“You know what that means, don’t you?” said Boris Schipper. They did.
they resumed the trip back to camp, each man tried not to look down at Reinhold
’s openmouthed sneer. “I told you we should have turned him facedown,” someone
. A few times, some of them simply forgot and rested their feet on the body. Once
arrived, they all tried to avoid the task of pulling him out. When the job was done, Hans
took a few abbreviated steps before the pain fractured in his leg and brought him
.
hour later, when the doctor examined him, he was told it was definitely broken. The
was on hand and stood with half a grin.
“Well, Hubermann. Looks like you’ve got away with it, doesn’t it?” He was shaking his
face, smoking, and he provided a list of what would happen next. “You’ll rest up.
’ll ask me what we should do with you. I’ll tell them you did a great job.” He blew some
smoke. “And I think I’ll tell them you’re not fit for the LSE anymore and you should be
back to Munich to work in an office or do whatever cleaning up needs doing there. How
that sound?”
to resist a laugh within the grimace of pain, Hans replied, “It sounds good, Sergeant.”
Schipper finished his cigarette. “Damn right it sounds good. You’re lucky I like you,
. You’re lucky you’re a good man, and generous with the cigarettes.”
the next room, they were making up the plaster.BITTER TASTE OF QUESTIONS
over a week after Liesel’s birthday in mid-February, she and Rosa finally received a
letter from Hans Hubermann. She ran inside from the mailbox and showed it to
. Rosa made her read it aloud, and they could not contain their excitement when Liesel
about his broken leg. She was stunned to the extent that she mouthed the next sentence
to herself.
“What is it?” Rosa pushed. “Saumensch?”
looked up from the letter and was close to shouting. The sergeant had been true to his
. “He’s coming home, Mama. Papa’s coming home!”
embraced in the kitchen and the letter was crushed between their bodies. A broken leg
certainly something to celebrate.
Liesel took the news next door, Barbara Steiner was ecstatic. She rubbed the girl’s
and called out to the rest of her family. In their kitchen, the household of Steiners
buoyed by the news that Hans Hubermann was returning home. Rudy smiled and
, and Liesel could see that he was at least trying. However, she could also sense the
taste of questions in his mouth.
him?
Hans Hubermann and not Alex Steiner?
had a point.TOOLBOX, ONE BLEEDER, ONE BEAR
his father’s recruitment to the army the previous October, Rudy’s anger had been
nicely. The news of Hans Hubermann’s return was all he needed to take it a few
further. He did not tell Liesel about it. There was no complaining that it wasn’t fair. His
was to act.
carried a metal case up Himmel Street at the typical thieving time of darkening afternoon.
’S TOOLBOX
was patchy red and the
of an oversized shoe box.
contained the following:
pocketknife 1
flashlight 1
(one medium, one small)
towel 1
(varying in size)
mask 1
socks 1
bear 1
saw him from the kitchen window—his purposeful steps and committed face, exactly
the day he’d gone to find his father. He gripped the handle with as much force as he
, and his movements were stiff with rage.
book thief dropped the towel she was holding and replaced it with a single thought.
’s going stealing.
ran out to meet him.
was not even the semblance of a hello.
simply continued walking and spoke through the cold air in front of him. Close to
M
’re not a thief at all,” and he didn’t give her a chance to reply. “That woman lets you in.
even leaves you cookies, for Christ’s sake. I don’t call that stealing. Stealing is what the
does. Taking your father, and mine.” He kicked a stone and it clanged against a gate. He
faster. “All those rich Nazis up there, on Grande Strasse, Gelb Strasse, Heide Strasse.”
could concentrate on nothing but keeping up. They’d already passed Frau Diller’s and
well onto Munich Street. “Rudy—”
“How does it feel, anyway?”
“How does what feel?”
