How many times in those first few hours of awakeness did he feel like walking out of that basement and leaving the house altogether? It must have been hundreds.
Each time, though, it was only a twinge.
Which made it even worse.
He wanted to walk out—Lord, how he wanted to (or at least he wanted to want to)—but he knew he wouldn’t. It was much the same as the way he left his family in Stuttgart, under a veil of fabricated loyalty.
To live.
Living was living.
The price was guilt and shame.
• • •
For his first few days in the basement, Liesel had nothing to do with him. She denied his existence. His rustling hair, his cold, slippery fingers.
His tortured presence.
Mama and Papa.
There was such gravity between them, and a lot of failed decision-making.
They considered whether they could move him.
“But where?”
No reply.
In this situation, they were friendless and paralyzed. There was nowhere else for Max Vandenburg to go. It was them. Hans and Rosa Hubermann. Liesel had never seen them look at each other so much, or with such solemnity.
It was they who took the food down and organized an empty paint can for Max’s excrement. The contents would be disposed of by Hans as prudently as possible. Rosa also took him some buckets of hot water to wash himself. The Jew was filthy.
Outside, a mountain of cold November air was waiting at the front door each time Liesel left the house.
Drizzle came down in spades.
Dead leaves were slumped on the road.
Soon enough, it was the book thief’s turn to visit the basement. They made her.
She walked tentatively down the steps, knowing that no words were required. The scuffing of her feet was enough to rouse him.
In the middle of the basement, she stood and waited, feeling more like she was standing in the center of a great dusky field. The sun was setting behind a crop of harvested drop sheets.
When Max came out, he was holding Mein Kampf. Upon his arrival, he’d offered it back to Hans Hubermann but was told he could keep it.
Naturally, Liesel, while holding the dinner, couldn’t take her eyes off it. It was a book she had seen a few times at the BDM, but it hadn’t been read or used directly in their activities. There were occasional references to its greatness, as well as promises that the opportunity to study it would come in later years, as they progressed into the more senior Hitler Youth division.
Max, following her attention, also examined the book.
“Is?” she whispered.
There was a queer strand in her voice, planed off and curly in her mouth.
The Jew moved only his head a little closer. “Bitte? Excuse me?” She handed him the pea soup and returned upstairs, red, rushed, and foolish.
“Is it a good book?”