At 31 Himmel Street, Frau Holtzapfel appeared to be waiting for me in the kitchen. A broken
cup was in front of her and in a last moment of awakeness, her face seemed to ask just what in
the hell had taken me so long.
By contrast, Frau Diller was fast asleep. Her bulletproof glasses were shattered next to the
bed. Her shop was obliterated, the counter landing across the road, and her framed photo of
Hitler was taken from the wall and thrown to the floor. The man was positively mugged and
beaten to a glass-shattering pulp. I stepped on him on my way out.
The Fiedlers were well organized, all in bed, all covered. Pfiffikus was hidden up to his nose.
At the Steiners’, I ran my fingers through Barbara’s lovely combed hair, I took the serious
look from Kurt’s serious sleeping face, and one by one, I kissed the smaller ones good night.
Then Rudy.
Oh, crucified Christ, Rudy...
He lay in bed with one of his sisters. She must have kicked him or muscled her way into the
majority of the bed space because he was on the very edge with his arm around her. The boy
slept. His candlelit hair ignited the bed, and I picked both him and Bettina up with their souls
still in the blanket. If nothing else, they died fast and they were warm. The boy from the
plane, I thought. The one with the teddy bear. Where was Rudy’s comfort? Where was
someone to alleviate this robbery of his life? Who was there to soothe him as life’s rug was
snatched from under his sleeping feet?
No one.
There was only me.
And I’m not too great at that sort of comforting thing, especially when my hands are cold and
the bed is warm. I carried him softly through the broken street, with one salty eye and a
heavy, deathly heart. With him, I tried a little harder. I watched the contents of his soul for a
moment and saw a black-painted boy calling the name Jesse Owens as he ran through an
imaginary tape. I saw him hip-deep in some icy water, chasing a book, and I saw a boy lying
in bed, imagining how a kiss would taste from his glorious next-door neighbor. He does
something to me, that boy. Every time. It’s his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He
makes me cry.
Lastly, the Hubermanns.
Hans.
Papa.
He was tall in the bed and I could see the silver through his eyelids. His soul sat up. It met
me. Those kinds of souls always do—the best ones. The ones who rise up and say, “I know
who you are and I am ready. Not that I want to go, of course, but I will come.” Those souls
are always light because more of them have been put out. More of them have already found
their way to other places. This one was sent out by the breath of an accordion, the odd taste of
champagne in summer, and the art of promise-keeping. He lay in my arms and rested. There
was an itchy lung for a last cigarette and an immense, magnetic pull toward the basement, for
the girl who was his daughter and was writing a book down there that he hoped to read one
day.
Liesel.
His soul whispered it as I carried him. But there was no Liesel in that house. Not for me,
anyway.
For me, there was only a Rosa, and yes, I truly think I picked her up midsnore, for her mouth
was open and her papery pink lips were still in the act of moving. If she’d seen me, I’m sure
she would have called me a Saukerl, though I would not have taken it badly. After reading
The Book Thief, I discovered that she called everyone that. Saukerl. Saumensch. Especially the people she loved. Her elastic hair was out. It rubbed against the pillow and her wardrobe
body had risen with the beating of her heart. Make no mistake, the woman had a heart. She
had a bigger one than people would think. There was a lot in it, stored up, high in miles of
hidden shelving. Remember that she was the woman with the instrument strapped to her body
in the long, moon-slit night. She was a Jew feeder without a question in the world on a man’s
first night in Molching. And she was an arm reacher, deep into a mattress, to deliver a
sketchbook to a teenage girl.
THE LAST LUCK
I moved from street to street and
came back for a single man named
Schultz at the bottom of Himmel.
He couldn’t hold out inside the collapsed house, and I was carrying his soul up Himmel Street
when I noticed the LSE shouting and laughing.
There was a small valley in the mountain range of rubble.
The hot sky was red and turning. Pepper streaks were starting to swirl and I became curious.
Yes, yes, I know what I told you at the beginning. Usually my curiosity leads to the dreaded
witnessing of some kind of human outcry, but on this occasion, I have to say that although it
broke my heart, I was, and still am, glad I was there.
When they pulled her out, it’s true that she started to wail and scream for Hans Hubermann.
The men of the LSE attempted to keep her in their powdery arms, but the book thief managed
to break away. Desperate humans often seem able to do this.
She did not know where she was running, for Himmel Street no longer existed. Everything
was new and apocalyptic. Why was the sky red? How could it be snowing? And why did the
snowflakes burn her arms?
Liesel slowed to a staggering walk and concentrated up ahead.
