They seem very fond of pigs.
A SMALL QUESTION AND
ITS ANSWER
And who do you think was made to clean the spit off the door each night?
Yes—you got it.
When a woman with an iron fist tells you to get out there and clean spit off the door, you do it. Especially when the iron’s hot.
It was all just part of the routine, really.
Each night, Liesel would step outside, wipe the door, and watch the sky. Usually it was like spillage—cold and heavy, slippery and gray—but once in a while some stars had the nerve to rise and float, if only for a few minutes. On those nights, she would stay a little longer and wait.
“Hello, stars.”
Waiting.
For the voice from the kitchen.
Or till the stars were dragged down again, into the waters of the German sky.
THE KISS
(A Childhood Decision Maker)
As with most small towns, Molching was filled with characters. A handful of them lived on Himmel Street. Frau Holtzapfel was only one cast member.
The others included the likes of these:
* Rudy Steiner—the boy next door who was obsessed with the black American athlete Jesse Owens.
* Frau Diller—the staunch Aryan corner-shop owner.
* Tommy Müller—a kid whose chronic ear infections had resulted in several operations, a pink river of skin painted across his face, and a tendency to twitch.
* A man known primarily as “Pfiffikus”—whose vulgarity made Rosa Hubermann look like a wordsmith and a saint.
On the whole, it was a street
filled with relatively poor people, despite the apparent rise of Germany’s economy under Hitler. Poor sides of town still existed.
As mentioned already, the house next door to the Hubermanns was rented by a family called Steiner. The Steiners had six children. One of them, the infamous Rudy, would soon become Liesel’s best friend, and later, her partner and sometime catalyst in crime. She met him on the street.
A few days after Liesel’s first bath, Mama allowed her out, to play with the other kids. On Himmel Street, friendships were made outside, no matter the weather. The children rarely visited each other’s homes, for they were small and there was usually very little in them. Also, they conducted their favorite pastime, like professionals, on the street. Soccer. Teams were well set. Garbage cans were used to mark out the goals.
Being the new kid in town, Liesel was immediately shoved between one pair of those cans. (Tommy Müller was finally set free, despite being the most useless soccer player Himmel Street had ever seen.)
It all went nicely for a while, until the fateful moment when Rudy Steiner was upended in the snow by a Tommy Müller foul of frustration.
“What?!” Tommy shouted. His face twitched in desperation. “What did I do?!”
A penalty was awarded by everyone on Rudy’s team, and now it was Rudy Steiner against the new kid, Liesel Meminger.
He placed the ball on a grubby mound of snow, confident of the usual outcome. After all, Rudy hadn’t missed a penalty in eighteen shots, even when the opposition made a point of booting Tommy Müller out of goal. No matter whom they replaced him with, Rudy would score.
On this occasion, they tried to force Liesel out. As you might imagine, she protested, and Rudy agreed.