The Book Thief Part 75

But Liesel did not come.

She looked to where the man was taking the accordion and followed him. With the red sky still showering its beautiful ash, she stopped the tall LSE worker and said, "I'll take that if you like-it's my papa's." Softly, she took it from the man's hand and began carrying it off. It was right about then that she saw the first body.

The accordion case fell from her grip. The sound of an explosion.

Frau Holtzapfel was scissored on the ground.

THE NEXT DOZEN SECONDS.

OF LIESEL MEMINGER'S LIFE

She turns on her heel and looks as far

as she can down this ruined ca.n.a.l

that was once Himmel Street. She sees two

men carrying a body and she follows them.

When she saw the rest of them, Liesel coughed. She listened momentarily as a man told the others that they had found one of the bodies in pieces, in one of the maple trees.

There were shocked pajamas and torn faces. It was the boy's hair she saw first.

Rudy?

She did more than mouth the word now. "Rudy?"

He lay with yellow hair and closed eyes, and the book thief ran toward him and fell down. She dropped the black book. "Rudy," she sobbed, "wake up ...." She grabbed him by his shirt and gave him just the slightest disbelieving shake. "Wake up, Rudy," and now, as the sky went on heating and showering ash, Liesel was holding Rudy Steiner's shirt by the front. "Rudy, please." The tears grappled with her face. "Rudy, please, wake up, G.o.dd.a.m.n it, wake up, I love you. Come on, Rudy, come on, Jesse Owens, don't you know I love you, wake up, wake up, wake up ...."

But nothing cared.

The rubble just climbed higher. Concrete hills with caps of red. A beautiful, tear-stomped girl, shaking the dead.

"Come on, Jesse Owens-"

But the boy did not wake.

In disbelief, Liesel buried her head into Rudy's chest. She held his limp body, trying to keep him from lolling back, until she needed to return him to the butchered ground. She did it gently.

Slow. Slow.

"G.o.d, Rudy ..."

She leaned down and looked at his lifeless face and Liesel kissed her best friend, Rudy Steiner, soft and true on his lips. He tasted dusty and sweet. He tasted like regret in the shadows of trees and in the glow of the anarchist's suit collection. She kissed him long and soft, and when she pulled herself away, she touched his mouth with her fingers. Her hands were trembling, her lips were fleshy, and she leaned in once more, this time losing control and misjudging it. Their teeth collided on the demolished world of Himmel Street.

She did not say goodbye. She was incapable, and after a few more minutes at his side, she was able to tear herself from the ground. It amazes me what humans can do, even when streams are flowing down their faces and they stagger on, coughing and searching, and finding.

THE NEXT DISCOVERY.

The bodies of Mama and Papa,

both lying tangled in the gravel

bedsheet of Himmel Street

Liesel did not run or walk or move at all. Her eyes had scoured the humans and stopped hazily when she noticed the tall man and the short, wardrobe woman. That's my mama. That's my papa. The words were stapled to her.

"They're not moving," she said quietly. "They're not moving."

Perhaps if she stood still long enough, it would be they who moved, but they remained motionless for as long as Liesel did. I realized at that moment that she was not wearing any shoes. What an odd thing to notice right then. Perhaps I was trying to avoid her face, for the book thief was truly an irretrievable mess.

She took a step and didn't want to take any more, but she did. Slowly, Liesel walked to her mama and papa and sat down between them. She held Mama's hand and began speaking to her. "Remember when I came here, Mama? I clung to the gate and cried. Do you remember what you said to everyone on the street that day?" Her voice wavered now. "You said, 'What are you a.s.sholes looking at?'" She took Mama's hand and touched her wrist. "Mama, I know that you ... I liked when you came to school and told me Max had woken up. Did you know I saw you with Papa's accordion?" She tightened her grip on the hardening hand. "I came and watched and you were beautiful. G.o.dd.a.m.n it, you were so beautiful, Mama."

MANY MOMENTS OF AVOIDANCE.

Papa. She would not, and

could not, look at Papa.

Not yet. Not now.

Papa was a man with silver eyes, not dead ones.

Papa was an accordion!

But his bellows were all empty.

Nothing went in and nothing came out.

She began to rock back and forth. A shrill, quiet, smearing note was caught somewhere in her mouth until she was finally able to turn.

To Papa.

At that point, I couldn't help it. I walked around to see her better, and from the moment I witnessed her face again, I could tell that this was who she loved the most. Her expression stroked the man on his face. It followed one of the lines down his cheek. He had sat in the washroom with her and taught her how to roll a cigarette. He gave bread to a dead man on Munich Street and told the girl to keep reading in the bomb shelter. Perhaps if he didn't, she might not have ended up writing in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Papa-the accordionist-and Himmel Street.

One could not exist without the other, because for Liesel, both were home. Yes, that's what Hans Hubermann was for Liesel Meminger.

She turned around and spoke to the LSE.

"Please," she said, "my papa's accordion. Could you get it for me?"

After a few minutes of confusion, an older member brought the eaten case and Liesel opened it. She removed the injured instrument and laid it next to Papa's body. "Here, Papa."

And I can promise you something, because it was a thing I saw many years later-a vision in the book thief herself-that as she knelt next to Hans Hubermann, she watched him stand and play the accordion. He stood and strapped it on in the alps of broken houses and played the accordion with kindness silver eyes and even a cigarette slouched on his lips. He even made a mistake and laughed in lovely hindsight. The bellows breathed and the tall man played for Liesel Meminger one last time as the sky was slowly taken from the stove.

Keep playing, Papa.

Papa stopped.

He dropped the accordion and his silver eyes continued to rust. There was only a body now, on the ground, and Liesel lifted him up and hugged him. She wept over the shoulder of Hans Hubermann.

Goodbye, Papa, you saved me. You taught me to read. No one can play like you. I'll never drink champagne. No one can play like you.

Her arms held him. She kissed his shoulder-she couldn't bear to look at his face anymore-and she placed him down again.

The book thief wept till she was gently taken away.

Later, they remembered the accordion but no one noticed the book.

There was much work to be done, and with a collection of other materials, The Book Thief was stepped on several times and eventually picked up without even a glance and thrown aboard a garbage truck. Just before the truck left, I climbed quickly up and took it in my hand ....

It's lucky I was there.

Then again, who am I kidding? I'm in most places at least once, and in 1943, I was just about everywhere.

EPILOGUE.

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