The Book Thief

SHE CRIED ALL THE WAY TO VIENNA

In the past, she’s there again, utterly unknowing – for Waldek Lesciuszko didn’t so much as breathe in a way that might suggest what he was planning.

The man was meticulous.

Absolutely dormant.

A concert in Vienna?

No.

Often, I wonder what it must have been like for him – to buy the mandatory return-ticket, knowing she was only going one-way. I wonder how it was to lie and make her reapply for her passport, as had to be done, every time you left, even if briefly. So Penelope did it, like always.

As mentioned earlier, she’d been in concerts before.

She’d gone to Krakow. Gdansk. East Germany.

There was also the time she’d travelled to a small city by the name of Ebenstadt, west of the Curtain, but even that was spitting distance from the East. The concerts were always high but not too-high affairs, because she was a beautiful pianist, and a brilliant one, but not a brilliant one. She usually made the trips alone, and never failed to return at the allotted hour.

Until now.

This time her father encouraged her to take a bigger suitcase, and another jacket. In the night he added some extra underwear and socks. He also fed an envelope inside the pages of a book – a black hardcover, which was one of a pair. The envelope held words and money:

A letter and American dollars.

The books were then wrapped in brown paper.

On top, in weighty handwriting, it said, FOR THE MISTAKE MAKER, WHO PLAYS CHOPIN BEST OF ALL, THEN MOZART, AND BACH.

When she picked up her luggage in the morning, it was immediately, obviously heavier. She’d started to unzip it and check, when he said, ‘I added a small gift, for the road – and you’re in a rush.’ He hurried her out the door. ‘You can open it on the train.’

And she believed him.

She was in a blue woollen dress with fat, flat buttons.

Her blonde hair reached the middle of her back.

Her face was certain and soft.

Lastly, her hands were crisp and cool, and perfectly clean.

She looked nothing like a refugee.

At the station it was odd, for the man who’d never shown a skerrick of emotion was suddenly shaky and wet in the eyes. His moustache was vulnerable for the first time in its steadfast life.

‘Tato?’

‘This damn cold air.’

‘But it’s not so cold today.’

She was right, it wasn’t, it was mild, and sunny. The light was high, silvering the city in all its glorious grey.

‘Are you arguing with me? We should not argue when someone is leaving.’

‘Yes, Tato.’

When the train pulled in, her father pulled away. Looking back, it’s so clear he was barely holding himself together, tearing out his pockets from within. He was working away at them to distract himself, to keep the emotion at bay.

‘Tato, it’s here.’

‘I can see that. I’m old, not blind.’

‘I thought we weren’t supposed to argue.’

‘Now you’re arguing with me again!’ Never would he raise his voice like that, not at home, let alone in public, and he wasn’t making sense.

‘Sorry, Tato.’

From there, they kissed, both cheeks, a third time on the right.

‘Dovidsenya.’

‘Naraje. See you later.’

No you won’t. ‘Tak, tak. Naraje.’

For the rest of her life, she was relieved beyond measure that when she boarded the train, she’d turned and said, ‘I don’t know how I’ll play without you hitting me with that branch.’ She’d said the same thing every time.

The old man nodded, barely allowing her to see his face chop and change, as watery as the Baltic Sea.

The Baltic.

That was how she always explained it. She claimed her father’s face had turned to a body of water. The deep wrinkles, the eyes. Even the moustache. All of it drowned in sunshine, and cold, cold water.

For a good hour, she looked out the window of the carriage, at Eastern Europe passing her by. She thought of her father many times, but it wasn’t till she saw another man – something like a Lenin – that she remembered the gift. The suitcase.

The train trotted on.

Her eyes met the underwear first, and the socks, and then the brown package, and still she hadn’t pieced it together. The extra clothing was possibly explained by the eccentricities of an older man; a happiness came over her when she read the note about Chopin, Mozart and Bach.

But then she opened the package.

She saw the two black books.

The print on their covers was in English.

Both had Homer written at the top, and then respectively, The Iliad, The Odyssey.

When she thumbed through the first one and found the envelope, the realization was sudden, and severe. She rose to her feet and whispered ‘Nie’ to the half-crowded train.

Dear Penelope,

I imagine you reading this letter on your journey to Vienna, and I say from the outset – do not turn around. Do not come back. I will not receive you with open arms, but rather push you away. I think you can see that there is another life for you now, there’s another way to be.

Inside this envelope are all the documents you need. When you get to Vienna, do not take a taxi to the camp. It is overpriced and you will arrive far too early. There is a bus, and that will get you there. Also, don’t say you are seeking to leave for economic reasons. Say only this: you are afraid of reprisals from the government.

I expect it will not be easy, but you will make it. You will survive and live, and one day I hope we will see each other again, and you will read these books to me in English – for I expect that to be the language you will speak. If it turns out that you never come back, I ask you to read it to your own children, if that is to be what happens out there, on the wine-dark sea.

The last thing I will say is that I taught only one person in this world to play the piano, and although you were a great mistake maker, it was my pleasure and privilege. It is what I’ve loved best, and most.

Yours sincerely, with much love,

Waldek Lesciuszko.

Well what would you do?

What would you say?

Penelope, the Mistake Maker, stayed standing a few seconds longer, then sagged slowly back to her seat. She kept quiet and shivery, with the letter in her hands, and the two black books in her lap. Without a sound, she started to cry.

Into the passing face of Europe outside, Penelope Lesciuszko cried her stray, silent tears. She cried all the way to Vienna.