out among the rest of the forest. It could never destroy all of it, but if nothing else, a
colored path was carved through it.
word shaker and the young man climbed up to the horizontal trunk. They navigated the
and began to walk. When they looked back, they noticed that the majority of
had started to return to their own places. In there. Out there. In the forest.
as they walked on, they stopped several times, to listen. They thought they could hear
and words behind them, on the word shaker’s tree.a long time, Liesel sat at the kitchen table and wondered where Max Vandenburg was, in
that forest out there. The light lay down around her. She fell asleep. Mama made her go to
, and she did so, with Max’s sketchbook against her chest.
was hours later, when she woke up, that the answer to her question came. “Of course,” she
. “Of course I know where he is,” and she went back to sleep.
dreamed of the tree.ANARCHIST’S SUIT COLLECTION
HIMMEL STREET,
the absence of two fathers,
Steiners have invited Rosa
Trudy Hubermann, and Liesel.
they arrive, Rudy is still in
process of explaining his
. He looks at Liesel and his
widens, but only slightly.
days leading up to Christmas 1942 fell thick and heavy with snow. Liesel went through
The Word Shaker many times, from the story itself to the many sketches and commentaries on
side of it. On Christmas Eve, she made a decision about Rudy. To hell with being out
late.
walked next door just before dark and told him she had a present for him, for Christmas.
looked at her hands and either side of her feet. “Well, where the hell is it?”
“Forget it, then.”
Rudy knew. He’d seen her like this before. Risky eyes and sticky fingers. The breath of
was all around her and he could smell it. “This gift,” he estimated. “You haven’t got
yet, have you?”
“No.”
“And you’re not buying it, either.”
“Of course not. Do you think I have any money?” Snow was still falling. At the edge of the
, there was ice like broken glass. “Do you have the key?” she asked.
“The key to what?” But it didn’t take Rudy long to understand. He made his way inside and
not long after. In the words of Viktor Chemmel, he said, “It’s time to go shopping.”
light was disappearing fast, and except for the church, all of Munich Street had closed up
Christmas. Liesel walked hurriedly to remain in step with the lankier stride of her
. They arrived at the designated shop window. STEINER—SCHNEIDERMEISTER.
glass wore a thin sheet of mud and grime that had blown onto it in the passing weeks. On
opposite side, the mannequins stood like witnesses. They were serious and ludicrously
. It was hard to shake the feeling that they were watching everything.
reached into his pocket.
was Christmas Eve.
father was near Vienna.
didn’t think he’d mind if they trespassed in his beloved shop. The circumstances
it.
door opened fluently and they made their way inside. Rudy’s first instinct was to hit the
switch, but the electricity had already been cut off.
“Any candles?”
was dismayed. “I brought the key. And besides, this was your idea.”
the middle of the exchange, Liesel tripped on a bump in the floor. A mannequin followed
down. It groped her arm and dismantled in its clothes on top of her. “Get this thing off
!” It was in four pieces. The torso and head, the legs, and two separate arms. When she was
of it, Liesel stood and wheezed. “Jesus, Mary.”
found one of the arms and tapped her on the shoulder with its hand. When she turned in
, he extended it in friendship. “Nice to meet you.”
a few minutes, they moved slowly through the tight pathways of the shop. Rudy started
the counter. When he fell over an empty box, he yelped and swore, then found his way
to the entrance. “This is ridiculous,” he said. “Wait here a minute.” Liesel sat,
arm in hand, till he returned with a lit lantern from the church.
ring of light circled his face.
“So where’s this present you’ve been bragging about? It better not be one of these weird
.”
“Bring the light over.”
he made it to the far left section of the shop, Liesel took the lantern with one hand and
through the hanging suits with the other. She pulled one out but quickly replaced it with
. “No, still too big.” After two more attempts, she held a navy blue suit in front of
Steiner. “Does this look about your size?”
