The Book Thief

THE THOUGHT OF RUDY NAKED

There had been a woman.

Standing in the corner.

She had the thickest plait he’d ever seen. It roped down her back, and occasionally, when she brought it over her shoulder, it lurked at her colossal breast like an overfed pet. In fact, everything about her was magnified. Her lips, her legs. Her paved teeth. She had a large, direct voice. No time to waste. ‘Komm,’ she instructed them. ‘Come. Stand here.’

The doctor, by comparison, was like a balding rodent. He was small and nimble, pacing the school office with his manic yet businesslike movements and mannerisms. And he had a cold.

Out of the three boys, it was difficult to decide which was the more reluctant to take off his clothes when ordered to do so. The first one looked from person to person, from the ageing teacher to the gargantuan nurse to the pint-sized doctor. The one in the middle looked only at his feet, and the one on the far left counted his blessings that he was in the school office and not a dark alley. The nurse, Rudy decided, was a frightener.

‘Who’s first?’ she asked.

It was the supervising teacher, Herr Heckenstaller, who answered. He was more a black suit than a man. His face was a moustache. Examining the boys, his choice came swiftly.

‘Schwarz.’

The unfortunate Jürgen Schwarz undid his uniform with great discomfort. He was left standing only in his shoes and underwear. A luckless plea was stranded on his German face.

‘And?’ Herr Heckenstaller asked. ‘The shoes?’

He removed both shoes, both socks.

‘Und die Unterhosen,’ said the nurse. ‘And the underpants.’

Both Rudy and the other boy, Olaf Spiegel, had started undressing now as well, but they were nowhere near the perilous position of Jürgen Schwarz. The boy was shaking. He was a year younger than the other two, but taller. When his underpants came down, it was with abject humiliation that he stood in the small, cool office. His self-respect was around his ankles.

The nurse watched him with intent, her arms folded across her devastating chest.

Heckenstaller ordered the other two to get moving.

The doctor scratched his scalp and coughed. His cold was killing him.

The three naked boys were each examined on the cold flooring.

They cupped their genitals in their hands and shivered like the future.

Between the doctor’s coughing and wheezing, they were put through their paces.

‘Breathe in.’ Sniffle.

‘Breathe out.’ Second sniffle.

‘Arms out now.’ A cough. ‘I said arms out.’ A horrendous hail of coughing.

As humans do, the boys looked constantly at each other for some sign of mutual sympathy. None was there. All three pried their hands from their penises and held out their arms. Rudy did not feel like he was part of a master race.

‘We are gradually succeeding,’ the nurse was informing the teacher, ‘in creating a new future. It will be a new class of physically and mentally advanced Germans. An officer class.’

Unfortunately, her sermon was cut short when the doctor creased in half and coughed with all his might over the abandoned clothes. Tears welled up in his eyes and Rudy couldn’t help but wonder.

A new future? Like him?

Wisely, he did not speak it.

The examination was completed and he managed to perform his first nude Heil Hitler. In a perverse kind of way, he conceded that it didn’t feel half-bad.

Stripped of their dignity, the boys were allowed to dress again, and as they were shown from the office, they could already hear the discussion held in their honour behind them.

‘They’re a little older than usual,’ the doctor said, ‘but I’m thinking at least two of them.’

The nurse agreed. ‘The first and the third.’

The three boys stood outside.

First and third.

‘First was you, Schwarz,’ said Rudy. He then questioned Olaf Spiegel. ‘Who was third?’

Spiegel made a few calculations. Did she mean third in line or third examined? It didn’t matter. He knew what he wanted to believe. ‘That was you, I think.’

‘Cowshit, Spiegel, it was you.’

A SMALL GUARANTEE

The day after they’d visited Himmel Street, Rudy sat on his front step with Liesel and related the whole saga, even the smallest details. He gave up and admitted what had happened that day at school when he was taken out of class. There was even some laughter about the tremendous nurse and the look on Jürgen Schwarz’s face. For the most part, though, it was a tale of anxiety, especially when it came to the voices in the kitchen and the dead-body dominoes.

For days, Liesel could not shift one thought from her head.

It was the examination of the three boys, or if she was honest, it was Rudy.

She would lie in bed, missing Max, wondering where he was, praying that he was alive, but somewhere, standing amongst all of it, was Rudy.

He glowed in the dark, completely naked.

There was great dread in that vision, especially the moment when he was forced to remove his hands. It was disconcerting to say the least, but for some reason, she couldn’t stop thinking about it.