What do you live for?

When Hans came back from World War I the first thing he did was kissing Rosa.
He didn't mind all the other people on the train station, he didn't mind his parents and he didn't mind the protesting Rosa.
He was just glad to be alive.

And if you would have asked him for a reason, he'd probably answered with the question Erik Vandenburg asked him.

It was shortly before his dead when he asked Hans, whether he would be married.
Hans said no.
Erik asked, whether he would be in love.
Hans said no for the second time.

"So you have no-one to loose? No-one who would miss you?"

"No, probably not." Third time.

And then Erik asked the final question.

But what do you live for if you have no-one to die for?

What makes you stay alive? What is worth your life?

"Is there anyone you would die for?"
Erik lifted his right hand. His wedding ring shimmered in the last light of the day.

"Everyone has anyone to die for", he said, smoking a cigarette. A self-made one.
"Wives, husbands, parents, children, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, lovers, haters, friends, enemies, pets… Isn't there anybody you love?"

Hans thought of Rosa, the girl he danced with on the last festival.
But he wasn't that good at dancing. Probably she thought of him as an idiot.

"Maybe", he said, a bit flushing.
"Does she know?"
Erik interpreted the person to be a girl.

Hans said nothing.
Erik took this as a no.

"But what if you die here, here in … wherever we are. Maybe she loves you too. And then you both die, without knowing it.
Life's too short to let it pass you like this."

"Why are you saying such things?"

"Because they're important. And there's something in the air…"

Yes, there was something in the air. Bullets.
They shot Erik Vandenburg early in the next morning.
But I think he already expected me to be on my way to him.

But Hans survived.

He visited the woman his friend died for.
It was a beautiful woman, and she cried a lot.
Hans could only guess how often Erik told her that he loves her.

And then the boy entered, and Hans knew Erik not only died for his wife.

How lucky Erik was, he thought, to live for two persons.

Hans decided to live for Rosa, the girl he loved all the time but never told before.
And she lived for him.
He also lived for his children.
For Hans junior and for Trudy.

And he lived for the Book Thief, with all his heart and his soul, until the end of his life.