Liesel came out.
They hugged and cried and fell to the floor.
They lay on the hard linoleum and held onto each other as though they would never let go. They covered each other with kisses and wailed inane words of love and joy.
Alex Steiner could only watch, tears swimming in his blue eyes. He was an alien in this passionate, private reunion. He felt he should go away and let the weeping couple be alone, but he could not. He had seen so much loss, so much brokenness. It was balm to his soul to see something made whole.
Max and Liesel did not remember he was there. They could see nothing but each other. They drank each other in through tear-blinded eyes and clung together with shaking limbs.
"You're alive..." Liesel kept sobbing.
"I'm here, Liesel. I'm here." He unconsciously echoed the words she had cried to him the day she had spied him in the march to Dachau. He sobbed it against her tear-streaked face and shamelessly kissed her again and again. She returned the kisses with the crazed need of a soul who has been frozen with grief for too long, only to be jolted to life by the warm touch of hope.
After what seemed like hours, they quieted, spent with their frenzy of joy. They lay, stroking each others faces, tears stealing down their cheeks. "You're alive," Liesel whispered again. She could not say it enough. She was afraid if she stopped saying it, it would suddenly be untrue.
"I'm here," Max brushed the tears from her face. "Liesel, I'm here." Slowly, he sat up and leaned his back against the wall. He pulled Liesel into his bony arms and held her like a vice. She lay against him, worn out with joy.
"I prayed every day..." her voice was rubbed raw from crying. "I prayed and prayed and prayed that you might be spared. But I almost lost hope, Max. I almost completely gave up."
He hid his face in her hair. "I wanted to find you sooner but I couldn't. I was nearly dead when they liberated, Dachau, Liesel. They kept us there for months, trying to bring us back to health. It was a long time before I was well enough to leave."
"I came looking for you," Liesel whispered. "I walked to Dachau every chance I got, and begged the Americans to let me look for you. They never would."
Max shook his head. "They were afraid to let us out. There was an epidemic of Typhus and they didn't want us to infect the rest of the population. I think they were also afraid that some people would attack civilians if they let us leave. They're letting a few people go now, but there are still hundreds in the camp. I was one of the lucky ones, Liesel."
"Thank God," she whispered. "Oh Max, thank God."
For a moment their emotions overcame them again and they held each other tightly, tears flowing.
When they had recovered, Max continued. "I came straight here, hoping to find you and Hans and Rosa. I had not heard about Molching being bombed. Liesel... when I came into Himmel street and saw that it was a ruin, I – I went mad with grief. I couldn't bear it. I threw myself down on the ground and cried. I lay there until a man came and asked me what was wrong. I begged him to tell me if he knew if there were any survivors from the bombing. At first he said there were none. But then he seemed to remember and said that there was one. Just one. A young girl. The hope that filled my heart... I cannot even describe it. I asked him if he knew your name. He said, 'No, but I can tell you where she lives. The Hermanns over on Munich street took her in.' Liesel... there are no words. I knew it was you. It had to be you. He gave me the Hermann's address and I ran there. I – I told the woman I was an old friend of yours. She said you were here. Liesel, when I saw you come out of that back room, it was like the sun coming up. I've been in hell. But seeing you again... I can bear it now. I can face my life."
He took her face in his hands and kissed her, his relief fervent on his lips. Liesel closed her eyes, trembling with happiness. Max's breath was warm on her face, his hands gentle in her hair. She breathed him in. He smelled like sun and wind and shabby clothes and weak soup. She had never smelled anything sweeter.
They sat on the floor and held each other until a low cough from the back of the room brought them to their senses. Max slowly rose from the ground and drew Liesel to stand beside him. They turned to face the tailor.
"Herr Steiner," Liesel's voice was shaking with emotion. "This is Max Vandenburg."
Alex Steiner looked into the young Jew's gaunt face and compassion tore at him. "I know who you are," he murmured. "Liesel told me all about you. I went with her to Dachau several times."
Surprise lit Max's swampy eyes. He took the German man's proffered hand.
"Max, this is Alex Steiner," said Liesel. "Rudy's father."
The name caught Max up short.
Rudy.
Of all of the names which had blazed through his mind that day, Rudy's had not been among them. He had been too consumed with thoughts of his three friends. The full meaning of that bombed street and its lone survivor struck him. But for the father of her dead friend, and a wealthy couple from whom she had once stolen, Liesel Meminger was truly alone in the world. He looked down at her. Her eyes were riveted to him as though she could not bear to look away. She clung to his arm like a lifeline. He drew her closer and held her head against his chest.