“When you take one of those books?”
that moment, she chose to keep still. If he wanted an answer, he’d have to come back, and
did. “Well?” But again, it was Rudy who answered, before Liesel could even open her
. “It feels good, doesn’t it? To steal something back.”
forced her attention to the toolbox, trying to slow him down. “What have you got in
?”
bent over and opened it up.
appeared to make sense but the teddy bear.
they kept walking, Rudy explained the toolbox at length, and what he would do with each
. For example, the hammers were for smashing windows and the towel was to wrap them
, to quell the sound.
“And the teddy bear?”
belonged to Anna-Marie Steiner and was no bigger than one of Liesel’s books. The fur was
and worn. The eyes and ears had been sewn back on repeatedly, but it was friendly
nonetheless.
“That,” answered Rudy, “is the one masterstroke. That’s if a kid walks in while I’m inside.
’ll give it to them to calm them down.”
“And what do you plan to steal?”
shrugged. “Money, food, jewelry. Whatever I can get my hands on.” It sounded simple
.
wasn’t until fifteen minutes later, when Liesel watched the sudden silence on his face, that
realized Rudy Steiner wasn’t stealing anything. The commitment had disappeared, and
he still watched the imagined glory of stealing, she could see that now he was not
it. He was trying to believe it, and that’s never a good sign. His criminal greatness was unfurling before his eyes, and as the footsteps slowed and they watched the houses,
’s relief was pure and sad inside her.
was Gelb Strasse.
the whole, the houses sat dark and huge.
took off his shoes and held them with his left hand. He held the toolkit with his right.
the clouds, there was a moon. Perhaps a mile of light.
“What am I waiting for?” he asked, but Liesel didn’t reply. Again, Rudy opened his mouth,
without any words. He placed the toolbox on the ground and sat on it.
socks grew cold and wet.
“Lucky there’s another pair in the toolbox,” Liesel suggested, and she could see him trying
to laugh, despite himself.
moved across and faced the other way, and there was room for Liesel now as well.
book thief and her best friend sat back to back on a patchy red toolbox in the middle of
street. Each facing a different way, they remained for quite a while. When they stood up
went home, Rudy changed his socks and left the previous ones on the road. A gift, he
, for Gelb Strasse.
SPOKEN TRUTH
RUDY STEINER
“I guess I’m better at leaving
behind than stealing them.”
few weeks later, the toolbox ended up being good for at least something. Rudy cleared it of
and hammers and chose instead to store in it many of the Steiners’ valuables for
next air raid. The only item that remained was the teddy bear.
March 9, Rudy exited the house with it when the sirens made their presence felt again in
.
the Steiners rushed down Himmel Street, Michael Holtzapfel was knocking furiously at
Hubermann’s door. When she and Liesel came out, he handed them his problem. “My
,” he said, and the plums of blood were still on his bandage. “She won’t come out.
’s sitting at the kitchen table.”
the weeks had worn on, Frau Holtzapfel had not yet begun to recover. When Liesel came
read, the woman spent most of the time staring at the window. Her words were quiet, close
motionless. All brutality and reprimand were wrested from her face. It was usually Michael
said goodbye to Liesel or gave her the coffee and thanked her. Now this.
moved into action.
waddled swiftly through the gate and stood in the open doorway. “Holtzapfel!” There
nothing but sirens and Rosa. “Holtzapfel, get out here, you miserable old swine!” Tact
never been Rosa Hubermann’s strong point. “If you don’t come out, we’re all going to
here on the street!” She turned and viewed the helpless figures on the footpath. A siren
just finished wailing. “What now?”
shrugged, disoriented, perplexed. Liesel dropped her bag of books and faced him.
shouted at the commencement of the next siren. “Can I go in?” But she didn’t wait for the
. She ran the short distance of the path and shoved past Mama.
Holtzapfel was unmoved at the table.
do I say? Liesel thought.
do I get her to move?
the sirens took another breath, she heard Rosa calling out. “Just leave her, Liesel, we
to go! If she wants to die, that’s her business,” but then the sirens resumed. They reached
and tossed the voice away.
it was only noise and girl and wiry woman.
