The Power of Hope

Rosa had already considered that. “No. We have to keep these curtains open in the day or else it looks
‎suspicious.”
‎“Good point.” Hans carried him out.
‎Blankets in hand, Liesel watched.
‎Limp feet and hanging hair in the hallway. One shoe had fallen off him.
‎“Move.”
‎Mama marched in behind them, in her waddlesome way.
‎Once Max was in the bed, blankets were heaped on top and fastened around his body.
‎“Mama?”
‎Liesel couldn’t bring herself to say anything else.
‎“What?” The bun of Rosa Hubermann’s hair was wound tight enough to frighten from behind. It seemed to
‎tighten further when she repeated the question. “What, Liesel?”
‎She stepped closer, afraid of the answer. “Is he alive?”
‎The bun nodded.
‎Rosa turned then and said something with great assurance. “Now listen to me, Liesel. I didn’t take this man into
‎my house to watch him die. Understand?”
‎Liesel nodded.
‎“Now go.”
‎In the hall, Papa hugged her.
‎She desperately needed it.
‎Later on, she heard Hans and Rosa speaking in the night. Rosa made her sleep in their room, and she lay next to
‎their bed, on the floor, on the mattress they’d dragged up from the basement. (There was concern as to whether
‎it was infected, but they came to the conclusion that such thoughts were unfounded. This was no virus Max was
‎suffering from, so they carried it up and replaced the sheet.)
‎Imagining the girl to be asleep, Mama voiced her opinion.
‎“That damn snowman,” she whispered. “I bet it started with the snowman—fooling around with ice and snow in
‎the cold down there.”
‎Papa was more philosophical. “Rosa, it started with Adolf.” He lifted himself. “We should check on him.”
‎In the course of the night, Max was visited seven times.In the morning, Liesel brought him his sketchbook from the basement and placed it on the bedside table. She
‎felt awful for having looked at it the previous year, and this time, she kept it firmly closed, out of respect.
‎When Papa came in, she did not turn to face him but talked across Max Vandenburg, at the wall. “Why did I
‎have to bring all that snow down?” she asked. “It started all of this, didn’t it, Papa?” She clenched her hands, as
‎if to pray. “Why did I have to build that snowman?”
‎Papa, to his enduring credit, was adamant. “Liesel,” he said, “you had to.”
‎For hours, she sat with him as he shivered and slept.
‎“Don’t die,” she whispered. “Please, Max, just don’t die.”
‎He was the second snowman to be melting away before her eyes, only this one was different. It was a paradox.
‎The colder he became, the more he melted.It was Max’s arrival, revisited.
‎Feathers turned to twigs again. Smooth face turned to rough. The proof she needed was there. He was alive.
‎The first few days, she sat and talked to him. On her birthday, she told him there was an enormous cake waiting
‎in the kitchen, if only he’d wake up.
‎There was no waking.
‎There was no cake.
‎A LATE-NIGHT EXCERPT
‎I realized much later that I actually visited
‎33 Himmel Street in that period of time.
‎It must have been one of the few moments when the
‎girl was not there with him, for all I saw was a
‎man in bed. I knelt. I readied myself to insert
‎my hands through the blankets. Then there was a
‎resurgence—an immense struggle against my weight.
‎I withdrew, and with so much work ahead of me,
‎it was nice to be fought off in that dark little room.
‎I even managed a short, closed-eyed pause of
‎serenity before I made my way out.
‎On the fifth day, there was much excitement when Max opened his eyes, if only for a few moments. What he
‎predominantly saw (and what a frightening version it must have been close-up) was Rosa Hubermann,
‎practically slinging an armful of soup into his mouth. “Swallow,” she advised him. “Don’t think. Just swallow.”
‎As soon as Mama handed back the bowl, Liesel tried to see his face again, but there was a soup-feeder’s
‎backside in the way.
‎“Is he still awake?”
‎When she turned, Rosa did not have to answer.
‎After close to a week, Max woke up a second time, on this occasion with Liesel and Papa in the room. They
‎were both watching the body in the bed when there was a small groan. If it’s possible, Papa fell upward, out of
‎the chair.
‎“Look,” Liesel gasped. “Stay awake, Max, stay awake.”
‎He looked at her briefly, but there was no recognition. The eyes studied her as if she were a riddle. Then gone
‎again.
