“So are you the leader now?” Rudy had asked, but Andy shook his head, heavy with disappointment. He clearly wished that he had what it took.
“No.” His cool voice was unusually warm. Half-baked. “There’s someone else.”
THE NEW ARTHUR BERG
He had windy hair and cloudy eyes,
and he was the kind of delinquent
who had no other reason to
steal except that he enjoyed it.
His name was Viktor Chemmel.
Unlike most people engaged in the various arts of thievery, Viktor Chemmel had it all. He lived in the best part of Molching, high up in a villa that had been fumigated when the Jews were driven out. He had money. He had cigarettes. What he wanted, however, was more.
“No crime in wanting a little more,” he claimed, lying back in the grass with a collection of boys assembled around him. “Wanting more is our fundamental right as Germans. What does our Führer say?” He answered his own rhetoric. “We must take what is rightfully ours!”
At face value, Viktor Chemmel was clearly your typical teenage bullshit artist. Unfortunately, when he felt like revealing it, he also possessed a certain charisma, a kind of follow me.
When Liesel and Rudy approached the group by the river, she heard him ask another question. “So where are these two deviants you’ve been bragging about? It’s ten past four already.”
“Not by my watch,” said Rudy.
Viktor Chemmel propped himself up on an elbow. “You’re not wearing a watch.”
“Would I be here if I was rich enough to own a watch?”
The new leader sat up fully and smiled, with straight white teeth. He then turned his casual focus onto the girl. “Who’s the little whore?” Liesel, well accustomed to verbal abuse, simply watched the fog-ridden texture of his eyes.
“Last year,” she listed, “I stole at least three hundred apples and dozens of potatoes. I have little trouble with barbed wire fences and I can keep up with anyone here.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes.” She did not shrink or step away. “All I ask is a small part of anything we take. A dozen apples here or there. A few leftovers for me and my friend.”
“Well, I suppose that can be arranged.” Viktor lit a cigarette and raised it to his mouth. He made a concerted effort to blow his next mouthful in Liesel’s face.
Liesel did not cough.
It was the same group as the previous year, the only exception being the leader. Liesel wondered why none of the other boys had assumed the helm, but looking from face to face, she realized that none of them had it. They had no qualms about stealing, but they needed to be told. They liked to be told, and Viktor Chemmel liked to be the teller. It was a nice microcosm.
For a moment, Liesel longed for the reappearance of Arthur Berg. Or would he, too, have fallen under the leadership of Chemmel? It didn’t matter. Liesel only knew that Arthur Berg did not have a tyrannical bone in his body, whereas the new leader had hundreds of them. Last year, she knew that if she was stuck in a tree, Arthur would come back for her, despite claiming otherwise. This year, by comparison, she was instantly aware that Viktor Chemmel wouldn’t even bother to look back.
He stood, regarding the lanky boy and the malnourished-looking girl. “So you want to steal with me?”
What did they have to lose? They nodded.
He stepped closer and grabbed Rudy’s hair. “I want to hear it.”
“Definitely,” Rudy said, before being shoved back, fringe first.
“And you?”
“Of course.” Liesel was quick enough to avoid the same treatment.
Viktor smiled. He squashed his cigarette, breathed deeply in, and scratched his chest. “My gentlemen, my whore, it looks like it’s time to go shopping.”