“Frau Holtzapfel, please!”
like her conversation with Ilsa Hermann on the day of the cookies, a multitude of words
sentences were at her fingertips. The difference was that today there were bombs. Today
was slightly more urgent.
OPTIONS
• “Frau Holtzapfel, we have to go.”
• “Frau Holtzapfel, we’ll die if we stay here.”
• “You still have one son left.”
• “Everyone’s waiting for you.”
• “The bombs will blow your head off.”
• “If you don’t come, I’ll stop coming to read to you, and that means you’ve lost your only
.”
went with the last sentence, calling the words directly through the sirens. Her hands were
on the table.
woman looked up and made her decision. She didn’t move.
left. She withdrew herself from the table and rushed from the house.
held open the gate and they started running to number forty-five. Michael Holtzapfel
stranded on Himmel Street.
“Come on!” Rosa implored him, but the returned soldier hesitated. He was just about to make
way back inside when something turned him around. His mutilated hand was the only
attached to the gate, and shamefully, he dragged it free and followed.
all looked back several times, but there was still no Frau Holtzapfel.
road seemed so wide, and when the final siren evaporated into the air, the last three
on Himmel Street made their way into the Fiedlers’ basement.
“What took you so long?” Rudy asked. He was holding the toolbox.
placed her bag of books on the ground and sat on them. “We were trying to get Frau
.”
looked around. “Where is she?”
“At home. In the kitchen.”
the far corner of the shelter, Michael was cramped and shivery. “I should have stayed,” he
, “I should have stayed, I should have stayed....” His voice was close to noiseless, but
eyes were louder than ever. They beat furiously in their sockets as he squeezed his injured
and the blood rose through the bandage.
was Rosa who stopped him.
“Please, Michael, it’s not your fault.”
the young man with only a few remaining fingers on his right hand was inconsolable. He
in Rosa’s eyes.
“Tell me something,” he said, “because I don’t understand....” He fell back and sat against
wall. “Tell me, Rosa, how she can sit there ready to die while I still want to live.” The
thickened. “Why do I want to live? I shouldn’t want to, but I do.”
young man wept uncontrollably with Rosa’s hand on his shoulder for many minutes. The
of the people watched. He could not make himself stop even when the basement door
and shut and Frau Holtzapfel entered the shelter.
son looked up.
stepped away.
they came together, Michael apologized. “Mama, I’m sorry, I should have stayed with
.”
Holtzapfel didn’t hear. She only sat with her son and lifted his bandaged hand. “You’re
again,” she said, and with everyone else, they sat and waited.
reached into her bag and rummaged through the books.
BOMBING OF MUNICH,
9 AND 10
night was long with bombs
reading. Her mouth was
, but the book thief worked
fifty-four pages.
majority of children slept and didn’t hear the sirens of renewed safety. Their parents
them or carried them up the basement steps, into the world of darkness.
away, fires were burning and I had picked up just over two hundred murdered souls.
was on my way to Molching for one more.
Street was clear.
sirens had been held off for many hours, just in case there was another threat and to allow
smoke to make its way into the atmosphere.
was Bettina Steiner who noticed the small fire and the sliver of smoke farther down, close
the Amper River. It trailed into the sky and the girl held up her finger. “Look.”
girl might have seen it first, but it was Rudy who reacted. In his haste, he did not
his grip on the toolbox as he sprinted to the bottom of Himmel Street, took a few
roads, and entered the trees. Liesel was next (having surrendered her books to a heavily
Rosa), and then a smattering of people from several shelters along the way.
“Rudy, wait!”
did not wait.
could only see the toolbox in certain gaps in the trees as he made his way through to
dying glow and the misty plane. It sat smoking in the clearing by the river. The pilot had
to land there.
twenty meters, Rudy stopped.
as I arrived myself, I noticed him standing there, recovering his breath.
limbs of trees were scattered in the dark.
were twigs and needles littered around the plane like fire fuel. To their left, three gashes
burned into the earth. The runaway ticktock of cooling metal sped up the minutes and
till they were standing there for what felt like hours. The growing crowd was
behind them, their breath and sentences sticking to Liesel’s back.
