The Meaning of Life (8/9) - The Book Thief
Story Title: The Meaning of Life
Chapter Title: Tangled Lives
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.
Summary: What would have happened if Rudy had survived the bombing of Himmel Street?
Chapter index
TANGLED LIVES
“Die Kinder?”
The voice was a whisper of a dying hope, and, still huddled in the library with their arms around each other, the two children didn’t heard it at all. Even Heinz, whose bluster had vanished the second he pulled the door open and saw the broken figure outside, barely managed to make the words out.
“Entschuldigung? What did you say?” he asked, looking out at the pelting rain and the figure who seemed to have melted out of it.
Alex Steiner lifted his head. Rainwater dripped sluggishly from the hair plastered over his face, clinging in quicksilver droplets to the tips of the dark clumps. Under the turned-up collar of his coat, his jaw tightened, and he swallowed hard. His eyes, the same blue as Rudy’s, were burning with desperation and determination.
Heinz took half a step back, slightly frightened by this visitation who seemed to be made entirely out of pain. Alex didn’t even notice.
“Die Kinder,” he repeated, his voice clearer now, just about audible in the library, where Rudy and Liesel had almost stopped breathing to listen. “The children. Everywhere I go, everyone I talk to tells me the same story… everything was destroyed. Everything. Except the children.” His voice cracked. It was a miracle, but not the miracle he would have asked for, and his heart was still shattered into pieces by the news of the bomb. “Mayor Hermann, I am begging you. Tell me, which children? A boy and a girl, they are saying, but who?”
Gathering himself together, Heinz stepped aside. “You’d better come in,” he said with a smile, the kind of comforting, hand-shaking smile that he used while doing his job. It strikes me as odd that the most reassuring smiles always seem to come from people who are least reassured by them. Another human oddity. And Heinz Hermann was very far from reassured about anything.
With a tiny nod and an even tinier smile, Alex stepped over the threshold, closing the door after him and standing, dripping, on the mat just inside, which was already soaking wet. After a moment’s thought, he turned down his collar, then continued to stand there, like a ghost who had for no reason decided to become solid.
“Steiner, yes?” Heinz said, businesslike now. “You run - ran - the tailor’s on Himmel Street.”
Alex just nodded. He seemed to have used up his words.
“Well, Herr Steiner… take your coat off, won’t you? We’re not about to send you back out into that weather. Herr Steiner, as a matter of fact…” How difficult it was for him to give the man hope! Somehow, almost as difficult as it would have been to tell him that he’d come on a fool’s errand and there was nobody here for him at all. Why was it so hard?
But Heinz Hermann was relieved of his difficulties by a quiet voice from the doorway of the library. It was hesitant, it was cracking, and it was muffled by tears.
ONE WORD, WHICH MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE
“Papa?”
Heinz shut his mouth sharply.
Rudy stumbled into the hallway, his blue eyes narrowed by the effort of not crying. After a moment, Liesel stood up and followed him, but only as far as the door, where she could get the best view.
“Rudy?” Alex’s voice cracked on the second syllable, making him sound like a nervous teenager. He had stopped halfway through taking his coat off, and it still hung like a dead thing from on crooked arm.
Rudy nodded, taking another hesitant step towards the bent figure with the rain-darkened hair. And another step. And another. His feet felt like lead; walking was like trying to struggle through tar. But he walked anyway, feeling hot tears build up behind his eyes, eyes that were fixed on his father. Liesel, Heinz, Ilsa - they were all forgotten for the moment. Alex had become his world.
“It’s me.” The words sounded absurd, thick and heavy. “Papa… oh, Crucified Christ!” Suddenly, the tar around his feet vanished, and he almost ran the last few paces, pushing past Heinz as if the mayor wasn’t even there. When he reached the silent, heartbroken figure, he flung his arms around his Papa’s chest, burying his face in his shoulder as if it were ten years ago and Rudy was still a child. As if, by closing his eyes and hugging Papa as tightly as he could, he could somehow make it be all those years ago, make it so that when he opened his eyes again, everything would be as it was.