Liesel sat in the dark, Rudy tried on the suit behind one of the curtains. There was a
circle of light and the shadow dressing itself.
he returned, he held out the lantern for Liesel to see. Free of the curtain, the light was
a pillar, shining onto the refined suit. It also lit up the dirty shirt beneath and Rudy’s
shoes.
“Well?” he asked.
continued the examination. She moved around him and shrugged. “Not bad.”
“Not bad! I look better than just not bad.”
“The shoes let you down. And your face.”
placed the lantern on the counter and came toward her in mock-anger, and Liesel had to
that a nervousness started gripping her. It was with both relief and disappointment that
watched him trip and fall on the disgraced mannequin.
the floor, Rudy laughed.
he closed his eyes, clenching them hard.
rushed over.
crouched above him.
him, Liesel, kiss him.
“Are you all right, Rudy? Rudy?”
“I miss him,” said the boy, sideways, across the floor.
“Frohe Weihnachten,” Liesel replied. She helped him up, straightening the suit. “Merry
.”NINE
last human stranger
:
next temptation—a cardplayer—
snows of stalingrad—an ageless
—an accident—the bitter taste
questions—a toolbox, a bleeder,
bear—a broken plane—
a homecoming
NEXT TEMPTATION
time, there were cookies.
they were stale.
were Kipferl left over from Christmas, and they’d been sitting on the desk for at least
weeks. Like miniature horseshoes with a layer of icing sugar, the ones on the bottom
bolted to the plate. The rest were piled on top, forming a chewy mound. She could
smell them when her fingers tightened on the window ledge. The room tasted like
and dough, and thousands of pages.
was no note, but it didn’t take Liesel long to realize that Ilsa Hermann had been at it
, and she certainly wasn’t taking the chance that the cookies might not be for her. She
her way back to the window and passed a whisper through the gap. The whisper’s name
Rudy.
’d gone on foot that day because the road was too slippery for bikes. The boy was
the window, standing watch. When she called out, his face appeared, and she
him with the plate. He didn’t need much convincing to take it.
eyes feasted on the cookies and he asked a few questions.
“Anything else? Any milk?”
“What?”
“Milk,” he repeated, a little louder this time. If he’d recognized the offended tone in Liesel’s voice, he certainly wasn’t showing it.
book thief’s face appeared above him again. “Are you stupid? Can I just steal the book?”
“Of course. All I’m saying is...”
moved toward the far shelf, behind the desk. She found some paper and a pen in the
drawer and wrote Thank you, leaving the note on top.
her right, a book protruded like a bone. Its paleness was almost scarred by the dark
of the title. Die Letzte Menschliche Fremde—The Last Human Stranger. It whispered softly as she removed it from the shelf. Some dust showered down.
the window, just as she was about to make her way out, the library door creaked apart.
knee was up and her book-stealing hand was poised against the window frame. When she
the noise, she found the mayor’s wife in a brand-new bathrobe and slippers. On the
pocket of the robe sat an embroidered swastika. Propaganda even reached the
.
watched each other.
looked at Ilsa Hermann’s breast and raised her arm. “ Heil Hitler.”
was just about to leave when a realization struck her.
cookies.
’d been there for weeks.
meant that if the mayor himself used the library, he must have seen them. He must have
why they were there. Or—and as soon as Liesel felt this thought, it filled her with a
optimism—perhaps it wasn’t the mayor’s library at all; it was hers. Ilsa Hermann’s.
didn’t know why it was so important, but she enjoyed the fact that the roomful of books
to the woman. It was she who introduced her to the library in the first place and
her the initial, even literal, window of opportunity. This way was better. It all seemed to
.
as she began to move again, she propped everything and asked, “This is your room, isn’t
?”
mayor’s wife tightened. “I used to read in here, with my son. But then...”
’s hand touched the air behind her. She saw a mother reading on the floor with a young
pointing at the pictures and the words. Then she saw a war at the window. “I know.”
exclamation entered from outside.
