The Book Thief - Alternate Ending

The Book Thief - Rusel Alternate Ending

ALTERNATE ENDING

"Rudy," she sobbed, "wake up...."

"Rudy, please. Wake up."

"Rudy, please, wake up, Goddamn it, wake up, I love you," Liesel cried. "Come on, Rudy, come on, Jesse Owens, don't you know I love you, wake up, wake up, wake up...." At that, I wanted to cry and hug the book thief, to let her know that I was there, that I loved him too, that I didn't want to take him.

But I am not allowed to do that.

His soul was already in my arms.

I began to turn away, to leave the book thief and Himmel Street far behind me, when I heard a gasp. The book thief stared in shock into her best friend's face, and at once I was at her side.

And Rudy Steiner was not dead. 

The boy with the hair like lemons was alive.

I have seen many lives, and more deaths than I care to remember. I have seen final acts of kindness, great acts of sacrifice, and last acts of love. I know the grief that takes over those who lose loved ones too early. I have seen the compassion of so many people try to save the doomed lives of others. I have seen love, and I know death.

But I have never seen love bring back the dead.

Or at least, I hadn't, until that very morning.

"How about a kiss, saumensch?" Rudy said weakly.

"Saukerl," said Liesel, but she smiled as she said it, silently crying and laughing all at the same time. She lifted him and kissed him and for a moment she forgot everything else, the bombs, the deaths, Himmel Street, and even the war itself. For a moment, all that mattered was that she had him, the boy with hair the color of lemons, the best friend she loved.

EPILOGUE

After the demise of Himmel Street, the book thief and the lemon-haired boy had no real place to go. For a while they stayed with Ilsa Hermann in the mayor's big house on Grande Strausse. The mayor ignored them, and ignored his wife as well, though after a few days with living with them, Liesel began to understand that the mayor was a very private man, who rarely came out of his office in the hours he spent at home.

The book thief spent the mornings with Ilsa Hermann in the library, reading books on the floor, while the mayor's wife brought her breakfast and sometimes tea to go along. Mornings were quiet, but I think Liesel liked to have this quiet time of day. She would read, uninterrupted, and often she would pick up a book to distract herself, to try to forget what had happened on Himmel Street, to pretend that her Mama and Papa were back home, waiting for her. She always read aloud, and Rudy would wander into the room after a few hours and sit and listen to her. It was the one time of day when things were almost entirely peaceful.

Liesel would spend the day with Rudy, walking the streets of Molching or paying visits to the Amper River. They no longer had to steal, but sometimes they would, just for old times' sake. There was no more soccer on the broken mess that was Himmel Street, and they did not have their old friend Tommy Muller--hell, they didn't have anyone, they had no one but each other.

***A FACT ABOUT RUDY'S FATHER***

He did not come home.

Alex Steiner died in Vienna, of a sickness that plagued the hospital where he worked, mending clothes. He died peacefully, in his sleep.

The nights at the mayor's house were the worst. Rudy and Liesel were given separate rooms, but many nights they found themselves clinging to each other for comfort. Liesel had her nightmares, about everything from her brother's death to the destruction of her home. Nightmares were new for Rudy, and he often saw his mother or his younger sisters, and on the worst nights he found himself standing among the wreckage of the street named for heaven, Liesel's body littered among the mountain range of rubble. Many mornings, Ilsa would find the two of them curled up side by side, their fingers always interlaced.

When news of Alex Steiner's death reached Molching in 1944, Liesel knew they had to get out. He'd had hope in his father, and he knew the chances were high that Alex would return safe and sound. Liesel and Rudy left a week after they'd heard of Alex's death. They walked away from Molching, the war, and Germany altogether. Rudy was sixteen, and Liesel was fifteen.

I didn't see them for a while after that, but I know they found Max. I was busy in '44 and '45, hopping from country to country, picking up souls all over the world, and while I had been in the very concentration camp where they held Max Vandenburg, I can tell you that I did not pick up his soul, and I know they found him alive sometime after the war. I didn't take Max Vandenburg into my arms until a winter day, thirteen years ago, when I found him in a nice house in California. I'd picked up his wife several years earlier. The colors were indigo and orange for both of them, the shades of a southern California sun under the inky blue clouds at dusk.

I should tell you that the book thief died only yesterday. She lived a good, long life, eventually ending up in the suburbs of Sydney, with Rudy. The house number was forty-five--the same as the Fiedlers' shelter--and the late morning sky was the best blue of summer. Like her papa, her soul was sitting up.

In her last visions she saw her grandchildren, and Rudy, who became her husband long ago, and her three kids--her two sons and her daughter. Her daughter was called Rosa, nicknamed Rosie, and her youngest son was named Tommy. The other was Alex. His middle name was Hans.

The day I took Liesel into my arms, we walked along the roads together, and I handed her a small black book. The old woman was shocked. 

"Did you read it?" she asked, turning the pages.

"Many times," I answered.

"Could you understand it?" she asked.

At that time I wanted to tell her about the beauty and brutality of the world. But what could I tell her that she didn't already know? I could have said that the human race continues to surprise me, that I was constantly underestimating them, that there was hardly I time I could simply estimate them. I could have said simply "yes." 

But I didn't say any of those things.

Instead, I turned to the book thief, in her old age, and said five words then, and I will say the same five words to you now:

***A LAST NOTE FROM YOUR NARRATOR***

I am haunted by humans.