Homecoming. Part ten. The end of the world (part i)

HOMECOMING

 
 It was a time of bleeders and broken planes and teddy bears, but the first quarter of 1943 was to finish on a positive note for the book thief.
 
 At the beginning of April, Hans Hubermanns plaster was trimmed to the knee and he boarded a train for Munich. He would be given a week of rest and recreation at home before joining the ranks of army pen pushers in the city. He would help with the paperwork on the cleanup of Munichs factories, houses, churches, and hospitals. Time would tell if he would be sent out to do the repair work. That all depended on his leg and the state of the city.
 
 It was dark when he arrived home. It was a day later than expected, as the train was delayed due to an air-raid scare. He stood at the door of 33 Himmel Street and made a fist.
 
 Four years earlier, Liesel Meminger was coaxed through that doorway when she showed up for the first time. Max Vandenburg had stood there with a key biting into his hand. Now it was Hans Hubermanns turn. He knocked four times and the book thief answered.
 
 Papa, Papa.
 
 She must have said it a hundred times as she hugged him in the kitchen and wouldnt let go.
 
 Later, after they ate, they sat at the kitchen table long into the night and Hans told his wife and Liesel Meminger everything. He explained the LSE and the smoke-filled streets and the poor, lost, wandering souls. And Reinhold Zucker. Poor, stupid Reinhold Zucker. It took hours.
 
 At 1 a. m., Liesel went to bed and Papa came in to sit with her, like he used to. She woke up several times to check that he was there, and he did not fail her.
 
 The night was calm.
 
 Her bed was warm and soft with contentment.
 
 Yes, it was a great night to be Liesel Meminger, and the calm, the warm, and the soft would remain for approximately three more months.
 
 But her story lasts for six.
 
 
 
  

PART TEN

the book thief

featuring:
 the end of a worldthe ninety-eighth day
 a war makerway of the wordsa catatonic girl
 confessionsilsa hermanns little black book
 some rib-cage planesand a mountain range of rubble
 

THE END OF THE WORLD (Part I)

 
 Again, I offer you a glimpse of the end. Perhaps its to soften the blow for later, or to better prepare myself for the telling. Either way, I must inform you that it was raining on Himmel Street when the world ended for Liesel Meminger.
 
 The sky was dripping.
 
 Like a tap that a child has tried its hardest to turn off but hasnt quite managed. The first drops were cool. I felt them on my hands as I stood outside Frau Dillers.
 
 Above me, I could hear them.
 
 Through the overcast sky, I looked up and saw the tin-can planes. I watched their stomachs open and the bombs drop casually out. They were off target, of course. They were often off target.
 

A SMALL, SAD HOPE
 No one wanted to
 bomb Himmel Street.
 No one would bomb a
 place named after
 heaven, would they?
 Would they?
 

 
 The bombs came down, and soon, the clouds would bake and the cold raindrops would turn to ash. Hot snowflakes would shower to the ground.
 
 In short, Himmel Street was flattened.
 
 Houses were splashed from one side of the street to the other. A framed photo of a very serious-looking Fhrer was bashed and beaten on the shattered floor. Yet he smiled, in that serious way of his. He knew something we all didnt know. But I knew something he didnt know. All while people slept.
 
 Rudy Steiner slept. Mama and Papa slept. Frau Holtzapfel, Frau Diller. Tommy Mller. All sleeping. All dying.
 
 Only one person survived.
 
 She survived because she was sitting in a basement reading through the story of her own life, checking for mistakes. Previously, the room had been declared too shallow, but on that night, October 7, it was enough. The shells of wreckage cantered down, and hours later, when the strange, unkempt silence settled itself in Molching, the local LSE could hear something. An echo. Down there, somewhere, a girl was hammering a paint can with a pencil.
 
 They all stopped, with bent ears and bodies, and when they heard it again, they started digging.
 

PASSED ITEMS, HAND TO HAND
 Blocks of cement and roof tiles.
 A piece of wall with a dripping
 sun painted on it. An unhappy-
 looking accordion, peering
 through its eaten case.
 

 
 They threw all of it upward.
 
 When another piece of broken wall was removed, one of them saw the book thiefs hair.
 
 The man had such a nice laugh. He was delivering a newborn child. I cant believe itshes alive!
 
 There was so much joy among the cluttering, calling men, but I could not fully share their enthusiasm.
 
 Earlier, Id held her papa in one arm and her mama in the other. Each soul was so soft.
 
 Farther away, their bodies were laid out, like the rest. Papas lovely silver eyes were already starting to rust, and Mamas cardboard lips were fixed half open, most likely the shape of an incomplete snore. To blaspheme like the GermansJesus, Mary, and Joseph.
 
 The rescuing hands pulled Liesel out and brushed the crumbs of rubble from her clothes. Young girl, they said, the sirens were too late. What were you doing in the basement? How did you know?
 
 What they didnt notice was that the girl was still holding the book. She screamed her reply. A stunning scream of the living.
 
 Papa!
 
 A second time. Her face creased as she reached a higher, more panic-stricken pitch. Papa, Papa!
 
 They passed her up as she shouted, wailed, and cried. If she was injured, she did not yet know it, for she struggled free and searched and called and wailed some more.
 
 She was still clutching the book.
 
 She was holding desperately on to the words who had saved her life.