The Book Thief

THE COLLECTOR

Neither Hans Hubermann nor Alex Steiner were sent to fight. Alex was sent to Austria, to an army hospital outside Vienna. Given his expertise in tailoring, he was given a job that at least resembled his profession. Cartloads of uniforms and socks and shirts would come in every week and he would mend what needed mending, even if they could only be used as underclothes for the suffering soldiers in Russia.

Hans was sent first, quite ironically, to Stuttgart, and later, to Essen. He was given one of the most undesirable positions on the home front. The LSE.

A NECESSARY EXPLANATION

The job of the LSE was to remain above ground during air raids and put out fires, prop up the walls of buildings and rescue anyone who had been trapped during the raid. As Hans would soon discover, there was also an alternative definition for the acronym. The men in the unit would explain to him on his first day that it really stood for Leichen Sammlereinheit – Dead Body Collectors.

When he arrived, Hans could only guess what those men had done to deserve such a task, and in turn, they wondered the same of him. Their leader, Sergeant Boris Schipper, asked him straight out. When Hans explained the bread, the Jews and the whip, the round-faced sergeant gave out a short spurt of laughter. ‘You’re lucky to be alive.’ His eyes were also round and he was constantly wiping them. They were either tired or itchy or full of smoke and dust. ‘Just remember that the enemy here is not in front of you.’

Hans was about to ask the obvious question when a voice arrived from behind. Attached to it was the slender face of a young man with a smile like a sneer. Reinhold Zucker. ‘With us,’ he said, ‘the enemy isn’t over the hill or in any specific direction. It’s all around.’ He returned his focus to the letter he was writing. ‘You’ll see.’

In the messy space of a few months, Reinhold Zucker would be dead. He would be killed by Hans Hubermann’s seat.

As the war flew into Germany with more intensity, Hans would learn that every one of his shifts started in the same fashion. The men would gather at the truck to be briefed on what had been hit during their break, what was most likely to be hit next, and who was working with whom.

Even when no raids were in operation, there’d still be a great deal of work to be done. They would drive through broken towns, cleaning up. In the truck there’d be twelve slouched men, all rising and falling with the various inconsistencies in the road.

From the beginning it was clear that they all owned a seat.

Reinhold Zucker’s was in the middle of the left row.

Hans Hubermann’s was at the very back, where the daylight stretched itself out. He learned quickly to be on the lookout for any rubbish that might be thrown from anywhere in the truck’s interior. Hans reserved a special respect for cigarette butts, still burning as they whistled by.

A COMPLETE LETTER HOME

In late November he had his first smoky taste of an actual raid. The truck was mobbed by rubble and there was much running and shouting. Fires were burning and the ruined cases of buildings were piled up in mounds. Framework leaned. The smoke bombs stood like matchsticks in the ground, filling the city’s lungs.

Hans Hubermann was in a group of four. They formed a line. Sergeant Boris Schipper was at the front, his arms disappearing into the smoke. Behind him was Kessler, then Brunnenweg, then Hubermann. As the sergeant hosed the fire, the other two men hosed the sergeant, and just to make sure, Hubermann hosed all three of them.

Behind him, a building groaned and tripped.

It fell face-first, stopping a few metres from his heels. The concrete smelled brand new, and the wall of powder rushed at them.

‘Gott verdammt, Hubermann!’ The voice struggled out of the flames. It was followed immediately by three men. Their throats were filled with particles of ash. Even when they made it around the corner, away from the centre of the wreckage, the haze of the collapsed building attempted to follow. It was white and warm, and it crept up behind them.

Slumped in temporary safety, there was much coughing and swearing. The sergeant repeated his earlier sentiments. ‘God damn it, Hubermann.’ He scraped at his lips, to loosen them. ‘What the hell was that?’

‘It just collapsed, right behind us.’

‘That much I know already. The question is, how big was it? It must have been ten storeys high.’

‘No, sir, just two, I think.’

‘Jesus.’ A coughing fit. ‘Mary and Joseph.’ Now he yanked at the paste of sweat and powder in his eye sockets. ‘Not much you could do about that.’

One of the other men wiped his face and said, ‘Just once I want to be there when they hit a pub, for Christ’s sake. I’m dying for a beer.’

Each man leaned back.

