The Book Thief Part 28

"Na, na," Rosa a.s.sured him. "You will be fed, as best I can."

They also took the mattress down, from the spare bed in Liesel's room, replacing it with drop sheets-an excellent trade.

Downstairs, Hans and Max placed the mattress beneath the steps and built a wall of drop sheets at the side. The sheets were high enough to cover the whole triangular entrance, and if nothing else, they were easily moved if Max was in dire need of extra air.

Papa apologized. "It's quite pathetic. I realize that."

"Better than nothing," Max a.s.sured him. "Better than I deserve-thank you."

With some well-positioned paint cans, Hans actually conceded that it did simply look like a collection of junk gathered sloppily in the corner, out of the way. The one problem was that a person needed only to shift a few cans and remove a drop sheet or two to smell out the Jew.

"Let's just hope it's good enough," he said.

"It has to be." Max crawled in. Again, he said it. "Thank you."

Thank you.

For Max Vandenburg, those were the two most pitiful words he could possibly say, rivaled only by I'm sorry. There was a constant urge to speak both expressions, spurred on by the affliction of guilt.

How many times in those first few hours of awakeness did he feel like walking out of that bas.e.m.e.nt and leaving the house altogether? It must have been hundreds.

Each time, though, it was only a twinge.

Which made it even worse.

He wanted to walk out-Lord, how he wanted to (or at least he wanted to want to)-but he knew he wouldn't. It was much the same as the way he left his family in Stuttgart, under a veil of fabricated loyalty.

To live.

Living was living.

The price was guilt and shame.

For his first few days in the bas.e.m.e.nt, Liesel had nothing to do with him. She denied his existence. His rustling hair, his cold, slippery fingers.

His tortured presence.

Mama and Papa.

There was such gravity between them, and a lot of failed decision-making.

They considered whether they could move him.

"But where?"

No reply.

In this situation, they were friendless and paralyzed. There was nowhere else for Max Vandenburg to go. It was them. Hans and Rosa Hubermann. Liesel had never seen them look at each other so much, or with such solemnity.

It was they who took the food down and organized an empty paint can for Max's excrement. The contents would be disposed of by Hans as prudently as possible. Rosa also took him some buckets of hot water to wash himself. The Jew was filthy.

Outside, a mountain of cold November air was waiting at the front door each time Liesel left the house.

Drizzle came down in spades.

Dead leaves were slumped on the road.

Soon enough, it was the book thief's turn to visit the bas.e.m.e.nt. They made her.

She walked tentatively down the steps, knowing that no words were required. The scuffing of her feet was enough to rouse him.

In the middle of the bas.e.m.e.nt, she stood and waited, feeling more like she was standing in the center of a great dusky field. The sun was setting behind a crop of harvested drop sheets.

When Max came out, he was holding Mein Kampf. Upon his arrival, he'd offered it back to Hans Hubermann but was told he could keep it.

Naturally, Liesel, while holding the dinner, couldn't take her eyes off it. It was a book she had seen a few times at the BDM, but it hadn't been read or used directly in their activities. There were occasional references to its greatness, as well as promises that the opportunity to study it would come in later years, as they progressed into the more senior Hitler Youth division.

Max, following her attention, also examined the book.

"Is?" she whispered.

There was a queer strand in her voice, planed off and curly in her mouth.

The Jew moved only his head a little closer. "Bitte? Excuse me?" She handed him the pea soup and returned upstairs, red, rushed, and foolish.

"Is it a good book?"

She practiced what she'd wanted to say in the washroom, in the small mirror. The smell of urine was still about her, as Max had just used the paint can before she'd come down. So ein G'schtank, she thought. What a stink.

No one's urine smells as good as your own.

The days hobbled on.

Each night, before the descent into sleep, she would hear Mama and Papa in the kitchen, discussing what had been done, what they were doing now, and what needed to happen next. All the while, an image of Max hovered next to her. It was always the injured, thankful expression on his face and the swamp-filled eyes.

Only once was there an outburst in the kitchen.

Papa.

"I know!"

His voice was abrasive, but he brought it back to a m.u.f.fled whisper in a hurry.

"I have to keep going, though, at least a few times a week. I can't be here all the time. We need the money, and if I quit playing there, they'll get suspicious. They might wonder why I've stopped. I told them you were sick last week, but now we have to do everything like we always have."

