The Book Thief(119)

Despite Rudys advice, Liesel came even closer, and I can promise you that we recognized each other at that exact moment.



I know you, I thought.



There was a train and a coughing boy. There was snow and a distraught girl.



Youve grown, I thought, but I recognize you.



She did not back away or try to fight me, but I know that something told the girl I was there. Could she smell my breath? Could she hear my cursed circular heartbeat, revolving like the crime it is in my deathly chest? I dont know, but she knew me and she looked me in my face and she did not look away.



As the sky began to charcoal toward light, we both moved on. We both observed the boy as he reached into his toolbox again and searched through some picture frames to pull out a small, stuffed yellow toy.



Carefully, he climbed to the dying man.



He placed the smiling teddy bear cautiously onto the pilots shoulder. The tip of its ear touched his throat.



The dying man breathed it in. He spoke. In English, he said, Thank you. His straight-line cuts opened as he spoke, and a small drop of blood rolled crookedly down his throat.



What? Rudy asked him. Was hast du gesagt? What did you say?



Unfortunately, I beat him to the answer. The time was there and I was reaching into the cockpit. I slowly extracted the pilots soul from his ruffled uniform and rescued him from the broken plane. The crowd played with the silence as I made my way through. I jostled free.



Above me, the sky eclipsedjust a last moment of darkness and I swear I could see a black signature in the shape of a swastika. It loitered untidily above.



Heil Hitler, I said, but I was well into the trees by then. Behind me, a teddy bear rested on the shoulder of a corpse. A lemon candle stood below the branches. The pilots soul was in my arms.



Its probably fair to say that in all the years of Hitlers reign, no person was able to serve the Fhrer as loyally as me. A human doesnt have a heart like mine. The human heart is a line, whereas my own is a circle, and I have the endless ability to be in the right place at the right time. The consequence of this is that Im always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both. Still, they have one thing I envy. Humans, if nothing else, have the good sense to die.





HOMECOMING





It was a time of bleeders and broken planes and teddy bears, but the first quarter of 1943 was to finish on a positive note for the book thief.



At the beginning of April, Hans Hubermanns plaster was trimmed to the knee and he boarded a train for Munich. He would be given a week of rest and recreation at home before joining the ranks of army pen pushers in the city. He would help with the paperwork on the cleanup of Munichs factories, houses, churches, and hospitals. Time would tell if he would be sent out to do the repair work. That all depended on his leg and the state of the city.



It was dark when he arrived home. It was a day later than expected, as the train was delayed due to an air-raid scare. He stood at the door of 33 Himmel Street and made a fist.



Four years earlier, Liesel Meminger was coaxed through that doorway when she showed up for the first time. Max Vandenburg had stood there with a key biting into his hand. Now it was Hans Hubermanns turn. He knocked four times and the book thief answered.



Papa, Papa.



She must have said it a hundred times as she hugged him in the kitchen and wouldnt let go.



Later, after they ate, they sat at the kitchen table long into the night and Hans told his wife and Liesel Meminger everything. He explained the LSE and the smoke-filled streets and the poor, lost, wandering souls. And Reinhold Zucker. Poor, stupid Reinhold Zucker. It took hours.



At 1 a.m., Liesel went to bed and Papa came in to sit with her, like he used to. She woke up several times to check that he was there, and he did not fail her.



The night was calm.



Her bed was warm and soft with contentment.



Yes, it was a great night to be Liesel Meminger, and the calm, the warm, and the soft would remain for approximately three more months.



But her story lasts for six.





PART TEN





the book thief





featuring:

the end of a worldthe ninety-eighth day

a war makerway of the wordsa catatonic girl

confessionsilsa hermanns little black book

some rib-cage planesand a mountain range of rubble





THE END OF THE WORLD (Part I)





Again, I offer you a glimpse of the end. Perhaps its to soften the blow for later, or to better prepare myself for the telling. Either way, I must inform you that it was raining on Himmel Street when the world ended for Liesel Meminger.



The sky was dripping.



Like a tap that a child has tried its hardest to turn off but hasnt quite managed. The first drops were cool. I felt them on my hands as I stood outside Frau Dillers.



Above me, I could hear them.



Through the overcast sky, I looked up and saw the tin-can planes. I watched their stomachs open and the bombs drop casually out. They were off target, of course. They were often off target.