The Book Thief(62)

For what?



Max corrected her. Not for what. For whom.



For a few moments, Liesel said nothing. It was one of those conversations that require some time to elapse between exchanges. Who do you wait for?



Max did not move. The Fhrer. He was very matter-of-fact about this. Thats why Im in training.



The push-ups?



Thats right. He walked to the concrete stairway. Every night, I wait in the dark and the Fhrer comes down these steps. He walks down and he and I, we fight for hours.



Liesel was standing now. Who wins?



At first, he was going to answer that no one did, but then he noticed the paint cans, the drop sheets, and the growing pile of newspapers in the periphery of his vision. He watched the words, the long cloud, and the figures on the wall.



I do, he said.



It was as though hed opened her palm, given her the words, and closed it up again.



Under the ground, in Molching, Germany, two people stood and spoke in a basement. It sounds like the beginning of a joke:



Theres a Jew and a German standing in a basement, right? . . .



This, however, was no joke.





The Painters: Early June





Another of Maxs projects was the remainder of Mein Kampf. Each page was gently stripped from the book and laid out on the floor to receive a coat of paint. It was then hung up to dry and replaced between the front and back covers. When Liesel came down one day after school, she found Max, Rosa, and her papa all painting the various pages. Many of them were already hanging from a drawn-out string with pegs, just as they must have done for The Standover Man.



All three people looked up and spoke.



Hi, Liesel.



Heres a brush, Liesel.



About time, Saumensch. Where have you been so long?



As she started painting, Liesel thought about Max Vandenburg fighting the Fhrer, exactly as hed explained it.





BASEMENT VISIONS, JUNE 1941

Punches are thrown, the crowd climbs out of

the walls. Max and the Fhrer fight for their

lives, each rebounding off the stairway.

Theres blood in the Fhrer s mustache, as

well as in his part line, on the right side

of his head. Come on, Fhrer, says the

Jew. He waves him forward. Come on, Fhrer.





When the visions dissipated and she finished her first page, Papa winked at her. Mama castigated her for hogging the paint. Max examined each and every page, perhaps watching what he planned to produce on them. Many months later, he would also paint over the cover of that book and give it a new title, after one of the stories he would write and illustrate inside it.



That afternoon, in the secret ground below 33 Himmel Street, the Hubermanns, Liesel Meminger, and Max Vandenburg prepared the pages of The Word Shaker.



It felt good to be a painter.





The Showdown: June 24





Then came the seventh side of the die. Two days after Germany invaded Russia. Three days before Britain and the Soviets joined forces.



Seven.



You roll and watch it coming, realizing completely that this is no regular die. You claim it to be bad luck, but youve known all along that it had to come. You brought it into the room. The table could smell it on your breath. The Jew was sticking out of your pocket from the outset. Hes smeared to your lapel, and the moment you roll, you know its a seventhe one thing that somehow finds a way to hurt you. It lands. It stares you in each eye, miraculous and loathsome, and you turn away with it feeding on your chest.



Just bad luck.



Thats what you say.



Of no consequence.



Thats what you make yourself believebecause deep down, you know that this small piece of changing fortune is a signal of things to come. You hide a Jew. You pay. Somehow or other, you must.



In hindsight, Liesel told herself that it was not such a big deal. Perhaps it was because so much more had happened by the time she wrote her story in the basement. In the great scheme of things, she reasoned that Rosa being fired by the mayor and his wife was not bad luck at all. It had nothing whatsoever to do with hiding Jews. It had everything to do with the greater context of the war. At the time, though, there was most definitely a feeling of punishment.



The beginning was actually a week or so earlier than June 24. Liesel scavenged a newspaper for Max Vandenburg as she always did. She reached into a garbage can just off Munich Street and tucked it under her arm. Once she delivered it to Max and hed commenced his first reading, he glanced across at her and pointed to a picture on the front page. Isnt this whose washing and ironing you deliver?



Liesel came over from the wall. Shed been writing the word argumentsix times, next to Maxs picture of the ropy cloud and the dripping sun. Max handed her the paper and she confirmed it. Thats him.



When she went on to read the article, Heinz Hermann, the mayor, was quoted as saying that although the war was progressing splendidly, the people of Molching, like all responsible Germans, should take adequate measures and prepare for the possibility of harder times. You never know, he stated, what our enemies are thinking, or how they will try to debilitate us.