“Do you still play the accordion?”
Of course, the question was really, “Will you still help me?”
Liesel’s papa walked to the front door and opened it. Cautiously, he looked outside, each way, and returned. The verdict was “nothing.”
Max Vandenburg, the Jew, closed his eyes and drooped a little further into safety. The very idea of it was ludicrous, but he accepted it nonetheless.
Hans checked that the curtains were properly closed. Not a crack could be showing. As he did so, Max could no longer bear it. He crouched down and clasped his hands.
The darkness stroked him.
His fingers smelled of suitcase, metal, Mein Kampf, and survival.
It was only when he lifted his head that the dim light from the hallway reached his eyes. He noticed the pajamaed girl, standing there, in full view.
“Papa?”
Max stood up, like a struck match. The darkness swelled now, around him.
“Everything’s fine, Liesel,” Papa said. “Go back to bed.”
She lingered a moment before her feet dragged from behind. When she stopped and stole one last look at the foreigner in the kitchen, she could decipher the outline of a book on the table.
“Don’t be afraid,” she heard Papa whisper. “She’s a good girl.”
For the next hour, the good girl lay wide awake in bed, listening to the quiet fumbling of sentences in the kitchen.
One wild card was yet to be played.
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE JEWISH FIST FIGHTER
Max Vandenburg was born in 1916.
He grew up in Stuttgart.
When he was younger, he grew to love nothing more than a good fistfight.
He had his first bout when he was eleven years old and skinny as a whittled broom handle.
Wenzel Gruber.
That’s who he fought.
He had a smart mouth, that Gruber kid, and wire-curly hair. The local playground demanded that they fight, and neither boy was about to argue.
They fought like champions.
For a minute.
Just when it was getting inte
resting, both boys were hauled away by their collars. A watchful parent.
A trickle of blood was dripping from Max’s mouth.
He tasted it, and it tasted good.
• • •