The Book Thief (45 page)

“When they come
and ask you for one of your children,” Barbara Steiner explained, to no one in
particular, “you’re supposed to say yes.”

THE
PROMISE KEEPER’S WIFE

Not counting the
glass of champagne the previous summer, Hans Hubermann had not consumed a drop
of alcohol for a decade. Then came the night before he left for training.

He made his way
to the Knoller with Alex Steiner in the afternoon and stayed well into the
evening. Ignoring the warnings of their wives, both men drank themselves into
oblivion. It didn’t help that the Knoller’s owner, Dieter Westheimer, gave them
free drinks.

Apparently,
while he was still sober, Hans was invited to the stage to play the accordion.
Appropriately, he played the infamous “Gloomy Sunday”—the anthem of suicide
from Hungary—and although he aroused all the sadness for which the song was
renowned, he brought the house down. Liesel imagined the scene of it, and the
sound. Mouths were full. Empty beer glasses were streaked with foam. The
bellows sighed and the song was over. People clapped. Their beer-filled mouths
cheered him back to the bar.

When they
managed to find their way home, Hans couldn’t get his key to fit the door. So
he knocked. Repeatedly.

“Rosa!”

It was the wrong
door.

Frau Holtzapfel
was not thrilled.

“
Schwein!
You’re
at the wrong house.” She rammed the words through the keyhole. “Next door, you
stupid
Sankerl.
”

“Thanks, Frau
Holtzapfel.”

“You know what
you can do with your thanks, you asshole.”

“Excuse me?”

“Just go home.”

“Thanks, Frau
Holtzapfel.”

“Didn’t I just
tell you what you can do with your thanks?”

“Did you?”

(It’s amazing
what you can piece together from a basement conversation and a reading session
in a nasty old woman’s kitchen.)

“Just get lost,
will you!”

When at long
last he came home, Papa made his way not to bed, but to Liesel’s room. He stood
drunkenly in the doorway and watched her sleep. She awoke and thought
immediately that it was Max.

“Is it you?” she
asked.

“No,” he said.
He knew exactly what she was thinking. “It’s Papa.”

He backed out of
the room and she heard his footsteps making their way down to the basement.

In the living
room, Rosa was snoring with enthusiasm.

Close to nine
o’clock the next morning, in the kitchen, Liesel was given an order by Rosa.
“Hand me that bucket there.”

She filled it
with cold water and walked with it down to the basement. Liesel followed, in a
vain attempt to stop her. “Mama, you can’t!”

“Can’t I?” She
faced her briefly on the steps. “Did I miss something,
Saumensch
? Do you
give the orders around here now?”

Both of them
were completely still.

No answer from
the girl.

“I thought not.”

They continued
on and found him on his back, among a bed of drop sheets. He felt he didn’t
deserve Max’s mattress.

“Now, let’s
see”—Rosa lifted the bucket—“if he’s alive.”

“Jesus, Mary,
and Joseph!”

The watermark
was oval-shaped, from halfway up his chest to his head. His hair was plastered
to one side and even his eyelashes dripped. “What was that for?”

“You old drunk!”

“Jesus . . .”

Steam was rising
weirdly from his clothes. His hangover was visible. It heaved itself to his
shoulders and sat there like a bag of wet cement.

Rosa swapped the
bucket from left hand to right. “It’s lucky you’re going to the war,” she said.
She held her finger in the air and wasn’t afraid to wave it. “Otherwise I’d
kill you myself, you know that, don’t you?”

Papa wiped a
stream of water from his throat. “Did you have to do that?”

“Yes. I did.”
She started up the steps. “If you’re not up there in five minutes, you get
another bucketful.”

Left in the
basement with Papa, Liesel busied herself by mopping up the excess water with
some drop sheets.

Papa spoke. With
his wet hand, he made the girl stop. He held her forearm. “Liesel?” His face
clung to her. “Do you think he’s alive?”

Liesel sat.

She crossed her
legs.

The wet drop
sheet soaked onto her knee.

“I hope so,
Papa.”

It felt like
such a stupid thing to say, so obvious, but there seemed little alternative.

To say at least
something of value, and to distract them from thoughts of Max, she made herself
crouch and placed a finger in a small pool of water on the floor. “
Guten
Morgen,
Papa.”

In response,
Hans winked at her.

But it was not
the usual wink. It was heavier, clumsier. The post-Max version, the hangover
version. He sat up and told her about the accordion of the previous night, and
Frau Holtzapfel.

THE
KITCHEN: 1 P.M.

He left Himmel
Street wearing his hangover and a suit.

Alex Steiner was
not leaving for another four days. He came over an hour before they left for
the station and wished Hans all the best. The whole Steiner family had come.
They all shook his hand. Barbara embraced him, kissing both cheeks. “Come back
alive.”

“Yes, Barbara,”
and the way he’d said it was full of confidence. “Of course I will.” He even
managed to laugh. “It’s just a war, you know. I’ve survived one before.”

When they walked
up Himmel Street, the wiry woman from next door came out and stood on the
pavement.

“Goodbye, Frau
Holtzapfel. My apologies for last night.”

