Papa’s bread and jam would be half eaten on his plate, curled into the shape of bite marks, and the music would
look Liesel in the face. I know it sounds strange, but that’s how it felt to her. Papa’s right hand strolled the
tooth-colored keys. His left hit the buttons. (She especially loved to see him hit the silver, sparkled button—the
C major.) The accordion’s scratched yet shiny black exterior came back and forth as his arms squeezed the
dusty bellows, making it suck in the air and throw it back out. In the kitchen on those mornings, Papa made the
accordion live. I guess it makes sense, when you really think about it.
How do you tell if something’s alive?
You check for breathing. The sound of the accordion was, in fact, also the announcement of safety. Daylight.
During the day, it was impossible to dream of her brother. She would miss him and frequently cry in the tiny
washroom as quietly as possible, but she was still glad to be awake. On her first night with the Hubermanns, she
had hidden her last link to him— The Grave Digger’s Handbook—under her mattress, and occasionally she
would pull it out and hold it. Staring at the letters on the cover and touching the print inside, she had no idea
what any of it was saying. The point is, it didn’t really matter what that book was about. It was what it meant
that was more important.
THE BOOK’S MEANING
1. The last time she saw her brother.
2. The last time she saw her mother.
Sometimes she would whisper the word Mama and see her mother’s face a hundred times in a single afternoon.
But those were small miseries compared to the terror of her dreams. At those times, in the enormous mileage of
sleep, she had never felt so completely alone.
As I’m sure you’ve already noticed, there were no other children in the house.
The Hubermanns had two of their own, but they were older and had moved out. Hans Junior worked in the
center of Munich, and Trudy held a job as a housemaid and child minder. Soon, they would both be in the war.
One would be making bullets. The other would be shooting them.
School, as you might imagine, was a terrific failure.
Although it was state-run, there was a heavy Catholic influence, and Liesel was Lutheran. Not the most
auspicious start. Then they discovered she couldn’t read or write.
Humiliatingly, she was cast down with the younger kids, who were only just learning the alphabet. Even though
she was thin-boned and pale, she felt gigantic among the midget children, and she often wished she was pale
enough to disappear altogether.
Even at home, there wasn’t much room for guidance.
“Don’t ask him for help,” Mama pointed out. “That Saukerl.” Papa was staring out the window, as was often his
habit. “He left school in fourth grade.”
Without turning around, Papa answered calmly, but with venom, “Well, don’t ask her, either.” He dropped
some ash outside. “She left school in third grade.”
There were no books in the house (apart from the one she had secreted under her mattress), and the best Liesel
could do was speak the alphabet under her breath before she was told in no uncertain terms to keep quiet. All that mumbling. It wasn’t until later, when there was a bed-wetting incident midnightmare, that an extra reading
education began. Unofficially, it was called the midnight class, even though it usually commenced at around
two in the morning. More of that soon. In mid-February, when she turned ten, Liesel was given a used doll that
had a missing leg and yellow hair.
“It was the best we could do,” Papa apologized.
“What are you talking about? She’s lucky to have that much,” Mama corrected him.
Hans continued his examination of the remaining leg while Liesel tried on her new uniform. Ten years old
meant Hitler Youth. Hitler Youth meant a small brown uniform. Being female, Liesel was enrolled into what
was called the BDM.
EXPLANATION OF THE
ABBREVIATION
It stood for Bund Deutscher Mädchen—
Band of German Girls.
The first thing they did there was make sure your “heil Hitler” was working properly. Then you were taught to
march straight, roll bandages, and sew up clothes. You were also taken hiking and on other such activities.
Wednesday and Saturday were the designated meeting days, from three in the afternoon until five.
Each Wednesday and Saturday, Papa would walk Liesel there and pick her up two hours later. They never
spoke about it much. They just held hands and listened to their feet, and Papa had a cigarette or two.
The only anxiety Papa brought her was the fact that he was constantly leaving. Many evenings, he would walk
into the living room (which doubled as the Hubermanns’ bedroom), pull the accordion from the old cupboard,
and squeeze past in the kitchen to the front door.
As he walked up Himmel Street, Mama would open the window and cry out, “Don’t be home too late!”
“Not so loud,” he would turn and call back.
“Saukerl! Lick my ass! I’ll speak as loud as I want!”
The echo of her swearing followed him up the street. He never looked back, or at least, not until he was sure his
wife was gone. On those evenings, at the end of the street, accordion case in hand, he would turn around, just
before Frau Diller’s corner shop, and see the figure who had replaced his wife in the window. Briefly, his long,
ghostly hand would rise before he turned again and walked slowly on. The next time Liesel saw him would be
at two in the morning, when he dragged her gently from her nightmare.
Evenings in the small kitchen were raucous, without fail. Rosa Hubermann was always talking, and when she
was talking, it took the form of schimpfen. She was constantly arguing and complaining. There was no one to
really argue with, but Mama managed it expertly every chance she had. She could argue with the entire world in
that kitchen, and almost every evening, she did. Once they had eaten and Papa was gone, Liesel and Rosa would
usually remain there, and Rosa would do the ironing.
A few times a week, Liesel would come home from school and walk the streets of Molching with her mama,
picking up and delivering washing and ironing from the wealthier parts of town. Knaupt Strasse, Heide Strasse.
