The Book Thief

TRICKSTERS

You could argue that Liesel Meminger had it easy. She did have it easy compared to Max Vandenburg. Certainly, her brother practically died in her arms. Her mother abandoned her.

But anything was better than being a Jew.

In the time leading up to Max’s arrival, another washing customer was lost, this time the Weingartners. The obligatory schimpfen occurred in the kitchen, and Liesel composed herself with the fact that there were still two left and, even better, one of them was the mayor, the wife, the books.

As for Liesel’s other activities, she was still causing havoc with Rudy Steiner. I would even suggest that they were polishing their wicked ways.

They made a few more journeys with Arthur Berg and his friends, keen to prove their worth and extend their thieving repertoire. They took potatoes from one farm, onions from another. Their biggest victory, however, they performed alone.

As witnessed earlier, one of the benefits of walking through town was the prospect of finding things on the ground. Another was noticing people, or more importantly, the same people, doing identical things week after week.

A boy from school, Otto Sturm, was one such person. Every Friday afternoon, he rode his bike to church, carrying goods to the priests.

For a month they watched him, as good weather turned to bad, and Rudy in particular was determined that one Friday, in an abnormally frosty week in October, Otto wouldn’t quite make it.

‘All those priests,’ Rudy explained as they walked through town. ‘They’re all too fat anyway. They could do without a feed for a week or so.’

Liesel could only agree. First of all, she wasn’t Catholic. Secondly, she was pretty hungry herself. As always, she was carrying the washing. Rudy was carrying two buckets of cold water, or as he put it, two buckets of future ice.

Just before two o’clock, he went to work.

Without any hesitation, he poured the water onto the road in the exact position where Otto would pedal around the corner.

Liesel had to admit it.

There was a small portion of guilt at first, but the plan was perfect, or at least as close to perfect as it could be. At just after two o’clock every Friday, Otto Sturm turned on to Munich Street with the produce in his front basket, at the handlebars. On this particular Friday, that was as far as he would travel.

The road was icy as it was, but Rudy put on the extra coat, barely able to contain a grin. It ran across his face like a skid.

‘Come on,’ he said, ‘that bush there.’

After approximately fifteen minutes, the diabolical plan bore its fruit, so to speak.

Rudy pointed his finger into a gap in the bush. ‘There he is.’

Otto came around the corner, dopey as a lamb.

He wasted no time in losing control of the bike, sliding across the ice and lying face down on the road.

When he didn’t move, Rudy looked at Liesel with alarm. ‘Crucified Christ,’ he said, ‘I think we might have killed him!’ He crept slowly out, removed the basket and they made their getaway.

‘Was he breathing?’ Liesel asked further down the street.

‘Keine Ahnung,’ Rudy said, clinging to the basket. He had no idea.

From far down the hill, they watched as Otto stood up, scratched his head, scratched his crotch and looked everywhere for the basket.

‘Stupid Scheisskopf,’ Rudy grinned, and they looked through the spoils. Bread, broken eggs, and the big one, Speck. Rudy held the fatty ham to his nose and breathed it gloriously in. ‘Beautiful.’

As tempting as it was to keep the victory to themselves, they were overpowered by a sense of loyalty to Arthur Berg. They made their way to his impoverished lodging on Kempf Strasse and showed him the produce. Arthur couldn’t hold back his approval.

‘Who did you steal this from?’

It was Rudy who answered. ‘Otto Sturm.’

‘Well,’ he nodded, ‘whoever that is, I’m grateful to him.’ He walked inside and returned with a bread knife, frying pan and a jacket, and the three thieves walked the hallway of apartments. ‘We’ll get the others,’ Arthur Berg stated as they made it outside. ‘We might be criminals, but we’re not totally immoral.’ Much like the book thief, he at least drew the line somewhere.

A few more doors were knocked on. Names were called out to apartments from streets below, and soon, the whole conglomerate of Arthur Berg’s fruit-stealing troupe was on its way to the Amper. In the clearing on the other side, a fire was lit and what was left of the eggs was salvaged and fried. The bread and Speck were cut. With hands and knives, every last piece of Otto Sturm’s delivery was eaten. No priest in sight.

It was only at the end that an argument developed, regarding the basket. The majority of boys wanted to burn it. Fritz Hammer and Andy Schmeikl wanted to keep it, but Arthur Berg, showing his incongruous moral aptitude, had a better idea.

‘You two,’ he said to Rudy and Liesel. ‘Maybe you should take it back to that Sturm character. I’d say that poor bastard probably deserves that much.’

