The Book Thief

“Mama?”

“Quiet, Saumensch. Go and get the book.” Mama faced Frau Holtzapfel again. “What days suit you?”

“Monday and Friday, four o’clock. And today, right now.”

Liesel followed the regimented footsteps to Frau Holtzapfel’s lodging next door, which was a mirror image of the Hubermanns’. If anything, it was slightly larger.

When she sat down at the kitchen table, Frau Holtzapfel sat directly in front of her but faced the window. “Read,” she said.

“Chapter two?”

“No, chapter eight. Of course chapter two! Now get reading before I throw you out.”

“Yes, Frau Holtzapfel.”

“Never mind the ‘yes, Frau Holtzapfels.’ Just open the book. We don’t have all day.”

Good God, Liesel thought. This is my punishment for all that stealing. It’s finally caught up with me.

She read for forty-five minutes, and when the chapter was finished, a bag of coffee was deposited on the table.

“Thank you,” the woman said. “It’s a good story.” She turned toward the stove and started on some potatoes. Without looking back, she said, “Are you still here, are you?”

Liesel took that as her cue to leave. “Danke schön, Frau Holtzapfel.” By the door, when she saw the framed photos of two young men in military uniform, she also threw in a “heil Hitler,” her arm raised in the kitchen.

“Yes.” Frau Holtzapfel was proud and afraid. Two sons in Russia. “Heil Hitler.” She put her water down to boil and even found the manners to walk the few steps with Liesel to the front door. “Bis morgen?”

The next day was Friday. “Yes, Frau Holtzapfel. Until tomorrow.”

Liesel calculated that there were four more reading sessions like that with Frau Holtzapfel before the Jews were marched through Molching.

They were going to Dachau, to concentrate.

That makes two weeks, she would later write in the basement. Two weeks to change the world, and fourteen days to ruin it.

THE LONG WALK TO DACHAU

Some people said that the truck had broken down, but I can personally testify that this was not the case. I was there.

What had happened was an ocean sky, with whitecap clouds.

Also, there was more than just the one vehicle. Three trucks don’t all break down at once.

When the soldiers pulled over to share some food and cigarettes and to poke at the package of Jews, one of the prisoners collapsed from starvation and sickness. I have no idea where the convoy had traveled from, but it was perhaps four miles from Molching, and many steps more to the concentration camp at Dachau.

I climbed through the windshield of the truck, found the diseased man, and jumped out the back. His soul was skinny. His beard was a ball and chain. My feet landed loudly in the gravel, though not a sound was heard by a soldier or prisoner. But they could all smell me.

Recollection tells me that there were many wishes in the back of that truck. Inner voices called out to me.

Why him and not me?

Thank God it isn’t me.

The soldiers, on the other hand, were occupied with a different discussion. The leader squashed his cigarette and asked the others a smoggy question. “When was the last time we took these rats for some fresh air?”

His first lieutenant choked back a cough. “They could sure use it, couldn’t they?”

“Well, how about it, then? We’ve got time, don’t we?”