“What did you say?!”
spoke in a harsh whisper, behind her. “Keep quiet, Saukerl, and watch the street.” To
Hermann, she handed the words slowly across. “So all these books...”
“They’re mostly mine. Some are my husband’s, some were my son’s, as you know.”
was embarrassment now on Liesel’s behalf. Her cheeks were set alight. “I always
this was the mayor’s room.”
“Why?” The woman seemed amused.
noticed that there were also swastikas on the toes of her slippers. “He’s the mayor. I
he’d read a lot.”
mayor’s wife placed her hands in her side pockets. “Lately, it’s you who gets the most
out of this room.”
“Have you read this one?” Liesel held up The Last Human Stranger.
looked more closely at the title. “I have, yes.”
“Any good?”
“Not bad.”
was an itch to leave then, but also a peculiar obligation to stay. She moved to speak, but
available words were too many and too fast. There were several attempts to snatch at
, but it was the mayor’s wife who took the initiative.
saw Rudy’s face in the window, or more to the point, his candlelit hair. “I think you’d
go,” she said. “He’s waiting for you.”
the way home, they ate.
“Are you sure there wasn’t anything else?” Rudy asked. “There must have been.”
“We were lucky to get the cookies.” Liesel examined the gift in Rudy’s arms. “Now tell the
. Did you eat any before I came back out?”
was indignant. “Hey, you’re the thief here, not me.”
“Don’t kid me, Saukerl, I could see some sugar at the side of your mouth.”
, Rudy took the plate in just the one hand and wiped with the other. “I didn’t eat any,
promise.”
the cookies were gone before they hit the bridge, and they shared the rest with Tommy
they’d finished eating, there was only one afterthought, and Rudy spoke it.
“What the hell do we do with the plate?”CARDPLAYER
the time Liesel and Rudy were eating the cookies, the resting men of the LSE were
cards in a town not far from Essen. They’d just completed the long trip from Stuttgart
were gambling for cigarettes. Reinhold Zucker was not a happy man.
“He’s cheating, I swear it,” he muttered. They were in a shed that served as their barracks and
Hubermann had just won his third consecutive hand. Zucker threw his cards down in
and combed his greasy hair with a threesome of dirty fingernails.
FACTS ABOUT
ZUCKER
was twenty-four. When he won a round
cards, he gloated—he would hold the
cylinders of tobacco to his nose and
them in. “The smell of victory,”
would say. Oh, and one more thing.
would die with his mouth open.
the young man to his left, Hans Hubermann didn’t gloat when he won. He was even
enough to give each colleague one of his cigarettes back and light it for him. All but
Zucker took up the invitation. He snatched at the offering and flung it back to the
of the turned-over box. “I don’t need your charity, old man.” He stood up and left.
“What’s wrong with him?” the sergeant inquired, but no one cared enough to answer.
Zucker was just a twenty-four-year-old boy who could not play cards to save his
.
he not lost his cigarettes to Hans Hubermann, he wouldn’t have despised him. If he
’t despised him, he might not have taken his place a few weeks later on a fairly
road.
seat, two men, a short argument, and me.
kills me sometimes, how people die.SNOWS OF STALINGRAD
the middle of January 1943, the corridor of Himmel Street was its dark, miserable self.
shut the gate and made her way to Frau Holtzapfel’s door and knocked. She was
by the answerer.
first thought was that the man must have been one of her sons, but he did not look like
of the brothers in the framed photos by the door. He seemed far too old, although it was
to tell. His face was dotted with whiskers and his eyes looked painful and loud. A
hand fell out of his coat sleeve and cherries of blood were seeping through the
.
“Perhaps you should come back later.”
tried to look past him. She was close to calling out to Frau Holtzapfel, but the man
her.
“Child,” he said. “Come back later. I’ll get you. Where are you from?”
than three hours later, a knock arrived at 33 Himmel Street and the man stood before
. The cherries of blood had grown into plums.
“She’s ready for you now.”
, in the fuzzy gray light, Liesel couldn’t help asking the man what had happened to his
. He blew some air from his nostrils— a single syllable—before his reply. “Stalingrad.”
