Sorrow filled with longing,
disappointment, or loss.
Related words: rue, repent,
mourn, grieve.
“Do you see him?” he asked her one afternoon, when she leaned with him. “In the water there?”
The river was not running very fast. In the slow ripples, Liesel could see the outline of Max Vandenburg’s face. She could see his feathery hair and the rest of him. “He used to fight the Führer in our basement.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” Papa’s hands tightened on the splintery wood. “I’m an idiot.”
No, Papa.
You’re just a man.
The words came to her more than a year later, when she wrote in the basement. She wished she’d thought of them at the time.
“I am stupid,” Hans Hubermann told his foster daughter. “And kind. Which makes the biggest idiot in the world. The thing is, I want them to come for me. Anything’s better than this waiting.”
Hans Hubermann needed vindication. He needed to know that Max Vandenburg had left his house for good reason.
Finally, after nearly three weeks of waiting, he thought his moment had come.
It was late.
Liesel was returning from Frau Holtzapfel’s when she saw the two men in their long black coats, and she ran inside.
“Papa, Papa!” She nearly wiped out the kitchen table. “Papa, they’re here!”
Mama came first. “What’s all this shouting about, Saumensch? Who’s here?”
“The Gestapo.”
“Hansi!”
He was already there, and he walked out of the house to greet them. Liesel wanted to join him, but Rosa held her back and they watched from the window.
Papa was poised at the front gate. He fidgeted.
Mama tightened her grip on Liesel’s arms.
The men walked past.
• • •
Papa looked back at the window, alarmed, then made his way out of the gate. He called after them. “Hey! I’m right here. It’s me you want. I live in this one.”
The coat men only stopped momentarily and checked their notebooks. “No, no,” they told him. Their voices were deep and bulky. “Unfortunately, you’re a little old for our purposes.”
They continued walking, but they did not travel very far, stopping at number thirty-five and proceeding through the open gate.
“Frau Steiner?” they asked when the door was opened.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“We’ve come to talk to you about something.”