A few others. Mama would deliver the ironing or pick up the washing with a dutiful smile, but as soon as the
door was shut and she walked away, she would curse these rich people, with all their money and laziness.“Too g’schtinkerdt to wash their own clothes,” she would say, despite her dependence on them.
“Him,” she accused Herr Vogel from Heide Strasse. “Made all his money from his father. He throws it away on
women and drink. And washing and ironing, of course.”
It was like a roll call of scorn.
Herr Vogel, Herr and Frau Pfaffelhürver, Helena Schmidt, the Weingartners. They were all guilty of something.
Apart from his drunkenness and expensive lechery, Ernst Vogel, according to Rosa, was constantly scratching
his louse-ridden hair, licking his fingers, and then handing over the money. “I should wash it before I come
home,” was her summation.
The Pfaffelhürvers scrutinized the results. “ ‘Not one crease in these shirts, please,’ ” Rosa imitated them. “
‘Not one wrinkle in this suit.’ And then they stand there and inspect it all, right in front of me. Right under my
nose! What a G’sindel—what trash.”
The Weingartners were apparently stupid people with a constantly molting Saumensch of a cat. “Do you know
how long it takes me to get rid of all that fur? It’s everywhere!”
Helena Schmidt was a rich widow. “That old cripple—sitting there just wasting away. She’s never had to do a
day’s work in all her life.”
Rosa’s greatest disdain, however, was reserved for 8 Grande Strasse. A large house, high on a hill, in the upper
part of Molching.
“This one,” she’d pointed out to Liesel the first time they went there, “is the mayor’s house. That crook. His
wife sits at home all day, too mean to light a fire—it’s always freezing in there. She’s crazy.” She punctuated
the words. “Absolutely. Crazy.” At the gate, she motioned to the girl. “You go.”
Liesel was horrified. A giant brown door with a brass knocker stood atop a small flight of steps. “What?”
Mama shoved her. “Don’t you ‘what’ me, Saumensch. Move it.”
Liesel moved it. She walked the path, climbed the steps, hesitated, and knocked.
A bathrobe answered the door.
Inside it, a woman with startled eyes, hair like fluff, and the posture of defeat stood in front of her. She saw
Mama at the gate and handed the girl a bag of washing. “Thank you,” Liesel said, but there was no reply. Only
the door. It closed.
“You see?” said Mama when she returned to the gate. “This is what I have to put up with. These rich bastards,
these lazy swine . . .”
Holding the washing as they walked away, Liesel looked back. The brass knocker eyed her from the door.
When she finished berating the people she worked for, Rosa Hubermann would usually move on to her other
favorite theme of abuse. Her husband. Looking at the bag of washing and the hunched houses, she would talk,
and talk, and talk. “If your papa was any good,” she informed Liesel every time they walked through Molching,
“I wouldn’t have to do this.” She sniffed with derision. “A painter! Why marry that Arschloch ? That’s what they told me—my family, that is.” Their footsteps crunched along the path. “And here I am, walking the streets
and slaving in my kitchen because that Saukerl never has any work. No real work, anyway. Just that pathetic
accordion in those dirt holes every night.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“Is that all you’ve got to say?” Mama’s eyes were like pale blue cutouts, pasted to her face.
They’d walk on.
With Liesel carrying the sack.
At home, it was washed in a boiler next to the stove, hung up by the fireplace in the living room, and then
ironed in the kitchen. The kitchen was where the action was.
“Did you hear that?” Mama asked her nearly every night. The iron was in her fist, heated from the stove. Light
was dull all through the house, and Liesel, sitting at the kitchen table, would be staring at the gaps of fire in
front of her.
“What?” she’d reply. “What is it?”
“That was that Holtzapfel.” Mama was already out of her seat. “That Saumensch just spat on our door again.”
It was a tradition for Frau Holtzapfel, one of their neighbors, to spit on the Hubermanns’ door every time she
walked past. The front door was only meters from the gate, and let’s just say that Frau Holtzapfel had the
distance—and the accuracy.
The spitting was due to the fact that she and Rosa Hubermann were engaged in some kind of decade-long verbal
war. No one knew the origin of this hostility. They’d probably forgotten it themselves.
Frau Holtzapfel was a wiry woman and quite obviously spiteful. She’d never married but had two sons, a few
years older than the Hubermann offspring. Both were in the army and both will make cameo appearances by the
time we’re finished here, I assure you.
In the spiteful stakes, I should also say that Frau Holtzapfel was thorough with her spitting, too. She never
neglected to spuck on the door of number thirty-three and say, “Schweine!” each time she walked past. One
thing I’ve noticed about the Germans:
They seem very fond of pigs.
A SMALL QUESTION AND
ITS ANSWER
And who do you think was made to
clean the spit off the door each night?
Yes—you got it.
When a woman with an iron fist tells you to get out there and clean spit off the door, you do it. Especially when
the iron’s hot.
It was all just part of the routine, really Each night, Liesel would step outside, wipe the door, and watch the sky. Usually it was like spillage—cold and
heavy, slippery and gray—but once in a while some stars had the nerve to rise and float, if only for a few
minutes. On those nights, she would stay a little longer and wait.
“Hello, stars.”
Waiting.
For the voice from the kitchen.
Or till the stars were dragged down again, into the waters of the German sky.