A Silent Sufferer

This is a short creative piece based off "The Book Thief".

Humans say that their lives will flash before their eyes before they die and that all the memories will rise to the surface. This could not have been any truer for young Arthur Berg. When I arrived at the scene of his death, the sky was purple velvet, with the beginning tinges of soft pink. Also, I was early.

 

***A SMALL BUT IMPORTANT FACT***

Arthur Berg showed me something.

 

            In his last moments dwindling between life and death, a silent connection passed from his soul to mine. And I now not only carry the story of the book thief, Liesel Meminger, but of Arthur Berg as well, who I might add, did not die in vain. I feel that his too is a story needing to be shared, so as a tribute to Arthur Berg, I present his life:

 

“I always seemed to have a talent for theft; it was one of the few things I was truly excellent at. When I was about six my brother had a stealing crew, and I would watch and follow as long as I could without them noticing. After a year and a half of that coupled with me begging to come along, Klaus finally relented.

‘Fine Arthur, you can come already!’ he yelled, exasperated.

‘Really, you mean it, Klaus?’ I asked hopefully.

‘Yes, I mean it. Now if you don’t get your butt out the door so we can get to the meeting I’m gonna take it back! So move it.’

“He had agreed to let me in just a few days after my eighth birthday. Though he claims it wasn’t a birthday present, I’m sure it was, especially because he gave me nothing on the day of celebration. By the time my next birthday came around I could rob anyone almost blind, sometimes I could even do it right under their noses. The crew was amazing, I had become the official ‘little brother’ and the whole unit was like having a second family, and having Klaus at the head of it was even more fantastic.

 “As with all good things though, it one day came to an abrupt and shattering halt, when Klaus disappeared. It was detrimental to all of us, but it hit me in two worlds; both of my families had lost a member, and one was then without guidance.

“There was a meeting to decide what the crew would do in the absence of Klaus, but in the end they decided that no one else could lead the way Klaus had and that it wouldn’t be the same. The group disbanded and went their separate ways, most of them I never saw again.

 “However, some of them I did see again. Just under a year later, I was walking down the street with one of my good friends Andy Schmeikl and I saw two of them leaning against a tree. As we got closer they turned to face us and I could see that they recognized me. We deviated from the street and approached them, curious about what they might be doing.

‘Hey, you guys were in my brothers’ crew a while back, right?’ I asked, opening them up for conversation.

One of them nodded and the other smiled vaguely, as if remembering the good times. Then he spoke slowly, ‘yes. Why do you ask?’

‘Oh um, I just thought I recognized you and wanted to make sure,’ I said quickly. Then continued on, ‘so what are you doing?’

‘Just waiting for Fritz, he, Kurt and I are supposed to go scavenge some abandoned orchard.’

I couldn’t hold back my surprise and it must have shown on my face because he regarded me with a questioning look.

‘Sorry,’ I said quickly, ‘I just thought… You still don’t have a crew?’

It was Kurt who spoke this time, ‘sadly, no. It isn’t quite that easy, all the crews are already overcrowded. The only way to be in a crew would be to start one, and we don’t have anyone to lead.’

Suddenly I stood bolt upright and snapped my head to Andy, who had been quietly standing in on the conversation. It must have startled him because he jumped a little.

‘What?’ he asked. ‘Seriously, why are you staring at me?’

‘Andy! We could start our own crew. There would only be two of us it would be perfect.’ I turned back to the older two, ‘you could join our crew because there wouldn’t be a whole bunch of people in it so we would be able to support it. And it would be just like my brothers, everything would be split even between all members.’ I paused to take a quick breath, looking from one to the other searching for a response. When I didn’t see one I spoke again, ‘So what do you say?’

They glanced at one another, and then back at me. They both looked very serious and I was sure I knew their answer. Then Kurt broke into a grin and Michael began to smile. ‘You know what kid, you got yourself a deal.’

“I had a crew again, but this time I was the one calling shots and running the show. It was a small crew at first, just the four of us stealing only what we could eat. It worked very well actually; we were rarely hungry because we could steal enough between the four of us that we could eat well for at least two or three days. All the food was always evenly distributed; every last morsel of it was shared equally. I never once considered taking more for myself, as many of the leaders did, even when I was starving.

