Page 450 - The Book Thief

invited at the temporary hospital and flinched at the smell.

A man with a bandaged hand was telling the mute, shock-faced soldier that he
would survive. Youll soon be going home, he assured him.

Yes, home, I thought. For good.

Ill wait for you, he continued. I was going back at the end of the week, but Ill
wait.

In the middle of his brothers next sentence, I gathered up the soul of Robert
Holtzapfel.

Usually I need to exert myself, to look through the ceiling when Im inside, but I
was lucky in that particular building. A small section of the roof had been
destroyed and I could see straight up. A meter away, Michael Holtzapfel was
still talking. I tried to ignore him by watching the hole above me. The sky was

white but deteriorating fast. As always, it was becoming an enormous drop
sheet. Blood was bleeding through, and in patches, the clouds were dirty, like
footprints in melting snow.

Footprints? you ask.

Well, I wonder whose those could be.

In Frau Holtzapfels kitchen, Liesel read. The pages waded by unheard, and for
me, when the Russian scenery fades in my eyes, the snow refuses to stop falling
from the ceiling. The kettle is covered, as is the table. The humans, too, are
wearing patches of snow on their heads and shoulders.

The brother shivers.

The woman weeps.

And the girl goes on reading, for thats why shes there, and it feels good to be
good for something in the aftermath of the snows of Stalingrad.