Melt it did, though, but somewhere in each of them, that snowman was still upright. It must have been the last thing they saw that Christmas Eve when they finally fell asleep. There was an accordion in their ears, a snowman in their eyes, and for Liesel, there was the thought of Max’s last words before she left him by the fire.
CHRISTMAS GREETINGS FROM
MAX VANDENBURG
“Often I wish this would all be over, Liesel, but then somehow you do something like walk down the basement steps with a snowman in your hands.”
Unfortunately, that night signaled a severe downslide in Max’s health. The early signs were innocent enough, and typical. Constant coldness. Swimming hands. Increased visions of boxing with the Führer. It was only when he couldn’t warm up after his push-ups and sit-ups that it truly began to worry him. As close to the fire as he sat, he could not raise himself to any degree of approximate health. Day by day, his weight began to stumble off him. His exercise regimen faltered and fell apart, with his cheek against the surly basement floor.
All through January, he managed to hold himself together, but by early February, Max was in worrisome shape. He would struggle to wake up next to the fire, sleeping well into the morning instead, his mouth distorted and his cheekbones starting to swell. When asked, he said he was fine.
In mid-February, a few days before Liesel was thirteen, he came to the fireplace on the verge of collapse. He nearly fell into the fire.
“Hans,” he whispered, and his face seemed to cramp. His legs gave way and his head hit the accordion case.
At once, a wooden spoon fell into some soup and Rosa Hubermann was at his side. She held Max’s head and barked across the room at Liesel, “Don’t just stand there, get the extra blankets. Take them to your bed. And you!” Papa was next. “Help me pick him up and carry him to Liesel’s room. Schnell!”
Papa’s face was stretched with concern. His gray eyes clanged and he picked him up on his own. Max was light as a child. “Can’t we put him here, in our bed?”
Rosa had already considered that. “No. We have to keep these curtains open in the day or else it looks suspicious.”
“Good point.” Hans carried him out.
Blankets in hand, Liesel watched.
Limp feet and hanging hair in the hallway. One shoe had fallen off him.
“Move.”
Mama marched in behind them, in her waddlesome way.
Once Max was in the bed, blankets were heaped on top and fastened around his body.
“Mama?”
Liesel couldn’t bring herself to say anything else.
“What?” The bun of Rosa Hubermann’s hair was wound tight enough to frighten from behind. It seemed to tighten further when she repeated the question. “What, Liesel?”
She stepped closer, afraid of the answer. “Is he alive?”
The bun nodded.
Rosa turned then and said something with great assurance. “Now listen to me, Liesel. I didn’t take this man into my house to watch him die. Understand?”
Liesel nodded.
“Now go.”
In the hall, Papa hugged her.
She desperately needed it.
Later on, she heard Hans and Rosa speaking in the night. Rosa made her sleep in their room, and she lay next to their bed, on the floor, on the mattress they’d dragged up from the basement. (There was concern as to whether it was infected, but they came to the conclusion that such thoughts were unfounded. This was no virus Max was suffering from, so they carried it up and replaced the sheet.)
Imagining the girl to be asleep, Mama voiced her opinion.
“That damn snowman,” she whispered. “I bet it started with the snowman—fooling around with ice and snow in the cold down there.”