apples should have been ripening. There was more stealing to be done.
THE LOSERS
When it came to stealing, Liesel and Rudy first stuck with the idea that there was safety in
numbers. Andy Schmeikl invited them to the river for a meeting. Among other things, a game
plan for fruit stealing would be on the agenda.
“So are you the leader now?” Rudy had asked, but Andy shook his head, heavy with
disappointment. He clearly wished that he had what it took.
“No.” His cool voice was unusually warm. Half-baked. “There’s someone else.”
THE NEW ARTHUR BERG
He had windy hair and cloudy eyes,
and he was the kind of delinquent
who had no other reason to
steal except that he enjoyed it.
His name was Viktor Chemmel.
Unlike most people engaged in the various arts of thievery, Viktor Chemmel had it all. He
lived in the best part of Molching, high up in a villa that had been fumigated when the Jews
were driven out. He had money. He had cigarettes. What he wanted, however, was more.
“No crime in wanting a little more,” he claimed, lying back in the grass with a collection of
boys assembled around him. “Wanting more is our fundamental right as Germans. What does
our F say?” He answered his own rhetoric. “We must take what is rightfully ours!”
At face value, Viktor Chemmel was clearly your typical teenage bullshit artist. Unfortunately,
when he felt like revealing it, he also possessed a certain charisma, a kind of follow me.
When Liesel and Rudy approached the group by the river, she heard him ask another
question. “So where are these two deviants you’ve been bragging about? It’s ten past four
already.”
“Not by my watch,” said Rudy.
Viktor Chemmel propped himself up on an elbow. “You’re not wearing a watch.”
“Would I be here if I was rich enough to own a watch?”
The new leader sat up fully and smiled, with straight white teeth. He then turned his casual
focus onto the girl. “Who’s the little whore?” Liesel, well accustomed to verbal abuse, simply
watched the fog-ridden texture of his eyes.
“Last year,” she listed, “I stole at least three hundred apples and dozens of potatoes. I have
little trouble with barbed wire fences and I can keep up with anyone here.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes.” She did not shrink or step away. “All I ask is a small part of anything we take. A
dozen apples here or there. A few leftovers for me and my friend.”
“Well, I suppose that can be arranged.” Viktor lit a cigarette and raised it to his mouth. He
made a concerted effort to blow his next mouthful in Liesel’s face.
Liesel did not cough.
It was the same group as the previous year, the only exception being the leader. Liesel
wondered why none of the other boys had assumed the helm, but looking from face to face,
she realized that none of them had it. They had no qualms about stealing, but they needed to
be told. They liked to be told, and Viktor Chemmel liked to be the teller. It was a nice
microcosm.
For a moment, Liesel longed for the reappearance of Arthur Berg. Or would he, too, have
fallen under the leadership of Chemmel? It didn’t matter. Liesel only knew that Arthur Berg
did not have a tyrannical bone in his body, whereas the new leader had hundreds of them.
Last year, she knew that if she was stuck in a tree, Arthur would come back for her, despite
claiming otherwise. This year, by comparison, she was instantly aware that Viktor Chemmel
wouldn’t even bother to look back.
He stood, regarding the lanky boy and the malnourished-looking girl. “So you want to steal
with me?”
What did they have to lose? They nodded.
He stepped closer and grabbed Rudy’s hair. “I want to hear it.”
“Definitely,” Rudy said, before being shoved back, fringe first.
“And you?”
“Of course.” Liesel was quick enough to avoid the same treatment.
Viktor smiled. He squashed his cigarette, breathed deeply in, and scratched his chest. “My
gentlemen, my whore, it looks like it’s time to go shopping.”
As the group walked off, Liesel and Rudy were at the back, as they’d always been in the past.
“Do you like him?” Rudy whispered.
“Do you?”
Rudy paused a moment. “I think he’s a complete bastard.”
“Me too.”
The group was getting away from them.
“Come on,” Rudy said, “we’ve fallen behind.”
After a few miles, they reached the first farm. What greeted them was a shock. The trees
they’d imagined to be swollen with fruit were frail and injured-looking, with only a small
array of apples hanging miserly from each branch. The next farm was the same. Maybe it was
a bad season, or their timing wasn’t quite right.
