“It’s not your fault,” Mama said, and she even stood and stroked Liesel’s waxy, unwashed hair. “I know you wouldn’t say those things.”
“I said them!”
“All right, you said them.”
As Liesel left the room, she could hear the wooden spoons clicking back into position in the metal jar that held them. By the time she reached her bedroom, the whole lot of them, the jar included, were thrown to the floor.
Later, she walked down to the basement, where Max was standing in the dark, most likely boxing with the Führer.
“Max?” The light dimmed on—a red coin, floating in the corner. “Can you teach me how to do the push-ups?”
Max showed her and occasionally lifted her torso to help, but despite her bony appearance, Liesel was strong and could hold her body weight nicely. She didn’t count how many she could do, but that night, in the glow of the basement, the book thief completed enough pushups to make her hurt for several days. Even when Max advised her that she’d already done too many, she continued.
In bed, she read with Papa, who could tell something was wrong. It was the first time in a month that he’d come in and sat with her, and she was comforted, if only slightly. Somehow, Hans Hubermann always knew what to say, when to stay, and when to leave her be. Perhaps Liesel was the one thing he was a true expert at.
“Is it the washing?” he asked.
Liesel shook her head.
Papa hadn’t shaved for a few days and he rubbed the scratchy whiskers every two or three minutes. His silver eyes were flat and calm, slightly warm, as they always were when it came to Liesel.
When the reading petered out, Papa fell asleep. It was then that Liesel spoke what she’d wanted to say all along.
“Papa,” she whispered, “I think I’m going to hell.”
Her legs were warm. Her knees were cold.
She remembered the nights when she’d wet the bed and Papa had washed the sheets and taught her the letters of the alphabet. Now his breathing blew across the blanket and she kissed his scratchy cheek.
“You need a shave,” she said.
“You’re not going to hell,” Papa replied.
For a few moments, she watched his face. Then she lay back down, leaned on him, and together, they slept, very much in Munich, but somewhere on the seventh side of Germany’s die.
RUDY’S YOUTH
In the end, she had to give it to him.
He knew how to perform.
A PORTRAIT OF RUDY STEINER:
JULY 1941
Strings of mud clench his face. His tie
is a pendulum, long dead in its clock.
His lemon, lamp-lit hair is disheveled
and he wears a sad, absurd smile.
He stood a few meters from the step and spoke with great conviction, great joy.
“Alles ist Scheisse,” he announced.
All is shit.