Page 448 - The Book Thief

When she caught up to him, the returned soldier tried to make conversation. He
must have regretted his verbal mistake with Rosa, and he tried to bury it beneath
some other words. Holding up the bandaged hand, he said, I still cant get it to
stop bleeding. Liesel was actually glad to enter the Holtzapfels kitchen. The
sooner she started reading, the better.

Frau Holtzapfel sat with wet streams of wire on her face.

Her son was dead.

But that was only the half of it.

She would never really know how it occurred, but I can tell you without question
that one of us here knows. I always seem to know what happened when there
was snow and guns and the various confusions of human language.

When I imagine Frau Holtzapfels kitchen from the book thiefs words, I dont see
the stove or the wooden spoons or the water pump, or anything of the sort. Not
to begin with, anyway. What I see is the Russian winter and the snow falling
from the ceiling, and the fate of Frau Holtzapfels second son.

His name was Robert, and what happened to him was this.

A SMALL WAR STORY
His legs were blown off at the
shins and he died with his
brother watching in a cold,
stench-filled hospital.

It was Russia, January 5, 1943, and just another icy day. Out among the city and
snow, there were dead Russians and Germans everywhere. Those who remained
were firing into the blank pages in front of them. Three languages interwove.
The Russian, the bullets, the German.