By the end of the afternoon, when the spoils were handed out, Liesel and Rudy were given
one diminutive apple between them. In fairness, the takings were incredibly poor, but Viktor
Chemmel also ran a tighter ship.
“What do you call this?” Rudy asked, the apple resting in his palm.
Viktor didn’t even turn around. “What does it look like?” The words were dropped over his
shoulder.
“One lousy apple?”
“Here.” A half-eaten one was also tossed their way, landing chewed-side-down in the dirt.
“You can have that one, too.”
Rudy was incensed. “To hell with this. We didn’t walk ten miles for one and a half scrawny
apples, did we, Liesel?”
Liesel did not answer.
She did not have time, for Viktor Chemmel was on top of Rudy before she could utter a word.
His knees had pinned Rudy’s arms and his hands were around his throat. The apples were
scooped up by none other than Andy Schmeikl, at Viktor’s request.
“You’re hurting him,” Liesel said.
“Am I?” Viktor was smiling again. She hated that smile.
“He’s not hurting me.” Rudy’s words were rushed together and his face was red with strain.
His nose began to bleed.
After an extended moment or two of increased pressure, Viktor let Rudy go and climbed off
him, taking a few careless steps. He said, “Get up, boy,” and Rudy, choosing wisely, did as he
was told.
Viktor came casually closer again and faced him. He gave him a gentle rub on the arm. A
whisper. “Unless you want me to turn that blood into a fountain, I suggest you go away, little
boy.” He looked at Liesel. “And take the little slut with you.”
No one moved.
“Well, what are you waiting for?”
Liesel took Rudy’s hand and they left, but not before Rudy turned one last time and spat some
blood and saliva at Viktor Chemmel’s feet. It evoked one final remark.
A SMALL THREAT FROM
VIKTOR CHEMMEL TO RUDY STEINER
“You’ll pay for that at a later date, my friend.”
Say what you will about Viktor Chemmel, but he certainly had patience and a good memory.
It took him approximately five months to turn his statement into a true one.
SKETCHES
If the summer of 1941 was walling up around the likes of Rudy and Liesel, it was writing and
painting itself into the life of Max Vandenburg. In his loneliest moments in the basement, the
words started piling up around him. The visions began to pour and fall and occasionally limp
from out of his hands.
He had what he called just a small ration of tools:
A painted book.
A handful of pencils.
A mindful of thoughts.
Like a simple puzzle, he put them together.
Originally, Max had intended to write his own story.
The idea was to write about everything that had happened to him—all that had led him to a
Himmel Street basement—but it was not what came out. Max’s exile produced something
else entirely. It was a collection of random thoughts and he chose to embrace them. They felt
true. They were more real than the letters he wrote to his family and to his friend Walter
Kugler, knowing very well that he could never send them. The desecrated pages of Mein
Kampf were becoming a series of sketches, page after page, which to him summed up the
events that had swapped his former life for another. Some took minutes. Others hours. He
resolved that when the book was finished, he’d give it to Liesel, when she was old enough,
and hopefully, when all this nonsense was over.
From the moment he tested the pencils on the first painted page, he kept the book close at all
times. Often, it was next to him or still in his fingers as he slept.
One afternoon, after his push-ups and sit-ups, he fell asleep against the basement wall. When
Liesel came down, she found the book sitting next to him, slanted against his thigh, and
curiosity got the better of her. She leaned over and picked it up, waiting for him to stir. He
didn’t. Max was sitting with his head and shoulder blades against the wall. She could barely
make out the sound of his breath, coasting in and out of him, as she opened the book and
glimpsed a few random pages....
Frightened by what she saw, Liesel placed the book back down, exactly as she found it,
against Max’s leg.
A voice startled her.
it said, and when she looked across, following the trail of sound to its owner, a small sign of satisfaction was present on his Jewish lips.
“Holy Christ,” Liesel gasped. “You scared me, Max.”
He returned to his sleep, and behind her, the girl dragged the same thought up the steps.
You scared me, Max.
