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She didn’t think it would actually happen. “You can kiss me if you win. But if I win, I get out of being goalie at soccer.” He agreed, and they ran.
Liesel looked up, covered in mud – hopefully mud, and not something worse – and glared at Rudy. “It was a draw. We both slid.”
Rudy glared at her as he pushed himself up. “What are you talking about, Saumensch?” He slipped down again into the muck and yelped before planting his feet firmly and rising. “The race isn’t over yet.”
Liesel watched, uncomprehending, as Rudy splashed his way towards the finish. He had covered not even four meters before she remembered the stakes, before she realized her soccer position was on the line. This realization catapulted her upwards, her focus forward on the end line. Swiftly she ran, faster, faster, and on a dry day she might have surpassed him. But the squelching of her feet in the mud was as loud a warning as a shout, and with a yell of triumph Rudy put on a burst of speed and flew forwards, fast down the mud, passing Jesse Owens and his four medals to cross the finish line to win a badge of triumph even more prized than the gold.
Behind him, Liesel kept moving, her head down and legs pumping, still trying to cross the line first. Not realizing, Rudy stopped abruptly with a crow, laughing with glee before Liesel rammed into him, sending the two racers tumbling down into the mud for the second time. This time they fell over each other – not side by side – and Rudy caught her and pushed and they landed together, Rudy holding his face close to Liesel.
“You promised, Saumensch.”
“Saukerl,” Liesel growled. She knew as well as any that a bargain was a bargain and she had lost the race.
Rudy smiled and leaned in and for a minute it was knocking noses and bumping teeth, chins and foreheads and mud on faces. But their lips touched, and it seemed that as far as Rudy was concerned, a kiss was a kiss. He jumped up and grinned, cheeky and proud. He offered her a hand. She looked up at him, mud-streaked and defiant, but accepted his help and rose. Standing, she looked down at her clothes and sighed, thinking of her Mama.
“She’s going to kill me.”
The boy shrugged, and slung his arm around his friend as they turned back to town.
Tommy Mülnler was on the ground that morning, laid out by her fists. That afternoon, Liesel was weeping in the street.
Rudy, his arm around his friend, felt something stir in him as Liesel turned her face to hide in his shoulder. Memories stirred of siblings and mothers, and memory led to recollection of Father holding Mother, and Rudy leaned his head down and softly touched his lips to Liesel’s hair. Something fluttered in him, and he drew back unsure if she was aware of the touch. She wiped her eyes as they stood and walked back to Himmel Street.
But unbeknownst to Rudy, that light kiss fell into a gaping hole deep and dark in Liesel’s chest, filling it up, just a little.
Liesel lay flat on the hot riverbank, shivering from the water but drinking in the sun. Rudy hovered out of arm’s reach, surveying the results of his latest trick. He looked at her. “You can swim now, can’t you?”
Liesel slowly sat up, still breathing heavily. Her hair fell in wet streaks to frame her face. “I can’t swim,” she spat, “but I can avoid drowning.”
Rudy took a cautious step forward. “What do you think swimming is, idiot?”
The girl drew in breath to argue, and as the angry words bloomed in her mind she saw him biting back laughter. She exhaled and shook her head, his hidden laughter cutting through her anger as the water cut through the heat of the day. Relieved, Rudy grinned and approached her, extending his hand.
She took it, levering herself off the sand. He brushed her shoulders off and hesitated, just a moment, his eyes reading her face, then leaned in and stole a kiss. Before she could explode, he raised his eyebrows.
“Now you can intentionally not drown, then.”
Once more, she meant to argue – and laughed instead.
She clutched The Whistler tightly, waiting for the boy who had forgotten her shoes.
Rudy was taking so long – had he been caught? The thought of the police siren approaching down the street caused her stomach to tighten. Or was it the thought of the inevitable Watschen awaiting her that made her palms break out in sweat? Liesel took two steps towards the house, stopped, and retreated. The night closed in on her completely and she could barely see the book in her hands, let alone the path to the window.
