The Book Thief

PEACE

At just after eleven p.m. that same night, Max Vandenburg walked up Himmel Street with a suitcase full of food and warm clothes. German air was in his lungs. The yellow stars were on fire. When he made it to Frau Diller’s, he looked back one last time to number thirty-three. He could not see the figure in the kitchen window, but she could see him. She waved and he did not wave back.

Liesel could still feel his mouth on her forehead. She could smell his breath of goodbye.

‘I have left something for you,’ he’d said, ‘but you will not get it until you’re ready.’

He left.

‘Max?’

But he did not come back.

He had walked from her room and silently shut the door.

The hallway murmured.

He was gone.

When she made it to the kitchen, Mama and Papa stood with crooked bodies and preserved faces. They’d been standing like that for thirty seconds of for ever.

DUDEN DICTIONARY MEANING #7

How perfect.

Peace.

Somewhere near Munich, a German Jew was making his way through the darkness. An arrangement had been made to meet Hans Hubermann in four days (that is, if he wasn’t taken away). It was at a place far down the Amper, where a broken bridge leaned amongst the river and trees.

He would make it there but he would not stay longer than a few minutes.

The only thing to be found there when Papa arrived four days later was a note under a rock, at the base of a tree. It was addressed to nobody and contained only one sentence.

THE LAST WORDS OF MAX VANDENBURG

Now more than ever, 33 Himmel Street was a place of silence, and it did not go unnoticed that the Duden Dictionary was completely and utterly mistaken, especially with its related words.

Silence was not quiet or calm, and it was not peace.