THE WHISTLER AND THE SHOES
The same pattern continued through the end of summer and well into autumn. Rudy did his
best to survive the Hitler Youth. Max did his push-ups and made his sketches. Liesel found
newspapers and wrote her words on the basement wall.
It’s also worthy of mention that every pattern has at least one small bias, and one day it will
tip itself over, or fall from one page to another. In this case, the dominant factor was Rudy. Or
at least, Rudy and a freshly fertilized sports field.
Late in October, all appeared to be usual. A filthy boy was walking down Himmel Street.
Within a few minutes, his family would expect his arrival, and he would lie that everyone in
his Hitler Youth division was given extra drills in the field. His parents would even expect
some laughter. They didn’t get it.
Today Rudy was all out of laughter and lies.
On this particular Wednesday, when Liesel looked more closely, she could see that Rudy
Steiner was shirtless. And he was furious.
“What happened?” she asked as he trudged past.
He reversed back and held out the shirt. “Smell it,” he said.
“What?”
“Are you deaf? I said smell it.”
Reluctantly, Liesel leaned in and caught a ghastly whiff of the brown garment. “Jesus, Mary,
and Joseph! Is that—?”
The boy nodded. “It’s on my chin, too. My chin! I’m lucky I didn’t swallow it!”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”
“The field at Hitler Youth just got fertilized.” He gave his shirt another halfhearted, disgusted
appraisal. “It’s cow manure, I think.”
“Did what’s-his-name—Deutscher—know it was there?”
“He says he didn’t. But he was grinning.”
“Jesus, Mary, and—”
“Could you stop saying that?!”
What Rudy needed at this point in time was a victory. He had lost in his dealings with Viktor
Chemmel. He’d endured problem after problem at the Hitler Youth. All he wanted was a
small scrap of triumph, and he was determined to get it.
He continued home, but when he reached the concrete step, he changed his mind and came
slowly, purposefully back to the girl.
Careful and quiet, he spoke. “You know what would cheer me up?”
Liesel cringed. “If you think I’m going to—in that state...”
He seemed disappointed in her. “No, not that.” He sighed and stepped closer. “Something
else.” After a moment’s thought, he raised his head, just a touch. “Look at me. I’m filthy. I
stink like cow shit, or dog shit, whatever your opinion, and as usual, I’m absolutely starving.”
He paused. “I need a win, Liesel. Honestly.”
Liesel knew.
She’d have gone closer but for the smell of him.
Stealing.
They had to steal something.
No.
They had to steal something back. It didn’t matter what. It needed only to be soon.
“Just you and me this time,” Rudy suggested. “No Chemmels, no Schmeikls. Just you and
me.”
The girl couldn’t help it.
Her hands itched, her pulse split, and her mouth smiled all at the same time. “Sounds good.”
“It’s agreed, then,” and although he tried not to, Rudy could not hide the fertilized grin that
grew on his face. “Tomorrow?”
Liesel nodded. “Tomorrow.”
Their plan was perfect but for one thing:
They had no idea where to start.
Fruit was out. Rudy snubbed his nose at onions and potatoes, and they drew the line at
another attempt on Otto Sturm and his bikeful of farm produce. Once was immoral. Twice
was complete bastardry.
“So where the hell do we go?” Rudy asked.
“How should I know? This was your idea, wasn’t it?”
“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t think a little, too. I can’t think of everything.”
“You can barely think of anything....”
They argued on as they walked through town. On the outskirts, they witnessed the first of the
farms and the trees standing like emaciated statues. The branches were gray and when they
looked up at them, there was nothing but ragged limbs and empty sky.
Rudy spat.
They walked back through Molching, making suggestions.
“What about Frau Diller?”
“What about her?”
“Maybe if we say ‘ heil Hitler’ and then steal something, we’ll be all right.”
After roaming Munich Street for an hour or so, the daylight was drawing to a close and they
were on the verge of giving up. “It’s pointless,” Rudy said, “and I’m even hungrier now than
I’ve ever been. I’m starving, for Christ’s sake.” He walked another dozen steps before he
stopped and looked back. “What’s with you?” because now Liesel was standing completely
still, and a moment of realization was strapped to her face.