“Goodbye, Hans,
you drunken
Saukerl,
” but she offered him a note of friendship, too.
“Come home soon.”

“Yes, Frau
Holtzapfel. Thank you.”

She even played
along a little. “You know what you can do with your thanks.”

At the corner,
Frau Diller watched defensively from her shop window and Liesel took Papa’s
hand. She held it all the way along Munich Street, to the
Bahnhof.
The
train was already there.

They stood on
the platform.

Rosa embraced
him first.

No words.

Her head was buried
tightly into his chest, then gone.

Then the girl.

“Papa?”

Nothing.

Don’t go, Papa.
Just don’t go. Let them come for you if you stay. But don’t go, please don’t
go.

“Papa?”

THE
TRAIN STATION, 3 P.M.

Hans Hubermann
smiled at his daughter then and the train was ready to leave. He reached out
and gently held her face in his hand. “I promise,” he said, and he made his way
into the carriage.

They watched
each other as the train pulled away.

Liesel and Rosa
waved.

Hans Hubermann
grew smaller and smaller, and his hand held nothing now but empty air.

On the platform,
people disappeared around them until no one else was left. There was only the
wardrobe-shaped woman and the thirteen-year-old girl.

For the next few
weeks, while Hans Hubermann and Alex Steiner were at their various fast-tracked
training camps, Himmel Street was swollen. Rudy was not the same—he didn’t
talk. Mama was not the same—she didn’t berate. Liesel, too, was feeling the
effects. There was no desire to steal a book, no matter how much she tried to
convince herself that it would cheer her up.

After twelve
days of Alex Steiner’s absence, Rudy decided he’d had enough. He hurried
through the gate and knocked on Liesel’s door.

She didn’t care
where he was going or what he was planning, but he would not be going without
her. They walked up Himmel, along Munich Street and out of Molching altogether.
It was after approximately an hour that Liesel asked the vital question. Up
till then, she’d only glanced over at Rudy’s determined face, or examined his
stiff arms and the fisted hands in his pockets.

“Where are we
going?”

“Isn’t it
obvious?”

She struggled to
keep up. “Well, to tell you the truth—not really.”

“I’m going to
find him.”

“Your papa?”

“Yes.” He
thought about it. “Actually, no. I think I’ll find the
Führer
instead.”

Faster
footsteps. “Why?”

Rudy stopped.
“Because I want to kill him.” He even turned on the spot, to the rest of the
world. “Did you hear that, you bastards?” he shouted. “I want to kill the
Führer
!”

They resumed
walking and made it another few miles or so. That was when Liesel felt the urge
to turn around. “It’ll be dark soon, Rudy.”

He walked on.
“So what?”

“I’m going
back.”

Rudy stopped and
watched her now as if she were betraying him. “That’s right, book thief. Leave
me now. I bet if there was a lousy book at the end of this road, you’d keep
walking. Wouldn’t you?”

For a while,
neither of them spoke, but Liesel soon found the will. “You think you’re the
only one, Saukerl?” She turned away. “And you only lost your father. . . .”

“What does that
mean?”

Liesel took a
moment to count.

Her mother. Her
brother. Max Vandenburg. Hans Hubermann. All of them gone. And she’d never even
had
a real father.

“It means,” she
said, “I’m going home.”

For fifteen
minutes she walked alone, and even when Rudy arrived at her side with jogging
breath and sweaty cheeks, not another word was said for more than an hour. They
only walked home together with aching feet and tired hearts.

There was a
chapter called “Tired Hearts” in
A Song in the Dark.
A romantic girl had
promised herself to a young man, but it appeared that he had run away with her
best friend. Liesel was sure it was chapter thirteen. “ ‘My heart is so tired,’
” the girl had said. She was sitting in a chapel, writing in her diary.

No, thought
Liesel as she walked. It’s my heart that is tired. A thirteen-year-old heart
shouldn’t feel like this.

When they
reached the perimeter of Molching, Liesel threw some words across. She could
see Hubert Oval. “Remember when we raced there, Rudy?”

“Of course. I
was just thinking about that myself—how we both fell.”

“You said you
were covered in shit.”

“It was only
mud.” He couldn’t hold his amusement now. “I was covered in shit at Hitler
Youth. You’re getting mixed up,
Saumensch.
”

“I’m not mixed
up at all. I’m only telling you what you
said.
What someone says and
what happened are usually two different things, Rudy, especially when it comes
to you.”

This was better.

When they walked
down Munich Street again, Rudy stopped and looked into the window of his
father’s shop. Before Alex left, he and Barbara had discussed whether she
should keep it running in his absence. They decided against it, considering
that work had been slow lately anyway, and there was at least a partial threat
of party members making their presence felt. Business was never good for
agitators. The army pay would have to do.

Suits hung from
the rails and the mannequins held their ridiculous poses. “I think that one
likes you,” Liesel said after a while. It was her way of telling him it was
time to keep going.

On Himmel
Street, Rosa Hubermann and Barbara Steiner stood together on the footpath.

“Oh, Maria,”
Liesel said. “Do they look worried?”

“They look mad.”