While Liesel worked, Rudy ran.
He did laps of Hubert Oval, ran around the block, and raced almost everyone from the bottom of Himmel Street to Frau Diller’s, giving varied head starts.
On a few occasions, when Liesel was helping Mama in the kitchen, Rosa would look out the window and say, “What’s that little Saukerl up to this time? All that running out there.”
Liesel would move to the window. “At least he hasn’t painted himself black again.”
“Well, that’s something, isn’t it?”
RUDY’S REASONS
In the middle of August, a Hitler Youth
carnival was being held, and Rudy was
intent on winning four events: the 1500,
400, 200, and of course, the 100. He liked
his new Hitler Youth leaders and wanted to
please them, and he wanted to show his old
friend Franz Deutscher a thing or two.
• • •
“Four gold medals,” he said to Liesel one afternoon when she did laps with him at Hubert Oval. “Like Jesse Owens back in '36.”
“You’re not still obsessed with him, are you?”
Rudy’s feet rhymed with his breathing. “Not really, but it would be nice, would
n’t it? It would show all those bastards who said I was crazy. They’d see that I wasn’t so stupid after all.”
“But can you really win all four events?”
They slowed to a stop at the end of the track, and Rudy placed his hands on his hips. “I have to.”
For six weeks, he trained, and when the day of the carnival arrived in mid-August, the sky was hot-sunned and cloudless. The grass was overrun with Hitler Youths, parents, and a glut of brown-shirted leaders. Rudy Steiner was in peak condition.
“Look,” he pointed out. “There’s Deutscher.”
Through the clusters of crowd, the blond epitome of Hitler Youth standards was giving instructions to two members of his division. They were nodding and occasionally stretching. One of them shielded his eyes from the sun like a salute.
“You want to say hello?” Liesel asked.
“No thanks. I’ll do that later.”
When I’ve won.
The words were not spoken, but they were definitely there, somewhere between Rudy’s blue eyes and Deutscher’s advisory hands.
There was the obligatory march around the grounds.
The anthem.
Heil Hitler.