Papa was more philosophical. “Rosa, it started with Adolf.” He lifted himself. “We should check on him.”
In the course of the night, Max was visited seven times.
MAX VANDENBURG’S VISITOR
SCORE SHEET
Hans Hubermann: 2
Rosa Hubermann: 2
Liesel Meminger: 3
• • •
In the morning, Liesel brought him his sketchbook from the basement and placed it on the bedside table. She felt awful for having looked at it the previous year, and this time, she kept it firmly closed, out of respect.
When Papa came in, she did not turn to face him but talked across Max Vandenburg, at the wall. “Why did I have to bring all that snow down?” she asked. “It started all of this, didn’t it, Papa?” She clenched her hands, as if to pray. “Why did I have to build that snowman?”
Papa, to his enduring credit, was adamant. “Liesel,” he said, “you had to.”
For hours, she sat with him as he shivered and slept.
“Don’t die,” she whispered. “Please, Max, just don’t die.”
He was the second snowman to be melting away before her eyes, only this one was different. It was a paradox.
The colder he became, the more he melted.
THIRTEEN PRESENTS
It was Max’s arrival, revisited.
Feathers turned to twigs again. Smooth face turned to rough. The proof she needed was there. He was alive.
The first few days, she sat and talked to him. On her birthday, she told him there was an enormous cake waiting in the kitchen, if only he’d wake up.
There was no waking.
There was no cake.
A LATE-NIGHT EXCERPT
I realized much later that I actually visited
33 Himmel Street in that period of time.
It must have been one of the few moments when the
girl was not there with him, for all I saw was a
man in bed. I knelt. I readied myself to insert
my hands through the blankets. Then there was a
resurgence—an immense struggle against my weight.
I withdrew, and with so much work ahead of me,