To their left, Alex and Barbara Steiner stood with the younger of their children, Emma and Bettina. The two girls were attached to their mother’s right leg. The oldest boy, Kurt, stared ahead in a perfect Hitler Youth stance, holding the hand of Karin, who was tiny, even for her seven years. The ten-year-old, Anna-Marie, played with the pulpy surface of the cement wall.
On the other side of the Steiners were Pfiffikus and the Jenson family.
Pfiffikus kept himself from whistling.
The bearded Mr. Jenson held his wife tightly, and their two kids drifted in and out of silence. Occasionally they pestered each other, but they held back when it came to the beginning of true argument.
After ten minutes or so, what was most prominent in the cellar was a kind of nonmovement. Their bodies were welded together and only their feet changed position or pressure. Stillness was shackled to their faces. They watched each other and waited.
DUDEN DICTIONARY MEANING #3
Angst—Fear:
An unpleasant, often strong
emotion caused by anticipation
or awareness of danger.
Related words: terror, horror,
panic, fright, alarm.
From other shelters, there were stories of singing “Deutschland über Alles” or of people arguing amid the staleness of their own breath. No such things happened in the Fiedler shelter. In that place, there was only fear and apprehension, and the dead song at Rosa Hubermann’s cardboard lips.
Not long before the sirens signaled the end, Alex Steiner—the man with the immovable, wooden face—coaxed the kids from his wife’s legs. He was able to reach out and grapple for his son’s free hand. Kurt, still stoic and full of stare, took it up and tightened his grip gently on the hand of his sister. Soon, everyone in the cellar was holding the hand of another, and the group of Germans stood in a lumpy circle. The cold hands melted into the warm ones, and in some cases, the feeling of another human pulse was transported. It came through the layers of pale, stiffened skin. Some of them closed their eyes, waiting for their final demise, or hoping for a sign that the raid was finally over.
Did they deserve any better, these people?
How many had actively persecuted others, high on the scent of Hitler’s gaze, repeating his sentences, his paragraphs, his opus? Was Rosa Hubermann responsible? The hider of a Jew? Or Hans? Did they all deserve to die? The children?
The answer to each of these questions interests me very much, though I cannot allow them to seduce me. I only know that all of those people would have sensed me that night, excluding the youngest of the children. I was the suggestion. I was the advice, my imagined feet walking into the kitchen and down the corridor.
As is often the case with humans, when I read about them in the book thief’s words, I pitied them, though not as much as I felt for the ones I scooped up from various camps in that time. The Germans in basements were pitiable, surely, but at least they had a chance. That basement was not a washroom. They were not sent there for a shower. For those people, life was still achievable.
In the uneven circle, the minutes soaked by.
Liesel held Rudy’s hand, and her mama’s.
Only one thought saddened her.
Max.
How would Max survive if the bombs arrived on Himmel Street?
Around her, she examined the Fiedlers’ basement. It was much sturdier and considerably deeper than the one at 33 Himmel Street.
Silently, she asked her papa.
Are you thinking about him, too?
Whether the silent question registered or not, he gave the girl a quick nod. It was followed a few minutes later by the three sirens of temporary peace.
The people at 45 Himmel Street sank with relief.
Some clenched their eyes and opened them again.
A cigarette was passed around.