Each night, the fire was lit in Mama and Papa’s room, and Max would silently appear. He would sit in the corner, cramped and perplexed, most likely by the kindness of the people, the torment of survival, and overriding all of it, the brilliance of the warmth.
With the curtains clamped tight, he would sleep on the floor with a cushion beneath his head, as the fire slipped away and turned to ash.
In the morning, he would return to the basement.
A voiceless human.
The Jewish rat, back to his hole.
Christmas came and went with the smell of extra danger. As expected, Hans Junior did not come home (both a blessing and an ominous disappointment), but Trudy arrived as usual, and fortunately, things went smoothly.
THE QUALITIES OF SMOOTHNESS
Max remained in the basement.
Trudy came and went without any suspicion.
• • •
It was decided that Trudy, despite her mild demeanor, could not be trusted.
“We trust only the people we have to,” Papa stated, “and that is the three of us.”
There was extra food and the apology to Max that this was not his religion, but a ritual nonetheless.
He didn’t complain.
What grounds did he have?
He explained that he was a Jew in upbringing, in blood, but also that Jewry was now more than ever a label—a ruinous piece of the dumbest luck around.
It was then that he also took the opportunity to say he was sorry that the Hubermanns’ son had not come home. In response, Papa told him that such things were out of their control. “After all,” he said, “you should know it yourself—a young man is still a boy, and a boy sometimes has the right to be stubborn.”
They left it at that.
For the first few weeks in front of the fire, Max remained wordless. Now that he was having a proper bath once a week, Liesel noticed that his hair was no longer a nest of twigs, but rather a collection of feathers, flopping about on his head. Still shy of the stranger, she whispered it to her papa.
“His hair is like feathers.”
“What?” The fire had distorted the words.
“I said,” she whispered again, leaning closer, “his hair is like feathers ….”
Hans Hubermann looked across and nodded his agreement. I’m sure he was wishing to have eyes like the girl. They didn’t realize that Max had heard everything.
Occasionally he brought the copy of Mein Kampf and read it next to the flames, seething at the content. The third time he brought it, Liesel finally found the courage to ask her question.
“Is it—good?”
He looked up from the pages, forming his fingers into a fist and then flattening them back out. Sweeping away the anger, he smiled at her. He lifted the feathery fringe and dumped it toward his eyes. “It’s the best book ever.” Looking at Papa, then back at the girl. “It saved my life.”
The girl moved a little and crossed her legs. Quietly, she asked it.
“How?”
So began a kind of storytelling phase in the living room each night. It was spoken just loud enough to hear. The pieces of a Jewish fist-fighting puzzle were assembled before them all.
Sometimes there was humor in Max Vandenburg’s voice, though its physicality was like friction—like a stone being gently rubbed across a large rock. It was deep in places and scratched apart in others, sometimes breaking off altogether. It was deepest in regret, and broken off at the end of a joke or a statement of self-deprecation.