The Meaning of Life (4/9) - The Book Thief
Story Title: The Meaning of Life
Chapter Title: Reflections In A Broken Mirror
Fandom: The Book Thief
Characters/pairings: Rudy/Liesel
Warnings: Violence, death, and some bad language. Spoilers for the book.
Disclaimers: The Book Thief is the property of Markus Zusak, who is an effing genius. Life and the LSE men are mine.
Summary: What would have happened if Rudy had survived the bombing of Himmel Street?
1 - Life Goes On
2 - Beginnings & Endings
3 - The Way To Hell
REFLECTIONS IN A BROKEN MIRROR
A TABLEAU
The boy sits next to the girl, on a thin wooden bench in Molching Police Station. There is a doll in his lap, and
an accordion in hers.
The doll has yellow woollen hair and blue buttons for eyes. It is scorched from the fire, and its handstitched
dirndl is stained with rust-coloured death.
The accordion will never play again.
The boy and the girl do not look down at the things they are holding. Pain dances in their eyes like fire,
and there is a space of a thousand miles between them, as they sit inches apart.
It is the distance of realisation. It cannot be broken.
“Liesel?”
“What is it, Rudy?”
Around them, an adult world roared, beating like the blood that rushed in his ears. But it was calm around them. Still. Sharp. The eye of the storm, the too-short space between understanding and deeper realisation.
He wanted to apologise. The realisation had hit him several moments ago, as it must have hit her; that she was now an orphan twice over. That, whatever pain she had been through, it was not for the first time.
He wanted to ask her, wanted her to tell him, how it was possible that she had got over this before. How she had managed to live through the gnawing, grasping pain of loss, of betrayal.
But instead, he only said, “Do you think it was their planes, or ours?”
She didn’t look at him. In both their minds, images were coalescing; a plane. A teddy bear. A dying soldier.
“Does it matter?” she asked, her voice shaking.
What an observation. Sometimes, I am still taken aback by how wise children are.
But then, neither of them was really a child any more.
Rudy fell silent again, and glanced down at the doll in his lap. Guilt gnawed at him, deep in the pit of his stomach. The button eyes seemed to be accusing him.
He had left the bear for the English pilot. But for Bettina, he had left nothing but an empty space in her arms where the doll had been.
Once, in the darkness of Gelb Street, he had admitted a truth to himself. Now, he revised it, and murmured it, raw and burning, into the clinical air of the police station.
A POSSIBLE TRUTH
“I guess I’m not so much better at leaving things behind, after all.”
Liesel’s eyes slid sideways to his. Her hands tightened on the accordion in her lap, and she bit her lip, closing her eyes. Lemon-yellow blotted the darkness behind them. The doll’s hair. The teddy bear on a dead man’s shoulder. Flames. Dirty smoke.
Rudy.
She didn’t dare look at him. Couldn’t bear to face the pain that she had seen, naked and raw, in his blue eyes.
He could have died tonight, she thought with a pang. He could have died, or I could have died, and then who would have picked up Bettina’s doll or Papa’s accordion?
Then who would have been left to mourn us?
Then who would have sat in an empty room, with the gulf of loss between them, and cursing the day they let themselves care about Himmel Street and the people on it?
She sat there, fingers running over the case of Hans Hubermann’s accordion. Beside her, Rudy picked up the doll and crushed it to his chest, bowing his head. When I think of that tableau, I can only think of how right she was.
Like I said, I am so much crueller than my brother.
But time marches on, and the world did not stop for Rudy and Liesel, however much they might have wished it. Either of them would gladly have sat there forever, on the hard, uncomfortable bench, in silent penance for their own survival.
Pain made the minutes and the hours meaningless. Just a number charted by the dull ticking of the clock on the wall.
But the minutes and the hours passed anyway.
The hand of the clock had moved on three hours when the door opened slowly, to let in the mayor and his fluffy-haired wife.
“Everyone is saying,” she said in her whispery voice, “that there were survivors.” And the policeman on duty, brow creased as he bent over his paperwork, pointed without looking up.
Leaving her husband standing at the desk, Ilsa Hermann wove her way over to the two teenaged miracles. Neither Liesel nor Rudy looked up, and for a moment, she thought they must have fallen asleep.
They weren’t asleep. They would have been better off asleep, but they weren’t.
Rudy was the first to see the fluffy-haired woman squatting down next to the bench. “Frau Hermann?” he asked quietly, disbelieving that even so small a part of his life was still there, and elbowed Liesel in the ribs.
She started.
Ilsa smiled brittly. “I’ve come to take you home,” she told them quietly.
