“They’re not moving,” she said quietly. “They’re not moving.”
Perhaps if she stood still long enough, it would be they who moved, but they remained motionless for as long as Liesel did. I realized at that moment that she was not wearing any shoes. What an odd thing to notice right then. Perhaps I was trying to avoid her face, for the book thief was truly an irretrievable mess.
She took a step and didn’t want to take any more, but she did. Slowly, Liesel walked to her mama and papa and sat down between them. She held Mama’s hand and began speaking to her. “Remember when I came here, Mama? I clung to the gate and cried. Do you remember what you said to everyone on the street that day?” Her voice wavered now. “You said, ‘What are you assholes looking at?’” She took Mama’s hand and touched her wrist. “Mama, I know that you … I liked when you came to school and told me Max had woken up. Did you know I saw you with Papa’s accordion?” She tightened her grip on the hardening hand. “I came and watched and you were beautiful. Goddamn it, you were so beautiful, Mama.”
MANY MOMENTS OF AVOIDANCE
Papa. She would not, and
could not, look at Papa.
Not yet. Not now.
Papa was a man with silver eyes, not dead ones.
Papa was an accordion!
But his bellows were all empty.
Nothing went in and nothing came out.
She began to rock back and forth. A shrill, quiet, smearing note was caught somewhere in her mouth until she was finally able to turn.
To Papa.
At that point, I couldn’t help it. I walked around to see her better, and from the moment I witnessed her face again, I could tell that this was who she loved the most. Her expression stroked the man on his face. It followed one of the lines down his cheek. He had sat in the washroom with her and taught her how to roll a cigarette. He gave bread to a dead man on Munich Street and told the girl to keep reading in the bomb shelter. Perhaps if he didn’t, she might not have ended up writing in the basement.
Papa—the accordionist—and Himmel Street.
One could not exist without the other, because for Liesel, both were home. Yes, that’s what Hans Hubermann was for Liesel Meminger.
She turned around and spoke to the LSE.
“Please,” she said, “my papa’s accordion. Could you get it for me?”
After a few minutes of confusion, an older member brought the eaten case and Liesel opened it. She removed the injured instrument and laid it next to Papa’s body. “Here, Papa.”
And I can promise you something, because it was a thing I saw many years later—a vision in the book thief herself—that as she knelt next to Hans Hubermann, she watched him stand and play the accordion. He stood and strapped it on in the alps of broken houses and played the accordion with kindness silver eyes and even a cigarette slouched on his lips. He even made a mistake and laughed in lovely hindsight. The bellows breathed and the tall man played for Liesel Meminger one last time as the sky was slowly taken from the stove.
Keep playing, Papa.
Papa stopped.
He dropped the accordion and his silver eyes continued to rust. There was only a body now, on the ground, and Liesel lifted him up and hugged him. She wept over the shoulder of Hans Hubermann.
Goodbye, Papa, you saved me. You taught me to read. No one can play like you. I’ll never drink champagne. No one can play like you.
Her arms held him. She kissed his shoulder—she couldn’t bear to look at his face anymore—and she placed him down again.
The book thief wept till she was gently taken away.
Later, they remembered the accordion but no one noticed the book.
There was much work to be done, and with a collection of other materials, The Book Thief was stepped on several times and eventually picked up without even a glance and thrown aboard a garbage truck. Just before the truck left, I climbed quickly up and took it in my hand ….
It’s lucky I was there.
Then again, who am I kidding? I’m in most places at least once, and in 1943, I was just about everywhere.