Why hadn’t she thought of it before?
“What is it?” Rudy was becoming impatient. “ Saumensch, what’s going on?”
At that very moment, Liesel was presented with a decision. Could she truly carry out what she
was thinking? Could she really seek revenge on a person like this? Could she despise
someone this much?
She began walking in the opposite direction. When Rudy caught up, she slowed a little in the
vain hope of achieving a little more clarity. After all, the guilt was already there. It was moist.
The seed was already bursting into a dark-leafed flower. She weighed up whether she could
really go through with this. At a crossroad, she stopped.
“I know a place.”
They went over the river and made their way up the hill.
On Grande Strasse, they took in the splendor of the houses. The front doors glowed with
polish, and the roof tiles sat like toupees, combed to perfection. The walls and windows were
manicured and the chimneys almost breathed out smoke rings.
Rudy planted his feet. “The mayor’s house?”
Liesel nodded, seriously. A pause. “They fired my mama.”
When they angled toward it, Rudy asked just how in God’s name they were going to get
inside, but Liesel knew. “Local knowledge,” she answered. “Local—” But when they were
able to see the window to the library at the far end of the house, she was greeted with a shock.
The window was closed.
“Well?” Rudy asked.
Liesel swiveled slowly and hurried off. “Not today,” she said. Rudy laughed.
“I knew it.” He caught up. “I knew it, you filthy Saumensch. You couldn’t get in there even if you had the key.”
“Do you mind?” She quickened even more and brushed aside Rudy’s commentary. “We just
have to wait for the right opportunity.” Internally, she shrugged away from a kind of gladness
that the window was closed. She berated herself. Why, Liesel? she asked. Why did you have
to explode when they fired Mama? Why couldn’t you just keep your big mouth shut? For all
you know, the mayor’s wife is now completely reformed after you yelled and screamed at her.
Maybe she’s straightened herself out, picked herself up. Maybe she’ll never let herself shiver
in that house again and the window will be shut forever.... You stupid Saumensch!
A week later, however, on their fifth visit to the upper part of Molching, it was there.
The open window breathed a slice of air in.
That was all it would take.
It was Rudy who stopped first. He tapped Liesel in the ribs, with the back of his hand. “Is that
window,” he whispered, “open?” The eagerness in his voice leaned from his mouth, like a
forearm onto Liesel’s shoulder.
“ Jawohl,” she answered. “It sure is.”
And how her heart began to heat.
On each previous occasion, when they found the window clamped firmly shut, Liesel’s outer
disappointment had masked a ferocious relief. Would she have had the neck to go in? And
who and what, in fact, was she going in for? For Rudy? To locate some food?
No, the repugnant truth was this:
She didn’t care about the food. Rudy, no matter how hard she tried to resist the idea, was
secondary to her plan. It was the book she wanted. The Whistler. She wouldn’t tolerate having
it given to her by a lonely, pathetic old woman. Stealing it, on the other hand, seemed a little
more acceptable. Stealing it, in a sick kind of sense, was like earning it.
The light was changing in blocks of shade.
The pair of them gravitated toward the immaculate, bulky house. They rustled their thoughts.
“You hungry?” Rudy asked.
Liesel replied. “Starving.” For a book.
“Look—a light just came on upstairs.”
“I see it.”
“Still hungry, Saumensch?”
They laughed nervously for a moment before going through the motions of who should go in
and who should stand watch. As the male in the operation, Rudy clearly felt that he should be
the aggressor, but it was obvious that Liesel knew this place. It was she who was going in.
She knew what was on the other side of the window.
She said it. “It has to be me.”
Liesel closed her eyes. Tightly.
She compelled herself to remember, to see visions of the mayor and his wife. She watched her
gathered friendship with Ilsa Hermann and made sure to see it kicked in the shins and left by
the wayside. It worked. She detested them.
They scouted the street and crossed the yard silently.
Now they were crouched beneath the slit in the window on the ground floor. The sound of
their breathing amplified.
“Here,” Rudy said, “give me your shoes. You’ll be quieter.”
