“Come on,” he said, “that bush there.”
After approximately fifteen minutes, the diabolical plan bore its fruit, so to speak.
Rudy pointed his finger into a gap in the bush. “There he is.”
Otto came around the corner, dopey as a lamb.
He wasted no time in losing control of the bike, sliding across the ice, and lying facedown on the road.
When he didn’t move, Rudy looked at Liesel with alarm. “Crucified Christ,” he said, “I think we might have killed him!” He crept slowly out, removed the basket, and they made their getaway.
“Was he breathing?” Liesel asked, farther down the street.
“Keine Ahnung,” Rudy said, clinging to the basket. He had no idea.
From far down the hill, they watched as Otto stood up, scratched his head, scratched his crotch, and looked everywhere for the basket.
“Stupid Scheisskopf.” Rudy grinned, and they looked through the spoils. Bread, broken eggs, and the big one, Speck. Rudy held the fatty ham to his nose and breathed it gloriously in. “Beautiful.”
As tempting as it was to keep the victory to themselves, they were overpowered by a sense of loyalty to Arthur Berg. They made their way to his impoverished lodging on Kempf Strasse and showed him the produce. Arthur couldn’t hold back his approval.
“Who did you steal this from?”
It was Rudy who answered. “Otto Sturm.”
“Well,” he nodded, “whoever that is, I’m grateful to him.” He walked inside and returned with a bread knife, a frying pan, and a jacket, and the three thieves walked the hallway of apartments. “We’ll get the others,” Arthur Berg stated as they made it outside. “We might be criminals, but we’re not totally immoral.” Much like the book thief, he at least drew the line somewhere.
A few more doors were knocked on. Names were called out to apartments from streets below, and soon, the whole conglomerate of Arthur Berg’s fruit-stealing troop was on its way to the Amper. In the clearing on the other side, a fire was lit and what was left of the eggs was salvaged and fried. The bread and Speck were cut. With hands and knives, every last piece of Otto Sturm’s delivery was eaten. No priest in sight.
It was only at the end that an argument developed, regarding the basket. The majority of boys wanted to burn it. Fritz Hammer and Andy Schmeikl wanted to keep it, but Arthur Berg, showing his incongruous moral aptitude, had a better idea.
“You two,” he said to R
udy and Liesel. “Maybe you should take it back to that Sturm character. I’d say that poor bastard probably deserves that much.”
“Oh, come on, Arthur.”
“I don’t want to hear it, Andy.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“He doesn’t want to hear it, either.”
The group laughed and Rudy Steiner picked up the basket. “I’ll take it back and hang it on their mailbox.”
He had walked only twenty meters or so when the girl caught up. She would be home far too late for comfort, but she was well aware that she had to accompany Rudy Steiner through town, to the Sturm farm on the other side.
For a long time, they walked in silence.
“Do you feel bad?” Liesel finally asked. They were already on the way home.
“About what?”
“You know.”
“Of course I do, but I’m not hungry anymore, and I bet he’s not hungry, either. Don’t think for a second that the priests would get food if there wasn’t enough to go around at home.”
“He just hit the ground so hard.”