The Book Thief

Be careful.

Midway through May 1940, Mein Kampf arrived, with a key taped to the inside cover.

The man’s a genius, Max decided, but there was still a shudder when he thought about traveling to Munich. Clearly, he wished, along with the other parties involved, that the journey would not have to be made at all.

You don’t always get what you wish for.

Especially in Nazi Germany.

Again, time passed.

The war expanded.

Max remained hidden from the world in another empty room.

Until the inevitable.

Walter was notified that he was being sent to Poland, to continue the assertion of Germany’s authority over both the Poles and Jews alike. One was not much better than the other. The time had come.

Max made his way to Munich and Molching, and now he sat in a stranger’s kitchen, asking for the help he craved and suffering the condemnation he felt he deserved.

Hans Hubermann shook his hand and introduced himself.

He made him some coffee in the dark.

The girl had been gone quite a while, but now some more footsteps had approached arrival. The wildcard.

In the darkness, all three of them were completely isolated. They all stared. Only the woman spoke.

THE WRATH OF ROSA

Liesel had drifted back to sleep when the unmistakable voice of Rosa Hubermann entered the kitchen. It shocked her awake.

“Was ist los?”

Curiosity got the better of her then, as she imagined a tirade thrown down from the wrath of Rosa. There was definite movement and the shuffle of a chair.

After ten minutes of excruciating discipline, Liesel made her way to the corridor, and what she saw truly amazed her, because Rosa Hubermann was at Max Vandenburg’s shoulder, watching him gulp down her infamous pea soup. Candlelight was standing at the table. It did not waver.

Mama was grave.

Her plump figure glowed with worry.

Somehow, though, there was also a look of triumph on her face, and it was not the triumph of having saved another human being from persecution. It was something more along the lines of, See? At least he’s not complaining. She looked from the soup to the Jew to the soup.

When she spoke again, she asked only if he wanted more.

Max declined, preferring instead to rush to the sink and vomit. His back convulsed and his arms were well spread. His fingers gripped the metal.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Rosa muttered. “Another one.”

Turning around, Max apologized. His words were slippery and small, quelled by the acid. “I’m sorry. I think I ate too much. My stomach, you know, it’s been so long since … I don’t think it can handle such—”

“Move,” Rosa ordered him. She started cleaning up.

When she was finished, she found the young man at the kitchen table, utterly morose. Hans was sitting opposite, his hands cupped above the sheet of wood.

Liesel, from the hallway, could see the drawn face of the stranger, and behind it, the worried expression scribbled like a mess onto Mama.