What had happened was an ocean sky, with whitecap clouds.

Some people said that the truck had broken down, but I can personally testify that this was not the case. I was there.

Also, there was more than just the one vehicle. Three trucks don't all break down at once.

When the soldiers pulled over to share some food and cigarettes and to poke at the package of Jews, one of the prisoners collapsed from starvation and sickness. I have no idea where the convoy had traveled from, but it was perhaps four miles from Molching, and many steps more to the concentration camp at Dachau.

Why him and not me?

I climbed through the windshield of the truck, found the diseased man, and jumped out the back. His soul was skinny. His beard was a ball and chain. My feet landed loudly in the gravel, though not a sound was heard by a soldier or prisoner. But they could all smell me.

The soldiers, on the other hand, were occupied with a different discussion. The leader squashed his cigarette and asked the others a smoggy question. "When was the last time we took these rats for some fresh air?"

Recollection tells me that there were many wishes in the back of that truck. Inner voices called out to me.

Thank God it isn't me.

Slowly at first, the street of children walked toward the magnetic sound, up toward Frau Diller's. Once in a while there was added emphasis in the shouting.

"And it's perfect weather for a parade, don't you think?"

His first lieutenant choked back a cough. "They could sure use it, couldn't they?"

On Himmel Street, Liesel was playing soccer when the noise arrived. Two boys were fighting for the ball in the midfield when everything stopped. Even Tommy Muller could hear it. "What is that?" he asked from his position in goal.

"Well, how about it, then? We've got time, don't we?"

"Is that a herd of cows?" Rudy asked. "It can't be. It never sounds quite like that, does it?"

Everyone turned toward the sound of shuffling feet and regimented voices as they made their way closer.

In a tall apartment just around the corner on Munich Street, an old lady with a foreboding voice deciphered for everyone the exact source of the commotion. Up high, in the window, her face appeared like a white flag with moist eyes and an open mouth. Her voice was like suicide, landing with a clunk at Liesel's feet.

"So what are you waiting for?"

"It is, sir."

"We've always got time, sir."

Elend -- Misery: Great suffering, unhappiness, and distress.

She had gray hair.

Related words: anguish, torment, despair, wretchedness, desolation.

He realized, however, that the girl was determined to stay, and perhaps it was something she should see. In the breezy autumn air, he stood with her. He did not speak.

"Up there," she pointed out to Rudy. "My papa."

They both crossed and made their way up, and Hans Hubermann attempted at first to take them away. "Liesel," he said. "Maybe…"

"Die Juden," she said. "The Jews."

More people appeared on the street, where a collection of Jews and other criminals had already been shoved past. Perhaps the death camps were kept secret, but at times, people were shown the glory of a labor camp like Dachau.

Far up, on the other side, Liesel spotted the man with his paint cart. He was running his hand uncomfortably through his hair.

The eyes were dark, dark blue.

DUDEN DICTIONARY MEANING #6

Others moved in around and in front of them.

On Munich Street, they watched.

The suffering faces of depleted men and women reached across to them, pleading not so much for help -- they were beyond that -- but for an explanation. Just something to subdue this confusion.

They watched the Jews come down the road like a catalog of colors. That wasn't how the book thief described them, but I can tell you that that's exactly what they were, for many of them would die. They would each greet me like their last true friend, with bones like smoke and their souls trailing behind.

When they arrived in full, the noise of their feet throbbed on top of the road. Their eyes were enormous in their starving skulls. And the dirt. The dirt was molded to them. Their legs staggered as they were pushed by soldiers' hands -- a few wayward steps of forced running before the slow return to a malnourished walk.

Hans watched them above the heads of the crowding audience. I'm sure his eyes were silver and strained. Liesel looked through the gaps or over shoulders.

Their feet could barely rise above the ground.

Stars of David were plastered to their shirts, and misery was attached to them as if assigned. "Don't forget your misery…" In some cases, it grew on them like a vine.

No one did.

Once in a while a man or woman -- no, they were not men and women; they were Jews -- would find Liesel's face among the crowd. They would meet her with their defeat, and the book thief could do nothing but watch them back in a long, incurable moment before they were gone again. She could only hope they could read the depth of sorrow in her face, to recognize that it was true, and not fleeting.

At their side, the soldiers also made their way past, ordering them to hurry up and to stop moaning. Some of those soldiers were only boys. They had the Fuhrer in their eyes.