“Well,” said Rudy, “should we take a look?”
stepped through the remainder of trees to where the body of the plane was fixed to the
. Its nose was in the running water and the wings were left crookedly behind.
circled slowly, from the tail and around to the right.
“There’s glass,” he said. “The windshield is everywhere.”
he saw the body.
Steiner had never seen a face so pale.
“Don’t come, Liesel.” But Liesel came.
could see the barely conscious face of the enemy pilot as the tall trees watched and the
ran. The plane let out a few more coughs and the head inside tilted from left to right. He
something they obviously could not understand.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Rudy whispered. “He’s alive.”
toolbox bumped the side of the plane and brought with it the sound of more human
and feet.
glow of fire was gone and the morning was still and black. Only the smoke was in its
, but it, too, would soon be exhausted.
wall of trees kept the color of a burning Munich at bay. By now, the boy’s eyes had
not only to the darkness, but to the face of the pilot. The eyes were like coffee stains,
gashes were ruled across his cheeks and chin. A ruffled uniform sat, unruly, across his
.
Rudy’s advice, Liesel came even closer, and I can promise you that we recognized
other at that exact moment.
know you, I thought.
was a train and a coughing boy. There was snow and a distraught girl.
’ve grown, I thought, but I recognize you.
did not back away or try to fight me, but I know that something told the girl I was there.
she smell my breath? Could she hear my cursed circular heartbeat, revolving like the
it is in my deathly chest? I don’t know, but she knew me and she looked me in my face
she did not look away.
the sky began to charcoal toward light, we both moved on. We both observed the boy as
reached into his toolbox again and searched through some picture frames to pull out a
, stuffed yellow toy.
, he climbed to the dying man.
placed the smiling teddy bear cautiously onto the pilot’s shoulder. The tip of its ear
his throat.
dying man breathed it in. He spoke. In English, he said, “Thank you.” His straight-line
opened as he spoke, and a small drop of blood rolled crookedly down his throat.
“What?” Rudy asked him. “Was hast du gesagt? What did you say?”
, I beat him to the answer. The time was there and I was reaching into the
. I slowly extracted the pilot’s soul from his ruffled uniform and rescued him from the
plane. The crowd played with the silence as I made my way through. I jostled free.
me, the sky eclipsed—just a last moment of darkness— and I swear I could see a black
in the shape of a swastika. It loitered untidily above.
“Heil Hitler,” I said, but I was well into the trees by then. Behind me, a teddy bear rested on the shoulder of a corpse. A lemon candle stood below the branches. The pilot’s soul was in
arms.
’s probably fair to say that in all the years of Hitler’s reign, no person was able to serve the
F as loyally as me. A human doesn’t have a heart like mine. The human heart is a line,
my own is a circle, and I have the endless ability to be in the right place at the right
. The consequence of this is that I’m always finding humans at their best and worst. I see
ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both. Still, they have one
I envy. Humans, if nothing else, have the good sense to die.
was a time of bleeders and broken planes and teddy bears, but the first quarter of 1943 was
finish on a positive note for the book thief.
the beginning of April, Hans Hubermann’s plaster was trimmed to the knee and he
a train for Munich. He would be given a week of rest and recreation at home before
the ranks of army pen pushers in the city. He would help with the paperwork on the
of Munich’s factories, houses, churches, and hospitals. Time would tell if he would
sent out to do the repair work. That all depended on his leg and the state of the city.
was dark when he arrived home. It was a day later than expected, as the train was delayed
to an air-raid scare. He stood at the door of 33 Himmel Street and made a fist.
years earlier, Liesel Meminger was coaxed through that doorway when she showed up
the first time. Max Vandenburg had stood there with a key biting into his hand. Now it
Hans Hubermann’s turn. He knocked four times and the book thief answered.