Too much time had passed. He was taking too long, what if they found him in the house, what if the window was shut, what if her shoes were missing? Three steps down the street and she found she couldn’t stop. The intersection of the streets soon appeared from the dark, and there he was, hurrying towards her with shoes in his hands. Liesel flew towards him, arm raised, drawing up short when she realized she didn’t if she meant to hold him, slap him, or merely take her shoes. Rudy grinned and held out her shoes, a peace offering.
“Told you I would make it right,” he said as she sat and wondered if it was a better idea to take off her sodden socks before putting on the shoes. He put his hand on her shoulder and she looked up at him, smiling. The anxiety of the last ten minutes drained away at his touch, and as he wrinkled his nose at her she realized that the hole in her chest, her constant companion since her brother’s death and mother’s departure, was smaller then she had remembered.
It started out the same – she clutched The Whistler tightly. But this time, Viktor Chemmel ripped it from her hands and threw it into the Amper River. The pages fluttered, petals of a drowning flower, and Rudy raced towards it, stripped off his coat and jumped in.
Liesel drew her coat tighter and clutched her scarf as she followed Rudy to the water. Her eyes tracked the boy, the book, the shivering boy, the slowly sinking book. He was going to get it, going to miss it. Liesel’s breath caught in her chest as she watched the book slip past Rudy’s fingers, her knees were weak as she watched him stumble and almost fall. Liesel tried to make her legs work, tried to run alongside the river to follow The Whistler, but the cold creeping down her spine had frozen her feet to the ground. All she could do was watch as Rudy regained his footing, sliding through the river on stiff legs only to catch the book and take hold of it.
He turned to face her, a small smile creeping across his face like it didn’t know if it had any right to be there. Warmth flooded into Liesel’s limbs. Rudy had her book, yes, but more than that Rudy was smiling. Rudy, who hadn’t smiled since the races, who had been unable to answer Franz Deutscher, who had stopped going to meetings – Rudy was smiling.
“How about a kiss, Saumensch?” He asked, a shadow of cheek falling into his question. And Liesel laughed, didn’t answer but laughed long and loud, and Rudy’s face fell as he began trudging towards the shore. He looked down to find the best way to climb out of the river, and suddenly two small hands were there, helping him out, gripping his shirt, pulling his face down towards hers. Before Rudy knew what was happening he too felt a warmth, even through his soaked clothing – the resurgence of the warmth that had long ago been brought into his life from the girl whose lips now left his too soon, leaving a lingering memory of their sunshine.
The next two years blurred by in an instant, two years of laughter and looks and light touches and moments of warmth and the slow, slow filling of the gaping hole in her chest. And now it was Christmas, and Liesel found herself wanting to make that warmth happen again, that feeling in her chest and stomach.
“I have a present for you. For Christmas. Come with me.”
And he did, because what else would he do for this girl he loves? She had seen he would come with her to the ends of the earth, let alone to the river or the mayor’s house or – or his father’s shop. Rudy unlocked the door and hesitated. before crossing the threshold. Liesel tried not to think about the role he would assume when he did. She reached up and put her hand on his shoulder, giving it a small squeeze. Without turning around, he covered her hand in his and held it tight. They entered the shop together.
She choose him a suit, he put it on. He stepped forward and tripped, falling over the mannequin and landing sprawled in front of her. He laughed and laughed and as she watched, he threw an arm over his face and his laughs shook his body, rolled him away from her and he curled into himself. She asked if he is all right, she knew he was not. She didn’t know what to say.
“I miss him,” Rudy said, on the floor of his father’s shop, holding his eyes tightly shut.
Memory poured back over Liesel – her own memory of silent weeping, of light kisses to hold back the dark. She rushed over to the boy and pulled him to her. Rudy now put his head in her shoulder, their arms found each other and she tipped his chin up towards her face.
There, in the lantern light, they kiss. She poured herself into that kiss, her hurt and healing, her love for him. And he felt it, he felt the dark and the cold recede as the girl in front of him pulled him into his own body. They broke for air and she rests her forehead against his. “Frohe Weihnachten,” she whispered, low and quiet, a smile in her voice. “Merry Christmas.”
He tipped his face back towards hers, accepting the present that she didn’t realize she wanted to give. He kissed her again, slowly, and somehow the teeth aren’t clashing, the noses and chins align. He smiled back at her as he pulled away just enough to murmer back, “Frohe Weihnachten, Liesel.”