The Book Thief

THE OTHER SIDE OF SANDPAPER

People have defining moments, I suppose, especially when they’re children. For some it’s a Jesse Owens Incident. For others it’s a moment of bed-wetting hysteria.

It was late May, 1939, and the night had been like most others. Mama shook her iron fist. Papa was out. Liesel cleaned the front door and watched the Himmel Street sky.

Earlier, there had been a parade.

The brown-shirted extremist members of the NSDAP (otherwise known as the Nazi Party) had marched down Munich Street, their banners worn proudly, their faces held high, as if on sticks. Their voices were full of song, culminating in a roaring rendition of Deutschland über Alles. Germany over Everything.

As always, they were clapped.

They were spurred on as they walked to who knows where.

People on the street stood and watched, some with straight-armed salutes, others with hands that burned from applause. Some kept faces that were contorted with pride and rally like Frau Diller, and then there were the scatterings of odd-men-out, such as Alex Steiner, who stood like a human-shaped block of wood, clapping slow and dutiful. And beautiful. Submission.

On the footpath, Liesel stood with her papa and Rudy. Hans Hubermann wore a face with the shades pulled down.

SOME CRUNCHED NUMBERS

In the night, Liesel dreamed like she always did. At first she saw the brown-shirts marching, but soon enough they led her to a train, and the usual discovery awaited. Her brother was staring again.

When she woke up screaming, Liesel knew immediately that on this occasion something had changed. A smell leaked out from under the sheets, warm and sickly. At first, she tried convincing herself that nothing had happened, but as Papa came closer and held her, she cried and admitted the fact in his ear.

‘Papa,’ she whispered, ‘Papa,’ and that was all. He could probably smell it.

He lifted her gently from the bed and carried her into the washroom. The moment came a few minutes later.

‘We take the sheets off,’ Papa said, and when he reached under and pulled at the fabric, something loosened and landed with a thud. A black book with silver writing on it came hurtling out and landed on the floor, between the tall man’s feet.

He looked down at it.

He looked at the girl, who timidly shrugged.

Then he read the title, with concentration, aloud: ‘The Gravedigger’s Handbook.’

So that’s what it’s called, Liesel thought.

A patch of silence stood amongst them now. The man, the girl, the book. He picked it up and spoke soft as cotton.

A TWO A.M. CONVERSATION

Four years later, when she came to write in the basement, two thoughts struck Liesel about the trauma of wetting the bed. Firstly, she felt extremely lucky that it was Papa who discovered the book. (Fortunately, when the sheets had been washed previously, Rosa had made Liesel strip the bed and make it up. ‘And be quick about it, Saumensch! Does it look like we’ve got all day?’) Secondly, she was clearly proud of Hans Hubermann’s part in her education. You wouldn’t think it, she wrote, but it was not so much the school who helped me to read. It was Papa. People think he’s not so smart, and it’s true that he doesn’t read too fast, but I would soon learn that words and writing actually saved his life once. Or at least, words and a man who taught him the accordion …

‘First things first,’ Hans Hubermann said that night. He washed the sheets and hung them up. ‘Now,’ he said upon his return. ‘Let’s get this midnight class started.’

The yellow light was alive with dust.

Liesel sat on cold clean sheets, ashamed, elated. The thought of bed-wetting prodded her, but she was going to read. She was going to read the book.

The excitement stood up in her.

Visions of a ten-year-old reading genius were set alight.

If only it was that easy.

‘To tell you the truth,’ Papa explained up front, ‘I am not such a good reader myself.’

But it didn’t matter that he read slowly. If anything, it might have helped that his own reading pace was slower than average. Perhaps it would cause less frustration in coping with the girl’s lack of ability.

Still, initially Hans appeared a little uncomfortable holding the book and looking through it.

When he came over and sat next to her on the bed, he leaned back, his legs angling over the side. He examined the book again and dropped it on the blanket. ‘Now why would a nice girl like you want to read such a thing?’

Again, Liesel shrugged. Had the apprentice been reading the complete works of Goethe or any other such luminary, that was what would have sat in front of them. She attempted to explain. ‘I — when … It was sitting in the snow, and —’ The soft-spoken words fell off the side of the bed, emptying onto the floor like powder.