‘Oh come on, Arthur.’

‘I don’t want to hear it, Andy.’

‘Jesus Christ.’

‘He doesn’t want to hear it either.’

The group laughed and Rudy Steiner picked up the basket. ‘I’ll take it back and hang it on their letterbox.’

He had walked only twenty metres or so when the girl caught up. She would be home far too late for comfort, but she was well aware that she had to accompany Rudy Steiner through town, to the Sturm farm, on the other side.

For a long time, they walked in silence.

‘Do you feel bad?’ Liesel finally asked. They were already on the way home.

‘About what?’

‘You know.’

‘Of course I do, but I’m not hungry any more, and I bet he’s not hungry either. Don’t think for a second that the priests would get food if there wasn’t enough to go around at home.’

‘He just hit the ground so hard.’

‘Don’t remind me.’ But Rudy Steiner couldn’t resist smiling. In years to come, he would be a giver of bread, not a stealer – proof again of the contradictory human being. So much good, so much evil. Just add water.

Five days after their bittersweet little victory, Arthur Berg emerged one last time and invited them on his next stealing project. They ran into him on Munich Street, on the way home from school on a Wednesday. He was already in his Hitler Youth uniform. ‘We’re going again tomorrow afternoon. You interested?’

They couldn’t help themselves. ‘Where?’

‘The potato place.’

Twenty-four hours later, Liesel and Rudy braved the wire fence again and filled their sack.

The problem showed up as they made their getaway.

‘Christ!’ shouted Arthur. ‘The farmer!’ It was his next word, however, that frightened. He called it out as if he’d already been attacked with it. His mouth ripped open. The word flew out, and the word was axe.

Sure enough, when they turned round, the farmer was running at them, the weapon held aloft.

The whole group ran for the fence-line and made their way over. Rudy, who was furthest away, caught up quickly, but not quickly enough to avoid being last. As he pulled his leg up, he became entangled.

‘Hey!’

The sound of the stranded.

The group stopped.

Instinctively, Liesel ran back.

‘Hurry up!’ Arthur called out. His voice was far away, as if he’d swallowed it before it exited his mouth.

White sky.

The others ran.

Liesel arrived and started pulling at the fabric of his trousers. Rudy’s eyes were opened wide with fear. ‘Quick,’ he said, ‘he’s coming.’

Far off, they could still hear the sound of deserting feet when an extra hand grabbed the wire and reefed it away from Rudy Steiner’s trousers. A piece was left on the metallic knot but the boy was able to escape.

‘Now move it,’ Arthur advised them, not long before the farmer arrived, swearing and struggling for breath. The axe held on now, with force, to his leg. He called out the futile words of the robbed:

‘I’ll have you arrested! I’ll find you! I’ll find out who you are!’

That was when Arthur Berg replied.

‘The name is Owens!’ He loped away, catching up to Liesel and Rudy. ‘Jesse Owens!’

When they made it to safe ground, fighting to suck the air into their lungs, they sat down and Arthur Berg came over. Rudy wouldn’t look at him. ‘It’s happened to all of us,’ Arthur said, sensing the disappointment. Was he lying? They couldn’t be sure and they would never find out.

A few weeks later, Arthur Berg moved to Cologne.

They saw him once more, on one of Liesel’s washing delivery rounds. In an alleyway off Munich Street, he handed Liesel a brown paper bag containing a dozen chestnuts. He smirked. ‘A contact in the roasting industry.’ After informing them of his departure, he managed to proffer a last pimply smile and to cuff each of them on the forehead. ‘Don’t go eating all those things at once, either,’ and they never saw Arthur Berg again.

As for me, I can tell you that I most definitely saw him.

A SMALL TRIBUTE TO ARTHUR BERG, A STILL-LIVING MAN

This time they played it smarter. They ate one chestnut each and sold the rest of them door to door.

‘If you have a few pfennig to spare,’ Liesel said at each house, ‘I have chestnuts.’ They ended up with sixteen coins.

‘Now,’ grinned Rudy, ‘revenge.’

That same afternoon, they returned to Frau Diller’s, Heil Hitlered and waited.

‘Mixed lollies again?’ she schmunzelled, to which they nodded. The money splashed the counter and Frau Diller’s smile fell slightly ajar.

‘Yes, Frau Diller,’ they said in unison. ‘Mixed lollies, please.’

The framed Führer looked proud of them.

Triumph before the storm.