“Papa, Papa.”
must have said it a hundred times as she hugged him in the kitchen and wouldn’t let go.
, after they ate, they sat at the kitchen table long into the night and Hans told his wife
Liesel Meminger everything. He explained the LSE and the smoke-filled streets and the
, lost, wandering souls. And Reinhold Zucker. Poor, stupid Reinhold Zucker. It took
.
1 a.m., Liesel went to bed and Papa came in to sit with her, like he used to. She woke up
times to check that he was there, and he did not fail her.
night was calm.
bed was warm and soft with contentment.
, it was a great night to be Liesel Meminger, and the calm, the warm, and the soft would
for approximately three more months.
her story lasts for six.TEN
book thief
:
end of a world—the ninety-eighth day—
war maker—way of the words—a catatonic girl—
—ilsa hermann’s little black book—
rib-cage planes—and a mountain range of rubble
END OF THE WORLD (Part I)
, I offer you a glimpse of the end. Perhaps it’s to soften the blow for later, or to better
myself for the telling. Either way, I must inform you that it was raining on Himmel
when the world ended for Liesel Meminger.
sky was dripping.
a tap that a child has tried its hardest to turn off but hasn’t quite managed. The first drops
cool. I felt them on my hands as I stood outside Frau Diller’s.
me, I could hear them.
the overcast sky, I looked up and saw the tin-can planes. I watched their stomachs
and the bombs drop casually out. They were off target, of course. They were often off
.
SMALL, SAD HOPE
one wanted to
Himmel Street.
one would bomb a
named after
, would they?
they?
bombs came down, and soon, the clouds would bake and the cold raindrops would turn to
. Hot snowflakes would shower to the ground.
short, Himmel Street was flattened.
were splashed from one side of the street to the other. A framed photo of a very
looking F was bashed and beaten on the shattered floor. Yet he smiled, in that
way of his. He knew something we all didn’t know. But I knew something he didn’t
. All while people slept.
Steiner slept. Mama and Papa slept. Frau Holtzapfel, Frau Diller. Tommy M
. All dying.
one person survived.
survived because she was sitting in a basement reading through the story of her own life,
for mistakes. Previously, the room had been declared too shallow, but on that night,
7, it was enough. The shells of wreckage cantered down, and hours later, when the
, unkempt silence settled itself in Molching, the local LSE could hear something. An
. Down there, somewhere, a girl was hammering a paint can with a pencil.
all stopped, with bent ears and bodies, and when they heard it again, they started
.
ITEMS, HAND TO HAND
of cement and roof tiles.
piece of wall with a dripping
painted on it. An unhappy-
accordion, peering
its eaten case.
threw all of it upward.
another piece of broken wall was removed, one of them saw the book thief’s hair.
man had such a nice laugh. He was delivering a newborn child. “I can’t believe it—she’s
!”
was so much joy among the cluttering, calling men, but I could not fully share their
.
, I’d held her papa in one arm and her mama in the other. Each soul was so soft.
away, their bodies were laid out, like the rest. Papa’s lovely silver eyes were already
to rust, and Mama’s cardboard lips were fixed half open, most likely the shape of an
snore. To blaspheme like the Germans—Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
rescuing hands pulled Liesel out and brushed the crumbs of rubble from her clothes.
“Young girl,” they said, “the sirens were too late. What were you doing in the basement?
did you know?”
they didn’t notice was that the girl was still holding the book. She screamed her reply.
stunning scream of the living.
“Papa!”
second time. Her face creased as she reached a higher, more panic-stricken pitch. “Papa,
Papa!”
passed her up as she shouted, wailed, and cried. If she was injured, she did not yet know
, for she struggled free and searched and called and wailed some more.
was still clutching the book.
was holding desperately on to the words who had saved her life.NINETY-EIGHTH DAY
the first ninety-seven days after Hans Hubermann’s return in April 1943, everything was
. On many occasions he was pensive about the thought of his son fighting in Stalingrad,
he hoped that some of his luck was in the boy’s blood.
his third night at home, he played the accordion in the kitchen. A promise was a promise.
was music, soup, and jokes, and the laughter of a fourteen-year-old girl.
