The Book Thief – by Markus Zusak

 

100 PERCENT PURE GERMAN SWEAT

People lined the streets as the youth of Germany marched toward the town hall and the square. On quite a few occasions Liesel forgot about her mother and any other problem of which she currently held ownership. There was a swell in her chest as the people clapped them on. Some kids waved to their parents, but only briefly—it was an explicit instruction that they march straight and don't look or wave to the crowd.

When Rudy's group came into the square and was instructed to halt, there was a discrepancy. Tommy Müller. The rest of the regiment stopped marching and Tommy plowed directly into the boy in front of him.

"Dummkopf !" the boy spat before turning around.

"I'm sorry," said Tommy, arms held apologetically out. His face tripped over itself. "I couldn't hear." It was only a small moment, but it was also a preview of troubles to come. For Tommy. For Rudy.

At the end of the marching, the Hitler Youth divisions were allowed to disperse. It would have been near impossible to keep them all together as the bonfire burned in their eyes and excited them. Together, they cried one united "heil Hitler" and were free to wander. Liesel looked for Rudy, but once the crowd of children scattered, she was caught inside a mess of uniforms and high-pitched words. Kids calling out to other kids.

By four-thirty, the air had cooled considerably.

People joked that they needed warming up. "That's all this trash is good for anyway."

Carts were used to wheel it all in. It was dumped in the middle of the town square and dowsed with something sweet. Books and paper and other material would slide or tumble down, only to be thrown back onto the pile. From further away, it looked like something volcanic. Or something grotesque and alien that had somehow landed miraculously in the middle of town and needed to be snuffed out, and fast.

The applied smell leaned toward the crowd, who were kept at a good distance. There were well in excess of a thousand people, on the ground, on the town hall steps, on the rooftops that surrounded the square.

When Liesel tried to make her way through, a crackling sound prompted her to think that the fire had already begun. It hadn't. The sound was kinetic humans, flowing, charging up.

They've started without me!

Although something inside told her that this was a crime—after all, her three books were the most precious items she owned—she was compelled to see the thing lit. She couldn't help it. I guess humans like to watch a little destruction. Sand castles, houses of cards, that's where they begin. Their great skill is their capacity to escalate.

The thought of missing it was eased when she found a gap in the bodies and was able to see the mound of guilt, still intact. It was prodded and splashed, even spat on. It reminded her of an unpopular child, forlorn and bewildered, powerless to alter its fate. No one liked it. Head down. Hands in pockets. Forever. Amen.

Bits and pieces continued falling to its sides as Liesel hunted for Rudy. Where is that Saukerl?

When she looked up, the sky was crouching.

A horizon of Nazi flags and uniforms rose upward, crippling her view every time she attempted to see over a smaller child's head. It was pointless. The crowd was itself. There was no swaying it, squeezing through, or reasoning with it. You breathed with it and you sang its songs. You waited for its fire.

Silence was requested by a man on a podium. His uniform was shiny brown. The iron was practically still on it. The silence began.

His first words: "Heil Hitler!"

His first action: the salute to the Führer.

"Today is a beautiful day," he continued. "Not only is it our great leader's birthday—but we also stop our enemies once again. We stop them reaching into our minds. . . ."

Liesel still attempted to fight her way through.

"We put an end to the disease that has been spread through Germany for the last twenty years, if not more!" He was performing now what is called a Schreierei—a consummate exhibition of passionate shouting—warning the crowd to be watchful, to be vigilant, to seek out and destroy the evil machinations plotting to infect the mother-land with its deplorable ways. "The immoral! The Kommunisten !" That word again. That old word. Dark rooms. Suit-wearing men. "Die Juden—the Jews!"

Halfway through the speech, Liesel surrendered. As the word communist seized her, the remainder of the Nazi recital swept by, either side, lost somewhere in the German feet around her. Waterfalls of words. A girl treading water. She thought it again. Kommunisten.

Up until now, at the BDM, they had been told that Germany was the superior race, but no one else in particular had been mentioned. Of course, everyone knew about the Jews, as they were the main offenderin regard to violating the German ideal. Not once, however, had the communists been mentioned until today, regardless of the fact that people of such political creed were also to be punished.

She had to get out.

In front of her, a head with parted blond hair and pigtails sat absolutely still on its shoulders. Staring into it, Liesel revisited those dark rooms of her past and her mother answering questions made up of one word.

She saw it all so clearly.

Her starving mother, her missing father. Kommunisten.

