“Your father would have loved this,” Marianne said, startling Martin. “He always was a troublemaker.”

Martin was confused. The image of his father was becoming more opaque rather than less.

“When he was a boy,” Marianne continued, “he took up boxing to rebel against his father, who was very stern and very proper. A Fledermann boxing! It was shocking—it would be like”—she groped for an analogy—“like you taking up tap dancing!”

Martin had never heard of tap dancing. It sounded frivolous. Like something a boy should stay away from. Boxing, on the other hand, was manly. He gave up trying to make sense. He could barely hear her voice over the wind. Beside him, Liesel had fallen asleep. He let Marianne’s words wash over him. She had loved his father. This much he understood.

The train stopped at some point in the night. The tracks went no farther. The Berlin station had been bombed by the Allies and then flooded by the SS, who feared the Russians would use its vast tunnels to stage their invasion. Drowned bodies were supposedly still washing up onto the streets. They learned this from a grizzled old man who was eager to warn Marianne off. Liesel and Martin listened, half-asleep. So we will walk, Marianne responded, unfazed. Both children did not protest. Martin’s wonder at being free had worn thin, though. His feet ached and the road was crammed with fellow refugees. In the gray light of dawn, the city’s suburbs looked mean and haggard. Somewhere within all this crumbling brick, his mother waited. Martin tried to fill his mind with her but found he could barely conjure her face.

They walked all day through the suburbs and into the ruined city. They trudged down cavern-like streets piled high with debris. The fronts of buildings rose from the wreckage like jagged cutouts. Had the buildings always been so fragile? Like sand castles taken down by waves. At street level the remaining walls were covered with papers, scrawled names, and messages. Martin could see Liesel staring at them.

“Missing people,” she said in her defiant way. “Probably dead.”

Makeshift chimneys rose from the rubble like waving arms.

For the final portion of the journey, Marianne flagged down a passing American army jeep. At first, the driver shook his head without even looking at them, but the soldier in the passenger seat jabbed him with his elbow. He slowed to a halt and extended his hand. Martin hesitated before accepting, but the sores on his feet and his general fatigue won over his doubts. Frau Vortmuller’s warnings about the Americans already seemed like something from another life. Marianne sat with the soldiers in front and spoke English, while Liesel and Martin huddled in the back. To their amazement, the soldier who had waved them in turned around and handed them a chocolate bar. And after that, for some time all else fell away. There was only the unaccustomed sweetness of the chocolate, the slippery melting on the tongue. When was the last time Martin had tasted something so delicious?