‎“Papa, what happened?” Hans dropped, back to the chair.
‎Later, he suggested that perhaps she should read to him. “Come on, Liesel, you’re such a good reader these days
‎—even if it’s a mystery to all of us where that book came from.”
‎“I told you, Papa. One of the nuns at school gave it to me.”
‎Papa held his hands up in mock-protest. “I know, I know.” He sighed, from a height. “Just . . .” He chose his
‎words gradually. “Don’t get caught.” This from a man who’d stolen a Jew.
‎From that day on, Liesel read The Whistler aloud to Max as he occupied her bed. The one frustration was that
‎she kept having to skip whole chapters on account of many of the pages being stuck together. It had not dried
‎well. Still, she struggled on, to the point where she was nearly three-quarters of the way through it. The book
‎was 396 pages.
‎In the outside world, Liesel rushed from school each day in the hope that Max was feeling better. “Has he
‎woken up? Has he eaten?”
‎“Go back out,” Mama begged her. “You’re chewing a hole in my stomach with all this talking. Go on. Get out
‎there and play soccer, for God’s sake.”
‎“Yes, Mama.” She was about to open the door. “But you’ll come and get me if he wakes up, won’t you? Just
‎make something up. Scream out like I’ve done something wrong. Start swearing at me. Everyone will believe it,
‎don’t worry.”
‎Even Rosa had to smile at that. She placed her knuckles on her hips and explained that Liesel wasn’t too old yet
‎to avoid a Watschen for talking in such a way. “And score a goal,” she threatened, “or don’t come home at all.”
‎“Sure, Mama.”
‎“Make that two goals, Saumensch!”
‎“Yes, Mama.”
‎“And stop answering back!”
‎Liesel considered, but she ran onto the street, to oppose Rudy on the mud-slippery road.
‎“About time, ass scratcher.” He welcomed her in the customary way as they fought for the ball. “Where have
‎you been?”
‎Half an hour later, when the ball was squashed by the rare passage of a car on Himmel Street, Liesel had found
‎her first present for Max Vandenburg. After judging it irreparable, all of the kids walked home in disgust,
‎leaving the ball twitching on the cold, blistered road. Liesel and Rudy remained stooped over the carcass. There
‎was a gaping hole on its side like a mouth.
‎“You want it?” Liesel asked.
‎Rudy shrugged. “What do I want with this squashed shit heap of a ball? There’s no chance of getting air into it
‎now, is there?” “Do you want it or not?”
‎“No thanks.” Rudy prodded it cautiously with his foot, as if it were a dead animal. Or an animal that might be
‎dead.
‎As he walked home, Liesel picked the ball up and placed it under her arm. She could hear him call out, “Hey,
‎Saumensch.” She waited. “Saumensch!”
‎She relented. “What?”
‎“I’ve got a bike without wheels here, too, if you want it.”
‎“Stick your bike.”
‎From her position on the street, the last thing she heard was the laughter of that Saukerl, Rudy Steiner.
‎Inside, she made her way to the bedroom. She took the ball in to Max and placed it at the end of the bed.
‎“I’m sorry,” she said, “it’s not much. But when you wake up, I’ll tell you all about it. I’ll tell you it was the
‎grayest afternoon you can imagine, and this car without its lights on ran straight over the ball. Then the man got
‎out and yelled at us. And then he asked for directions. The nerve of him . . .”
‎Wake up! she wanted to scream.
‎Or shake him.
‎She didn’t.
‎All Liesel could do was watch the ball and its trampled, flaking skin. It was the first gift of many.
‎PRESENTS #2–#5
‎One ribbon, one pinecone.
‎One button, one stone.
‎The soccer ball had given her an idea.
‎Whenever she walked to and from school now, Liesel was on the lookout for discarded items that might be
‎valuable to a dying man. She wondered at first why it mattered so much. How could something so seemingly
‎insignificant give comfort to someone? A ribbon in a gutter. A pinecone on the street. A button leaning casually
‎against a classroom wall. A flat round stone from the river. If nothing else, it showed that she cared, and it
‎might give them something to talk about when Max woke up.
‎When she was alone, she would conduct those conversations.
‎“So what’s all this?” Max would say. “What’s all this junk?”
‎“Junk?” In her mind, she was sitting on the side of the bed. “This isn’t junk, Max. These are what made you
‎wake up.”