Her dead brother.

"And now we say goodbye to this trash, this poison."

Just before Liesel Meminger pivoted with nausea to exit the crowd, the shiny, brown-shirted creature walked from the podium. He received a torch from an accomplice and lit the mound, which dwarfed him in all its culpability. " Heil Hitler!"

The audience: "Heil Hitler!"

A collection of men walked from a platform and surrounded the heap, igniting it, much to the approval of everyone. Voices climbed over shoulders and the smell of pure German sweat struggled at first, then poured out. It rounded corner after corner, till they were all swimming in it. The words, the sweat. And smiling. Let's not forget the smiling.

Many jocular comments followed, as did another onslaught of " heil Hitlering." You know, it actually makes me wonder if anyone ever lost an eye or injured a hand or wrist with all of that. You'd only need to be facing the wrong way at the wrong time or stand marginally too close to another person. Perhaps people did get injured. Personally, I can only tell you that no one died from it, or at least, not physically. There was, of course, the matter of forty million people I picked up by the time the whole thing was finished, but that's getting all metaphoric. Allow me to return us to the fire.

The orange flames waved at the crowd as paper and print dissolved inside them. Burning words were torn from their sentences.

On the other side, beyond the blurry heat, it was possible to see the brownshirts and swastikas joining hands. You didn't see people. Only uniforms and signs.

Birds above did laps.

They circled, somehow attracted to the glow—until they came too close to the heat. Or was it the humans? Certainly, the heat was nothing.

In her attempt to escape, a voice found her.

"Liesel!"

It made its way through and she recognized it. It was not Rudy, but she knew that voice.

She twisted free and found the face attached to it. Oh, no. Ludwig Schmeikl. He did not, as she expected, sneer or joke or make any conversation at all. All he was able to do was pull her toward him and motion to his ankle. It had been crushed among the excitement and was bleeding dark and ominous through his sock. His face wore a helpless expression beneath his tangled blond hair. An animal. Not a deer in lights. Nothing so typical or specific. He was just an animal, hurt among the melee of its own kind, soon to be trampled by it.

Somehow, she helped him up and dragged him toward the back. Fresh air.

They staggered to the steps at the side of the church. There was some room there and they rested, both relieved.

Breath collapsed from Schmeikl's mouth. It slipped down, over his throat. He managed to speak.

Sitting down, he held his ankle and found Liesel Meminger's face. "Thanks," he said, to her mouth rather than her eyes. More slabs of breath. "And . . ." They both watched images of school-yard antics, followed by a school-yard beating. "I'm sorry—for, you know."

Liesel heard it again.

Kommunisten.

She chose, however, to focus on Ludwig Schmeikl. "Me too."

They both concentrated on breathing then, for there was nothing more to do or say. Their business had come to an end.

The blood enlarged on Ludwig Schmeikl's ankle.

A single word leaned against the girl.

To their left, flames and burning books were cheered like heroes.

 

 

THE GATES OF THIEVERY

She remained on the steps, waiting for Papa, watching the stray ash and the corpse of collected books. Everything was sad. Orange and red embers looked like rejected candy, and most of the crowd had vanished. She'd seen Frau Diller leave (very satisfied) and Pfiffikus (white hair, a Nazi uniform, the same dilapidated shoes, and a triumphant whistle). Now there was nothing but cleaning up, and soon, no one would even imagine it had happened.

But you could smell it.

"What are you doing?"

Hans Hubermann arrived at the church steps.

"Hi, Papa."

"You were supposed to be in front of the town hall."

"Sorry, Papa."

He sat down next to her, halving his tallness on the concrete and taking a piece of Liesel's hair. His fingers adjusted it gently behind her ear. "Liesel, what's wrong?"

For a while, she said nothing. She was making calculations, despite already knowing. An eleven-year-old girl is many things, but she is not stupid.

A SMALL ADDITION

The word communist + a large bonfire + a collection of dead

letters + the suffering of her mother + the death of her

brother = the Führer

 

The Führer.

He was the they that Hans and Rosa Hubermann were talking about that evening when she first wrote to her mother. She knew it, but she had to ask.

"Is my mother a communist?" Staring. Straight ahead. "They were always asking her things, before I came here."

Hans edged forward a little, forming the beginnings of a lie. "I have no idea—I never met her."

"Did the Führer take her away?"

The question surprised them both, and it forced Papa to stand up. He looked at the brown-shirted men taking to the pile of ash with shovels. He could hear them hacking into it. Another lie was growing in his mouth, but he found it impossible to let it out. He said, "I think he might have, yes."

