Page 73 - The Book Thief

Im asking you, Im begging you, could you please shut your mouth for just five
minutes?

You can imagine the reaction.

They ended up in the basement.

There was no lighting there, so they took a kerosene lamp, and slowly, between
school and home, from the river to the basement, from the good days to the bad,
Liesel was learning to read and write.

Soon, Papa told her, youll be able to read that awful graves book with your eyes
closed.

And I can get out of that midget class.

She spoke those words with a grim kind of ownership.

In one of their basement sessions, Papa dispensed with the sandpaper (it was
running out fast) and pulled out a brush. There were few luxuries in the
Hubermann household, but there was an oversupply of paint, and it became more
than useful for Liesels learning. Papa would say a word and the girl would have
to spell it aloud and then paint it on the wall, as long as she got it right. After a
month, the wall was recoated. A fresh cement page.

Some nights, after working in the basement, Liesel would sit crouched in the
bath and hear the same utterances from the kitchen.

You stink, Mama would say to Hans. Like cigarettes and kerosene.

Sitting in the water, she imagined the smell of it, mapped out on her papas
clothes. More than anything, it was the smell of friendship, and she could find it
on herself, too. Liesel loved that smell. She would sniff her arm and smile as the
water cooled around her.