Papa knew what to say, though. He always knew what to say.

He ran a hand through his sleepy hair and said, ‘Well promise me one thing, Liesel. If I die anytime soon, you make sure they bury me right.’

She nodded, with great sincerity.

‘No skipping Chapter Six, or Step Four in Chapter Nine.’ He laughed, as did the bed-wetter. ‘Well I’m glad that’s settled. We can get on with it now.’

He adjusted his position and his bones creaked like itchy floorboards. ‘The fun begins.’

Amplified by the still of night, the book opened – a gust of wind.

Looking back, Liesel could tell exactly what her papa was thinking when he scanned the first page of The Gravedigger’s Handbook. As he realised the difficulty of the text, he was clearly aware that such a book was hardly ideal. There were words in there that he’d have trouble with himself. Not to mention the morbidity of the subject. As for the girl, there was a sudden desire to read it that she didn’t even attempt to understand. On some level, perhaps she wanted to make sure her brother was buried right. Whatever the reason, her hunger to read that book was as intense as any ten-year-old human could experience.

Chapter One was called ‘The First Step: Choosing the Right Equipment’. In a short introductory passage, it outlined the kind of material to be covered in the following twenty pages. Types of shovels, picks, gloves and so forth were itemised, as well as the vital need to properly maintain them. This gravedigging was serious.

As Papa flicked through it, he could surely feel Liesel’s eyes on him. They reached over and waited for something, anything, to slip from his lips.

‘Here.’ He shifted again and handed her the book. ‘Look at this page and tell me how many words you can read.’

She looked at it – and lied.

‘About half.’

‘Read some for me,’ but of course she couldn’t. When he made her point out any words she could read and actually say them, there were only three – the three main German words for ‘the’. The whole page must have had two hundred words on it.

This might be harder than I thought.

She caught him thinking it, just for a moment.

He lifted himself forward, rose to his feet and walked out again.

This time when he came back, he said, ‘Actually, I have a better idea.’ In his hand, there was a thick painter’s pencil and a stack of sandpaper. ‘Let’s start from scratch.’ Liesel saw no reason to argue.

In the left corner of an upturned piece of sandpaper, he drew a square of perhaps an inch and shoved a capital A inside it. In the other corner he placed a lowercase one. So far, so good.

‘A,’ Liesel said.

‘A for what?’

She smiled. ‘Apfel.’

He wrote the word in big letters and drew a misshapen apple under it. He was a house painter, not an artist. When it was complete, he looked over and said, ‘Now for B.’

As they progressed through the alphabet, Liesel’s eyes grew larger. She had done this at school, in the kindergarten class, but this time was better. She was the only one there, and she was not gigantic. It was nice to watch Papa’s hand as he wrote the words and slowly constructed the primitive sketches.

‘Ah, come on, Liesel,’ he said, when she struggled later on. ‘Something that starts with S. It’s easy. I’m very disappointed in you.’

She couldn’t think.

‘Come on!’ His whisper played with her. ‘Think of Mama.’

That was when the word struck her face like a slap. A reflex grin. ‘SAUMENSCH!’ she shouted, and Papa roared with laughter, then quietened.

‘Shh, we have to be quiet.’ But he roared all the same and wrote the word, completing it with one of his sketches.

A TYPICAL HANS HUBERMANN ARTWORK

‘Papa!’ she whispered. ‘I have no eyes!’

He patted the girl’s hair. She’d fallen into his trap. ‘With a smile like that,’ Hans Hubermann said, ‘you don’t need eyes.’ He hugged her, and then looked again at the picture, with a face of warm silver. ‘Now for T.’

With the alphabet completed and studied a dozen times, Papa leaned over and said, ‘Enough for tonight?’

‘A few more words?’

He was definite. ‘Enough. When you wake up, I’ll play accordion for you.’

‘Thanks, Papa.’

‘Goodnight.’ A quiet, one-syllable laugh. ‘Goodnight, Saumensch.’

‘Goodnight, Papa.’

He switched off the light, came back and sat in the chair. In the darkness, Liesel kept her eyes open. She was watching the words.