He was crying. For the first time since they had left Himmel Street smoking and in pieces, he was crying. And he barely even noticed.
Alex was crying too. Clinging onto Rudy as a drowning man clings to a lifebouy, he rested his head on his son’s shoulder (not his head, Rudy was too tall for that now, but his shoulder) and cried like a baby.
WORDS THAT COULD HAVE BEEN SAID
“Thank God.”
“I was so afraid.”
“I thought I’d lost you.”
WHY THEY WERE NOT
That would have pared things down, in the end, to just those words.
Words weren’t needed, or wanted. Everything that could be said had been said already.
Rudy’s arm was tangled up in Alex’s coat. With a little sob, he shook it off and buried his face in his father’s shoulder again. His heart was so full of emotion, roiling and churning, that he felt sure it would burst; joy, pain, grief, and always, always, that all-consuming anger.
They did this to us. I’m going to kill them.
But who they were didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Nothing except the smell of rain and the feel of wet fabric making his cheek just as wet and the warmth of the one man in the world he had been most waiting, hoping, praying to see.
Papa.
His tears dribbled down his chin, mixing with the rainwater that was smudged all over his face now, and he was smiling.
Papa.
Thank God. Thank Christ. Thank whoever the hell was listening.
Papa.
Who knew how long the two of them stood there like that, the dripping stranger with a broken heart and the boy with hair like lemons, just standing there and holding each other as if they never meant to let go? Liesel certainly didn’t. And she didn’t care, either. There was another emotion gnawing at her heart, one of the few at that moment which was alien to Rudy’s.
DUDEN DICTIONARY WORD
Neid - jealousy
Reason is alien to the grieving. But Liesel’s jealousy had a very good reason, and that only helped it to worm deeper, begin to bite, begin to curse.
He has a father. He has a family. He has love.
I have nothing.
With a little sob, she ran past Heinz, past the Steiners, and out into the pelting, roaring silver of the rain.
I have nothing.
Not even Rudy.
Chapter Title: Tangled Lives
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.
Summary: What would have happened if Rudy had survived the bombing of Himmel Street?
Chapter index
TANGLED LIVES
“Die Kinder?”
The voice was a whisper of a dying hope, and, still huddled in the library with their arms around each other, the two children didn’t heard it at all. Even Heinz, whose bluster had vanished the second he pulled the door open and saw the broken figure outside, barely managed to make the words out.
“Entschuldigung? What did you say?” he asked, looking out at the pelting rain and the figure who seemed to have melted out of it.
Alex Steiner lifted his head. Rainwater dripped sluggishly from the hair plastered over his face, clinging in quicksilver droplets to the tips of the dark clumps. Under the turned-up collar of his coat, his jaw tightened, and he swallowed hard. His eyes, the same blue as Rudy’s, were burning with desperation and determination.
Heinz took half a step back, slightly frightened by this visitation who seemed to be made entirely out of pain. Alex didn’t even notice.
“Die Kinder,” he repeated, his voice clearer now, just about audible in the library, where Rudy and Liesel had almost stopped breathing to listen. “The children. Everywhere I go, everyone I talk to tells me the same story… everything was destroyed. Everything. Except the children.” His voice cracked. It was a miracle, but not the miracle he would have asked for, and his heart was still shattered into pieces by the news of the bomb. “Mayor Hermann, I am begging you. Tell me, which children? A boy and a girl, they are saying, but who?”
Gathering himself together, Heinz stepped aside. “You’d better come in,” he said with a smile, the kind of comforting, hand-shaking smile that he used while doing his job. It strikes me as odd that the most reassuring smiles always seem to come from people who are least reassured by them. Another human oddity. And Heinz Hermann was very far from reassured about anything.
With a tiny nod and an even tinier smile, Alex stepped over the threshold, closing the door after him and standing, dripping, on the mat just inside, which was already soaking wet. After a moment’s thought, he turned down his collar, then continued to stand there, like a ghost who had for no reason decided to become solid.