“Sorry?” He had looked into the wind when he spoke. “I couldn’t hear you.”
answered again, only louder, and now, he answered the question fully. “Stalingrad
to my hand. I was shot in the ribs and I had three of my fingers blown off. Does that
your question?” He placed his uninjured hand in his pocket and shivered with
for the German wind. “You think it’s cold here?”
touched the wall at her side. She couldn’t lie. “Yes, of course.”
man laughed. “This isn’t cold.” He pulled out a cigarette and placed it in his mouth. One-
, he tried to light a match. In the dismal weather, it would have been difficult with both
, but with just the one, it was impossible. He dropped the matchbook and swore.
picked it up.
took his cigarette and put it in her mouth. She, too, could not light it.
“You have to suck on it,” the man explained. “In this weather, it only lights when you suck.
?”
gave it another go, trying to remember how Papa did it. This time, her mouth filled with
. It climbed her teeth and scratched her throat, but she restrained herself from coughing.
“Well done.” When he took the cigarette and breathed it in, he reached out his uninjured
, his left. “Michael Holtzapfel.”
“Liesel Meminger.”
“You’re coming to read to my mother?”
arrived behind her at that point, and Liesel could feel the shock at her back. “Michael?”
asked. “Is that you?”
Holtzapfel nodded. “Guten Tag, Frau Hubermann. It’s been a long time.”
“You look so...”
“Old?”
was still in shock, but she composed herself. “Would you like to come in? I see you met
foster daughter....” Her voice trailed off as she noticed the bloodied hand.
“My brother’s dead,” said Michael Holtzapfel, and he could not have delivered the punch any
with his one usable fist. For Rosa staggered. Certainly, war meant dying, but it always
the ground beneath a person’s feet when it was someone who had once lived and
in close proximity. Rosa had watched both of the Holtzapfel boys grow up.
oldened young man somehow found a way to list what happened without losing his
. “I was in one of the buildings we used for a hospital when they brought him in. It was
week before I was coming home. I spent three days of that week sitting with him before he
....”
“I’m sorry.” The words didn’t seem to come from Rosa’s mouth. It was someone else
behind Liesel Meminger that evening, but she did not dare to look.
“Please.” Michael stopped her. “Don’t say anything else. Can I take the girl to read? I doubt
mother will hear it, but she said for her to come.”
“Yes, take her.”
were halfway down the path when Michael Holtzapfel remembered himself and
. “Rosa?” There was a moment of waiting while Mama rewidened the door. “I heard
son was there. In Russia. I ran into someone else from Molching and they told me. But
’m sure you knew that already.”
tried to prevent his exit. She rushed out and held his sleeve. “No. He left here one day
never came back. We tried to find him, but then so much happened, there was...”
Holtzapfel was determined to escape. The last thing he wanted to hear was yet
sob story. Pulling himself away, he said, “As far as I know, he’s alive.” He joined
at the gate, but the girl did not walk next door. She watched Rosa’s face. It lifted and
in the same moment.
“Mama?”
raised her hand. “Go.”
waited.
“I said go.”
she caught up to him, the returned soldier tried to make conversation. He must have
his verbal mistake with Rosa, and he tried to bury it beneath some other words.
up the bandaged hand, he said, “I still can’t get it to stop bleeding.” Liesel was
glad to enter the Holtzapfels’ kitchen. The sooner she started reading, the better.
Holtzapfel sat with wet streams of wire on her face.
son was dead.
that was only the half of it.
would never really know how it occurred, but I can tell you without question that one of
here knows. I always seem to know what happened when there was snow and guns and the
confusions of human language.
I imagine Frau Holtzapfel’s kitchen from the book thief’s words, I don’t see the stove
the wooden spoons or the water pump, or anything of the sort. Not to begin with, anyway.
I see is the Russian winter and the snow falling from the ceiling, and the fate of Frau
’s second son.
name was Robert, and what happened to him was this.
