Liesel watched him as if he’d gone insane. “How, though?”
Lightly, he tapped her skull with his knuckles. “Memorize it. Then write it down for him.”
“… It was like a great white beast,” she said at her next bedside vigil, “and it came from over the mountains.”
When the sentence was completed with several different adjustments and additions, Liesel felt like she’d done it. She imagined the vision of it passing from her hand to his, through the blankets, and she wrote it down on a scrap of paper, placing the stone on top of it.
PRESENTS #10-#13
One toy soldier. One miraculous leaf.
A finished whistler.
A slab of grief.
• • •
The soldier was buried in the dirt, not far from Tommy Müller’s place. It was scratched and trodden, which, to Liesel, was the whole point. Even with injury, it could still stand up.
The leaf was a maple and she found it in the school broom closet, among the buckets and feather dusters. The door was slightly ajar. The leaf was dry and hard, like toasted bread, and there were hills and valleys all over its skin. Somehow, the leaf had made its way into the school hallway and into that closet. Like half a star with a stem. Liesel reached in and twirled it in her fingers.
Unlike the other items, she did not place the leaf on the bedside table. She pinned it to the closed curtain, just before reading the final thirty-four pages of The Whistler.
She did not have dinner that afternoon or go to the toilet. She didn’t drink. All day at school, she had promised herself that she would finish reading the book today, and Max Vandenburg was going to listen. He was going to wake up.
Papa sat on the floor, in the corner, workless as usual. Luckily, he would soon be leaving for the Knoller with his accordion. His chin resting on his knees, he listened to the girl he’d struggled to teach the alphabet. Reading proudly, she unloaded the final frightening words of the book to Max Vandenburg.
THE LAST REMNANTS OF
THE WHISTLER
The Viennese air was fogging up the windows of the train that morning, and as the people traveled obliviously to work, a murderer whistled his happy tune. He bought his ticket. There were polite greetings with fellow passengers and the conductor. He even gave up his seat for an elderly lady and made polite conversation with a gambler who spoke of American horses. After all, the whistler loved talking. He talked to people and fooled them into liking him, trusting him. He talked to them while he was killing them, torturing and turning the knife. It was only when there was no one to talk to that he whistled, which was why he did so after a murder ….
“So you think the track will suit number seven, do you?”
“Of course.” The gambler grinned. Trust was already there. “He’ll come from behind and kill the whole lot of them!” He shouted it above the noise of the train.
“If you insist.” The whistler smirked, and he wondered at length when they would find the inspector’s body in that brand-new BMW.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” Hans couldn’t resist an incredulous tone. “A nun gave you that?” He stood up and made his way over, kissing her forehead. “Bye, Liesel, the Knoller awaits.”
“Bye, Papa.”
“Liesel!”
She ignored it.
“Come and eat something!”
She answered now. “I’m coming, Mama.” She actually spoke those words to Max as she came closer and placed the finished book on the bedside table, with everything else. As she hovered above him, she couldn’t help herself. “Come on, Max,” she whispered, and even the sound of Mama’s arrival at her back did not stop her from silently crying. It didn’t stop her from pulling a lump of salt water from her eye and feeding it onto Max Vandenburg’s face.
Mama took her.
Her arms swallowed her.
“I know,” she said.
She knew.