Therein lay the problem.

Life had altered in the wildest possible way, but it was imperative that they act as if nothing at all had happened.

Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.

That was the business of hiding a Jew.

As days turned into weeks, there was now, if nothing else, a beleaguered acceptance of what had transpired-all the result of war, a promise keeper, and one piano accordion. Also, in the s.p.a.ce of just over half a year, the Hubermanns had lost a son and gained a replacement of epically dangerous proportions.

What shocked Liesel most was the change in her mama. Whether it was the calculated way in which she divided the food, or the considerable muzzling of her notorious mouth, or even the gentler expression on her cardboard face, one thing was becoming clear.

AN ATTRIBUTE OF ROSA HUBERMANN.

She was a good woman for a crisis.

Even when the arthritic Helena Schmidt canceled the washing and ironing service, a month after Max's debut on Himmel Street, she simply sat at the table and brought the bowl toward her. "Good soup tonight."

The soup was terrible.

Every morning when Liesel left for school, or on the days she ventured out to play soccer or complete what was left of the washing round, Rosa would speak quietly to the girl. "And remember, Liesel ..." She would point to her mouth and that was all. When Liesel nodded, she would say, "Good girl, Saumensch. Now get going."

True to Papa's words, and even Mama's now, she was a good girl. She kept her mouth shut everywhere she went. The secret was buried deep.

She town-walked with Rudy as she always did, listening to his jabbering. Sometimes they compared notes from their Hitler Youth divisions, Rudy mentioning for the first time a s.a.d.i.s.tic young leader named Franz Deutscher. If Rudy wasn't talking about Deutscher's intense ways, he was playing his usual broken record, providing renditions and re-creations of the last goal he scored in the Himmel Street soccer stadium.

"I know," Liesel would a.s.sure him. "I was there."

"So what?"

"So I saw it, Saukerl."

"How do I know that? For all I know, you were probably on the ground somewhere, licking up the mud I left behind when I scored."

Perhaps it was Rudy who kept her sane, with the stupidity of his talk, his lemon-soaked hair, and his c.o.c.kiness.

He seemed to resonate with a kind of confidence that life was still nothing but a joke-an endless succession of soccer goals, trickery, and a constant repertoire of meaningless chatter.

Also, there was the mayor's wife, and reading in her husband's library. It was cold in there now, colder with every visit, but still Liesel could not stay away. She would choose a handful of books and read small segments of each, until one afternoon, she found one she could not put down. It was called The Whistler. She was originally drawn to it because of her sporadic sightings of the whistler of Himmel Street-Pfiffikus. There was the memory of him bent over in his coat and his appearance at the bonfire on the Fhrer's birthday.

The first event in the book was a murder. A stabbing. A Vienna street. Not far from the Stephansdom-the cathedral in the main square.

A SMALL EXCERPT FROM.

THE WHISTLER.

She lay there, frightened, in a pool of blood, a strange tune singing in her ear. She recalled the knife, in and out, and a smile. As always, the whistler had smiled as he ran away, into a dark and murderous night ....

Liesel was unsure whether it was the words or the open window that caused her to tremble. Every time she picked up or delivered from the mayor's house, she read three pages and shivered, but she could not last forever.

Similarly, Max Vandenburg could not withstand the bas.e.m.e.nt much longer. He didn't complain-he had no right-but he could slowly feel himself deteriorating in the cold. As it turned out, his rescue owed itself to some reading and writing, and a book called The Shoulder Shrug.

"Liesel," said Hans one night. "Come on."

Since Max's arrival, there had been a considerable hiatus in the reading practice of Liesel and her papa. He clearly felt that now was a good time to resume. "Na, komm," he told her. "I don't want you slacking off. Go and get one of your books. How about The Shoulder Shrug?"

The disturbing element in all of this was that when she came back, book in hand, Papa was motioning that she should follow him down to their old workroom. The bas.e.m.e.nt.

"But, Papa," she tried to tell him. "We can't-"

"What? Is there a monster down there?"

It was early December and the day had been icy. The bas.e.m.e.nt became unfriendlier with each concrete step.

"It's too cold, Papa."

"That never bothered you before."

"Yes, but it was never this cold ...."

When they made their way down, Papa whispered to Max, "Can we borrow the lamplight, please?"