“Saumensch,” Mama warned her, “stop laughing so loud. His jokes aren’t that funny. And they’re filthy, too....”
a week, Hans resumed his service, traveling into the city to one of the army offices. He
that there was a good supply of cigarettes and food there, and sometimes he was able to
home some cookies or extra jam. It was like the good old days. A minor air raid in May.
“ heil Hitler” here or there and everything was fine.
the ninety-eighth day.
SMALL STATEMENT
OLD WOMAN
Munich Street, she said, “Jesus,
, and Joseph, I wish they
’t bring them through. These
Jews, they’re rotten luck.
’re a bad sign. Every time I see
, I know we’ll be ruined.”
was the same old lady who announced the Jews the first time Liesel saw them. On ground
, her face was a prune. Her eyes were the dark blue of a vein. And her prediction was
.
the heart of summer, Molching was delivered a sign of things to come. It moved into sight
it always did. First the bobbing head of a soldier and the gun poking at the air above him.
the ragged chain of clinking Jews.
only difference this time was that they were brought from the opposite direction. They
taken through to the neighboring town of Nebling to scrub the streets and do the cleanup
that the army refused to do. Late in the day, they were marched back to camp, slow and
, defeated.
, Liesel searched for Max Vandenburg, thinking that he could easily have ended up in
without being marched through Molching. He was not there. Not on this occasion.
give it time, though, for on a warm afternoon in August, Max would most certainly be
through town with the rest of them. Unlike the others, however, he would not watch
road. He would not look randomly into the F’s German grand-stand.
FACT REGARDING
VANDENBURG
would search the faces on Munich
for a book-thieving girl.
this occasion, in July, on what Liesel later calculated as the ninety-eighth day of her
’s return, she stood and studied the moving pile of mournful Jews—looking for Max. If
else, it alleviated the pain of simply watching.
That’s a horrible thought, she would write in her Himmel Street basement, but she knew it to
true. The pain of watching them. What about their pain? The pain of stumbling shoes and
and the closing gates of the camp?
came through twice in ten days, and soon after, the anonymous, prune-faced woman on
Street was proven absolutely correct. Suffering had most definitely come, and if they
blame the Jews as a warning or prologue, they should have blamed the F and his
for Russia as the actual cause—for when Himmel Street woke later in July, a returned
was discovered to be dead. He was hanging from one of the rafters in a laundry up
Frau Diller’s. Another human pendulum. Another clock, stopped.
careless owner had left the door open.
24, 6:03 A.M. The laundry was warm, the rafters were firm, and Michael
jumped from the chair as if it were a cliff.
many people chased after me in that time, calling my name, asking me to take them with
. Then there was the small percentage who called me casually over and whispered with
tightened voices.
“Have me,” they said, and there was no stopping them. They were frightened, no question,
they were not afraid of me. It was a fear of messing up and having to face themselves
, and facing the world, and the likes of you.
was nothing I could do.
had too many ways, they were too resourceful—and when they did it too well, whatever
chosen method, I was in no position to refuse.
Holtzapfel knew what he was doing.
killed himself for wanting to live.
course, I did not see Liesel Meminger at all that day. As is usually the case, I advised
that I was far too busy to remain on Himmel Street to listen to the screams. It’s bad
when people catch me red-handed, so I made the usual decision to make my exit, into
breakfast-colored sun.
did not hear the detonation of an old man’s voice when he found the hanging body, nor the
of running feet and jaw-dropped gasps when other people arrived. I did not hear a
man with a mustache mutter, “Crying shame, a damn shame...”
did not see Frau Holtzapfel laid out flat on Himmel Street, her arms out wide, her screaming
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