Without complaint, Liesel undid the worn black laces and left the shoes on the ground. She
rose up and Rudy gently opened the window just wide enough for Liesel to climb through.
The noise of it passed overhead, like a low-flying plane.
Liesel heaved herself onto the ledge and tussled her way inside. Taking off her shoes, she
realized, was a brilliant idea, as she landed much heavier on the wooden floor than she’d
anticipated. The soles of her feet expanded in that painful way, rising to the inside edges of
her socks.
The room itself was as it always was.
Liesel, in the dusty dimness, shrugged off her feelings of nostalgia. She crept forward and
allowed her eyes to adjust.
“What’s going on?” Rudy whispered sharply from outside, but she waved him a backhander
that meant Halt’s Maul. Keep quiet.
“The food,” he reminded her. “Find the food. And cigarettes, if you can.”
Both items, however, were the last things on her mind. She was home, among the mayor’s
books of every color and description, with their silver and gold lettering. She could smell the
pages. She could almost taste the words as they stacked up around her. Her feet took her to
the right-hand wall. She knew the one she wanted—the exact position—but when she made it
to The Whistler’s usual place on the shelf, it was not there. A slight gap was in its place.
From above, she heard footsteps.
“The light!” Rudy whispered. The words were shoved through the open window. “It’s out!”
“Scheisse.”
“They’re coming downstairs.”
There was a giant length of a moment then, the eternity of split-second decision. Her eyes
scanned the room and she could see The Whistler, sitting patiently on the mayor’s desk.
“Hurry up,” Rudy warned her. But very calmly and cleanly, Liesel walked over, picked up the
book, and made her way cautiously out. Headfirst, she climbed from the window, managing
to land on her feet again, feeling the pang of pain once more, this time in her ankles.
“Come on,” Rudy implored her. “Run, run. Schnell!”
Once around the corner, on the road back down to the river and Munich Street, she stopped to
bend over and recover. Her body was folded in the middle, the air half frozen in her mouth,
her heart tolling in her ears.
Rudy was the same.
When he looked over, he saw the book under her arm. He struggled to speak. “What’s”—he
grappled with the words—“with the book?”
The darkness was filling up truly now. Liesel panted, the air in her throat defrosting. “It was
all I could find.”
Unfortunately, Rudy could smell it. The lie. He cocked his head and told her what he felt was
a fact. “You didn’t go in for food, did you? You got what you wanted....”
Liesel straightened then and was overcome with the sickness of another realization.
The shoes.
She looked at Rudy’s feet, then at his hands, and at the ground all around him.
“What?” he asked. “What is it?”
“Saukerl,” she accused him. “Where are my shoes?” Rudy’s face whitened, which left her in
no doubt. “They’re back at the house,” she suggested, “aren’t they?”
Rudy searched desperately around himself, begging against all reality that he might have
brought them with him. He imagined himself picking them up, wishing it true—but the shoes
were not there. They sat uselessly, or actually, much worse, incriminatingly, by the wall at 8
Grande Strasse.
“Dummkopf!” he admonished himself, smacking his ear. He looked down shamefully at the
sullen sight of Liesel’s socks. “Idiot!” It didn’t take him long to decide on making it right.
Earnestly, he said, “Just wait,” and he hurried back around the corner.
“Don’t get caught,” Liesel called after him, but he didn’t hear.
The minutes were heavy while he was gone.
Darkness was now complete and Liesel was quite certain that a Watschen was most likely in
the cards when she returned home. “Hurry,” she murmured, but still Rudy didn’t appear. She
imagined the sound of a police siren throwing itself forward and reeling itself in. Collecting
itself.
Still, nothing.
Only when she walked back to the intersection of the two streets in her damp, dirty socks did
she see him. Rudy’s triumphant face was held nicely up as he trotted steadily toward her. His
teeth were gnashed into a grin, and the shoes dangled from his hand. “They nearly killed me,”
he said, “but I made it.” Once they’d crossed the river, he handed Liesel the shoes, and she
threw them down.
Sitting on the ground, she looked up at her best friend. “Danke,” she said. “Thank you.”
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