The Book Thief Part 70

because of what I've done, but I do.

Your Michael

It was Hans Hubermann who was asked to give Frau Holtzapfel the news. He stood on her threshold and she must have seen it on his face. Two sons in six months.

The morning sky stood blazing behind him as the wiry woman made her way past. She ran sobbing to the gathering farther up on Himmel Street. She said the name Michael at least two dozen times, but Michael had already answered. According to the book thief, Frau Holtzapfel hugged the body for nearly an hour. She then returned to the blinding sun of Himmel Street and sat herself down. She could no longer walk.

From a distance, people observed. Such a thing was easier from far away.

Hans Hubermann sat with her.

He placed his hand on hers, as she fell back to the hard ground.

He allowed her screams to fill the street.

Much later, Hans walked with her, with painstaking care, through her front gate, and into the house. And no matter how many times I try to see it differently, I can't pull it off ....

When I imagine that scene of the distraught woman and the tall silver-eyed man, it is still snowing in the kitchen of 31 Himmel Street.

THE WAR MAKER.

There was the smell of a freshly cut coffin. Black dresses. Enormous suitcases under the eyes. Liesel stood like the rest, on the gra.s.s. She read to Frau Holtzapfel that same afternoon. The Dream Carrier, her neighbor's favorite.

It was a busy day all around, really.

JULY 27, 1943.

Michael Holtzapfel was buried and the book

thief read to the bereaved. The Allies bombed

Hamburg-and on that subject, it's lucky I'm

somewhat miraculous. No one else could carry close to

forty-five thousand people in such a short amount

of time. Not in a million human years.

The Germans were starting to pay in earnest by then. The Fhrer's pimply little knees were starting to shake.

Still, I'll give him something, that Fhrer.

He certainly had an iron will.

There was no slackening off in terms of war-making, nor was there any scaling back on the extermination and punishment of a Jewish plague. While most of the camps were spread throughout Europe, there were some still in existence in Germany itself.

In those camps, many people were still made to work, and walk.

Max Vandenburg was one such Jew.

WAY OF THE WORDS.

It happened in a small town of Hitler's heartland.

The flow of more suffering was pumped nicely out, and a small piece of it had now arrived.

Jews were being marched through the outskirts of Munich, and one teenage girl somehow did the unthinkable and made her way through to walk with them. When the soldiers pulled her away and threw her to the ground, she stood up again. She continued.

The morning was warm.

Another beautiful day for a parade.

The soldiers and Jews made their way through several towns and were arriving now in Molching. It was possible that more work needed to be done in the camp, or several prisoners had died. Whatever the reason, a new batch of fresh, tired Jews was being taken on foot to Dachau.

As she always did, Liesel ran to Munich Street with the usual band of onlookers.

"Heil Hitler!"

She could hear the first soldier from far up the road and made her way toward him through the crowd, to meet the procession. The voice amazed her. It made the endless sky into a ceiling just above his head, and the words bounced back, landing somewhere on the floor of limping Jewish feet.

Their eyes.

They watched the moving street, one by one, and when Liesel found a good vantage point, she stopped and studied them. She raced through the files of face after face, trying to match them to the Jew who wrote The Standover Man and The Word Shaker.

Feathery hair, she thought.

No, hair like twigs. That's what it looks like when it hasn't been washed. Look out for hair like twigs and swampy eyes and a kindling beard.

G.o.d, there were so many of them.

So many sets of dying eyes and scuffing feet.

Liesel searched them and it was not so much a recognition of facial features that gave Max Vandenburg away. It was how the face was acting-also studying the crowd. Fixed in concentration. Liesel felt herself pausing as she found the only face looking directly into the German spectators. It examined them with such purpose that people on either side of the book thief noticed and pointed him out.

"What's he looking at?" said a male voice at her side.

The book thief stepped onto the road.

Never had movement been such a burden. Never had a heart been so definite and big in her adolescent chest.

She stepped forward and said, very quietly, "He's looking for me."

Her voice trailed off and fell away, inside. She had to refind it-reaching far down, to learn to speak again and call out his name.

Max.

"I'm here, Max!"

Louder.

"Max, I'm here!"

He heard her.

MAX VANDENBURG, AUGUST 1943.

There were twigs of hair, just like

Liesel thought, and the swampy eyes

stepped across, shoulder to shoulder

over the other Jews. When they reached

her, they pleaded. His beard

stroked down his face and his mouth

s.h.i.+vered as he said the word,