When the time came, he awoke with the nasty thrill of disorientation. His mouth opened a moment after his eyes and he sat up, right-angled.
“Ay!”
A patch of voice escaped his mouth.
When he saw the upside-down face of a girl above him, there was the fretful moment of unfamiliarity and the grasp for recollection—to decode exactly where and when he was currently sitting. After a few seconds, he managed
to scratch his head (the rustle of kindling) and he looked at her. His movements were fragmented, and now that they were open, his eyes were swampy and brown. Thick and heavy.
As a reflex action, Liesel backed away.
She was too slow.
The stranger reached out, his bed-warmed hand taking her by the forearm.
“Please.”
His voice also held on, as if possessing fingernails. He pressed it into her flesh. “Papa!” Loud.
“Please!” Soft.
It was late afternoon, gray and gleaming, but it was only dirty-colored light that was permitted entrance into the room. It was all the fabric of the curtains allowed. If you’re optimistic, think of it as bronze.
When Papa came in, he first stood in the doorway and witnessed Max Vandenburg’s gripping fingers and his desperate face. Both held on to Liesel’s arm. “I see you two have met,” he said.
Max’s fingers started cooling.
THE SWAPPING OF NIGHTMARES
Max Vandenburg promised that he would never sleep in Liesel’s room again. What was he thinking that first night? The very idea of it mortified him.
He rationalized that he was so bewildered upon his arrival that he allowed such a thing. The basement was the only place for him as far as he was concerned. Forget the cold and the loneliness. He was a Jew, and if there was one place he was destined to exist, it was a basement or any other such hidden venue of survival.
“I’m sorry,” he confessed to Hans and Rosa on the basement steps. “From now on I will stay down here. You will not hear from me. I will not make a sound.”
Hans and Rosa, both steeped in the despair of the predicament, made no argument, not even in regard to the cold. They heaved blankets down and topped up the kerosene lamp. Rosa admitted that there could not be much food, to which Max fervently asked her to bring only scraps, and only when they were not wanted by anyone else.
“Na, na,” Rosa assured him. “You will be fed, as best I can.”
They also took the mattress down, from the spare bed in Liesel’s room, replacing it with drop sheets—an excellent trade.
• • •
Downstairs, Hans and Max placed the mattress beneath the steps and built a wall of drop sheets at the side. The sheets were high enough to cover the whole triangular entrance, and if nothing else, they were easily moved if Max was in dire need of extra air.
Papa apologized. “It’s quite pathetic. I realize that.”
“Better than nothing,” Max assured him. “Better than I deserve—thank you.”
With some well-positioned paint cans, Hans actually conceded that it did simply look like a collection of junk gathered sloppily in the corner, out of the way. The one problem was that a person needed only to shift a few cans and remove a drop sheet or two to smell out the Jew.
“Let’s just hope it’s good enough,” he said.
“It has to be.” Max crawled in. Again, he said it. “Thank you.”
Thank you.
For Max Vandenburg, those were the two most pitiful words he could possibly say, rivaled only by I’m sorry. There was a constant urge to speak both expressions, spurred on by the affliction of guilt.