It was the wrong door.
Frau Holtzapfel was not thrilled.
“Schwein! You’re at the wrong house.” She rammed the words through the keyhole. “Next door, you stupid Saukerl.”
“Thanks, Frau Holtzapfel.”
“You know what you can do with your thanks, you asshole.”
“Excuse me?”
“Just go home.”
“Thanks, Frau Holtzapfel.”
“Didn’t I just tell you what you can do with your thanks?”
“Did you?”
(It’s amazing what you can piece together from a basement conversation and a reading session in a nasty old woman’s kitchen.)
“Just get lost, will you!”
When at long last he came home, Papa made his way not to bed, but to Liesel’s room. He stood drunkenly in the doorway and watched her sleep. She awoke and thought immediately that it was Max.
“Is it you?” she asked.
“
No,” he said. He knew exactly what she was thinking. “It’s Papa.”
He backed out of the room and she heard his footsteps making their way down to the basement.
In the living room, Rosa was snoring with enthusiasm.
Close to nine o’clock the next morning, in the kitchen, Liesel was given an order by Rosa. “Hand me that bucket there.”
She filled it with cold water and walked with it down to the basement. Liesel followed, in a vain attempt to stop her. “Mama, you can’t!”
“Can’t I?” She faced her briefly on the steps. “Did I miss something, Saumensch? Do you give the orders around here now?”
Both of them were completely still.
No answer from the girl.
“I thought not.”
They continued on and found him on his back, among a bed of drop sheets. He felt he didn’t deserve Max’s mattress.
“Now, let’s see”—Rosa lifted the bucket—“if he’s alive.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!”
The watermark was oval-shaped, from halfway up his chest to his head. His hair was plastered to one side and even his eyelashes dripped. “What was that for?”
“You old drunk!”
“Jesus …”