The Book Thief

THE JESSE OWENS INCIDENT

In Liesel’s memory, it was like she’d actually been there for Rudy’s act of childhood infamy. Somehow, she could always see herself in his imaginary audience. Maybe she just liked the thought of a painted-black boy running across the grass.

It was 1936. The Olympics. Hitler’s games.

Jesse Owens had just completed the 4 × 100 metre relay and won his fourth gold medal. Talk that he was subhuman because he was black and Hitler’s refusal to shake his hand was touted around the world. Even the most racist Germans were amazed at the efforts of Owens, and word of his feat slipped through the cracks. No-one was more impressed than Rudy Steiner.

Everyone in his family was crowded together in their living room when he slipped out and made his way to the kitchen. He pulled some charcoal from the stove and gripped it in the smallness of his hands. ‘Now,’ he smiled. He was ready.

He smeared the charcoal on, nice and thick, till he was covered in black. Even his hair received a once-over.

In the window, the boy grinned almost maniacally at his reflection, and in his shorts and singlet, he quietly abducted his older brother’s bike and pedalled it up the street, heading for Hubert Oval. In one of his pockets, he’d hidden a few pieces of extra charcoal, in case some of it wore off later.

In Liesel’s mind, the moon was sewn into the sky that night. Clouds were stitched around it.

The rusty bike crumbled to a halt at the Hubert Oval fence-line and Rudy climbed over. He landed on the other side and trotted weedily up towards the beginning of the hundred. Enthusiastically, he conducted an awkward regime of stretches. He dug starting holes into the dirt.

Waiting for his moment, he paced around, gathering concentration under the darkness sky, with the moon and the clouds watching, tightly.

‘Owens is looking good,’ he began to commentate. ‘This could be his greatest victory ever …’

He shook the imaginary hands of the other athletes and wished them luck, even though he knew. They didn’t have a chance.

The starter signalled them forward. A crowd materialised around every square centimetre of Hubert Oval’s circumference. They were all calling out one thing. They were chanting Rudy Steiner’s name – and his name was Jesse Owens.

All fell silent.

His bare feet gripped the soil. He could feel it holding on between his toes.

At the request of the starter, he raised to crouching position – and the gun clipped a hole in the night.

For the first third of the race, it was pretty even, but it was only a matter of time before the charcoaled Owens drew clear and streaked away.

‘Owens in front,’ the boy’s shrill voice cried as he ran down the empty straight, straight towards the uproarious applause of Olympic glory. He could even feel the tape break in two across his chest as he burst through it in first place. The fastest man alive.

It was only on his victory lap that things turned sour. Amongst the crowd, his father was standing at the finish line like the Bogey Man. Or at least, the Bogey Man in a suit. (As previously mentioned, Rudy’s father was a tailor. He was rarely seen on the street without a suit and tie. On this occasion it was only a suit and a dishevelled shirt.)

‘Was ist los?’ he said to his son when he showed up in all his charcoal glory. ‘What the hell is going on here?’ The crowd vanished. A breeze sprang up. ‘I was asleep in my chair when Kurt noticed you were gone. Everyone’s out looking for you.’

Mr Steiner was a remarkably polite man under normal circumstances. Discovering one of his children smeared charcoal-black on a summer evening was not what he considered normal circumstances. ‘The boy is crazy,’ he muttered, although he conceded that with six kids, something like this was bound to happen. At least one of them had to be a bad egg. Right now, he was looking at it, waiting for an explanation. ‘Well?’

Rudy panted, bending down and placing his hands on his knees. ‘I was being Jesse Owens.’ He answered as though it was the most natural thing on earth to be doing. There was even something implicit in his tone that said ‘What the hell does it look like?’ The tone vanished, however, when he noticed the sleep deprivation whittled under his father’s eyes.

‘Jesse Owens?’ Mr Steiner was the type of man who was very wooden. His voice was angular and true. His body was tall and heavy, like oak. His hair was like splinters. ‘What about him?’

‘You know, Papa, the Black Magic one.’

‘I’ll give you black magic.’ He caught his son’s ear between his thumb and forefinger.

Rudy winced. ‘Ow, that really hurts.’

‘Does it?’ His father was more concerned with the clammy texture of charcoal contaminating his fingers. He covered everything, didn’t he, he thought. It’s even in his earholes, for God’s sake. ‘Come on.’

On the way home, Mr Steiner decided to talk politics with the boy, as best he could. Only in the years ahead would Rudy understand it all – when it was too late to bother understanding anything.

THE CONTRADICTORY POLITICS OF ALEX STEINER

They walked around a few corners, onto Himmel Street, and Alex said, ‘Son, you can’t go around painting yourself black, you hear?’

Rudy was interested, and confused. The moon was undone now, free to move and rise and fall and drip onto the boy’s face, making him nice and murky, like his thoughts. ‘Why not, Papa?’

‘Because they’ll take you away.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you shouldn’t want to be black people or Jewish people or anyone who is … not us.’

‘Who are Jewish people?’

‘You know my oldest customer, Mr Kaufman? Where we bought your shoes?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, he’s Jewish.’

‘I didn’t know that. Do you have to pay to be Jewish? Do you need a licence?’

‘No, Rudy.’ Mr Steiner was steering the bike with one hand and Rudy with the other. He was having trouble steering the conversation. He still hadn’t relinquished the hold on his son’s earlobe. He’d forgotten about it. ‘It’s like you’re German, or Catholic.’

‘Oh. Is Jesse Owens Catholic?’

‘I don’t know!’ He tripped on a bike pedal then and released the ear.

They walked on in silence for a while, until Rudy said, ‘I just wish I was like Jesse Owens, Papa.’

This time, Mr Steiner placed his hand on Rudy’s head and explained, ‘I know, son – but you’ve got beautiful blond hair and big, safe blue eyes. You should be happy with that, is that clear?’

But nothing was clear.

Rudy understood nothing, and that night was the prelude to future events. Two and a half years later, the Kaufman Shoe Shop was reduced to broken glass, and all the shoes were flung aboard a truck in their boxes.