SMALL WAR STORY
legs were blown off at the
and he died with his
watching in a cold,
filled hospital.
was Russia, January 5, 1943, and just another icy day. Out among the city and snow, there
dead Russians and Germans everywhere. Those who remained were firing into the blank
in front of them. Three languages interwove. The Russian, the bullets, the German.
I made my way through the fallen souls, one of the men was saying, “My stomach is
.” He said it many times over. Despite his shock, he crawled up ahead, to a dark,
figure who sat streaming on the ground. When the soldier with the wounded
arrived, he could see that it was Robert Holtzapfel. His hands were caked in blood
he was heaping snow onto the area just above his shins, where his legs had been chopped
by the last explosion. There were hot hands and a red scream.
rose from the ground. The sight and smell of rotting snow.
“It’s me,” the soldier said to him. “It’s Pieter.” He dragged himself a few inches closer.
“Pieter?” Robert asked, a vanishing voice. He must have felt me nearby.
second time. “Pieter?”
some reason, dying men always ask questions they know the answer to. Perhaps it’s so
can die being right.
voices suddenly all sounded the same.
Holtzapfel collapsed to his right, onto the cold and steamy ground.
’m sure he expected to meet me there and then.
didn’t.
for the young German, I did not take him that afternoon. I stepped over him
the other poor souls in my arms and made my way back to the Russians.
and forth, I traveled.
men.
was no ski trip, I can tell you.
Michael told his mother, it was three very long days later that I finally came for the soldier
left his feet behind in Stalingrad. I showed up very much invited at the temporary
and flinched at the smell.
man with a bandaged hand was telling the mute, shock-faced soldier that he would survive.
“You’ll soon be going home,” he assured him.
, home, I thought. For good.
“I’ll wait for you,” he continued. “I was going back at the end of the week, but I’ll wait.”
the middle of his brother’s next sentence, I gathered up the soul of Robert Holtzapfel.
I need to exert myself, to look through the ceiling when I’m inside, but I was lucky in
particular building. A small section of the roof had been destroyed and I could see
up. A meter away, Michael Holtzapfel was still talking. I tried to ignore him by
the hole above me. The sky was white but deteriorating fast. As always, it was
an enormous drop sheet. Blood was bleeding through, and in patches, the clouds
dirty, like footprints in melting snow.
? you ask.
, I wonder whose those could be.
Frau Holtzapfel’s kitchen, Liesel read. The pages waded by unheard, and for me, when the
scenery fades in my eyes, the snow refuses to stop falling from the ceiling. The kettle
covered, as is the table. The humans, too, are wearing patches of snow on their heads and
.
brother shivers.
woman weeps.
the girl goes on reading, for that’s why she’s there, and it feels good to be good for
in the aftermath of the snows of Stalingrad.AGELESS BROTHER
Meminger was a few weeks short of fourteen.
papa was still away.
’d completed three more reading sessions with a devastated woman. On many nights,
’d watched Rosa sit with the accordion and pray with her chin on top of the bellows.
, she thought, it’s time. Usually it was stealing that cheered her up, but on this day, it was
something back.
reached under her bed and removed the plate. As quickly as she could, she cleaned it in
kitchen and made her way out. It felt nice to be walking up through Molching. The air was
and flat, like the Watschen of a sadistic teacher or nun. Her shoes were the only sound
Munich Street.
she crossed the river, a rumor of sunshine stood behind the clouds.
8 Grande Strasse, she walked up the steps, left the plate by the front door, and knocked,
by the time the door was opened, the girl was around the corner. Liesel did not look back,
she knew that if she did, she’d have found her brother at the bottom of the steps again, his
completely healed. She could even hear his voice.
