The Book Thief(37)

When Liesel left that day, she said something with great uneasiness. In translation, two giant words were struggled with, carried on her shoulder, and dropped as a bungling pair at Ilsa Hermanns feet. They fell off sideways as the girl veered with them and could no longer sustain their weight. Together, they sat on the floor, large and loud and clumsy.





TWO GIANTWORDS

IM SORRY





Again, the mayors wife watched the space next to her. A blank-page face.



For what? she asked, but time had elapsed by then. The girl was already well out of the room. She was nearly at the front door. When she heard it, Liesel stopped, but she chose not to go back, preferring to make her way noiselessly from the house and down the steps. She took in the view of Molching before disappearing down into it, and she pitied the mayors wife for quite a while.



At times, Liesel wondered if she should simply leave the woman alone, but Ilsa Hermann was too interesting, and the pull of the books was too strong. Once, words had rendered Liesel useless, but now, when she sat on the floor, with the mayors wife at her husbands desk, she felt an innate sense of power. It happened every time she deciphered a new word or pieced together a sentence.



She was a girl.



In Nazi Germany.



How fitting that she was discovering the power of words.



And how awful (and yet exhilarating!) it would feel many months later, when she would unleash the power of this newfound discovery the very moment the mayors wife let her down. How quickly the pity would leave her, and how quickly it would spill over into something else completely. . . .



Now, though, in the summer of 1940, she could not see what lay ahead, in more ways than one. She was witness only to a sorrowful woman with a roomful of books whom she enjoyed visiting. That was all. It was part two of her existence that summer.



Part three, thank God, was a little more lightheartedHimmel Street soccer.



Allow me to play you a picture:



Feet scuffing road.



The rush of boyish breath.



Shouted words: Here! This way! Scheisse!



The coarse bounce of ball on road.



All were present on Himmel Street, as well as the sound of apologies, as summer further intensified.



The apologies belonged to Liesel Meminger.



They were directed at Tommy Mller.



By the start of July, she finally managed to convince him that she wasnt going to kill him. Since the beating shed handed him the previous November, Tommy was still frightened to be around her. In the soccer meetings on Himmel Street, he kept well clear. You never know when she might snap, hed confided in Rudy, half twitching, half speaking.



In Liesels defense, she never gave up on trying to put him at ease. It disappointed her that shed successfully made peace with Ludwig Schmeikl and not with the innocent Tommy Mller. He still cowered slightly whenever he saw her.



How could I know you were smiling for me that day? she asked him repeatedly.



Shed even put in a few stints as goalie for him, until everyone else on the team begged him to go back in.



Get back in there! a boy named Harald Mollenhauer finally ordered him. Youre useless. This was after Tommy tripped him up as he was about to score. He would have awarded himself a penalty but for the fact that they were on the same side.



Liesel came back out and would somehow always end up opposing Rudy. They would tackle and trip each other, call each other names. Rudy would commentate: She cant get around him this time, the stupid Saumensch Arschgrobbler. She hasnt got a hope. He seemed to enjoy calling Liesel an ass scratcher. It was one of the joys of childhood.



Another of the joys, of course, was stealing. Part four, summer 1940.



In fairness, there were many things that brought Rudy and Liesel together, but it was the stealing that cemented their friendship completely. It was brought about by one opportunity, and it was driven by one inescapable forceRudys hunger. The boy was permanently dying for something to eat.



On top of the rationing situation, his fathers business wasnt doing so well of late (the threat of Jewish competition was taken away, but so were the Jewish customers). The Steiners were scratching things together to get by. Like many other people on the Himmel Street side of town, they needed to trade. Liesel would have given him some food from her place, but there wasnt an abundance of it there, either. Mama usually made pea soup. On Sunday nights she cooked itand not just enough for one or two repeat performances. She made enough pea soup to last until the following Saturday. Then on Sunday, shed cook another one. Pea soup, bread, sometimes a small portion of potatoes or meat. You ate it up and you didnt ask for more, and you didnt complain.



At first, they did things to try to forget about it.



Rudy wouldnt be hungry if they played soccer on the street. Or if they took bikes from his brother and sister and rode to Alex Steiners shop or visited Liesels papa, if he was working that particular day. Hans Hubermann would sit with them and tell jokes in the last light of afternoon.



With the arrival of a few hot days, another distraction was learning to swim in the Amper River. The water was still a little too cold, but they went anyway.