AN UNFORTUNATE REALITY
She was lying. She hadn’t come to take them home at all. There was no home left to take them to.
But for a moment, both of them believed her.
“Home?” Rudy asked, frowning. He thought about home; home was his family. Home was the tailor’s in Himmel Street. Home was Papa, and Mama, and brothers and sisters - but all that came to mind was Bettina’s torso, bent and broken over the branch of a skeletal tree, and the rusty stain on her doll. Tears which he thought he had cried the last of sprang to his eyes.
Liesel didn’t cry.
But she felt like it.
Ilsa sighed, knowing that she had said the wrong thing, but unable to take it back.
“Komm,” she said, by way of apology, and held out her hands.
Neither Rudy nor Liesel were in any mood to take them, but both stood up. Bettina’s doll dangled from his hand. She held Papa’s accordion tightly against her bony chest.
And they left solace behind them as they walked outside, flanked by the Hermanns. Down the steps. The bombed streets sucked at the eye like a missing tooth in a perfect smile, black and smoking.
The car was waiting.
The mayor drove.
Ilsa sat in the front, pale hands twisting in her lap.
On the back seat, an accordion case lay like a coffin, with an absurdly cheerful, woollen-haired doll perched on it.
Rudy was still crying. Silently and subtly, but the tears would not stop tracing down his filthy cheeks, and his blue eyes were fixed on the ruins of Himmel Street, seen through glass.
A LITTLE THOUGHT
I wonder if the Fuhrer ever saw pain like that. Maybe he did, in the trenches, but that
was a long time ago, and he was another man.
But then, as Liesel said, does it matter?
Sooty, yellow hair hung like a curtain, shrouding his face, but Liesel knew how he felt. It hurt to know, a real, physical pain deep in her heart.
He wanted to die. To wipe away everything that hurt him; the skeletons of Himmel Street, the yellow-haired doll beside him, the feeling of the juddering car under them.
That was the moment where I regretted what I had done more than anything. I can see him in my mind’s eye; battered and bruised from wounds that should have - that did - kill him, hands fisted in his lap, eyes on the burnt offering that was Himmel Street.
Under her breath, almost too quiet to hear, Liesel said in his ear, “Was über einen Kuss, Saukerl?”
A SAD LITTLE SAYING
There is a time and a place
Choked with tears, burning with hate, Rudy shook his head.
Chapter Title: Reflections In A Broken Mirror
Fandom: The Book Thief
Characters/pairings: Rudy/Liesel
Warnings: Violence, death, and some bad language. Spoilers for the book.
Disclaimers: The Book Thief is the property of Markus Zusak, who is an effing genius. Life and the LSE men are mine.
Summary: What would have happened if Rudy had survived the bombing of Himmel Street?
1 - Life Goes On
2 - Beginnings & Endings
3 - The Way To Hell
REFLECTIONS IN A BROKEN MIRROR
A TABLEAU
The boy sits next to the girl, on a thin wooden bench in Molching Police Station. There is a doll in his lap, and
an accordion in hers.
The doll has yellow woollen hair and blue buttons for eyes. It is scorched from the fire, and its handstitched
dirndl is stained with rust-coloured death.
The accordion will never play again.
The boy and the girl do not look down at the things they are holding. Pain dances in their eyes like fire,
and there is a space of a thousand miles between them, as they sit inches apart.
It is the distance of realisation. It cannot be broken.
“Liesel?”
“What is it, Rudy?”
Around them, an adult world roared, beating like the blood that rushed in his ears. But it was calm around them. Still. Sharp. The eye of the storm, the too-short space between understanding and deeper realisation.
He wanted to apologise. The realisation had hit him several moments ago, as it must have hit her; that she was now an orphan twice over. That, whatever pain she had been through, it was not for the first time.
He wanted to ask her, wanted her to tell him, how it was possible that she had got over this before. How she had managed to live through the gnawing, grasping pain of loss, of betrayal.
But instead, he only said, “Do you think it was their planes, or ours?”
She didn’t look at him. In both their minds, images were coalescing; a plane. A teddy bear. A dying soldier.
“Does it matter?” she asked, her voice shaking.
What an observation. Sometimes, I am still taken aback by how wise children are.
But then, neither of them was really a child any more.
Rudy fell silent again, and glanced down at the doll in his lap. Guilt gnawed at him, deep in the pit of his stomach. The button eyes seemed to be accusing him.
He had left the bear for the English pilot. But for Bettina, he had left nothing but an empty space in her arms where the doll had been.
Once, in the darkness of Gelb Street, he had admitted a truth to himself. Now, he revised it, and murmured it, raw and burning, into the clinical air of the police station.