“More people came to join, most were friends but there were a few strangers. Even when I had to turn people away, often I would toss them an apple as apology. Mainly we would just steal apples and potatoes from orchards and fields, but occasionally we would crave something different. From time to time in groups of three and four we would go into a store. There were usually three groups; two to steal and one to cause a huge distraction. It worked very well for the most part. We were only caught twice and of those two, one I didn’t know about until after the fact and the other it was I myself who was caught.

 “The first time it had been Michael. It had been our first time stealing from a store and I hadn’t even known he was caught until we got back to our meeting place. Luckily he made it away with very light punishment and a heavy scolding. The second time had also been at a store, and it hadn’t exactly been me who was caught. Andy was stealing a particularly large loaf of bread next to me when the storekeeper saw him. The man started yelling at Andy, and I pushed him and told him to run. As I began to follow, one of the customers in the store grabbed my shirt collar. I had been busted, but Andy and the rest of the crew had made it out, and that was what mattered. I got a pretty good hiding for it, but life went on in its unusual way.

“Members of the crew would come and go for various reasons; they were never questioned too much for it. I liked to think that my crew was the fairest and most respectful one around and I prided myself in that. Whereas we would only steal what we could eat, and wouldn’t take or keep extra materials, the other crew’s would salvage every scrap of anything and take it for themselves.

“Surprisingly enough though, other crews never bothered us, even though they knew we weren’t ruthless as they were, they would never pick a fight with any of our members. I never quite understood why, but guessed it could have been because we did things differently, so maybe they just didn’t know how to deal with us. I always liked the way I ran my crew though. I instilled a set of morals into every person who was in my crew, and because of that along with respect, there were never any fights within my crew. Life leading the crew was great. But of course, everything had to go and change again.

‘Arthur! Thank heavens I finally found you! You’re gone so much I nearly forgot you still do actually live with the rest of our family,’ she was scolding me, I could tell. To anyone else she would seem that she was worried, but I knew better.

‘I know mama, I’m sorry. I just get so busy, I don’t mean to not come home.’ It wasn’t so much that I was busy, I could just find better things to do than sit at home waiting for the never-ending list of chores to be forced into action.

She looked at me for a moment, clearly wondering what a fifteen-year-old boy would be so ‘busy’ with that he couldn’t come home for days at a time. After a moment she shook her head and gave me a I-would-so-punish-you-if-I-could-enforce-it look then said, ‘Your Papa and I need you to be at home this evening and all of tomorrow. No more of your being busy nonsense. We are going to be moving to Cologne, your Papa was offered a job by a man who was here not long ago and it has a much better rate of pay than the one he has. You will be ready to leave in two days. Do you understand me?’

I couldn’t even move.

“I was about to lose everything I had worked for. Even though it was devastating, I couldn’t let it show. I told the members of my crew that I was leaving, and that they would have someone else as leader in no time. I knew that no one else would lead with the same morals and demand of fairness as I had, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

“As instructed, I was ready to go within the two days. We left on the third day after being informed of the news. Just before we did I lightened my pocket of a bag of chestnuts to the two youngest members of the crew. I never saw them again, but I hoped they would make it through the war. They seemed like really good kids.

“Mama and Papa were silent the entire trip and my sister Frauke slept so I was left to sit and stare as we drove down the rough road. When we arrived at our new apartment block I almost didn’t notice that there was someone standing near the door. Quickly I grabbed my bags and headed for the person while the rest of my family was preoccupied trying to retrieve their own things. Normally I wouldn’t approach people I didn’t know, especially in a place I had never been to before, but something about the man standing there had been exceedingly familiar. Then, when the man lifted his head I instantly knew why.

‘Klaus,’ I was so shocked that I nearly dropped both the bags I was carrying and fell over.

‘Arthur, please, please forgive me.’ He said it so quietly that I scarcely heard him and in a voice so afflicted and cracking with despair I nearly didn’t recognize it.

