Just as it made its way to Rudy Steiner’s lips, it was snatched away by his father. “Not you, Jesse Owens.”
The children hugged their parents, and it took many minutes for all of them to fully realize that they
were alive, and that they were going to be alive. Only then did their feet climb the stairs, to Herbert Fiedler’s kitchen.
Outside, a procession of people made its way silently along the street. Many of them looked up and thanked God for their lives.
When the Hubermanns made it home, they headed directly to the basement, but it seemed that Max was not there. The lamp was small and orange and they could not see him or hear an answer.
“Max?”
“He’s disappeared.”
“Max, are you there?”
“I’m here.”
They originally thought the words had come from behind the drop sheets and paint cans, but Liesel was first to see him, in front of them. His jaded face was camouflaged among the painting materials and fabric. He was sitting there with stunned eyes and lips.
When they walked across, he spoke again.
“I couldn’t help it,” he said.
It was Rosa who replied. She crouched down to face him. “What are you talking about, Max?”
“I …” He struggled to answer. “When everything was quiet, I went up to the corridor and the curtain in the living room was open just a crack …. I could see outside. I watched, only for a few seconds.” He had not seen the outside world for twenty-two months.
There was no anger or reproach.
It was Papa who spoke.
“How did it look?”
Max lifted his head, with great sorrow and great astonishment. “There were stars,” he said. “They burned my eyes.”
Four of them.
Two people on their feet. The other two remained seated.
All had seen a thing or two that night.
This place was the real basement. This was the real fear. Max gathered himself and stood to move back behind the sheets. He wished them good night, but he didn’t make it beneath the stairs. With Mama’s permission, Liesel stayed with him till morning, reading A Song in the Dark as he sketched and wrote in his book.
From a Himmel Street window, he wrote, the stars set fire to my eyes.
THE SKY STEALER
The first raid, as it turned out, was not a raid at all. Had people waited to see the planes, they would have stood there all night. That accounted for the fact that no cuckoo had called from the radio. The Molching Express reported that a certain flak tower operator had become a little overexcited. He’d sworn that he could hear the rattle of planes and see them on the horizon. He sent the word.
“He might have done it on purpose,” Hans Hubermann pointed out. “Would you want to sit in a flak tower, shooting up at planes carrying bombs?”
Sure enough, as Max continued reading the article in the basement, it was reported that the man with the outlandish imagination had been stood down from his original duty. His fate was most likely some sort of service elsewhere.
“Good luck to him,” Max said. He seemed to understand as he moved on to the crossword.
The next raid was real.
On the night of September 19, the cuckoo called from the radio, and it was followed by a deep, informative voice. It listed Molching as a possible target.