“That’s better, Liesel.”
was with great sadness that she realized that her brother would be six forever, but when she
that thought, she also made an effort to smile.
remained at the Amper River, at the bridge, where Papa used to stand and lean.
smiled and smiled, and when it all came out, she walked home and her brother never
into her sleep again. In many ways, she would miss him, but she could never miss his
eyes on the floor of the train or the sound of a cough that killed.
book thief lay in bed that night, and the boy only came before she closed her eyes. He
one member of a cast, for Liesel was always visited in that room. Her papa stood and
her half a woman. Max was writing The Word Shaker in the corner. Rudy was naked
the door. Occasionally her mother stood on a bedside train platform. And far away, in the
that stretched like a bridge to a nameless town, her brother, Werner, played in the
snow.
down the hall, like a metronome for the visions, Rosa snored, and Liesel lay awake
, but also remembering a quote from her most recent book.
LAST HUMAN STRANGER, PAGE 38
There were people everywhere on the city
street, but the stranger could not have
been more alone if it were empty.
morning came, the visions were gone and she could hear the quiet recital of words in
living room. Rosa was sitting with the accordion, praying.
“Make them come back alive,” she repeated. “Please, Lord, please. All of them.” Even the
around her eyes were joining hands.
accordion must have ached her, but she remained.
would never tell Hans about these moments, but Liesel believed that it must have been
prayers that helped Papa survive the LSE’s accident in Essen. If they didn’t help, they
can’t have hurt.ACCIDENT
was a surprisingly clear afternoon and the men were climbing into the truck. Hans
had just sat down in his appointed seat. Reinhold Zucker was standing above
.
“Move it,” he said.
“Bitte? Excuse me?”
was hunched beneath the vehicle’s ceiling. “I said move it, Arschloch. ” The greasy
of his fringe fell in clumps onto his forehead. “I’m swapping seats with you.”
was confused. The backseat was probably the most uncomfortable of the lot. It was the
, the coldest. “Why?”
“Does it matter?” Zucker was losing patience. “Maybe I want to get off first to use the shit
.”
was quickly aware that the rest of the unit was already watching this pitiful struggle
two supposed grown men. He didn’t want to lose, but he didn’t want to be petty,
. Also, they’d just finished a tiring shift and he didn’t have the energy to go on with it.
backed, he made his way forward to the vacant seat in the middle of the truck.
“Why did you give in to that Scheisskopf?” the man next to him asked.
lit a match and offered a share of the cigarette. “The draft back there goes straight
my ears.”
olive green truck was on its way toward the camp, maybe ten miles away. Brunnenweg
telling a joke about a French waitress when the left front wheel was punctured and the
lost control. The vehicle rolled many times and the men swore as they tumbled with the
, the light, the trash, and the tobacco. Outside, the blue sky changed from ceiling to floor as
clambered for something to hold.
it stopped, they were all crowded onto the right-hand wall of the truck, their faces
against the filthy uniform next to them. Questions of health were passed around until
of the men, Eddie Alma, started shouting, “Get this bastard off me!” He said it three
, fast. He was staring into Reinhold Zucker’s blinkless eyes.
DAMAGE, ESSEN
men burned by cigarettes.
broken hands.
broken fingers.
broken leg for Hans Hubermann.
broken neck for Reinhold
, snapped almost in line
his earlobes.
dragged each other out until only the corpse was left in the truck.
driver, Helmut Brohmann, was sitting on the ground, scratching his head. “The tire,” he
, “it just blew.” Some of the men sat with him and echoed that it wasn’t his fault.
walked around smoking, asking each other if they thought their injuries were bad
to be relieved of duty. Another small group gathered at the back of the truck and
the body.
by a tree, a thin strip of intense pain was still opening in Hans Hubermann’s leg. “It
have been me,” he said.
“What?” the sergeant called over from the truck.
“He was sitting in my seat.”
Brohmann regained his senses and climbed back into the driver’s compartment.
, he tried to start the engine, but there was no kicking it over. Another truck was sent
, as was an ambulance. The ambulance didn’t come.
Дата добавления: 2015-09-30; просмотров: 18 | Нарушение авторских прав
| <== предыдущая лекция | | | следующая лекция ==> |