They could all taste it, putting out the fires in their throats and softening the smoke. It was a nice dream, and an impossible one. They were all aware that any beer that flowed in these streets would not be beer at all, but a kind of milkshake or porridge.

All four men were plastered with the grey and white conglomeration of dust. When they stood up fully, to resume work, only small cracks of their uniform could be seen.

The sergeant walked to Brunnenweg. He brushed heavily at his chest. Several smacks. ‘That’s better. You had some dust there, my friend.’ As Brunnenweg laughed, the sergeant turned to his newest recruit. ‘You first this time, Hubermann.’

They put the fires out for several hours, and they found anything they could to convince a building to remain standing. In some cases, where the sides were damaged, the remaining edges poked out like elbows. This was Hans Hubermann’s strong point. He almost came to enjoy finding a smouldering rafter or dishevelled slab of concrete to prop those elbows up, to give them something to rest on.

His hands were packed tightly with splinters, and his teeth were caked with residue from the fallout. Both lips were set with moist dust that had hardened, and there wasn’t a pocket, a thread or hidden crease in his uniform that wasn’t covered in a film left by the loaded air.

The worst part of the job was the people.

Once in a while there was a person roaming doggedly through the fog, mostly single-worded. They always shouted a name.

Sometimes it was Wolfgang.

‘Have you seen my Wolfgang?’

Their handprints would remain on his jacket.

‘Stephanie!’

‘Hansie!’

‘Gustel! Gustel Stoboi!’

As the density subsided, the rollcall of names limped through the ruptured streets, sometimes ending with an ash-filled embrace, or a knelt-down howl of grief. They accumulated, hour by hour, like sweet and sour dreams waiting to happen.

The dangers merged into one. Powder and smoke and the gusty flames. The damaged people. Like the rest of the men in the unit, Hans would need to perfect the art of forgetting.

‘How are you, Hubermann?’ the sergeant asked at one point. Fire was at his shoulder.

Hans nodded, uneasily, at the pair of them.

Midway through the shift, there was an old man who staggered defencelessly through the streets. As Hans finished stabilising a building, he turned to find him at his back, waiting calmly for his turn. A bloodstain was signed across his face. It trailed off down his throat and neck. He was wearing a white shirt with a dark red collar and he held his leg as if it was next to him. ‘Could you prop me up now, young man?’

Hans picked him up and carried him out of the haze.

A SMALL, SAD NOTE

It wasn’t until he placed him down on a patch of concrete-coated grass that Hans noticed.

‘What is it?’ one of the other men asked.

Hans could only point.

‘Oh.’ A hand pulled him away. ‘Get used to it, Hubermann.’

For the rest of the shift, he threw himself into his duties. He tried to ignore the distant echoes of calling people.

After perhaps two hours, he rushed from a building ahead of the sergeant and another two men. He didn’t watch the ground and tripped. Only when he returned to his haunches and saw the others looking in distress at the obstacle did he realise.

The corpse was face-down.

It lay in a blanket of powder and dust, and it was holding its ears.

It was a boy.

Perhaps eleven or twelve years old.

Not far away, as they progressed along the street, they found a woman calling the name Rudolf. She was drawn to the four men and met them in the mist. Her body was frail and bent with worry.

‘Have you seen my boy?’

‘How old is he?’ the sergeant asked.

‘Twelve.’

Oh, Christ. Oh, crucified Christ.

They all thought it, but the sergeant could not bring himself to tell her, or point the way.

As the woman tried to push past, Boris Schipper held her back. ‘We’ve just come from that street,’ he assured her. ‘You won’t find him down there.’

The bent woman still clung to hope. She called over her shoulder as she half-walked, half-ran. ‘Rudy!’

Hans Hubermann thought of another Rudy then. The Himmel Street variety. Please, he asked into a sky he couldn’t see, let Rudy be safe. His thoughts naturally progressed to Liesel and Rosa and the Steiners, and Max.

When they made it to the rest of the men, he dropped down and lay on his back.

‘How was it down there?’ someone asked.

Papa’s lungs were full of sky.

A few hours later, when he’d washed and eaten and thrown up, he attempted to write a detailed letter home. His hands were uncontrollable, forcing him to make it short. If he could bring himself, the remainder would be told verbally, when and if he made it home.

To my dear Rosa and Liesel, he began.

It took many minutes to write those six words down.