Me, I’m known for bruises and levelheadedness, for height and muscle and blasphemy, and the occasional sentimentality.
She didn’t see him watching as he played, having no idea that Hans Hubermann’s accordion was a story. In the times ahead, that story would arrive at 33 Himmel Street in the early hours of morning, wearing ruffled shoulders and a shivering jacket. It would carry a suitcase, a book, and two questions. A story. Story after story. Story within story.
She gathered the books like clouds and words poured down like rain.
What is it about the sound of clapping hands? Why does it seem like an ocean of sound, breaking like waves on top of you? Why does it make a tide turn in you? Maybe it’s because it’s one of the most noble things humans do with their hands. I mean, humans make fists with their hands. They use them to hurt each other and steal things. When humans clap, it’s the one time they stand together and applaud other humans. I think they’re there to keep things. They hold moments together, to remember.
Liesel observed the strangeness of her foster father’s eyes. They were made of kindness, and silver. Like soft silver, melting. Liesel, upon seeing those eyes, understood that Hans Hubermann was worth a lot.
My soul needs yours.
It was then that he also took the opportunity to say he was sorry that the Hubermann’s son had not come home, In response, Papa told him that such things were out of their control. “After all,” he said, “you should know it yourself – a young man is still a boy, and a boy sometimes has the right to be stubborn.
There was rain like a ghost you could walk through. Almost dry when it hit the ground.
They were virtuosos of alliteration and didn’t know it.
I wish I could hold up that knife and tear open the world. I’d slice it open and climb through to the next one.
To most people, Hans Hubermann was barely visible. An un-special person. Certainly, his painting skills were excellent. His musical ability was better than average. Somehow, though, and I’m sure you’ve met people like this, he was able to appear as merely part of the background, even if he was standing at the front of a line. He was always just there. Not noticeable.
She didn’t overreact. It may have crossed her mind to march down to the woman responsible for sending this charity shitbox, but she didn’t. She swallowed the glint of anger. She packed it into her prim-and-proper voice, and like her son, moved on.
But sometimes the truth arrives on you, and you can’t get it off. That’s when you realize that sometimes it isn’t even an answer – it’s a question.
I didn’t know words could be so heavy.
Those kids, they would’ve loved this place, they would’ve walked and skipped and danced here, all legs and sunny hair. They’d have cartwheeled the lawn, shouting, “And don’t go lookin’ at our knickers, right?
He was a wasteland in a suit; he was bent-postured, he was broken.
There was a kind of generosity to her, of heat and sweat and life.
Each boy stood, slouched yet stiff, hands in pockets. If the dog had pockets, she’d have had her paws in them, too, for sure.
He was built like a very small supermarket: Compact; expensive if you crossed him.
When you wait you start feeling deserved.