Markus_Zusak_The_Book_Thief_2007

DOMINOES AND DARKNESS

In the words of Rudys youngest sisters, there were two monsters sitting in the kitchen. Their voices kneaded methodically at the door as three of the Steiner children played dominoes on the other side. The remaining three listened to the radio in the bedroom, oblivious. Rudy hoped this had nothing to do with what had happened at school the previous week. It was something he had refused to tell Liesel and did not talk about at home.

A GRAY AFTERNOON,

A SMALL SCHOOL OFFICE Three boys stood in a line. Their records and bodies were thoroughly examined.

When the fourth game of dominoes was completed, Rudy began to stand them up in lines, creating patterns that wound their way across the living room floor. As was his habit, he also left a few gaps, in case the rogue finger of a sibling interfered, which it usually did.

Can I knock them down, Rudy?

No.

What about me?

No. We all will.

He made three separate formations that led to the same tower of dominoes in the middle. Together, they would watch everything that was so carefully planned collapse, and they would all smile at the beauty of destruction.

The kitchen voices were becoming louder now, each heaping itself upon the other to be heard. Different sentences fought for attention until one person, previously silent, came between them.

No, she said. It was repeated. No. Even when the rest of them resumed their arguments, they were silenced again by the same voice, but now it gained momentum. Please, Barbara Steiner begged them. Not my boy.

Can we light a candle, Rudy?

It was something their father had often done with them. He would turn out the light and theyd watch the dominoes fall in the candlelight. It somehow made the event grander, a greater spectacle.

His legs were aching anyway. Let me find a match.

The light switch was at the door.

Quietly, he walked toward it with the matchbox in one hand, the candle in the other.

From the other side, the three men and one woman climbed to the hinges. The best scores in the class, said one of the monsters. Such depth and dryness. Not to mention his athletic ability. Damn it, why did he have to win all those races at the carnival?

Deutscher.

Damn that Franz Deutscher!

But then he understood.

This was not Franz Deutschers fault, but his own. Hed wanted to show his past tormentor what he was capable of, but he also wanted to prove himself to everyone. Now everyone was in the kitchen.

He lit the candle and switched off the light.

Ready?

But Ive heard what happens there. That was the unmistakable, oaky voice of his father.

Come on, Rudy, hurry up.

Yes, but understand, Herr Steiner, this is all for a greater purpose. Think of the opportunities your son can have. This is really a privilege.

Rudy, the candles dripping.

He waved them away, waiting again for Alex Steiner. He came.

Privileges? Like running barefoot through the snow? Like jumping from ten-meter platforms into three feet of water?

Rudys ear was pressed to the door now. Candle wax melted onto his hand.

Rumors. The arid voice, low and matter-of-fact, had an answer for everything. Our school is one of the finest ever established. Its better than world-class. Were creating an elite group of German citizens in the name of the Fhrer. . . .

Rudy could listen no longer.

He scraped the candle wax from his hand and drew back from the splice of light that came through the crack in the door. When he sat down, the flame went out. Too much movement. Darkness flowed in.

The only light available was a white rectangular stencil, the shape of the kitchen door.

He struck another match and reignited the candle. The sweet smell of fire and carbon.

Rudy and his sisters each tapped a different domino and they watched them fall until the tower in the middle was brought to its knees. The girls cheered.

Kurt, his older brother, arrived in the room.

They look like dead bodies, he said.

What?

Rudy peered up at the dark face, but Kurt did not answer. Hed noticed the arguing from the kitchen. Whats going on in there?

It was one of the girls who answered. The youngest, Bettina. She was five. There are two monsters, she said. Theyve come for Rudy.

Again, the human child. So much cannier.

Later, when the coat men left, the two boys, one seventeen, the other fourteen, found the courage to face the kitchen.

They stood in the doorway. The light punished their eyes.

It was Kurt who spoke. Are they taking him?

Their mothers forearms were flat on the table. Her palms were facing up.

Alex Steiner raised his head.

It was heavy.

His expression was sharp and definite, freshly cut.

A wooden hand wiped at the splinters of his fringe, and he made several attempts to speak.

Papa?

But Rudy did not walk toward his father.

He sat at the kitchen table and took hold of his mothers facing-up hand.

Alex and Barbara Steiner would not disclose what was said while the dominoes were falling like dead bodies in the living room. If only Rudy had kept listening at the door, just for another few minutes . . .

He told himself in the weeks to comeor in fact, pleaded with himselfthat if hed heard the rest of the conversation that night, hed have entered the kitchen much earlier. Ill go, hed have said. Please, take me, Im ready now.

If hed intervened, it might have changed everything.

THREE POSSIBILITIES

Alex Steiner wouldnt have suffered the same punishment as Hans Hubermann. Rudy would have gone away to school.

And just maybe, he would have lived.

The cruelty of fate, however, did not allow Rudy Steiner to enter the kitchen at the opportune moment.

Hed returned to his sisters and the dominoes.

He sat down.

Rudy Steiner wasnt going anywhere.

THE THOUGHT OF RUDY NAKED

There had been a woman.

Standing in the corner.

She had the thickest braid hed 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 business-like 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 aging 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.