"I knew it." The words were thrown at the steps and Liesel could feel the slush of anger, stirring hotly in her stomach. "I hate the Führer," she said. "I hate him."

And Hans Hubermann?

What did he do?

What did he say?

Did he bend down and embrace his foster daughter, as he wanted to? Did he tell her that he was sorry for what was happening to her, to her mother, for what had happened to her brother?

Not exactly.

He clenched his eyes. Then opened them. He slapped Liesel Meminger squarely in the face.

"Don't ever say that!" His voice was quiet, but sharp.

As the girl shook and sagged on the steps, he sat next to her and held his face in his hands. It would be easy to say that he was just a tall man sitting poor-postured and shattered on some church steps, but he wasn't. At the time, Liesel had no idea that her foster father, Hans Hubermann, was contemplating one of the most dangerous dilemmas a German citizen could face. Not only that, he'd been facing it for close to a year.

"Papa?"

The surprise in her voice rushed her, but it also rendered her useless. She wanted to run, but she couldn't. She could take a Watschen from nuns and Rosas, but it hurt so much more from Papa. The hands were gone from Papa's face now and he found the resolve to speak again.

"You can say that in our house," he said, looking gravely at Liesel's cheek. "But you never say it on the street, at school, at the BDM, never!" He stood in front of her and lifted her by the triceps. He shook her. "Do you hear me?"

With her eyes trapped wide open, Liesel nodded her compliance.

It was, in fact, a rehearsal for a future lecture, when all of Hans Hubermann's worst fears arrived on Himmel Street later that year, in the early hours of a November morning.

"Good." He placed her back down. "Now, let us try . . ." At the bottom of the steps, Papa stood erect and cocked his arm. Forty-five degrees. "Heil Hitler."

Liesel stood up and also raised her arm. With absolute misery, she repeated it. "Heil Hitler." It was quite a sight—an eleven-year-old girl, trying not to cry on the church steps, saluting the Führer as the voices over Papa's shoulder chopped and beat at the dark shape in the background.

"Are we still friends?"

Perhaps a quarter of an hour later, Papa held a cigarette olive branch in his palm—the paper and tobacco he'd just received. Without a word, Liesel reached gloomily across and proceeded to roll it.

For quite a while, they sat there together.

Smoke climbed over Papa's shoulder.

After another ten minutes, the gates of thievery would open just a crack, and Liesel Meminger would widen them a little further and squeeze through.

TWO QUESTIONS

Would the gates shut behind her?

Or would they have the goodwill to let her back out?

 

As Liesel would discover, a good thief requires many things.

Stealth. Nerve. Speed.

More important than any of those things, however, was one final requirement.

Luck.

Actually.

Forget the ten minutes.

The gates open now.

 

 

BOOK OF FIRE

The dark came in pieces, and with the cigarette brought to an end, Liesel and Hans Hubermann began to walk home. To get out of the square, they would walk past the bonfire site and through a small side road onto Munich Street. They didn't make it that far.

A middle-aged carpenter named Wolfgang Edel called out. He'd built the platforms for the Nazi big shots to stand on during the fire and he was in the process now of pulling them down. "Hans Hubermann?" He had long sideburns that pointed to his mouth and a dark voice. "Hansi!"

"Hey, Wolfal," Hans replied. There was an introduction to the girl and a "heil Hitler." "Good, Liesel."

For the first few minutes, Liesel stayed within a five-meter radius of the conversation. Fragments came past her, but she didn't pay too much attention.

"Getting much work?"

"No, it's all tighter now. You know how it is, especially when you're not a member."

"You told me you were joining, Hansi."

"I tried, but I made a mistake—I think they're still considering."

Liesel wandered toward the mountain of ash. It sat like a magnet, like a freak. Irresistible to the eyes, similar to the road of yellow stars.

As with her previous urge to see the mound's ignition, she could not look away. All alone, she didn't have the discipline to keep a safe distance. It sucked her toward it and she began to make her way around.

Above her, the sky was completing its routine of darkening, but far away, over the mountain's shoulder, there was a dull trace of light.

"Pass auf, Kind," a uniform said to her at one point. "Look out, child," as he shoveled some more ash onto a cart.

Closer to the town hall, under a light, some shadows stood and talked, most likely exulting in the success of the fire. From Liesel's position, their voices were only sounds. Not words at all.

