

The book simply tilted toward her and she took it with her free hand. She even closed the window, nice and smooth, then turned and walked back across the potholes of clouds.

“Nice,” Rudy said as he gave her the bike.

“Thank you.”

They rode toward the corner, where the day’s importance reached
them. Liesel knew. It was that feeling again, of being watched. A voice pedaled inside her. Two laps.

Look at the window. Look at the window.

She was compelled.

Like an itch that demands a fingernail, she felt an intense desire to stop.

She placed her feet on the ground and turned to face the mayor’s house and the library window, and she saw. Certainly, she should have known this might happen, but she could not hide the shock that loitered inside when she witnessed the mayor’s wife, standing behind the glass. She was transparent, but she was there. Her fluffy hair was as it always was, and her wounded eyes and mouth and expression held themselves up, for viewing.

Very slowly, she lifted her hand to the book thief on the street. A motionless wave.

In her state of shock, Liesel said nothing, to Rudy or herself. She only steadied herself and raised her hand to acknowledge the mayor’s wife, in the window.

On the way home, they stopped at the bridge and inspected the heavy black book. As Rudy flipped through the pages, he arrived at a letter. He picked it up and looked slowly toward the book thief. “It’s got your name on it.”

The river ran.

Liesel took hold of the paper.