That time I did drop my bags, and I ran the remaining distance to him. He caught me in a brothers’ embrace and I flung my arms around his neck, remembering when I was younger when he had first disappeared and how I had wanted nothing more than to do just that. ‘Klaus. Why?’

‘Oh little brother,’ he said quietly in my ear so that our approaching family wouldn’t hear him, ‘I didn’t know what else I could have possibly done short of putting a bullet in my head.’

I knew I should have been surprised and asked him why on earth he’d want to do that, but I understood how he felt, I had started to feel the same before we had moved. So I nodded rather than asking him a question that I didn’t need to ask.

“Life resumed almost the way it had been before Klaus disappeared, but it would never be the same. There was no crew to meet with, no people to check on, and no places to scout. It was tolerable, but torturous. The Nazi’s would come sometimes and raid through our house, taking anything they claimed would assist in the war effort. I didn’t buy it, but I was never stupid enough to open my mouth and say so. On one particular day though, things changed again. That’s always been a constant in my life, change.

“I had taken my sister for a walk to keep her entertained and we had come across a park, with a swing of sorts and space to run around. There were two other kids playing around and Frauke managed to join them. Naturally, by the time we left and made our way home it was much later than I had intended, but it was an indescribable relief and burden that we were late.

 “As I walked in the door I knew something was wrong. I called out for Mama, Papa, and Klaus but there was no answer from anyone. Then I finally saw why, they were all laying on the floor, ruby red blood pooling beneath them. There were Nazi symbols carved into the walls and the floor, so it was no secret they had done it. I knew that the house was nowhere near safe anymore, so I packed a quick bag with some clothes for Frauke and I, then left.

“I started stealing again, on my own this time, so that we could eat a few times a week. I would always let Frauke eat first, and if she was hungry enough to eat it all then I would either find more or go without. I tried to keep Frauke as sheltered and as safe as I could, but one day a little over a year later it rained and was very cold. She was weak to start with and just couldn’t overcome it. Everything I had done the past year had been for her, and in the instant that she died, it had all been in vain.

“I lived on the streets for another two years before I came across the scene that killed me. It was a public display of Hitler’s’ anti-Jew philosophy. There was a Jew held between two Nazi guards and there was another loading a gun near them. Another was standing on a platform making a speech and there were others all around. I didn’t have anything left to live for, and if I could spare someone else’s life in exchange for my own, I thought maybe it would stifle the sting of watching everything else go to pieces.

I made way through the crowd until I was by the Jew and waited. When the Nazi lifted the gun to aim, I stepped between him and the Jew.

‘Move!’ he hollered at me. I refused, standing completely still and completely in the way. ‘You stupid boy get out of the way,’ he hollered at me again, then to some of the other guards, ‘get him out of the way, now, order!’

Two of the Nazi guards grabbed my shoulders and dragged me aside. I didn’t fight, so they didn’t grip my arms too tight. The gun bearing Nazi took aim again, and this time I waited until he began to pull the trigger before tearing my arms out of the Nazi grip and diving, just in time to catch the bullet. I felt the hit in the right side of my chest, and it became increasingly difficult to breathe, it was like I was drowning. My vision started to tunnel and go fuzzy, but I could still see the guards gathered around me before it all went black.

Then it went white, and I didn’t feel like I was drowning, or like I was starving, or like I had done everything wrong. I just felt at rest.”

Author's Note

Please let me know what you think, and how I could improve. Thanks =)

Reviews

[Abi B.]

This was a really cool read! I don't know how long it was supposed to be, but I'd like to see more of it. If Arthur's story was made into a book, I'd definitely read it. I love how you described the concept of his second family, and how when he was old enough to take the responsibility of being the leader, he did it fairly.

[747]

I have no idea how I overlooked this review. I'm sorry, I hope you didn't think it was unappreciated.
Have you read The Book Thief by Markus Zusak? Arthur is not a main character, though he is described in some detail.
This short piece was actually an English assignment in my Grade 11 year as a final project for the novel. Most of it was just my imaginative tales, the rest was pulled from The Book Thief.