For a few minutes, she watched the men shoveling up the pile, at first making it smaller at the sides to allow more of it to collapse. They came back and forth from a truck, and after three return trips, when the heap was reduced near the bottom, a small section of living material slipped from inside the ash.

THE MATERIAL

Half a red flag, two posters advertising a Jewish poet,

three books, and a wooden sign with something written

on it in Hebrew

 

Perhaps they were damp. Perhaps the fire didn't burn long enough to fully reach the depth where they sat. Whatever the reason, they were huddled among the ashes, shaken. Survivors.

"Three books." Liesel spoke softly and she looked at the backs of the men.

"Come on," said one of them. "Hurry up, will you, I'm starving."

They moved toward the truck.

The threesome of books poked their noses out.

Liesel moved in.

The heat was still strong enough to warm her when she stood at the foot of the ash heap. When she reached her hand in, she was bitten, but on the second attempt, she made sure she was fast enough. She latched onto the closest of the books. It was hot, but it was also wet, burned only at the edges, but otherwise unhurt.

It was blue.

The cover felt like it was woven with hundreds of tightly drawn strings and clamped down. Red letters were pressed into those fibers. The only word Liesel had time to read was Shoulder. There wasn't enough time for the rest, and there was a problem. The smoke.

Smoke lifted from the cover as she juggled it and hurried away. Her head was pulled down, and the sick beauty of nerves proved more ghastly with each stride. There were fourteen steps till the voice.

It propped itself up behind her.

"Hey!"

That was when she nearly ran back and tossed the book onto the mound, but she was unable. The only movement at her disposal was the act of turning.

"There are some things here that didn't burn!" It was one of the cleanup men. He was not facing the girl, but rather, the people standing by the town hall.

"Well, burn them again!" came the reply. "And watch them burn!"

"I think they're wet!"

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, do I have to do everything myself?" The sound of footsteps passed by. It was the mayor, wearing a black coat over his Nazi uniform. He didn't notice the girl who stood absolutely still only a short distance away.

A REALIZATION

A statue of the book thief stood in the courtyard. . . .

It's very rare, don't you think, for a statue to appear

before its subject has become famous.

 

She sank.

The thrill of being ignored!

The book felt cool enough now to slip inside her uniform. At first, it was nice and warm against her chest. As she began walking, though, it began to heat up again.

By the time she made it back to Papa and Wolfgang Edel, the book was starting to burn her. It seemed to be igniting.

Both men looked at her.

She smiled.

Immediately, when the smile shrank from her lips, she could feel something else. Or more to the point, someone else. There was no mistaking the watched feeling. It was all over her, and it was confirmed when she dared to face the shadows over at the town hall. To the side of the collection of silhouettes, another one stood, a few meters removed, and Liesel realized two things.

A FEW SMALL PIECES

OF RECOGNITION

 

1. The shadow's identity and

2. The fact that it had seen everything

The shadow's hands were in its coat pockets.

It had fluffy hair.

If it had a face, the expression on it would have been one of injury.

"Gottverdammt," Liesel said, only loud enough for herself. "Goddamn it."

"Are we ready to go?"

In the previous moments of stupendous danger, Papa had said goodbye to Wolfgang Edel and was ready to accompany Liesel home.

"Ready," she answered.

They began to leave the scene of the crime, and the book was well and truly burning her now. The Shoulder Shrug had applied itself to her rib cage.

As they walked past the precarious town hall shadows, the book thief winced.

"What's wrong?" Papa asked.

"Nothing."

Quite a few things, however, were most definitely wrong:

Smoke was rising out of Liesel's collar.

A necklace of sweat had formed around her throat.

Beneath her shirt, a book was eating her up.

 

 

PART THREE

meinkampf

featuring:

the way home—a broken woman—a struggler—

a juggler—the attributes of summer—

an aryan shopkeeper—a snorer—two tricksters—

and revenge in the shape of mixed candy

 

 

THE WAY HOME

Mein Kampf.

The book penned by the Führer himself.

It was the third book of great importance to reach Liesel Meminger; only this time, she did not steal it. The book showed up at 33 Himmel Street perhaps an hour after Liesel had drifted back to sleep from her obligatory nightmare.

Some would say it was a miracle that she ever owned that book at all.

Its journey began on the way home, the night of the fire.

They were nearly halfway back to Himmel Street when Liesel could no longer take it. She bent over and removed the smoking book, allowing it to hop sheepishly from hand to hand.