Herr Steiner was speaking again. "I am glad for Liesel's sake that you are alive. She has talked of you almost constantly, since – since – " he gestured toward the ruin of Himmel Street but could not grace it with words. "I think it was the hope of seeing you again that has kept her alive."
Max held Liesel close, but said nothing.
"Herr Steiner, could I please be excused from the shop for the day?" murmured Liesel. Alex brushed his hand across his eyes. "Yes, of course. I'm sure you two need to talk." An understatement. "Thank you." Liesel took Max's hand and started to lead him out of the shop, but Alex's voice slipped after them.
"Herr Vandenburg?"
The formal address caused Max to pull up short. He had not been spoken to so respectfully in years. He turned. Alex came close to him, and looked at him gravely. His eyes were glazed with a mixture of anguish and guilt. "For what they did to you..." he shook his head. "I have no words. No words. Not even 'I'm sorry.' It is not enough."
A shadow fell over Max's eyes. He did not give it a voice. He was seeing walking skeletons, mutilated bodies, limbs frozen black. Human skins hanging in the sun. The memories ripped through him. For a moment he was sick with anger. He had an irrational desire to strike the German before him. He wanted to scream at him, to shake him. He wanted to shake the entire German race. "Why?" he wanted to shriek. "Why would you do these things? Why would you let these things happen?"
He felt Liesel's small, warm hand squeezing his, and he controlled himself. "You are right," he said dully. "There are no words."
A single tear boiled over in Alex Steiner's eye and rolled down his cheek. The sight softened Max's furious heart just a little. "Thank you for taking care of Liesel."
"It has been my pleasure."
Max took Liesel's arm and they left the shop together. Wordlessly, she led him through the town, down to a quiet spot by the river where they could be alone. She chose a place beneath the sheltering bows of a great spruce tree. The October day was clear, warmed with sunlight. A curious little breeze blew in from the river and stroked their hair. The brown water gurgled below them, and a cardinal warbled overhead. Trembling, Max drew Liesel to him. He held her, cradling her as though she were a priceless treasure he had lost and then found. She nestled in his arms, watching him with tired, contented eyes. They did not speak for a long time. They studied each other, absorbing the changes chiseled by two years of war.
Liesel saw a man, ravaged by unspeakable torture. She saw it in his worn face, in his haunted, still hungry eyes. She saw it in the whip scar, laced around his neck, and in other scars from God knew what. She saw it in the black numbers tattooed on his forearm. She felt it in the thinness of his arms and body. She felt it in the shuddering kisses he dropped on her face from time to time. She wondered with horror, what memories lay hidden in his mind. Max saw a girl, breathtakingly beautiful, but broken by tragedy. The child who had brightened the darkness of his basement had fled, taking her sunshine with her. Grief stared out of her brown eyes, shadowing their loveliness. Loneliness was cold on her skin. She touched him compulsively, stroking his face, his hair, his hands. She seemed starved for his touch.
He was starved for human kindness of any kind. He laid his head against hers and closed his eyes, breathing in the sweetness of her.
"Liesel... I can't believe you're alive."
She turned her lips to his cheek, her tears spilling over again. "I can't believe you're still alive. Max... oh Max."
She was remembering the last time she had touched him. On a clear day on Himmel Street, in the midst of a parade of misery. His kiss in her palm, the burn of the whip on her back... She shook with grief at the memory. "That day they dragged you away from me... Rudy had to hold me down because I wanted to chase after you. I would have too. I would have followed you all the way to Dachau and beaten on the gates and screamed for them to give you back to me if it hadn't have been for Rudy..."
Max crushed her closer. "Rudy saved your life."
"I went to bed for three days after that," Liesel sobbed. "I couldn't even cry. I laid there and bled on the inside. Watching them beat you... Max, I couldn't – oh God, I would have done anything to stop them – "
Max held her while she sobbed convulsively. He thanked God that she didn't know of the other things they had done to him.
"None of us could eat," she finally went on. "Papa couldn't play the accordion. Mama didn't swear for a whole week. We couldn't do anything but cry for you on the inside. Every night after that, Mama went down to the basement and prayed. She prayed for you out loud where she thought nobody could hear her. She loved you so much, Max. We all loved you." The words were tumbling from Liesel. She had not spoken of those things to anybody. They were too close. But with Max, the memories came gushing out in an unstoppable torrent. Her Mama, her Papa, her Max. All torn from her. Only one had come back, could ever come back.
