Page 257 - The Book Thief

enjoyed the small fragments of pain.

Evidently, the mayors wife was shocked when she saw her again. Her fluffy hair
was slightly wet and her wrinkles widened when she noticed the obvious fury on
Liesels usually pallid face. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out, which
was handy, really, for it was Liesel who possessed the talking.

You think, she said, you can buy me off with this book? Her voice, though
shaken, hooked at the womans throat. The glittering anger was thick and
unnerving, but she toiled through it. She worked herself up even further, to the
point where she needed to wipe the tears from her eyes. You give me this
Saumensch of a book and think itll make everything good when I go and tell my
mama that weve just lost our last one? While you sit here in your mansion?

The mayors wifes arms.

They hung.

Her face slipped.

Liesel, however, did not buckle. She sprayed her words directly into the womans
eyes.

You and your husband. Sitting up here. Now she became spiteful. More spiteful
and evil than she thought herself capable.

The injury of words.

Yes, the brutality of words.

She summoned them from someplace she only now recognized and hurled them
at Ilsa Hermann. Its about time, she informed her, that you do your own stinking
washing anyway. Its about time you faced the fact that your son is dead. He got
killed! He got strangled and cut up more than twenty years ago! Or did he freeze
to death? Either way, hes dead! Hes dead and its pathetic that you sit here
shivering in your own house to suffer for it. You think youre the only one?

Immediately.