The Book Thief (15 page)

Come and see, it
said.

She’s going to
torture me, Liesel decided. She’s going to take me inside, light the fireplace,
and throw me in, books and all. Or she’ll lock me in the basement without any
food.

For some reason,
though—most likely the lure of the books—she found herself walking in. The
squeaking of her shoes on the wooden floorboards made her cringe, and when she
hit a sore spot, inducing the wood to groan, she almost stopped. The mayor’s
wife was not deterred. She only looked briefly behind and continued on, to a
chestnut-colored door. Now her face asked a question.

Are you ready?

Liesel craned
her neck a little, as if she might see over the door that stood in her way.
Clearly, that was the cue to open it.

“Jesus, Mary . .
.”

She said it out
loud, the words distributed into a room that was full of cold air and books.
Books everywhere! Each wall was armed with overcrowded yet immaculate shelving.
It was barely possible to see the paintwork. There were all different styles
and sizes of lettering on the spines of the black, the red, the gray, the
every-colored books. It was one of the most beautiful things Liesel Meminger
had ever seen.

With wonder, she
smiled.

That such a room
existed!

Even when she
tried to wipe the smile away with her forearm, she realized instantly that it
was a pointless exercise. She could feel the eyes of the woman traveling her
body, and when she looked at her, they had rested on her face.

There was more
silence than she ever thought possible. It extended like an elastic, dying to
break. The girl broke it.

“Can I?”

The two words
stood among acres and acres of vacant, wooden-floored land. The books were
miles away.

The woman
nodded.

Yes, you can.

Steadily, the
room shrank, till the book thief could touch the shelves within a few small
steps. She ran the back of her hand along the first shelf, listening to the
shuffle of her fingernails gliding across the spinal cord of each book. It
sounded like an instrument, or the notes of running feet. She used both hands.
She raced them. One shelf against the other. And she laughed. Her voice was
sprawled out, high in her throat, and when she eventually stopped and stood in
the middle of the room, she spent many minutes looking from the shelves to her
fingers and back again.

How many books
had she touched?

How many had she
felt
?

She walked over
and did it again, this time much slower, with her hand facing forward, allowing
the dough of her palm to feel the small hurdle of each book. It felt like
magic, like beauty, as bright lines of light shone down from a chandelier.
Several times, she almost pulled a title from its place but didn’t dare disturb
them. They were too perfect.

To her left, she
saw the woman again, standing by a large desk, still holding the small tower
against her torso. She stood with a delighted crookedness. A smile appeared to
have paralyzed her lips.

“Do you want me
to—?”

Liesel didn’t
finish the question but actually performed what she was going to ask, walking
over and taking the books gently from the woman’s arms. She then placed them
into the missing piece in the shelf, by the slightly open window. The outside
cold was streaming in.

For a moment,
she considered closing it, but thought better of it. This was not her house,
and the situation was not to be tampered with. Instead, she returned to the
lady behind her, whose smile gave the appearance now of a bruise and whose arms
were hanging slenderly at each side. Like girls’ arms.

What now?

An awkwardness
treated itself to the room, and Liesel took a final, fleeting glance at the
walls of books. In her mouth, the words fidgeted, but they came out in a rush.
“I should go.”

It took three
attempts to leave.

She waited in
the hallway for a few minutes, but the woman didn’t come, and when Liesel
returned to the entrance of the room, she saw her sitting at the desk, staring
blankly at one of the books. She chose not to disturb her. In the hallway, she
picked up the washing.

This time, she
avoided the sore spot in the floorboards, walking the long length of the
corridor, favoring the left-hand wall. When she closed the door behind her, a
brass clank sounded in her ear, and with the washing next to her, she stroked
the flesh of the wood. “Get going,” she said.

At first, she
walked home dazed.

The surreal
experience with the roomful of books and the stunned, broken woman walked
alongside her. She could see it on the buildings, like a play. Perhaps it was
similar to the way Papa had his
Mein Kampf
revelation. Wherever she
looked, Liesel saw the mayor’s wife with the books piled up in her arms. Around
corners, she could hear the shuffle of her own hands, disturbing the shelves.
She saw the open window, the chandelier of lovely light, and she saw herself
leaving, without so much as a word of thanks.

Soon, her
sedated condition transformed to harassment and self-loathing. She began to
rebuke herself.

“You said
nothing.” Her head shook vigorously, among the hurried footsteps. “Not a
‘goodbye.’ Not a ‘thank you.’ Not a ‘that’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever
seen.’ Nothing!” Certainly, she was a book thief, but that didn’t mean she
should have no manners at all. It didn’t mean she couldn’t be polite.

She walked a
good few minutes, struggling with indecision.

On Munich
Street, it came to an end.

Just as she
could make out the sign that said STEINER—
SCHNEIDERMEISTER,
she turned
and ran back.

This time, there
was no hesitation.

She thumped the
door, sending an echo of brass through the wood.

It was not the
mayor’s wife, but the mayor himself who stood before her. In her hurry, Liesel
had neglected to notice the car that sat out front, on the street.

Mustached and
black-suited, the man spoke. “Can I help you?”

Liesel could say
nothing. Not yet. She was bent over, short of air, and fortunately, the woman
arrived when she’d at least partially recovered. Ilsa Hermann stood behind her
husband, to the side.

