Page 246 - The Book Thief

hed eaten too much for his dinner.

When he was alone, his most distinct feeling was of disappearance. All of his
clothes were graywhether theyd started out that way or notfrom his pants to his
woolen sweater to the jacket that dripped from him now like water. He often
checked if his skin was flaking, for it was as if he were dissolving.

What he needed was a series of new projects. The first was exercise. He started
with push-ups, lying stomach-down on the cool basement floor, then hoisting
himself up. It felt like his arms snapped at each elbow, and he envisaged his
heart seeping out of him and dropping pathetically to the ground. As a teenager
in Stuttgart, he could reach fifty push-ups at a time. Now, at the age of twenty-
four, perhaps fifteen pounds lighter than his usual weight, he could barely make
it to ten. After a week, he was completing three sets each of sixteen push-ups
and twenty-two sit-ups. When he was finished, he would sit against the basement
wall with his paint-can friends, feeling his pulse in his teeth. His muscles felt
like cake.

He wondered at times if pushing himself like this was even worth it. Sometimes,
though, when his heartbeat neutralized and his body became functional again, he
would turn off the lamp and stand in the darkness of the basement.

He was twenty-four, but he could still fantasize.

In the blue corner, he quietly commentated, we have the champion of the world,
the Aryan masterpiecethe Fhrer. He breathed and turned. And in the red corner,
we have the Jewish, rat-faced challengerMax Vandenburg.

Around him, it all materialized.

White light lowered itself into a boxing ring and a crowd stood and
murmuredthat magical sound of many people talking all at once. How could
every person there have so much to say at the same time? The ring itself was
perfect. Perfect canvas, lovely ropes. Even the stray hairs of each thickened
string were flawless, gleaming in the tight white light. The room smelled like
cigarettes and beer.

Diagonally across, Adolf Hitler stood in the corner with his entourage. His legs
poked out from a red-and-white robe with a black swastika burned into its back.