"She did that every night," sobbed Liesel. "Every night she cried and prayed. Until..."
The words ceased their flow. She held onto Max and silently convulsed.
The bomb.
Max cradled her. "Tell me," he whispered. "If you can."
She did. The story unraveled, broken, and at times, barely coherent. She told him how Papa had been drafted into the army, of the accident that saved his life, of his homecoming. She told him of the night she wrote in the basement while the rest of Himmel Street slept; the night the bombs crept down from the sky and smashed her world to pieces. She told him of Mama's and Papa's dead faces and the words she spoke to them. She told him of kissing Rudy's dusty lips. She even told him of Papa playing his accordion as he made his last bow to the world of the living. She had not spoken of that to another living soul. She told him how she wore the dust of Himmel Street for days afterward. How she clung to Papa's accordion. How she wandered about like a mad thing, talking to herself, wading in the river, asking Rudy for a kiss. She told it all to him.
Max wept.
Violently.
She wept with him.
They could do nothing else.
When they had cried themselves dry. They sat in the grass by the river and watched the muddy brown water swirl by. Max held Liesel's head on his shoulder and stroked her hair.
"So you've lived with the Hermanns ever since?" he murmured.
"Yes."
"And worked for Herr Steiner?"
"Yes."
"And you have no one else in the world? No family? Not even distant relatives?"
"No Max."
There was a long silence. Max pressed Liesel to his heart. They were both so alone in the world. Tragedy had reached down from its fiery sky, and lashed them repeatedly. Its cruel hand had struck again and again until it had stripped them of everyone they loved, except each other. They should both be dead (he thought drearily). And yet here they were, the lone survivors. A wave of protectiveness washed over him.
After a while, Liesel said, "Max?"
"Yes?"
"Can you – can you tell me anything about...?" she trailed off, afraid to finish her sentence.
He closed his eyes. He had known she would ask sooner or later.
"Liesel..."
He could not look at her face. She had just entrusted him with her deepest, most intimate wounds. She would want him to be equally vulnerable with her.
She would want to swap nightmares.
This time he couldn't. "I saw some of it." Liesel's voice was barely a whisper. "When Herr Steiner and I went to Dachau. We saw the piles of bodies. The stench. We saw the people. Walking skeletons. I – I went crazy the first time. I screamed and cried outside the gate for over an hour. Alex had to hold me down. The soldiers sent us away. But I kept coming back. I swore I would find you, even it was only your body. Max... oh Max, how could you bear it?" She was crying again.
"Don't ask me," he groaned. "Please don't ask me, Liesel. I can't talk about it"
She put her arms around his neck and laid her head on his shoulder. "I hate them," she sobbed. "I hate them all! I hate them for what they did to you. I hate them for what they did to your people... for what they did to my mother. I will hate them until the day I die!"
He did not argue with her. He kissed her softly and stroked her hair.
They sat by the bank of the river and held each other until the sun was westering in a tangerine sky. The air was growing chilly. They clung together, trying to ignore the gathering darkness.
Finally, Max murmured. "Liesel... I have to take you home sometime."
Liesel hid her face against him. "No," she whispered. "Not yet."
He kissed through her hair. "We can't stay out here all night."
"I can't bear to leave you."
"I know. I – I can't bear it either. But it's getting cold. I won't have you getting sick on my account. The Hermanns will wonder where you are."
"Don't take me back yet, Max. I just want to be near you. Please. It's all I ask."
Her eyes and voice were so plaintive, his heart broke. "Maybe I can stay with you for a little while at the Hermanns." It was a testament to how deeply he cared for her that he was willing to spend any length of time with people he knew had been Nazi supporters. "If they'll let me," he added as an afterthought.
"If they don't, I will leave their house forever and never speak to them again."
Max smiled at her youthful fervor. Gently, he loosed her from his arms, and helped her to her feet. "I assume they know nothing about me?"
"They know a little. They wanted to know why I was going with Herr Steiner to Dachau."
"What did you tell them?"
"I – I told them I had a friend who might be there. The Mayor was satisfied with that, but Frau Hermann wanted to know more. I told her about you. She was sympathetic. She never agreed with Nazi ideology. She just... tolerated it because her husband did."
"There has been a lot of 'tolerating' in this country," said Max bitterly.
Liesel took his hand. "Far too much."
They spoke little as they walked back through the town toward 8 Grande Strasse.