The Book Thief Part 29

With trepidation, the sheets and cans moved and the light was pa.s.sed out, exchanging hands. Looking at the flame, Hans shook his head and followed it with some words. "Es ist ja Wahnsinn, net? This is crazy, no?" Before the hand from within could reposition the sheets, he caught it. "Bring yourself, too. Please, Max."

Slowly then, the drop sheets were dragged aside and the emaciated body and face of Max Vandenburg appeared. In the moist light, he stood with a magic discomfort. He s.h.i.+vered.

Hans touched his arm, to bring him closer.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. You cannot stay down here. You'll freeze to death." He turned. "Liesel, fill up the tub. Not too hot. Make it just like it is when it starts cooling down."

Liesel ran up.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph."

She heard it again when she reached the hallway.

When he was in the pint-sized bath, Liesel listened at the washroom door, imagining the tepid water turning to steam as it warmed his iceberg body. Mama and Papa were at the climax of debate in the combined bedroom and living room, their quiet voices trapped inside the corridor wall.

"He'll die down there, I promise you."

"But what if someone sees in?"

"No, no, he only comes up at night. In the day, we leave everything open. Nothing to hide. And we use this room rather than the kitchen. Best to keep away from the front door."

Silence.

Then Mama. "All right ... Yes, you're right."

"If we gamble on a Jew," said Papa soon after, "I would prefer to gamble on a live one," and from that moment, a new routine was born.

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 cus.h.i.+on beneath his head, as the fire slipped away and turned to ash.

In the morning, he would return to the bas.e.m.e.nt.

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 bas.e.m.e.nt.

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 wis.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.sembled 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.

"Crucified Christ" was the most common reaction to Max Vandenburg's stories, usually followed by a question.

QUESTIONS LIKE.

How long did you stay in that room?

Where is Walter Kugler now?

Do you know what happened to your family?

Where was the snorer traveling to?

A 10-3 losing record!

Why would you keep fighting him?

When Liesel looked back on the events of her life, those nights in the living room were some of the clearest memories she had. She could see the burning light on Max's eggsh.e.l.l face and even taste the human flavor of his words. The course of his survival was related, piece by piece, as if he were cutting each part out of him and presenting it on a plate.

"I'm so selfish."

When he said that, he used his forearm to s.h.i.+eld his face. "Leaving people behind. Coming here. Putting all of you in danger ..." He dropped everything out of him and started pleading with them. Sorrow and desolation were clouted across his face. "I'm sorry. Do you believe me? I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm-!"

His arm touched the fire and he snapped it back.

They all watched him, silent, until Papa stood and walked closer. He sat next to him.

"Did you burn your elbow?"

One evening, Hans, Max, and Liesel were sitting in front of the fire. Mama was in the kitchen. Max was reading Mein Kampf again.

"You know something?" Hans said. He leaned toward the fire. "Liesel's actually a good little reader herself." Max lowered the book. "And she has more in common with you than you might think." Papa checked that Rosa wasn't coming. "She likes a good fistfight, too."

"Papa!"

Liesel, at the high end of eleven, and still rake-skinny as she sat against the wall, was devastated. "I've never been in a fight!"

"Shhh," Papa laughed. He waved at her to keep her voice down and tilted again, this time to the girl. "Well, what about the hiding you gave Ludwig Schmeikl, huh?"

"I never-" She was caught. Further denial was useless. "How did you find out about that?"

"I saw his papa at the Knoller."

Liesel held her face in her hands. Once uncovered again, she asked the pivotal question. "Did you tell Mama?"

"Are you kidding?" He winked at Max and whispered to the girl, "You're still alive, aren't you?"

That night was also the first time Papa played his accordion at home for months. It lasted half an hour or so until he asked a question of Max.

"Did you learn?"

The face in the corner watched the flames. "I did." There was a considerable pause. "Until I was nine. At that age, my mother sold the music studio and stopped teaching. She kept only the one instrument but gave up on me not long after I resisted the learning. I was foolish."

"No," Papa said. "You were a boy."

During the nights, both Liesel Meminger and Max Vandenburg would go about their other similarity. In their separate rooms, they would dream their nightmares and wake up, one with a scream in drowning sheets, the other with a gasp for air next to a smoking fire.

Sometimes, when Liesel was reading with Papa close to three o'clock, they would both hear the waking moment of Max. "He dreams like you," Papa would say, and on one occasion, stirred by the sound of Max's anxiety, Liesel decided to get out of bed. From listening to his history, she had a good idea of what he saw in those dreams, if not the exact part of the story that paid him a visit each night.

She made her way quietly down the hallway and into the living and bedroom.

"Max?"

The whisper was soft, clouded in the throat of sleep.