The Book Thief(5)

A few minutes later, Liesels mother started leaving with the priest. She was thanking him for his performance of the ceremony.



The girl, however, stayed.



Her knees entered the ground. Her moment had arrived.



Still in disbelief, she started to dig. He couldnt be dead. He couldnt be dead. He couldnt



Within seconds, snow was carved into her skin.



Frozen blood was cracked across her hands.



Somewhere in all the snow, she could see her broken heart, in two pieces. Each half was glowing, and beating under all that white. She realized her mother had come back for her only when she felt the boniness of a hand on her shoulder. She was being dragged away. A warm scream filled her throat.





A SMALL IMAGE, PERHAPS *

TWENTY METERS AWAY

When the dragging was done, the mother and

the girl stood and breathed.

There was something black and rectangular

lodged in the snow.

Only the girl saw it.

She bent down and picked it up and

held it firmly in her fingers.

The book had silver writing on it.





They held hands.



A final, soaking farewell was let go of, and they turned and left the cemetery, looking back several times.



As for me, I remained a few moments longer.



I waved.



No one waved back.



Mother and daughter vacated the cemetery and made their way toward the next train to Munich.



Both were skinny and pale.



Both had sores on their lips.



Liesel noticed it in the dirty, fogged-up window of the train when they boarded just before midday. In the written words of the book thief herself, the journey continued like everything had happened.



When the train pulled into the Bahnhof in Munich, the passengers slid out as if from a torn package. There were people of every stature, but among them, the poor were the most easily recognized. The impoverished always try to keep moving, as if relocating might help. They ignore the reality that a new version of the same old problem will be waiting at the end of the tripthe relative you cringe to kiss.



I think her mother knew this quite well. She wasnt delivering her children to the higher echelons of Munich, but a foster home had apparently been found, and if nothing else, the new family could at least feed the girl and the boy a little better, and educate them properly.



The boy.



Liesel was sure her mother carried the memory of him, slung over her shoulder. She dropped him. She saw his feet and legs and body slap the platform.



How could that woman walk?



How could she move?



Thats the sort of thing Ill never know, or comprehendwhat humans are capable of.



She picked him up and continued walking, the girl clinging now to her side.



Authorities were met and questions of lateness and the boy raised their vulnerable heads. Liesel remained in the corner of the small, dusty office as her mother sat with clenched thoughts on a very hard chair.



There was the chaos of goodbye.



It was a goodbye that was wet, with the girls head buried into the woolly, worn shallows of her mothers coat. There had been some more dragging.



Quite a way beyond the outskirts of Munich, there was a town called Molching, said best by the likes of you and me as Molking. Thats where they were taking her, to a street by the name of Himmel.





A TRANSLATION

Himmel = Heaven





Whoever named Himmel Street certainly had a healthy sense of irony. Not that it was a living hell. It wasnt. But it sure as hell wasnt heaven, either.



Regardless, Liesels foster parents were waiting.



The Hubermanns.



Theyd been expecting a girl and a boy and would be paid a small allowance for having them. Nobody wanted to be the one to tell Rosa Hubermann that the boy didnt survive the trip. In fact, no one ever really wanted to tell her anything. As far as dispositions go, hers wasnt really enviable, although she had a good record with foster kids in the past. Apparently, shed straightened a few out.



For Liesel, it was a ride in a car.



Shed never been in one before.



There was the constant rise and fall of her stomach, and the futile hopes that theyd lose their way or change their minds. Among it all, her thoughts couldnt help turning toward her mother, back at the Bahnhof, waiting to leave again. Shivering. Bundled up in that useless coat. Shed be eating her nails, waiting for the train. The platform would be long and uncomfortablea slice of cold cement. Would she keep an eye out for the approximate burial site of her son on the return trip? Or would sleep be too heavy?



The car moved on, with Liesel dreading the last, lethal turn.



The day was gray, the color of Europe.



Curtains of rain were drawn around the car.



Nearly there. The foster care lady, Frau Heinrich, turned around and smiled. Dein neues Heim. Your new home.



Liesel made a clear circle on the dribbled glass and looked out.