Where’s Frau Diller’s? she thought. Where’s—
She wandered a short while longer until the man who found her took her arm and kept
talking. “You’re just in shock, my girl. It’s just shock; you’re going to be fine.”
“What’s happened?” Liesel asked. “Is this still Himmel Street?”
“Yes.” The man had disappointed eyes. What had he seen these past few years? “This is
Himmel. You got bombed, my girl. Es tut mir leid, Schatzi. I’m sorry, darling.”
The girl’s mouth wandered on, even if her body was now still. She had forgotten her previous
wails for Hans Hubermann. That was years ago—a bombing will do that. She said, “We have
to get my papa, my mama. We have to get Max out of the basement. If he’s not there, he’s in
the hallway, looking out the window. He does that sometimes when there’s a raid—he doesn’t
get to look much at the sky, you see. I have to tell him how the weather looks now. He’ll
never believe me....”
Her body buckled at that moment and the LSE man caught her and sat her down. “We’ll move
her in a minute,” he told his sergeant. The book thief looked at what was heavy and hurting in
her hand.
The book.
The words.
Her fingers were bleeding, just like they had on her arrival here.
The LSE man lifted her and started to lead her away. A wooden spoon was on fire. A man
walked past with a broken accordion case and Liesel could see the instrument inside. She
could see its white teeth and the black notes in between. They smiled at her and triggered an
alertness to her reality. We were bombed, she thought, and now she turned to the man at her
side and said, “That’s my papa’s accordion.” Again. “That’s my papa’s accordion.”
“Don’t worry, young girl, you’re safe; just come a little farther.”
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 canal
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, Goddamn 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.
“God, 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 assholes 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. Goddamn 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 basement.
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
the last color
featuring:
death and liesel—some
wooden tears—max—
and the handover man
DEATH AND LIESEL
It has been many years since all of that, but there is still plenty of work to do. I can promise you that the world is a factory. The sun stirs it, the humans rule it. And I remain. I carry them away.
As for what’s left of this story, I will not skirt around any of it, because I’m tired, I’m so tired, and I will tell it as straightly as I can.
A LAST FACT
I should tell you that
the book thief died
only yesterday.
Liesel Meminger lived to a very old age, far away from Molching and the demise of Himmel Street.
She died in a suburb of Sydney. The house number was forty-five—the same as the Fiedlers’ shelter—and the sky was the best blue of afternoon. Like her papa, her soul was sitting up.
In her final visions, she saw her three children, her grandchildren, her husband, and the long list of lives that merged with hers. Among them, lit like lanterns, were Hans and Rosa Hubermann, her brother, and the boy whose hair remained the color of lemons forever.
But a few other visions were there as well.
Come with me and I’ll tell you a story.
I’ll show you something.
WOOD IN THE AFTERNOON
When Himmel Street was cleared, Liesel Meminger had nowhere to go. She was the girl they referred to as “the one with the accordion,” and she was taken to the police, who were in the throes of deciding what to do with her.
She sat on a very hard chair. The accordion looked at her through the hole in the case.
It took three hours in the police station for the mayor and a fluffy-haired woman to show their faces. “Everyone says there’s a girl,” the lady said, “who survived on Himmel Street.”
A policeman pointed.
Ilsa Hermann offered to carry the case, but Liesel held it firmly in her hand as they walked down the police station steps. A few blocks down Munich Street, there was a clear line separating the bombed from the fortunate.
The mayor drove.
Ilsa sat with her in the back.
The girl let her hold her hand on top of the accordion case, which sat between them.
It would have been easy to say nothing, but Liesel had the opposite reaction to her devastation. She sat in the exquisite spare room of the mayor’s house and spoke and spoke—to herself—well into the night. She ate very little. The only thing she didn’t do at all was wash.
For four days, she carried around the remains of Himmel Street on the carpets and floorboards of 8 Grande Strasse. She slept a lot and didn’t dream, and on most occasions she was sorry to wake up. Everything
disappeared when she was asleep.
On the day of the funerals, she still hadn’t bathed, and Ilsa Hermann asked politely if she’d like to. Previously, she’d only shown her the bath and given her a towel.
People who were at the service of Hans and Rosa Hubermann always talked about the girl who stood there
wearing a pretty dress and a layer of Himmel Street dirt. There was also a rumor that later in the day, she walked fully clothed into the Amper River and said something very strange.
Something about a kiss.
Something about a Saumensch.
How many times did she have to say goodbye?
After that, there were weeks and months, and a lot of war. She remembered her books in the moments of worst sorrow, especially the ones that were made for her and the one that saved her life. One morning, in a renewed state of shock, she even walked back down to Himmel Street to find them, but nothing was left. There was no recovery from what had happened. That would take decades; it would take a long life.
