Page 25 of The Little Liar
When the final group was called, Sebastian shuffled in the back. He clenched his jaw to keep himself from crying. He had just passed his fifteenth birthday, which his family marked with an extra portion of bread and a piece of hard candy. Now he stood beside a plump sixteen-year-old girl named Rivka, whom he barely knew, other than she had a brother who used to push Sebastian around in school. In his hand was a ring his grandmother had given him. He squeezed it so hard it left a mark on his palm.
Sebastian had strongly protested this idea. He told his parents he was too young to be married, and he didn’t even like the girl. They insisted it was about security, that when this terrible ordeal was over he could undo it somehow, but for now he must do as they say. Sebastian ran off, red-faced and furious, screaming that he didn’t want “a stupid flat.” He raced to the barricades and stared at the barbed wire, tears burning his eyes.
I felt for the poor boy. But he was not being truthful. The real reason he did not want to marry the girl named Rivka was because his heart was set on Fannie. A marriage to someone else, he feared, would soil him, mark him as taken, forever lock him away from her. In the weeks that had passed since their relocation, Sebastian and Fannie had spent some time together in the ghetto, playing card games with the other children, or reading whatever books they could find. Fannie, still stunned from the loss of her father, didn’t speak much. Still, for Sebastian, those moments felt like the only light in an endless gray day.
Now, standing among a group of soon-to-be-newlyweds, Sebastian thought again of Fannie’s face, and he prayed she would never learn of what he was about to do. He placed the ring on Rivka’s finger with his eyes averted. At fifteen, Sebastian Krispis became a husband without looking at his new wife, as if not witnessing something could make it disappear.
Three Betrayals
When the Lord was handing out qualities, Trust was freely distributed. Humans and animals each got a share. But betrayal?
That went to mankind alone.
Which brings us to a date:
August 10, 1943
This was the day of three betrayals in our story. All of them took place on the platform of the Baron Hirsch rail station, late in the morning, as the final train left Salonika for the death camps at Auschwitz.
There had been eighteen transports in the previous months. By Udo Graf’s judgment, they had gone quite well. On schedule. No incidents. Udo had implemented small deceptions to smooth the process, such as telling the Jews to convert their money to Polish zlotys and handing them credit slips that would never be cashed. Udo watched in amusement as these starving fools willingly handed over the very last currencythey had, still trusting that the Nazis would treat them right in the end. He even had guards load the luggage as if they were porters.
His best trick, however, was Nico Krispis. That, he told himself, was a small stroke of genius. The boy had done exactly as instructed, weaving through the platform crowds, whispering promises of jobs, homes, and “Resettlement!” This planted in the passengers’ anxious minds that last ounce of trust needed to get them through the train doors.
Nico, wearing the yellow star Udo had given him, was so convincing in his tale of overhearing a German officer say families would be reunited, that some departing passengers actually hugged him in gratitude. Many knew Nico from the neighborhoods or the synagogue—they called him Chioni—and seeing he was alive brightened them just enough to believe his story. Udo was proud of devising this lying-Jew tactic and decided that in his next conversation with the Wolf, he would share it, and perhaps they would talk military strategy.
***
Udo had let the boy sleep in his old room during this process. That seemed to calm him. At the dinner table Udo watched him gulping bread and meat.
“Slow,” Udo said. “You must chew and then swallow.”
“Aber ich bin hungrig sehr,” Nico said, trying his German.
“Sehr hungrig,” Udo corrected. “Very hungry.Verygoes before the word.”
“Sehr hungrig,” Nico repeated.
Udo caught himself watching the boy sometimes, curious at how he filled the idle hours, reading dictionaries, playing with the odd toy, or staring out the window. Udo had no children of his own. He’d never married. After the war was won, he told himself, he would find a proper German woman, of good character and excellent features. His stature as a senior officer would provide a wide choice of potential brides, of that he was certain. Children would surely follow.
Meanwhile, he was taken aback by Nico’s innocence. After all, the boy was now twelve. When Udo was that age, he’d already smoked his first cigarette, drunk his first beer, and gotten into plenty of trouble fighting older boys from his Berlin neighborhood.
But this kid was different. One night, when Udo complained of a headache, Nico knocked on his bedroom door and offered a towel soaked in hot water. Another night, when Udo was drinking brandy, Nico approached with a German book and held it out.
“You want me to read this?”
Nico nodded.
“To you?”
“Ja.”
Udo was taken aback. He knew he had more important things to do than read to a little Jew. But he soon found himself turning the pages, even inflecting his voice.
As Udo narrated, Nico leaned in, wedging against Udo’s shoulder. The contact surprised Udo, who had never had achild this close to him. I would like to tell you it melted the man’s heart in some way, and softened his future actions. But I am bound to accuracy.
It didn’t change him at all.
***
