The Book Thief (15 page)

“Feuer soll’n’s brunzen für einen Monat!”
she heard her call out. Translation: “They should all piss fire for a month!”

Liesel wrote.

When her birthday came around, there was no gift. There was no gift because there was no money, and at the time, Papa was out of tobacco.

“I told you.” Mama pointed a finger at him. “I told you not to give her both books at Christmas. But no. Did you listen? Of
course
not!”

“I know!” He turned quietly to the girl. “I’m sorry, Liesel. We just can’t afford it.”

Liesel didn’t mind. She didn’t whine or moan or stamp her feet. She simply swallowed the disappointment and decided on one calculated risk—a present from herself. She would gather all of the accrued letters to her mother, stuff them into one envelope, and use just a tiny portion of the washing and ironing money to mail it. Then, of course, she would take the
Watschen
, most likely in the kitchen, and she would not make a sound.

Three days later, the plan came to fruition.

“Some of it’s missing.” Mama counted the money a fourth time, with Liesel over at the stove. It was warm there and it cooked the fast flow of her blood. “What happened, Liesel?”

She lied. “They must have given me less than usual.”

“Did you count it?”

She broke. “I spent it, Mama.”

Rosa came closer. This was not a good sign. She was very close to the wooden spoons. “You what?”

Before she could answer, the wooden spoon came down on Liesel Meminger’s body like the gait of God. Red marks like footprints, and they burned. From the floor, when it was over, the girl actually looked up and explained.

There was pulse and yellow light, all together. Her eyes blinked. “I mailed my letters.”

What came to her then was the dustiness of the floor, the feeling that her clothes were more next to her than on her, and the sudden realization that this would all be for nothing—that her mother would never write back and she would never see her again. The reality of this gave her a second
Watschen
. It stung her, and it did not stop for many minutes.

Above her, Rosa appeared to be smudged, but she soon clarified as her cardboard face loomed closer. Dejected, she stood there in all her plumpness, holding the wooden spoon at her side like a club. She reached down and leaked a little. “I’m sorry, Liesel.”

Liesel knew her well enough to understand that it was not for the hiding.

The red marks grew larger, in patches on her skin, as she lay there, in the dust and the dirt and the dim light. Her breathing calmed, and a stray yellow tear trickled down her face. She could feel herself against the floor. A forearm, a knee. An elbow. A cheek. A calf muscle.

The floor was cold, especially against her cheek, but she was unable to move.

She would never see her mother again.

For nearly an hour, she remained, spread out under the kitchen table, till Papa came home and played the accordion. Only then did she sit up and start to recover.

When she wrote about that night, she held no animosity toward
Rosa Hubermann at all, or toward her mother for that matter. To her, they were only victims of circumstance. The only thought that continually recurred was the yellow tear. Had it been dark, she realized, that tear would have been black.

But it
was
dark, she told herself.

No matter how many times she tried to imagine that scene with the yellow light that she knew had been there, she had to struggle to visualize it. She was beaten in the dark, and she had remained there, on a cold, dark kitchen floor. Even Papa’s music was the color of darkness.

Even Papa’s music.

The strange thing was that she was vaguely comforted by that thought, rather than distressed by it. The dark, the light. What was the difference?

Nightmares had reinforced themselves in each, as the book thief began to truly understand how things were and how they would always be. If nothing else, she could prepare herself. Perhaps that’s why on the
Führer
‘s birthday, when the answer to the question of her mother’s suffering showed itself completely, she was able to react, despite her perplexity and her rage.

Liesel Meminger was ready.

Happy birthday, Herr Hitler.

Many happy returns.

Against all hopelessness, Liesel still checked the mailbox each afternoon, throughout March and well into April. This was despite a Hans-requested visit from Frau Heinrich, who explained to the Hubermanns that the foster care office had lost contact completely with Paula Meminger. Still, the girl persisted, and as you might expect, each day, when she searched the mail, there was nothing.

Molching, like the rest of Germany, was in the grip of preparing for Hitler’s birthday. This particular year, with the development of the war and Hitler’s current victorious position, the Nazi partisans of Molching wanted the celebration to be especially befitting. There would be a parade. Marching. Music. Singing. There would be a fire.

While Liesel walked the streets of Molching, picking up and delivering washing and ironing, Nazi Party members were accumulating fuel. A couple of times, Liesel was a witness to men and women knocking on doors, asking people if they had any material that they felt should be done away with or destroyed. Papa’s copy of the
Molching Express
announced that there would be a celebratory fire in the town square, which would be attended by all local Hitler
Youth divisions. It would commemorate not only the
Führer
’s birthday, but the victory over his enemies and over the restraints that had held Germany back since the end of World War I. “Any materials,” it requested, “from such times—newspapers, posters, books, flags—and any found propaganda of our enemies should be brought forward to the Nazi Party office on Munich Street.” Even Schiller Strasse—the road of yellow stars—which was still awaiting its renovation, was ransacked one last time, to find something, anything, to burn in the name of the
Führer
’s glory. It would have come as no surprise if certain members of the party had gone away and published a thousand or so books or posters of poisonous moral matter simply to incinerate them.