There were two ceremonies for the Steiner family. The first was immediately upon their burial. The second was as soon as Alex Steiner made it home, when he was given leave after the bombing.
Since the news had found him, Alex had been whittled away.
“Crucified Christ,” he’d said, “if only I’d let Rudy go to that school.”
You save someone.
You kill them.
How was he supposed to know?
The only thing he truly did know was that he’d have done anything to have been on Himmel Street that night so that Rudy survived rather than himself.
That was something he told Liesel on the steps of 8 Grande Strasse, when he rushed up there after hearing of her survival.
That day, on the steps, Alex Steiner was sawn apart.
Liesel told him that she had kissed Rudy’s lips. It embarrassed her, but she thought he might have liked to know.
There were wooden teardrops and an oaky smile. In Liesel’s vision, the sky I saw was gray and glossy. A silver afternoon.
MAX
When the war was over and Hitler had delivered himself to my arms, Alex Steiner resumed work in his tailor shop. There was no money in it, but he busied himself there for a few hours each day, and Liesel often
accompanied him. They spent many days together, often walking to Dachau after its liberation, only to be denied by the Americans.
Finally, in October 1945, a man with swampy eyes, feathers of hair, and a clean-shaven face walked into the shop. He approached the counter. “Is there someone here by the name of Liesel Meminger?”
“Yes, she’s in the back,” said Alex. He was hopeful, but he wanted to be sure. “May I ask who is calling on her?”
Liesel came out.
They hugged and cried and fell to the floor.
THE HANDOVER MAN
Yes, I have seen a great many things in this world. I attend the greatest disasters and work for the greatest villains.
But then there are other moments.
There’s a multitude of stories (a mere handful, as I have previously suggested) that I allow to distract me as I work, just as the colors do. I pick them up in the unluckiest, unlikeliest places and I make sure to remember them as I go about my work. The Book Thief is one such story.
When I traveled to Sydney and took Liesel away, I was finally able to do something I’d been waiting on for a long time. I put her down and we walked along Anzac Avenue, near the soccer field, and I pulled a dusty black book from my pocket.
The old woman was astonished. She took it in her hand and said, “Is this really it?”
I nodded.
With great trepidation, she opened The Book Thief and turned the pages. “I can’t believe...” Even though the text had faded, she was able to read her words. The fingers of her soul touched the story that was written so long ago in her Himmel Street basement.
She sat down on the curb, and I joined her.
“Did you read it?” she asked, but she did not look at me. Her eyes were fixed to the words.
I nodded. “Many times.”
“Could you understand it?”
And at that point, there was a great pause.
A few cars drove by, each way. Their drivers were Hitlers and Hubermanns, and Maxes, killers, Dillers, and Steiners....
I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn’t already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race—that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.
None of those things, however, came out of my mouth.
All I was able to do was turn to Liesel Meminger and tell her the only truth I truly know. I said it to the book thief and I say it now to you.
A LAST NOTE FROM YOUR NARRATOR
I am haunted by humans.
Acknowledgments
I would like to start by thanking Anna McFarlane (who is as warm as she is knowledgeable) and Erin Clarke (for her foresight, kindness, and always having the right advice at the right time). Special thanks must also go to Bri Tunnicliffe for putting up with me and trying to believe my delivery dates for rewrites.
I am indebted to Trudy White for her grace and talent. It’s an honor to have her artwork in these pages.
A big thank-you to Melissa Nelson, for making a difficult job look easy. It hasn’t gone unnoticed.
This book also wouldn’t be possible without the following people: Cate Paterson, Nikki Christer, Jo Jarrah, Anyez Lindop, Jane Novak, Fiona Inglis, and Catherine Drayton. Thank you for putting your valuable time into this story, and into me. I appreciate it more than I can say.
Thanks also to the Sydney Jewish Museum, the Australian War Memorial, Doris Seider at the Jewish Museum of Munich, Andreus Heusler at the Munich City Archive, and Rebecca Biehler (for information on the seasonal habits of apple trees).
I am grateful to Dominika Zusak, Kinga Kovacs, and Andrew Janson for all the pep talks and endurance.
Lastly, special thanks must go to Lisa and Helmut Zusak—for the stories we find hard to believe, for laughter, and for showing me another side.
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Text copyright © 2006 by Markus Zusak
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American
Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by
Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in
Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in
Australia in 2005 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited.
www.randomhouse.com/teens
KNOPF, BORZOI BOOKS, and the colophon are
registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
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