As she watched all of this, Liesel was certain that these were the poorest souls alive. That's what she wrote about them. Their gaunt faces were stretched with torture. Hunger ate them as they continued forward, some of them watching the ground to avoid the people on the side of the road. Some looked appealingly at those who had come to observe their humiliation, this prelude to their deaths. Others pleaded for someone, anyone, to step forward and catch them in their arms.

Whether they watched this parade with pride, temerity, or shame, nobody came forward to interrupt it. Not yet.

I have one of you in my basement! she wanted to say. We built a snowman together! I gave him thirteen presents when he was sick!

On each occasion, a soldier stood above him. "Steh' auf," he called down. "Stand up."

The man rose to his knees and fought his way up. He walked on.

Every time he caught up sufficiently to the back of the line, he would soon lose momentum and stumble again to the ground. There were more behind him -- a good truck's worth -- and they threatened to overtake and trample him.

What good would it be?

The side of his face was flattened against the road.

In a small gap in the procession, there was a man, older than the others.

Liesel said nothing at all.

He wore a beard and torn clothes.

She understood that she was utterly worthless to these people. They could not be saved, and in a few minutes, she would see what would happen to those who might try to help them.

His eyes were the color of agony, and weightless as he was, he was too heavy for his legs to carry.

Several times, he fell.

It happened so quickly.

Papa reached into his paint cart and pulled something out. He made his way through the people, onto the road.

Just give him five more minutes and he would surely fall into the German gutter and die. They would all let him, and they would all watch.

When it changed hands, the Jew slid down. He fell to his knees and held Papa's shins. He buried his face between them and thanked him.

The Jew stood before him, expecting another handful of derision, but he watched with everyone else as Hans Hubermann held his hand out and presented a piece of bread, like magic.

With tears in her eyes, she saw the man slide farther forward, pushing Papa back to cry into his ankles.

The hand that held firmly on to Liesel's let it drop to her side as the man came struggling by. She felt her palm slap her hip.

Then, one human.

Hans Hubermann.

The man was dead.

Liesel watched.

The ache in his arms was unbearable to watch as they shook, trying to lift his body. They gave way one more time before he stood and took another group of steps.

He was dead.

Then it was Papa's turn.

Other Jews walked past, all of them watching this small, futile miracle. They streamed by, like human water. That day, a few would reach the ocean. They would be handed a white cap.

Wading through, a soldier was soon at the scene of the crime. He studied the kneeling man and Papa, and he looked at the crowd. After another moment's thought, he took the whip from his belt and began.

The Jew was whipped six times. On his back, his head, and his legs. "You filth! You swine!" Blood dripped now from his ear.

A new hand held Liesel's now, and when she looked in horror next to her, Rudy Steiner swallowed as Hans Hubermann was whipped on the street. The sound sickened her and she expected cracks to appear on her papa's body. He was struck four times before he, too, hit the ground.

When the elderly Jew climbed to his feet for the last time and continued on, he looked briefly back. He took a last sad glance at the man who was kneeling now himself, whose back was burning with four lines of fire, whose knees were aching on the road. If nothing else, the old man would die like a human. Or at least with the thought that he was a human.

Others were silent, helping him back to safety.

As Rudy attempted to pick it up, a passing Jew snatched it from his hand and another two fought him for it as they continued on their way to Dachau.

Oh, Christ, oh, crucified Christ.

Hans Hubermann leaned forward, arms outstretched against a house wall. He was suddenly overwhelmed by what had just happened.

Silver eyes were pelted then.

They'll come now. They'll come.

They called him a Jew lover.

I'm not so sure if that's such a good thing.

There was an image, fast and hot.

Me?

Thoughts of panic were caught between the in-and-out struggle of his breath.

33 Himmel Street -- its basement.

He looked at the girl and closed his eyes.

A cart was turned over and paint flowed onto the street.

When Liesel and Rudy made it through and helped Hans to his feet, there were so many voices. Words and sunlight. That's how she remembered it. The light sparkling on the road and the words like waves, breaking on her back. Only as they walked away did they notice the bread sitting rejected on the street.

She received questions rather than an answer.

Yes. I must agree.

"What was I thinking?" His eyes closed tighter and opened again. His overalls creased. There was paint and blood on his hands. And bread crumbs. How different from the bread of summer. "Oh my God, Liesel, what have I done?"

What had Papa done?

"Are you hurt, Papa?"