Everything was in place to make April 20 magnificent. It would be a day full of burning and cheering.

And book thievery.

In the Hubermann household that morning, all was typical.

“That
Saukerl
’s looking out the window again,” cursed Rosa Hubermann. “Every
day,”
she went on. “What are you looking at this time?”

“Ohhh,” moaned Papa with delight. The flag cloaked his back from the top of the window. “You should have a look at this woman I can see.” He glanced over his shoulder and grinned at Liesel. “I might just go and run after her. She leaves you for dead, Mama.”

“Schwein!”
She shook the wooden spoon at him.

Papa continued looking out the window, at an imaginary woman and a very real corridor of German flags.

On the streets of Molching that day, each window was decorated for the
Führer
. In some places, like Frau Diller’s, the glass was vigorously washed, and the swastika looked like a jewel on a red-and-white blanket.
In others, the flag trundled from the ledge like washing hung out to dry. But it was there.

Earlier, there had been a minor calamity. The Hubermanns couldn’t find their flag.

“They’ll come for us,” Mama warned her husband. “They’ll come and take us away.” They. “We have to find it!” At one point, it seemed like Papa might have to go down to the basement and paint a flag on one of his drop sheets. Thankfully, it turned up, buried behind the accordion in the cupboard.

“That infernal accordion, it was blocking my view!” Mama swiveled. “Liesel!”

The girl had the honor of pinning the flag to the window frame.

Hans Junior and Trudy came home for the afternoon eating, like they did at Christmas or Easter. Now seems like a good time to introduce them a little more comprehensively:

Hans Junior had the eyes of his father and the height. The silver in his eyes, however, wasn’t warm, like Papa’s—they’d been
Führer
ed. There was more flesh on his bones, too, and he had prickly blond hair and skin like off-white paint.

Trudy, or Trudel, as she was often known, was only a few inches taller than Mama. She had cloned Rosa Hubermann’s unfortunate, waddlesome walking style, but the rest of her was much milder. Being a live-in housemaid in a wealthy part of Munich, she was most likely bored of children, but she was always capable of at least a few smiled words in Liesel’s direction. She had soft lips. A quiet voice.

They came home together on the train from Munich, and it didn’t take long for old tensions to rise up.

“So have they let you in yet?” Hans Junior was picking up where they’d left off at Christmas.

“In what?”

“Take a guess—the party.”

“No, I think they’ve forgotten about me.”

“Well, have you even tried again? You can’t just sit around waiting for the new world to take it with you. You have to go out and be part of it—despite your past mistakes.”

Papa looked up. “Mistakes? I’ve made many mistakes in my life, but not joining the Nazi Party isn’t one of them. They still have my application—you know that—but I couldn’t go back to ask. I just …”

That was when a great shiver arrived.

It waltzed through the window with the draft. Perhaps it was the breeze of the Third Reich, gathering even greater strength. Or maybe it was just Europe again, breathing. Either way, it fell across them as their metallic eyes clashed like tin cans in the kitchen.

“You’ve never cared about this country,” said Hans Junior. “Not enough, anyway.”

Papa’s eyes started corroding. It did not stop Hans Junior. He looked now for some reason at the girl. With her three books standing upright on the table, as if in conversation, Liesel was silently mouthing the words as she read from one of them. “And what trash is this girl reading? She should be reading
Mein Kampf
.”

Liesel looked up.

“Don’t worry, Liesel,” Papa said. “Just keep reading. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

But Hans Junior wasn’t finished. He stepped closer and said, “You’re either for the
Führer
or against him—and I can see that you’re against him. You always have been.” Liesel watched Hans Junior in the face, fixated on the thinness of his lips and the rocky line of his bottom teeth. “It’s pathetic—how a man can stand by and do nothing as a whole nation cleans out the garbage and makes itself great.”

Trudy and Mama sat silently, scaredly, as did Liesel. There was the smell of pea soup, something burning, and confrontation.

They were all waiting for the next words.

They came from the son. Just two of them.

“You coward.” He upturned them into Papa’s face, and he promptly left the kitchen, and the house.

Ignoring futility, Papa walked to the doorway and called out to his son. “Coward?
I’m
the coward?!” He then rushed to the gate and ran pleadingly after him. Mama hurried to the window, ripped away the flag, and opened up. She, Trudy, and Liesel all crowded together, watching a father catch up to his son and grab hold of him, begging him to stop. They could hear nothing, but the manner in which Hans Junior shrugged loose was loud enough. The sight of Papa watching him walk away roared at them from up the street.