Don’t make me happy. Please, don’t fill me up and let me think that something good can come of any of this. Look at my bruises. Look at this graze. Do you see the graze inside me? Do you see it growing before your very eyes, eroding me? I don’t want to hope for anything anymore. I don’t want to pray that Max is alive and safe. Or Alex Steiner.

Because the world does not deserve them.

She tore a page from the book and ripped it in half.

Then a chapter.

Soon, there was nothing but scraps of words littered between her legs and all around her. The words. Why did they have to exist? Without them, there wouldn’t be any of this. Without words, the Führer was nothing. There would be no limping prisoners, no need for consolation or wordly tricks to make us feel better.

What good were the words?

She said it audibly now, to the orange-lit room. “What good are the words?”

The book thief stood and walked carefully to the library door. Its protest was small and halfhearted. The airy hallway was steeped in wooden emptiness.

“Frau Hermann?”

The question came back at her and tried for another surge to the front door. It made it only halfway, landing weakly on a couple of fat floorboards.

“Frau Hermann?”

The calls were greeted with nothing but silence, and she was tempted to seek out the kitchen, for Rudy. She refrained. It wouldn’t have felt right to steal food from a woman who had left her a dictionary against a windowpane. That, and she had also just destroyed one of her books, page by page, chapter by chapter. She’d done enough damage as it was.

Liesel returned to the library and opened one of the desk drawers. She sat down.

THE LAST LETTER

Dear Mrs. Hermann,

As you can see, I have been in your library again and I have ruined one of your books. I was just so angry and afraid and I wanted to kill the words. I have stolen from you and now I’ve wrecked your property. I’m sorry. To punish myself, I think I will stop coming here. Or is it punishment at all? I love this place and hate it, because it is full of words.

You have been a friend to me even though I hurt you, even though I have been insufferable (a word I looked up in your dictionary), and I think I will leave you alone now. I’m sorry for everything.

Thank you again.

Liesel Meminger

She left the note on the desk and gave the room a last goodbye, doing three laps and running her hands over the titles. As much as she hated them, she couldn’t resist. Flakes of torn-up paper were strewn around a book called The Rules of Tommy Hoffmann. In the breeze from the window, a few of its shreds rose and fell.

The light was still orange, but it was not as lustrous as earlier. Her hands felt their final grip of the wooden window frame, and there was the last rush of a plunging stomach, and the pang of pain in her feet when she landed.

By the time she made it down the hill and across the bridge, the orange light had vanished. Clouds were mopping up.

When she walked down Himmel Street, she could already feel the first drops of rain. I will never see Ilsa Hermann again, she thought, but the book thief was better at reading and ruining books than making assumptions.

THREE DAYS LATER

The woman has knocked at number

thirty-three and waits for a reply.

It was strange for Liesel to see her without the bathrobe. The summer dress was yellow with red trim. There was a pocket with a small flower on it. No swastikas. Black shoes. Never before had she noticed Ilsa Hermann’s shins. She had porcelain legs.

“Frau Hermann, I’m sorry—for what I did the last time in the library.”

The woman quieted her. She reached into her bag

and pulled out a small black book. Inside was not a story, but lined paper. “I thought if you’re not going to read any more of my books, you might like to write one instead. Your letter, it was …” She handed the book to Liesel with both hands. “You can certainly write. You write well.” The book was heavy, the cover matted like The Shoulder Shrug. “And please,” Ilsa Hermann advised her, “don’t punish yourself, like you said you would. Don’t be like me, Liesel.”

Tags: Markus Zusak Historical
Source: readsnovelonline.net