Page 28 of The Little Liar
Nico spun, searching for theHauptsturmführer, desperate to ask him this question, but there were too many people. The words of the large man kept repeating in his ears. For a few moments, they were all he could hear.
Then Nico heard something else.
Something he’d been yearning to hear since the morning he hid in that crawl space under the steps.
His mother’s voice.
“Nico!”
It was unmistakable, even in the din of a thousand other voices. The boy turned and his eyes widened. There was his mama, maybe forty feet down the platform. There was his papa, standing beside her. There was his grandfather and his grandmother and his aunt and uncle and his older brother and his two younger sisters, all staring at him in disbelief.
“Mama!” he shrieked.
Suddenly they were all hollering his name, as if the whole of their language had been shrunk to a single word:Nico!Tears filled his eyes. He felt his legs running without even thinking. He saw his mother running, too.
And then, in an instant, he couldn’t see her anymore. Three bodies in gray uniforms stepped in front and accosted her.
“NO!” he heard his mother scream. Nico felt someone grab him from behind, and a forearm shoot across his neck.
Udo Graf.
“My family!” Nico yelled.
“I said you would see them.”
“I want to go with them! Let me go with them!”
Udo tensed his jaw.I should let him go, he told himself.Be done with him.That would be protocol. But he knew certain death awaited Nico where this train was going. And in that moment, feeling betrayed by his own superiors, Udo struck back against the rules.
“No,” he said. “You stay here.”
By this point, Nico’s entire family had been shoved inside the wooden boxcar. Nico couldn’t see them anymore. He began crying hysterically and writhing under the German’s grip.
“Let me go!”
“Easy, Nico.”
“You promised! You promised!”
“Nico—”
“I want to go to Poland! I want to go to our new homes—”
“There are no new homes,you stupid Jew!”
Nico froze. His mouth dropped. His eyes bulged.
“But... I told everybody...”
Udo snorted. Something about the child’s face, so stunned, so shattered, made him look away.
“You were a good little liar,” he said. “Be grateful you’re alive.”
Steam hissed. The train engines roared to life. Udomotioned to a Nazi soldier, who swiftly pulled Nico away. Then, without another look at the child he’d broken in half, Udo strode to the front car, angry that he had to get on this transport, angry that his contributions weren’t being recognized, angry that this petulant child didn’t appreciate how he’d just saved his life.
Minutes later, the train pulled out. The soldier holding Nico, uninterested in playing babysitter, let go and headed for a cigarette. Nico raced down the platform and jumped onto the tracks. He stumbled hard and broke his fall with his hands. He rose and kept running, ignoring the scraped skin of his palms and knees. Three German troops watching from the platform began to laugh.
“You missed your train, boy!” one of them yelled.