A POSSIBLE TRUTH
“I guess I’m not so much better at leaving things behind, after all.”
Liesel’s eyes slid sideways to his. Her hands tightened on the accordion in her lap, and she bit her lip, closing her eyes. Lemon-yellow blotted the darkness behind them. The doll’s hair. The teddy bear on a dead man’s shoulder. Flames. Dirty smoke.
Rudy.
She didn’t dare look at him. Couldn’t bear to face the pain that she had seen, naked and raw, in his blue eyes.
He could have died tonight, she thought with a pang. He could have died, or I could have died, and then who would have picked up Bettina’s doll or Papa’s accordion?
Then who would have been left to mourn us?
Then who would have sat in an empty room, with the gulf of loss between them, and cursing the day they let themselves care about Himmel Street and the people on it?
She sat there, fingers running over the case of Hans Hubermann’s accordion. Beside her, Rudy picked up the doll and crushed it to his chest, bowing his head. When I think of that tableau, I can only think of how right she was.
Like I said, I am so much crueller than my brother.
But time marches on, and the world did not stop for Rudy and Liesel, however much they might have wished it. Either of them would gladly have sat there forever, on the hard, uncomfortable bench, in silent penance for their own survival.
Pain made the minutes and the hours meaningless. Just a number charted by the dull ticking of the clock on the wall.
But the minutes and the hours passed anyway.
The hand of the clock had moved on three hours when the door opened slowly, to let in the mayor and his fluffy-haired wife.
“Everyone is saying,” she said in her whispery voice, “that there were survivors.” And the policeman on duty, brow creased as he bent over his paperwork, pointed without looking up.
Leaving her husband standing at the desk, Ilsa Hermann wove her way over to the two teenaged miracles. Neither Liesel nor Rudy looked up, and for a moment, she thought they must have fallen asleep.
They weren’t asleep. They would have been better off asleep, but they weren’t.
Rudy was the first to see the fluffy-haired woman squatting down next to the bench. “Frau Hermann?” he asked quietly, disbelieving that even so small a part of his life was still there, and elbowed Liesel in the ribs.
She started.
Ilsa smiled brittly. “I’ve come to take you home,” she told them quietly.
AN UNFORTUNATE REALITY
She was lying. She hadn’t come to take them home at all. There was no home left to take them to.
But for a moment, both of them believed her.
“Home?” Rudy asked, frowning. He thought about home; home was his family. Home was the tailor’s in Himmel Street. Home was Papa, and Mama, and brothers and sisters - but all that came to mind was Bettina’s torso, bent and broken over the branch of a skeletal tree, and the rusty stain on her doll. Tears which he thought he had cried the last of sprang to his eyes.
Liesel didn’t cry.
But she felt like it.
Ilsa sighed, knowing that she had said the wrong thing, but unable to take it back.
“Komm,” she said, by way of apology, and held out her hands.
Neither Rudy nor Liesel were in any mood to take them, but both stood up. Bettina’s doll dangled from his hand. She held Papa’s accordion tightly against her bony chest.
And they left solace behind them as they walked outside, flanked by the Hermanns. Down the steps. The bombed streets sucked at the eye like a missing tooth in a perfect smile, black and smoking.
The car was waiting.
The mayor drove.
Ilsa sat in the front, pale hands twisting in her lap.
On the back seat, an accordion case lay like a coffin, with an absurdly cheerful, woollen-haired doll perched on it.
Rudy was still crying. Silently and subtly, but the tears would not stop tracing down his filthy cheeks, and his blue eyes were fixed on the ruins of Himmel Street, seen through glass.
A LITTLE THOUGHT
I wonder if the Fuhrer ever saw pain like that. Maybe he did, in the trenches, but that
was a long time ago, and he was another man.
But then, as Liesel said, does it matter?
Sooty, yellow hair hung like a curtain, shrouding his face, but Liesel knew how he felt. It hurt to know, a real, physical pain deep in her heart.
He wanted to die. To wipe away everything that hurt him; the skeletons of Himmel Street, the yellow-haired doll beside him, the feeling of the juddering car under them.
That was the moment where I regretted what I had done more than anything. I can see him in my mind’s eye; battered and bruised from wounds that should have - that did - kill him, hands fisted in his lap, eyes on the burnt offering that was Himmel Street.
Under her breath, almost too quiet to hear, Liesel said in his ear, “Was über einen Kuss, Saukerl?”
A SAD LITTLE SAYING
There is a time and a place
Choked with tears, burning with hate, Rudy shook his head.