The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

transgressor.
    “So have they
let you in yet?” Hans Junior was picking up where they’d left off at Christmas.
    “In what?”
    “Take a
guess—the party.”
    “No, I think
they’ve forgotten about me.”
    “Well, have you
even tried again? You can’t just sit around waiting for the new world to take
it with you. You have to go out and be part of it—despite your past mistakes.”
    Papa looked up.
“Mistakes? I’ve made many mistakes in my life, but not joining the Nazi Party
isn’t one of them. They still have my application—you know that—but I couldn’t
go back to ask. I just . . .”
    That was when a
great shiver arrived.
    It waltzed
through the window with the draft. Perhaps it was the breeze of the Third
Reich, gathering even greater strength. Or maybe it was just Europe again,
breathing. Either way, it fell across them as their metallic eyes clashed like
tin cans in the kitchen.
    “You’ve never
cared about this country,” said Hans Junior. “Not enough, anyway.”
    Papa’s eyes
started corroding. It did not stop Hans Junior. He looked now for some reason
at the girl. With her three books standing upright on the table, as if in
conversation, Liesel was silently mouthing the words as she read from one of
them. “And what trash is this girl reading? She should be reading
Mein
Kampf.
”
    Liesel looked
up.
    “Don’t worry,
Liesel,” Papa said. “Just keep reading. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
    But Hans Junior
wasn’t finished. He stepped closer and said, “You’re either for the
Führer
or
against him—and I can see that you’re against him. You always have been.”
Liesel watched Hans Junior in the face, fixated on the thinness of his lips and
the rocky line of his bottom teeth. “It’s pathetic—how a man can stand by and
do nothing as a whole nation cleans out the garbage and makes itself great.”
    Trudy and Mama
sat silently, scaredly, as did Liesel. There was the smell of pea soup,
something burning, and confrontation.
    They were all
waiting for the next words.
    They came from
the son. Just two of them.
    “You coward.” He
upturned them into Papa’s face, and he promptly left the kitchen, and the
house.
    Ignoring
futility, Papa walked to the doorway and called out to his son. “Coward?
I’m
the coward?!” He then rushed to the gate and ran pleadingly after him. Mama
hurried to the window, ripped away the flag, and opened up. She, Trudy, and
Liesel all crowded together, watching a father catch up to his son and grab
hold of him, begging him to stop. They could hear nothing, but the manner in
which Hans Junior shrugged loose was loud enough. The sight of Papa watching
him walk away roared at them from up the street.
    “Hansi!” Mama
finally cried out. Both Trudy and Liesel flinched from her voice. “Come back!”
    The boy was
gone.
    Yes, the boy was
gone, and I wish I could tell you that everything worked out for the younger
Hans Hubermann, but it didn’t.
    When he vanished
from Himmel Street that day in the name of the
Führer,
he would hurtle
through the events of another story, each step leading tragically to Russia.
    To Stalingrad.
    SOME
FACTS ABOUT STALINGRAD
    1. In 1942 and early ’43, in that city, the sky was bleached bedsheet-white
each morning.
    2. All day long, as I carried the souls across it, that sheet was splashed with
blood, until it was full and bulging to the earth.
    3. In the evening, it would be wrung out and bleached again, ready for
the next dawn.
    4. And that was when the fighting was only during the day.
    With his son
gone, Hans Hubermann stood for a few moments longer. The street looked so big.
    When he
reappeared inside, Mama fixed her gaze on him, but no words were exchanged. She
didn’t admonish him at all, which, as you know, was highly unusual. Perhaps she
decided he was injured enough, having been labeled a coward by his only son.
    For a while, he
remained silently at the table