When it had cooled sufficiently, they both watched it a moment, waiting for the words.

Papa: "What the hell do you call that?"

He reached over and grabbed hold of The Shoulder Shrug. No explanation was required. It was obvious that the girl had stolen it from the fire. The book was hot and wet, blue and red—embarrassed—and Hans Hubermann opened it up. Pages thirty-eight and thirty-nine. "Another one?"

Liesel rubbed her ribs.

Yes.

Another one.

"Looks like," Papa suggested, "I don't need to trade any more cigarettes, do I? Not when you're stealing these things as fast as I can buy them."

Liesel, by comparison, did not speak. Perhaps it was her first realization that criminality spoke best for itself. Irrefutable.

Papa studied the title, probably wondering exactly what kind of threat this book posed to the hearts and minds of the German people. He handed it back. Something happened.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph." Each word fell away at its edges. It broke off and formed the next.

The criminal could no longer resist. "What, Papa? What is it?"

"Of course."

Like most humans in the grip of revelation, Hans Hubermann stood with a certain numbness. The next words would either be shouted or would not make it past his teeth. Also, they would most likely be a repetition of the last thing he'd said, only moments earlier.

"Of course."

This time, his voice was like a fist, freshly banged on the table.

The man was seeing something. He was watching it quickly, end to end, like a race, but it was too high and too far away for Liesel to see. She begged him. "Come on, Papa, what is it?" She fretted that he would tell Mama about the book. As humans do, this was all about her. "Are you going to tell?"

"Sorry?"

"You know. Are you going to tell Mama?"

Hans Hubermann still watched, tall and distant. "About what?"

She raised the book. "This." She brandished it in the air, as if waving a gun.

Papa was bewildered. "Why would I?"

She hated questions like that. They forced her to admit an ugly truth, to reveal her own filthy, thieving nature. "Because I stole again."

Papa bent himself to a crouching position, then rose and placed his hand on her head. He stroked her hair with his rough, long fingers and said, "Of course not, Liesel. You are safe."

"So what are you going to do?"

That was the question.

What marvelous act was Hans Hubermann about to produce from the thin Munich Street air?

Before I show you, I think we should first take a look at what he was seeing prior to his decision.

PAPA'S FAST-PACED VISIONS First, he sees the girl's books: The Grave Digger's Handbook, Faust the Dog, The Lighthouse, and now The Shoulder Shrug. Next is a kitchen and a volatile Hans Junior, regarding those books on the table, where the girl often reads. He speaks: "And what trash is this girl reading?" His son repeats the question three times, after which he makes his suggestion for more appropriate reading material.

"Listen, Liesel." Papa placed his arm around her and walked her on. "This is our secret, this book. We'll read it at night or in the basement, just like the others—but you have to promise me something."

"Anything, Papa."

The night was smooth and still. Everything listened. "If I ever ask you to keep a secret for me, you will do it."

"I promise."

"Good. Now come on. If we're any later, Mama will kill us, and we don't want that, do we? No more book stealing then, huh?"

Liesel grinned.

What she didn't know until later was that within the next few days, her foster father managed to trade some cigarettes for another book, although this one was not for her. He knocked on the door of the Nazi Party office in Molching and took the opportunity to ask about his membership application. Once this was discussed, he proceeded to give them his last scraps of money and a dozen cigarettes. In return, he received a used copy of Mein Kampf.

"Happy reading," said one of the party members.

"Thank you." Hans nodded.

From the street, he could still hear the men inside. One of the voices was particularly clear. "He will never be approved," it said, "even if he buys a hundred copies of Mein Kampf. " The statement was unanimously agreed upon.

Hans held the book in his right hand, thinking about postage money, a cigaretteless existence, and the foster daughter who had given him this brilliant idea.

"Thank you," he repeated, to which a passerby inquired as to what he'd said.

With typical affability, Hans replied, "Nothing, my good man, nothing at all. Heil Hitler," and he walked down Munich Street, holding the pages of the Führer.

There must have been a good share of mixed feelings at that moment, for Hans Hubermann's idea had not only sprung from Liesel, but from his son. Did he already fear he'd never see him again? On the other hand, he was also enjoying the ecstasy of an idea, not daring just yet to envision its complications, dangers, and vicious absurdities. For now, the idea was enough. It was indestructible. Transforming it into reality, well, that was something else altogether. For now, though, let's let him enjoy it.

We'll give him seven months.

Then we come for him.

And oh, how we come.