She practiced what she’d wanted to say in the washroom, in the small mirror. The smell of urine was still about her, as Max had just used the paint can before she’d come down. So ein G’schtank, she thought. What a stink.
No one’s urine smells as good as your own.
The days hobbled on.
Each night, before the descent into sleep, she would hear Mama and Papa in the kitchen, discussing what had been done, what they were doing now, and what needed to happen next. All the while, an image of Max hovered next to her. It was always the injured, thankful expression on his face and the swamp-filled eyes.
Only once was there an outburst in the kitchen.
Papa.
“I know!”
His voice was abrasive, but he brought it back to a muffled whisper in a hurry.
“I have to keep going, though, at least a few times a week. I can’t be here all the time. We need the money, and if I quit playing there, they’ll get suspicious. They might wonder why I’ve stopped. I told them you were sick last week, but now we have to do everything like we always have.”
Therein lay the problem.
Life had altered in the wildest possible way, but it was imperative that they act as if nothing at all had happened.
Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.
That was the business of hiding a Jew.
As days turned into weeks, there was now, if nothing else, a beleaguered acceptance of what had transpired—all the result of war, a promise keeper, and one piano accordion. Also, in the space of just over half a year, the Hubermanns had lost a son and gained a replacement of epically dangerous proportions.
What shocked Liesel most was the change in her mama. Whether it was the calculated way in which she divided the food, or the considerable muzzling of her notorious mouth, or even the gentler expression on her cardboard face, one thing was becoming clear.
AN ATTRIBUTE OF ROSA HUBERMANN
She was a good woman for a crisis.
Even when the arthritic Helena Schmidt canceled the washing and ironing service, a month after Max’s debut on Himmel Street, she simply sat at the table and brought the bowl toward her. “Good soup tonight.”
The soup was terrible.
Every morning when Liesel left for school, or on the days she ventured out to play soccer or complete what was left of the washing round, Rosa would speak quietly to the girl. “And remember, Liesel …” She would point to her mouth and that was all. When Liesel nodded, she would say, “Good girl, Saumensch. Now get going.”
True to Papa’s words, and even Mama’s now, she was a good girl. She kept her mouth shut everywhere she went. The secret was buried deep.
She town-walked with Rudy as she always did, listening to his jabbering. Sometimes they compared notes from their Hitler Youth divisions, Rudy mentioning for the first time a sadistic young leader named Franz Deutscher. If Rudy wasn’t talking about Deutscher’s intense ways, he was playing his usual broken record, providing renditions and re-creations of the last goal he scored in the Himmel Street soccer stadium.
“I know,” Liesel would assure him. “I was there.”
“So what?”
“So I saw it, Saukerl.”
“How do I know that? For all I know, you were probably on the ground somewhere, licking up the mud I left behind when I scored.”
Perhaps it was Rudy who kept her sane, with the stupidity of his talk, his lemon-soaked hair, and his cockiness.
He seemed to resonate with a kind of confidence that life was still nothing but a joke—an endless succession of soccer goals, trickery, and a constant repertoire of meaningless chatter.
Also, there was the mayor’s wife, and reading in her husband’s library. It was cold in there now, colder with every visit, but still Liesel could not stay away. She would choose a handful of books and read small segments of each, until one afternoon, she found one she could not put down. It was called The Whistler. She was originally drawn to it because of her sporadic sighting
s of the whistler of Himmel Street—Pfiffikus. There was the memory of him bent over in his coat and his appearance at the bonfire on the Führer’s birthday.