Whos 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 mustache. Examining the boys, his choice came swiftly.

Schwarz.

The unfortunate Jrgen Schwarz undid his uniform with great discomfort. He was left standing only in his shoes and underwear. A luckless plea was marooned 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 Jrgen 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 doctors 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 couldnt 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 didnt 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 honor behind them.

Theyre a little older than usual, the doctor said, but Im thinking at least two of them.

The nurse agreed. The first and the third.

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 didnt matter. He knew what he wanted to believe. That was you, I think.

Cow shit, Spiegel, it was you.

A SMALL GUARANTEE

The coat men knew who was third.

The day after theyd 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 Jrgen Schwarzs 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 among 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 couldnt stop thinking about it.

PUNISHMENT

On the ration cards of Nazi Germany, there was no listing for punishment, but everyone had to take their turn. For some it was death in a foreign country during the war. For others it was poverty and guilt when the war was over, when six million discoveries were made throughout Europe. Many people must have seen their punishments coming, but only a small percentage welcomed it. One such person was Hans Hubermann.

You do not help Jews on the street.

Your basement should not be hiding one.

At first, his punishment was conscience. His oblivious unearthing of Max Vandenburg plagued him. Liesel could see it sitting next to his plate as he ignored his dinner, or standing with him at the bridge over the Amper. He no longer played the accordion. His silver-eyed optimism was wounded and motionless. That was bad enough, but it was only the beginning.

One Wednesday in early November, his true punishment arrived in the mailbox. On the surface, it appeared to be good news.

PAPER IN THE KITCHEN

We are delighted to inform you that your application to join the NSDAP has been approved. . . .

The Nazi Party? Rosa asked. I thought they didnt want you.

They didnt.

Papa sat down and read the letter again.

He was not being put on trial for treason or for helping Jews or anything of the sort. Hans Hubermann was being rewarded, at least as far as some people were concerned. How could this be possible?

There has to be more.

There was.

On Friday, a statement arrived to say that Hans Hubermann was to be drafted into the German army. A member of the party would be happy to play a role in the war effort, it concluded. If he wasnt, there would certainly be consequences.

Liesel had just returned from reading with Frau Holtzapfel. The kitchen was heavy with soup steam and the vacant faces of Hans and Rosa Hubermann. Papa was seated. Mama stood above him as the soup started to burn.

God, please dont send me to Russia, Papa said.

Mama, the soups burning.

What?

Liesel hurried across and took it from the stove. The soup. When shed successfully rescued it, she turned and viewed her foster parents. Faces like ghost towns. Papa, whats wrong?

He handed her the letter and her hands began to shake as she made her way through it. The words had been punched forcefully into the paper.

THE CONTENTS OF

LIESEL MEMINGERS IMAGINATION

In the shell-shocked kitchen, somewhere near the stove, theres an image of a lonely, overworked

typewriter. It sits in a distant, near-empty room. Its keys are faded and a blank sheet waits patiently upright in the assumed position. It wavers slightly in the breeze from the window. Coffee break is nearly over. A pile of paper the height of a human stands casually by the door. It could easily be smoking.

In truth, Liesel only saw the typewriter later, when she wrote. She wondered how many letters like that were sent out as punishment to Germanys Hans Hubermanns and Alex Steinersto those who helped the helpless, and those who refused to let go of their children.

It was a sign of the German armys growing desperation.

They were losing in Russia.

Their cities were being bombed.

More people were needed, as were ways of attaining them, and in most cases, the worst possible jobs would be given to the worst possible people.

As her eyes scanned the paper, Liesel could see through the punched letter holes to the wooden table. Words like compulsory and duty were beaten into the page. Saliva was triggered. It was the urge to vomit. What is this?

Papas answer was quiet. I thought I taught you to read, my girl. He did not speak with anger or sarcasm. It was a voice of vacancy, to match his face.

Liesel looked now to Mama.

Rosa had a small rip beneath her right eye, and within the minute, her cardboard face was broken. Not down the center, but to the right. It gnarled down her cheek in an arc, finishing at her chin.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER: A GIRL ON HIMMEL STREET

She looks up. She speaks in a whisper. The sky is soft today, Max. The clouds are so soft and sad, and . . . She looks away and crosses her arms. She thinks of her papa going to war and grabs her jacket at each side of her body. And its cold, Max. Its so cold. . . .

Five days later, when she continued her habit of looking at the weather, she did not get a chance to see the sky.

Next door, Barbara Steiner was sitting on the front step with her neatly combed hair. She was smoking a cigarette and shivering. On her way over, Liesel was interrupted by the sight of Kurt. He came out and sat with his mother. When he saw the girl stop, he called out.

Come on, Liesel. Rudy will be out soon.

After a short pause, she continued walking toward the step.

Barbara smoked.

A wrinkle of ash was teetering at the end of the cigarette. Kurt took it, ashed it, inhaled, then gave it back.

When the cigarette was done, Rudys mother looked up. She ran a hand through her tidy lines of hair.

Our papas going, too, Kurt said.

Quietness then.

A group of kids was kicking a ball, up near Frau Dillers.