Three boys stood in a line. Their records

In the words of Rudy's youngest sisters, there were two monsters sitting in the kitchen. Their voices kneaded methodically at the door as three of the Steiner children played dominoes on the other side. The remaining three listened to the radio in the bedroom, oblivious. Rudy hoped this had nothing to do with what had happened at school the previous week. It was something he had refused to tell Liesel and did not talk about at home.

A GRAY AFTERNOON, A SMALL SCHOOL OFFICE

When the fourth game of dominoes was completed, Rudy began to stand them up in lines, creating patterns that wound their way across the living room floor. As was his habit, he also left a few gaps, in case the rogue finger of a sibling interfered, which it usually did.

"No."

and bodies were thoroughly examined.

"Can I knock them down, Rudy?"

"What about me?"

He made three separate formations that led to the same tower of dominoes in the middle. Together, they would watch everything that was so carefully planned collapse, and they would all smile at the beauty of destruction.

"No. We all will."

"No," she said. It was repeated. "No." Even when the rest of them resumed their arguments, they were silenced again by the same voice, but now it gained momentum. "Please," Barbara Steiner begged them. "Not my boy."

The kitchen voices were becoming louder now, each heaping itself upon the other to be heard. Different sentences fought for attention until one person, previously silent, came between them.

"Can we light a candle, Rudy?"

His legs were aching anyway. "Let me find a match."

It was something their father had often done with them. He would turn out the light and they'd watch the dominoes fall in the candlelight. It somehow made the event grander, a greater spectacle.

Quietly, he walked toward it with the matchbox in one hand, the candle in the other.

The light switch was at the door.

From the other side, the three men and one woman climbed to the hinges. "The best scores in the class," said one of the monsters. Such depth and dryness. "Not to mention his athletic ability." Damn it, why did he have to win all those races at the carnival?

Rudy's ear was pressed to the door now. Candle wax melted onto his hand.

"Rumors." The arid voice, low and matter-of-fact, had an answer for everything. "Our school is one of the finest ever established. It's better than world-class. We're creating an elite group of German citizens in the name of the Fuhrer.…"

He lit the candle and switched off the light.

He waved them away, waiting again for Alex Steiner. He came.

Damn that Franz Deutscher!

"But I've heard what happens there." That was the unmistakable, oaky voice of his father.

"Ready?"

"Come on, Rudy, hurry up."

This was not Franz Deutscher's fault, but his own. He'd wanted to show his past tormentor what he was capable of, but he also wanted to prove himself to everyone. Now everyone was in the kitchen.

"Rudy, the candle's dripping."

"Privileges? Like running barefoot through the snow? Like jumping from ten-meter platforms into three feet of water?"

"Yes, but understand, Herr Steiner, this is all for a greater purpose. Think of the opportunities your son can have. This is really a privilege."

Deutscher.

But then he understood.

Rudy peered up at the dark face, but Kurt did not answer. He'd noticed the arguing from the kitchen. "What's going on in there?"

He struck another match and reignited the candle. The sweet smell of fire and carbon.

Later, when the coat men left, the two boys, one seventeen, the other fourteen, found the courage to face the kitchen.

Rudy and his sisters each tapped a different domino and they watched them fall until the tower in the middle was brought to its knees. The girls cheered.

"What?"

Rudy could listen no longer.

He scraped the candle wax from his hand and drew back from the splice of light that came through the crack in the door. When he sat down, the flame went out. Too much movement. Darkness flowed in. The only light available was a white rectangular stencil, the shape of the kitchen door.

It was one of the girls who answered. The youngest, Bettina. She was five. "There are two monsters," she said. "They've come for Rudy."

Kurt, his older brother, arrived in the room.

Again, the human child. So much cannier.

"They look like dead bodies," he said.

They stood in the doorway. The light punished their eyes.

THREE POSSIBILITIES

His expression was sharp and definite, freshly cut.

If he'd intervened, it might have changed everything.

He told himself in the weeks to come -- or in fact, pleaded with himself -- that if he'd heard the rest of the conversation that night, he'd have entered the kitchen much earlier. "I'll go," he'd have said. "Please, take me, I'm ready now."

Alex and Barbara Steiner would not disclose what was said while the dominoes were falling like dead bodies in the living room. If only Rudy had kept listening at the door, just for another few minutes…

It was Kurt who spoke. "Are they taking him?"

Their mother's forearms were flat on the table. Her palms were facing up.

"Papa?"

He sat at the kitchen table and took hold of his mother's facing-up hand.

But Rudy did not walk toward his father.

A wooden hand wiped at the splinters of his fringe, and he made several attempts to speak.

It was heavy.

Alex Steiner raised his head.

1. Alex Steiner wouldn't have suffered the same punishment as Hans Hubermann.

2. Rudy would have gone away to school.

Rudy Steiner wasn't going anywhere.

The cruelty of fate, however, did not allow Rudy Steiner to enter the kitchen at the opportune moment.

3. And just maybe, he would have lived.

He sat down.

He'd returned to his sisters and the dominoes.