The Book Thief(114)

Her son was dead.



But that was only the half of it.



She would never really know how it occurred, but I can tell you without question that one of us here knows. I always seem to know what happened when there was snow and guns and the various confusions of human language.



When I imagine Frau Holtzapfels kitchen from the book thiefs words, I dont see the stove or the wooden spoons or the water pump, or anything of the sort. Not to begin with, anyway. What I see is the Russian winter and the snow falling from the ceiling, and the fate of Frau Holtzapfels second son.



His name was Robert, and what happened to him was this.





A SMALL WAR STORY

His legs were blown off at the

shins and he died with his

brother watching in a cold,

stench-filled hospital.





It was Russia, January 5, 1943, and just another icy day. Out among the city and snow, there were dead Russians and Germans everywhere. Those who remained were firing into the blank pages in front of them. Three languages interwove. The Russian, the bullets, the German.



As I made my way through the fallen souls, one of the men was saying, My stomach is itchy. He said it many times over. Despite his shock, he crawled up ahead, to a dark, disfigured figure who sat streaming on the ground. When the soldier with the wounded stomach arrived, he could see that it was Robert Holtzapfel. His hands were caked in blood and he was heaping snow onto the area just above his shins, where his legs had been chopped off by the last explosion. There were hot hands and a red scream.



Steam rose from the ground. The sight and smell of rotting snow.



Its me, the soldier said to him. Its Pieter. He dragged himself a few inches closer.



Pieter? Robert asked, a vanishing voice. He must have felt me nearby.



A second time. Pieter?



For some reason, dying men always ask questions they know the answer to. Perhaps its so they can die being right.



The voices suddenly all sounded the same.



Robert Holtzapfel collapsed to his right, onto the cold and steamy ground.



Im sure he expected to meet me there and then.



He didnt.



Unfortunately for the young German, I did not take him that afternoon. I stepped over him with the other poor souls in my arms and made my way back to the Russians.



Back and forth, I traveled.



Disassembled men.



It was no ski trip, I can tell you.



As Michael told his mother, it was three very long days later that I finally came for the soldier who left his feet behind in Stalingrad. I showed up very much invited at the temporary hospital and flinched at the smell.



A man with a bandaged hand was telling the mute, shock-faced soldier that he would survive. Youll soon be going home, he assured him.



Yes, home, I thought. For good.



Ill wait for you, he continued. I was going back at the end of the week, but Ill wait.



In the middle of his brothers next sentence, I gathered up the soul of Robert Holtzapfel.



Usually I need to exert myself, to look through the ceiling when Im inside, but I was lucky in that particular building. A small section of the roof had been destroyed and I could see straight up. A meter away, Michael Holtzapfel was still talking. I tried to ignore him by watching the hole above me. The sky was white but deteriorating fast. As always, it was becoming an enormous drop sheet. Blood was bleeding through, and in patches, the clouds were dirty, like footprints in melting snow.



Footprints? you ask.



Well, I wonder whose those could be.



In Frau Holtzapfels kitchen, Liesel read. The pages waded by unheard, and for me, when the Russian scenery fades in my eyes, the snow refuses to stop falling from the ceiling. The kettle is covered, as is the table. The humans, too, are wearing patches of snow on their heads and shoulders.



The brother shivers.



The woman weeps.



And the girl goes on reading, for thats why shes there, and it feels good to be good for something in the aftermath of the snows of Stalingrad.





THE AGELESS BROTHER





Liesel Meminger was a few weeks short of fourteen.



Her papa was still away.



Shed completed three more reading sessions with a devastated woman. On many nights, shed watched Rosa sit with the accordion and pray with her chin on top of the bellows.



Now, she thought, its time. Usually it was stealing that cheered her up, but on this day, it was giving something back.



She reached under her bed and removed the plate. As quickly as she could, she cleaned it in the kitchen and made her way out. It felt nice to be walking up through Molching. The air was sharp and flat, like the Watschen of a sadistic teacher or nun. Her shoes were the only sound on Munich Street.



As she crossed the river, a rumor of sunshine stood behind the clouds.



At 8 Grande Strasse, she walked up the steps, left the plate by the front door, and knocked, and by the time the door was opened, the girl was around the corner. Liesel did not look back, but she knew that if she did, shed have found her brother at the bottom of the steps again, his knee completely healed. She could even hear his voice.