The Book Thief Part 40

"Often I wish this would all be over, Liesel, but then somehow you do something like walk down the bas.e.m.e.nt steps with a snowman in your hands."

Unfortunately, that night signaled a severe downslide in Max's health. The early signs were innocent enough, and typical. Constant coldness. Swimming hands. Increased visions of boxing with the Fhrer. It was only when he couldn't warm up after his push-ups and sit-ups that it truly began to worry him. As close to the fire as he sat, he could not raise himself to any degree of approximate health. Day by day, his weight began to stumble off him. His exercise regimen faltered and fell apart, with his cheek against the surly bas.e.m.e.nt floor.

All through January, he managed to hold himself together, but by early February, Max was in worrisome shape. He would struggle to wake up next to the fire, sleeping well into the morning instead, his mouth distorted and his cheekbones starting to swell. When asked, he said he was fine.

In mid-February, a few days before Liesel was thirteen, he came to the fireplace on the verge of collapse. He nearly fell into the fire.

"Hans," he whispered, and his face seemed to cramp. His legs gave way and his head hit the accordion case.

At once, a wooden spoon fell into some soup and Rosa Hubermann was at his side. She held Max's head and barked across the room at Liesel, "Don't just stand there, get the extra blankets. Take them to your bed. And you!" Papa was next. "Help me pick him up and carry him to Liesel's room. Schnell!"

Papa's face was stretched with concern. His gray eyes clanged and he picked him up on his own. Max was light as a child. "Can't we put him here, in our bed?"

Rosa had already considered that. "No. We have to keep these curtains open in the day or else it looks suspicious."

"Good point." Hans carried him out.

Blankets in hand, Liesel watched.

Limp feet and hanging hair in the hallway. One shoe had fallen off him.

"Move."

Mama marched in behind them, in her waddlesome way.

Once Max was in the bed, blankets were heaped on top and fastened around his body.

"Mama?"

Liesel couldn't bring herself to say anything else.

"What?" The bun of Rosa Hubermann's hair was wound tight enough to frighten from behind. It seemed to tighten further when she repeated the question. "What, Liesel?"

She stepped closer, afraid of the answer. "Is he alive?"

The bun nodded.

Rosa turned then and said something with great a.s.surance. "Now listen to me, Liesel. I didn't take this man into my house to watch him die. Understand?"

Liesel nodded.

"Now go."

In the hall, Papa hugged her.

She desperately needed it.

Later on, she heard Hans and Rosa speaking in the night. Rosa made her sleep in their room, and she lay next to their bed, on the floor, on the mattress they'd dragged up from the bas.e.m.e.nt. (There was concern as to whether it was infected, but they came to the conclusion that such thoughts were unfounded. This was no virus Max was suffering from, so they carried it up and replaced the sheet.) Imagining the girl to be asleep, Mama voiced her opinion.

"That d.a.m.n snowman," she whispered. "I bet it started with the snowman-fooling around with ice and snow in the cold down there."

Papa was more philosophical. "Rosa, it started with Adolf." He lifted himself. "We should check on him."

In the course of the night, Max was visited seven times.

MAX VANDENBURG'S VISITOR

SCORE SHEET.

Hans Hubermann: 2

Rosa Hubermann: 2

Liesel Meminger: 3

In the morning, Liesel brought him his sketchbook from the bas.e.m.e.nt and placed it on the bedside table. She felt awful for having looked at it the previous year, and this time, she kept it firmly closed, out of respect.

When Papa came in, she did not turn to face him but talked across Max Vandenburg, at the wall. "Why did I have to bring all that snow down?" she asked. "It started all of this, didn't it, Papa?" She clenched her hands, as if to pray. "Why did I have to build that snowman?"

Papa, to his enduring credit, was adamant. "Liesel," he said, "you had to."

For hours, she sat with him as he shivered and slept.

"Don't die," she whispered. "Please, Max, just don't die."

He was the second snowman to be melting away before her eyes, only this one was different. It was a paradox.

The colder he became, the more he melted.

THIRTEEN PRESENTS.

It was Max's arrival, revisited.

Feathers turned to twigs again. Smooth face turned to rough. The proof she needed was there. He was alive.

The first few days, she sat and talked to him. On her birthday, she told him there was an enormous cake waiting in the kitchen, if only he'd wake up.

There was no waking.

There was no cake.

A LATE-NIGHT EXCERPT.

I realized much later that I actually visited

33 Himmel Street in that period of time.

It must have been one of the few moments when the

girl was not there with him, for all I saw was a

man in bed. I knelt. I readied myself to insert

my hands through the blankets. Then there was a

resurgence-an immense struggle against my weight.

I withdrew, and with so much work ahead of me,

it was nice to be fought off in that dark little room.

I even managed a short, closed-eyed pause of

serenity before I made my way out.