Again, Rudy stood up, and the group of older boys laughed now at their friend. This was not the best news for Rudy. “Can’t you make him feel it?” the tallest of them said. His eyes were as blue and cold as the sky, and the words were all the incentive Franz needed. He was determined that Rudy would hit the ground and stay there.
A larger crowd made its way around them as Rudy swung at Franz Deutscher’s stomach, missing him completely. Simultaneously, he felt the burning sensation of a fist on his left eye socket. It arrived with sparks, and he was on the ground before he even realized. He was punched again, in the same place, and he could feel the bruise turn yellow and blue and black all at once. Three layers of exhilarating pain.
The developing crowd gathered and leered to see if Rudy might get up again. He didn’t. This time, he remained on the cold, wet ground, feeling it rise through his clothes and spread itself out.
The sparks were still in his eyes, and he didn’t notice until it was too late that Franz now stood above him with a brand-new pocketknife, about to crouch down and cut him.
“No!” Liesel protested, but the tall one held her back. In her ear, his words were deep and old.
“Don’t worry,” he assured her. “He won’t do it. He doesn’t have the guts.”
He was wrong.
Franz merged into a kneeling position as he leaned closer to Rudy and whispered:
“When was our Führer born?” Each word was carefully created and fed into his ear. “Come on, Rudy, when was he born? You can tell me, everything’s fine, don’t be afraid.”
And Rudy?
How did he reply?
Did he respond prudently, or did he allow his stupidity to sink himself deeper into the mire?
He looked happily into the pale blue eyes of Franz Deutscher and whispered, “Easter Monday.”
Within a few seconds, the knife was applied to his hair. It was haircut number two in this section of Liesel’s life. The hair of a Jew was cut with rusty scissors. Her best friend was taken to with a gleaming knife. She knew nobody who actually paid for a haircut.
As for Rudy, so far this year he’d swallowed mud, bathed himself in fertilizer, been half-strangled by a developing criminal, and was now receiving something at least nearing the icing on the cake—public humiliation on Munich Street.
For the most part, his fringe was sliced away freely, but with each stroke, there were always a few hairs that held on for dear life and were pulled out completely. As each one was plucked, Rudy winced, his black eye throbbing in the process and his ribs flashing in pain.
“April twentieth, eighteen eighty-nine!” Franz lectured him, and when he led his cohorts away, the audience dispersed, leaving only Liesel, Tommy, and Kristina with their friend.
Rudy lay quietly on the ground, in the rising damp.
Which leaves us only with stupid act number three—skipping the Hitler Youth meetings.
He didn’t stop going right away, purely to show Deutscher that he wasn’t afraid of him, but after another few weeks, Rudy ceased his involvement altogether.
Dressed proudly in his uniform, he exited Himmel Street and kept walking, his loyal subject, Tommy, by his side.
Instead of attending the Hitler Youth, they walked out of town and along the Amper, skipping stones, heaving enormous rocks into the water, and generally getting up to no good. He made sure to get the uniform dirty enough to fool his mother, at least until the first letter arrived. That was when he heard the dreaded call from the kitchen.
First, his parents threatened him. He didn’t attend.
They begged him to go. He refused.
Eventually, it was the opportunity to join a different division that swayed Rudy in the right direction. This was fortunate, because if he didn’t show his face soon, the Steiners would be fined for his non-attendance. His older brother, Kurt, inquired as to whether Rudy might join the Flieger Division, which specialized in the teaching of aircraft and flying. Mostly, they built model airplanes, and there was no Franz Deutscher. Rudy accepted, and Tommy also joined. It was the one time in his life that his idiotic behavior delivered beneficial results.
In his new division, whenever he was asked the famous Führer question, Rudy would smile and answer, “April 20, 1889,” and then to Tommy, he’d whisper a different date, like Beethoven’s birthday, or Mozart’s, or Strauss’s. They’d been learning about composers in school, where despite his obvious stupidity, Rudy excelled.
THE FLOATING BOOK (Part II)
At the beginning of December, victory finally came to Rudy Steiner, though not in a typical fashion.
It was a cold day, but very still. It had come close to snowing.
After school, Rudy and Liesel stopped in at Alex Steiner’s shop, and as they walked home, they saw Rudy’s old friend Franz Deutscher coming around the corner. Liesel, as was her habit these days, was carrying The Whistler. She liked to feel it in her hand. Either the smooth spine or the rough edges of paper. It was she who saw him first.