“Steiner, yes?” Heinz said, businesslike now. “You run - ran - the tailor’s on Himmel Street.”
Alex just nodded. He seemed to have used up his words.
“Well, Herr Steiner… take your coat off, won’t you? We’re not about to send you back out into that weather. Herr Steiner, as a matter of fact…” How difficult it was for him to give the man hope! Somehow, almost as difficult as it would have been to tell him that he’d come on a fool’s errand and there was nobody here for him at all. Why was it so hard?
But Heinz Hermann was relieved of his difficulties by a quiet voice from the doorway of the library. It was hesitant, it was cracking, and it was muffled by tears.
ONE WORD, WHICH MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE
“Papa?”
Heinz shut his mouth sharply.
Rudy stumbled into the hallway, his blue eyes narrowed by the effort of not crying. After a moment, Liesel stood up and followed him, but only as far as the door, where she could get the best view.
“Rudy?” Alex’s voice cracked on the second syllable, making him sound like a nervous teenager. He had stopped halfway through taking his coat off, and it still hung like a dead thing from on crooked arm.
Rudy nodded, taking another hesitant step towards the bent figure with the rain-darkened hair. And another step. And another. His feet felt like lead; walking was like trying to struggle through tar. But he walked anyway, feeling hot tears build up behind his eyes, eyes that were fixed on his father. Liesel, Heinz, Ilsa - they were all forgotten for the moment. Alex had become his world.
“It’s me.” The words sounded absurd, thick and heavy. “Papa… oh, Crucified Christ!” Suddenly, the tar around his feet vanished, and he almost ran the last few paces, pushing past Heinz as if the mayor wasn’t even there. When he reached the silent, heartbroken figure, he flung his arms around his Papa’s chest, burying his face in his shoulder as if it were ten years ago and Rudy was still a child. As if, by closing his eyes and hugging Papa as tightly as he could, he could somehow make it be all those years ago, make it so that when he opened his eyes again, everything would be as it was.
He was crying. For the first time since they had left Himmel Street smoking and in pieces, he was crying. And he barely even noticed.
Alex was crying too. Clinging onto Rudy as a drowning man clings to a lifebouy, he rested his head on his son’s shoulder (not his head, Rudy was too tall for that now, but his shoulder) and cried like a baby.
WORDS THAT COULD HAVE BEEN SAID
“Thank God.”
“I was so afraid.”
“I thought I’d lost you.”
WHY THEY WERE NOT
That would have pared things down, in the end, to just those words.
Words weren’t needed, or wanted. Everything that could be said had been said already.
Rudy’s arm was tangled up in Alex’s coat. With a little sob, he shook it off and buried his face in his father’s shoulder again. His heart was so full of emotion, roiling and churning, that he felt sure it would burst; joy, pain, grief, and always, always, that all-consuming anger.
They did this to us. I’m going to kill them.
But who they were didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Nothing except the smell of rain and the feel of wet fabric making his cheek just as wet and the warmth of the one man in the world he had been most waiting, hoping, praying to see.
Papa.
His tears dribbled down his chin, mixing with the rainwater that was smudged all over his face now, and he was smiling.
Papa.
Thank God. Thank Christ. Thank whoever the hell was listening.
Papa.
Who knew how long the two of them stood there like that, the dripping stranger with a broken heart and the boy with hair like lemons, just standing there and holding each other as if they never meant to let go? Liesel certainly didn’t. And she didn’t care, either. There was another emotion gnawing at her heart, one of the few at that moment which was alien to Rudy’s.
DUDEN DICTIONARY WORD
Neid - jealousy
Reason is alien to the grieving. But Liesel’s jealousy had a very good reason, and that only helped it to worm deeper, begin to bite, begin to curse.
He has a father. He has a family. He has love.
I have nothing.
With a little sob, she ran past Heinz, past the Steiners, and out into the pelting, roaring silver of the rain.
I have nothing.
Not even Rudy.