“I forgot,”
Liesel said. She lifted the bag and addressed the mayor’s wife. Despite the
forced labor of breath, she fed the words through the gap in the
doorway—between the mayor and the frame— to the woman. Such was her effort to
breathe that the words escaped only a few at a time. “I forgot . . . I mean, I
just . . . wanted,” she said, “to . . . thank you.”

The mayor’s wife
bruised herself again. Coming forward to stand beside her husband, she nodded
very faintly, waited, and closed the door.

It took Liesel a
minute or so to leave.

She smiled at
the steps.

ENTER THE STRUGGLER

Now for a change
of scenery.

We’ve both had
it too easy till now, my friend, don’t you think? How about we forget Molching
for a minute or two?

It will do us
some good.

Also, it’s
important to the story.

We will travel a
little, to a secret storage room, and we will see what we see.

A few hundred
miles northwest, in Stuttgart, far from book thieves, mayors’ wives, and Himmel
Street, a man was sitting in the dark. It was the best place, they decided.
It’s harder to find a Jew in the dark.

He sat on his
suitcase, waiting. How many days had it been now?

He had eaten
only the foul taste of his own hungry breath for what felt like weeks, and
still, nothing. Occasionally voices wandered past and sometimes he longed for
them to knuckle the door, to open it, to drag him out, into the unbearable
light. For now, he could only sit on his suitcase couch, hands under his chin,
his elbows burning his thighs.

There was sleep,
starving sleep, and the irritation of half awakeness, and the punishment of the
floor.

Ignore the itchy
feet.

Don’t scratch
the soles.

And don’t move
too much.

Just leave
everything as it is, at all cost. It might be time to go soon. Light like a
gun. Explosive to the eyes. It might be time to go. It might be time, so wake
up. Wake up now, Goddamn it! Wake up.

The door was
opened and shut, and a figure was crouched over him. The hand splashed at the
cold waves of his clothes and the grimy currents beneath. A voice came down,
behind it.

“Max,” it
whispered. “Max, wake up.”

His eyes did not
do anything that shock normally describes. No snapping, no slapping, no jolt.
Those things happen when you wake from a bad dream, not when you wake
into
one.
No, his eyes dragged themselves open, from darkness to dim. It was his body
that reacted, shrugging upward and throwing out an arm to grip the air.

The voice calmed
him now. “Sorry it’s taken so long. I think people have been watching me. And
the man with the identity card took longer than I thought, but—” There was a
pause. “It’s yours now. Not great quality, but hopefully good enough to get you
there if it comes to that.” He crouched down and waved a hand at the suitcase.
In his other hand, he held something heavy and flat. “Come on—off.” Max obeyed,
standing and scratching. He could feel the tightening of his bones. “The card
is in this.” It was a book. “You should put the map in here, too, and the
directions. And there’s a key—taped to the inside cover.” He clicked open the
case as quietly as he could and planted the book like a bomb. “I’ll be back in
a few days.”

He left a small
bag filled with bread, fat, and three small carrots. Next to it was a bottle of
water. There was no apology. “It’s the best I could do.”

Door open, door
shut.

Alone again.

What came to him
immediately then was the sound.

Everything was
so desperately noisy in the dark when he was alone. Each time he moved, there
was the sound of a crease. He felt like a man in a paper suit.

The food.

Max divided the
bread into three parts and set two aside. The one in his hand he immersed
himself in, chewing and gulping, forcing it down the dry corridor of his
throat. The fat was cold and hard, scaling its way down, occasionally holding
on. Big swallows tore them away and sent them below.

Then the
carrots.

Again, he set
two aside and devoured the third. The noise was astounding. Surely, the
Führer
himself could hear the sound of the orange crush in his mouth. It broke his
teeth with every bite. When he drank, he was quite positive that he was
swallowing them. Next time, he advised himself, drink first.

Later, to his
relief, when the echoes left him and he found the courage to check with his
fingers, each tooth was still there, intact. He tried for a smile, but it
didn’t come. He could only imagine a meek attempt and a mouthful of broken
teeth. For hours, he felt at them.

He opened the
suitcase and picked up the book.

He could not
read the title in the dark, and the gamble of striking a match seemed too great
right now.

When he spoke,
it was the taste of a whisper.

“Please,” he
said. “Please.”

He was speaking
to a man he had never met. As well as a few other important details, he knew
the man’s name. Hans Hubermann. Again, he spoke to him, to the distant stranger.
He pleaded.

“Please.”

THE ATTRIBUTES OF SUMMER

So there you
have it.

You’re well
aware of exactly what was coming to Himmel Street by the end of 1940.

I know.

You know.

Liesel Meminger,
however, cannot be put into that category.

For the book
thief, the summer of that year was simple. It consisted of four main elements,
or attributes. At times, she would wonder which was the most powerful.

1.
Advancing through
The Shoulder Shrug
every night.

2.
Reading on the floor of the mayor’s library.

3.
Playing soccer on Himmel Street.

4.
The seizure of a different stealing opportunity.

The Shoulder
Shrug,
she
decided, was excellent. Each night, when she calmed herself from her nightmare,
she was soon pleased that she was awake and able to read. “A few pages?” Papa
asked her, and Liesel would nod. Sometimes they would complete a chapter the
next afternoon, down in the basement.

The authorities’
problem with the book was obvious. The protagonist was a Jew, and he was
presented in a positive light. Unforgivable. He was a rich man who was tired of
letting life pass him by—what he referred to as the shrugging of the shoulders
to the problems and pleasures of a person’s time on earth.