A Mountain Range of Rubble

Thievery: Leaving Part I

It had been days. It seemed like months. Walking on an empty street with nothing but one of his former counselor's bags, and a tall shadow, soon to be disappearing into the night.

But how did Rudy Steiner end up like that? It all started with his sisters, a candle, and some dead-body dominoes. After that faithful day, tension rose in the house on 35 Himmel Street. There was just a little under a year until he was leaving to go to elite training all the way in Hamburg, in the northern part of Germany. The coat men had made a point in telling them he wasn't coming back anytime soon. But that was after he volunteered, of course.

The only thing thicker than the tension was guilt, and that came from none other than Rudy's Papa, Alex Steiner. Surely, there had to have been a way to stop them from taking him away. But no, despite his efforts, Herr Steiner wasn't going to the war in Russia, no matter how much he wanted it. His son was leaving him and he would be to blame.

For Rudy, though, there was only one thing, or one person, really, on his mind after the whole saga, and that was Liesel. How could he tell her? Going up to your best friend and telling them that you're leaving for good isn't exactly the easiest thing to do. What was even more difficult about this was the fact that he had to tell her soon, especially since she had seen the men going into his house. She had asked him about it the past day, but he told her he would tell her later, when he got the chance. She was going to find out soon enough, anyway, and Rudy realized there probably wouldn't be a better time than then.  So he walked next door to the Hubermann household before school, when he would normally walk with Liesel. This time, though, he stopped her next to his father's shop, which wasn't opened yet.

"What are you doing, Rudy?" she asked as he started walking in the opposite direction of their school. "Come on," he said, and before long Liesel had caught up with him.

"School's this way, in case you forgot," she remarked.

"I'm not an idiot. I know where I'm going."

"Where are you going?"

"You'll see."

When they arrived in the forest, Rudy and the book thief sat down against a tree. "I just needed to tell you," the boy said, "about what happened a few days ago."

Right when he was at the part where he opened the door, an anxiety-filled Liesel interrupted him. "So your Papa's leaving?"

He looked away. "No, he's not."

She was relieved, he could tell, but only for a second. She noticed the distressed look on his face. "What happened, then?"

After he had told her the rest of his story, he turned his head around. Liesel was frozen, her shoulders tensed up, her brown eyes staring straight in front of her. Another one, gone.

Once about a minute had passed, Rudy spoke. "They said I'll be leaving next September."

A long pause. "When are you coming back?"

He let out a short breath of air. "I don't know."

"Es tut mir leid, Rudy - I'm sorry." She took his hand.

It was then that he realized... The Nazis were taking his life away from him. All his friends, his family, being stolen, unmercifully. Anyone he knew before was merely a waste of time. How could he let them do this?

The truth is, he couldn't. And he didn't.