Liesel lifted the first tufts of Max Vandenburg’s hair.
As she cut the feathery strands, she wondered at the sound of scissors. Not the snipping noise, but the grinding of each metal arm as it cropped each group of fibers.
When the job was done, a little severe in places, a little crooked in others, she walked upstairs with the hair in her hands and fed it into the stove. She lit a match and watched as the clump shriveled and sank, orange and red.
Again, Max was in the doorway, this time at the top of the basement steps. “Thanks, Liesel.” His voice was tall and husky, with the sound in it of a hidden smile.
No sooner had he spoken than he disappeared again, back into the ground.
The Newspaper: Early May
“There’s a Jew in my basement.”
“There’s a Jew. In my basement.”
Sitting on the floor of the mayor’s roomful of books, Liesel Meminger heard those words. A bag of washing was at her side and the ghostly figure of the mayor’s wife was sitting hunch-drunk over at the desk. In front of her, Liesel read The Whistler, pages twenty-two and twenty-three. She looked up. She imagined herself walking over, gently tearing some fluffy hair to the side, and whispering in the woman’s ear:
“There’s a Jew in my basement.”
As the book quivered in her lap, the secret sat in her mouth. It made itself comfortable. It crossed its legs.
“I should be getting home.” This time, she actually spoke. Her hands were shaking. Despite a trace of sunshine in the distance, a gentle breeze rode through the open window, coupled with rain that came in like sawdust.
When Liesel placed the book back into position, the woman’s chair stubbed the floor and she made her way over. It was always like this at the end. The gentle rings of sorrowful wrinkles swelled a moment as she reached ac
ross and retrieved the book.
She offered it to the girl.
Liesel shied away.
“No,” she said, “thank you. I have enough books at home. Maybe another time. I’m rereading something else with my papa. You know, the one I stole from the fire that night.”
The mayor’s wife nodded. If there was one thing about Liesel Meminger, her thieving was not gratuitous. She only stole books on what she felt was a need-to-have basis. Currently, she had enough. She’d gone through The Mud Men four times now and was enjoying her reacquaintance with The Shoulder Shrug. Also, each night before bed, she would open a fail-safe guide to grave digging. Buried deep inside it, The Standover Man resided. She mouthed the words and touched the birds. She turned the noisy pages, slowly.
“Goodbye, Frau Hermann.”
She exited the library, walked down the floorboard hall and out the monstrous doorway. As was her habit, she stood for a while on the steps, looking at Molching beneath her. The town that afternoon was covered in a yellow mist, which stroked the rooftops as if they were pets and filled up the streets like a bath.
When she made it down to Munich Street, the book thief swerved in and out of the umbrellaed men and women—a rain-cloaked girl who made her way without shame from one garbage can to another. Like clockwork.
“There!”
She laughed up at the coppery clouds, celebrating, before reaching in and taking the mangled newspaper. Although the front and back pages were streaked with black tears of print, she folded it neatly in half and tucked it under her arm. It had been like this each Thursday for the past few months.
Thursday was the only delivery day left for Liesel Meminger now, and it was usually able to provide some sort of dividend. She could never dampen the feeling of victory each time she found a Molching Express or any other publication. Finding a newspaper was a good day. If it was a paper in which the crossword wasn’t done, it was a great day. She would make her way home, shut the door behind her, and take it down to Max Vandenburg.
“Crossword?” he would ask.
“Empty.”
“Excellent.”
The Jew would smile as he accepted the package of paper and started reading in the rationed light of the basement. Often, Liesel would watch him as he focused on reading the paper, completed the crossword, and then started to reread it, front to back.
With the weather warming, Max remained downstairs all the time. During the day, the basement door was left open to allow the small bay of daylight to reach him from the corridor. The hall itself was not exactly bathed in sunshine, but in certain situations, you take what you can get. Dour light was better than none, and they needed to be frugal. The kerosene had not yet approached a dangerously low level, but it was best to keep its usage to a minimum.
Liesel would usually sit on some drop sheets. She would read while Max completed those crosswords. They sat a few meters apart, speaking very rarely, and there was really only the noise of turning pages. Often, she also left her books for Max to read while she was at school. Where Hans Hubermann and Erik Vandenburg were ultimately united by music, Max and Liesel were held together by the quiet gathering of words.