Page 62 of The Little Liar
“It’s not mine,” the boy said.
He cocked his head.
“Is it yours?”
“No,” Nico said, “it isn’t.”
“Well. Maybe you can give it back to whoever they took it from.”
The boy threw the rifle strap over his shoulder, stepped across the flashlight beam, and disappeared into the darkness.
***
Many things transpired after that night, too numerous to detail here. I will share that Nico used some of those richesto educate himself, realizing his last true day of school was when he was eleven and the Germans invaded his home. Posing first as a Hungarian teenager in Budapest, then as a French university student in Paris, and later, after perfecting his English, as a member of the 1954 class of the London School of Economics, Nico, using the name Tomas Gergel, became well educated, particularly in the ways of business. He was single-minded about learning to make money, seeing how it enabled him to navigate the war years. He showed maturity in his classes and was admired by his professors. Thanks to the crates in the church, he maintained a private bank account that would astonish his fellow students, but he lived alongside them in the dormitories, and often spoke of having barely enough to eat. His good looks caught the eyes of many young women, and he was never alone if he did not want to be. He told his dates that his Hungarian family had been wiped out during the war, so there was never a question of a mother or father or a home to return to on holidays. His romantic relationships were intense but brief. He was not one for getting close.
He graduated with honors, and when he received his diploma, he took it to a hotel room near an airfield in Southampton. He felt the need to start anew, as pathological liars often do. Using his forgery tools, he removed the name “Tomas Gergel” from the parchment.
He thought back to his childhood, his grandfather, the trip to the White Tower and the story of the Jewish prisoner who offered to paint the entire structure for his freedom. Nicotook his pen, and in perfect penmanship, wrote the name of that inmate, “Nathan Guidili,” on his diploma.
The next morning, he boarded his first airplane, the initial leg of a trip that would take him west, then farther west, until he found himself in the blinding sunshine of a state called California and a city called Hollywood, where playing false roles was not only common, but commerce.
Katalin Karády had once told Nico, “You should be in the movies.”
Soon, thanks to his money, he was.
Now to Sebastian and Fannie, who shared a name.
They were married in a Jewish welfare office three weeks after reuniting in Salonika. Fannie wore a white linen dress that an aid worker loaned her. It was too large and she had to avoid tripping over the fabric. Sebastian wore a dark coat and tie given to him by a rabbi.
It was a brief ceremony, with two dockworkers brought in to sign as witnesses. The couple had no family or friends to invite, only ghosts, whom they pictured in their minds as their vows echoed in the otherwise empty room. Once the rings were exchanged, they kissed awkwardly, and Fannie was ashamed that for a fleeting second, she remembered kissing her new husband’s brother.
At that moment, at such a young age, it would be safe to say that Sebastian was fulfilling an adolescent dream, while Fannie was clinging to the only piece of her old life that wasleft. It was not a thoughtful marriage. Nonetheless, they became husband and wife, eighteen and sixteen years old, and if not equals in passion, they were united by one idea: neither wanted to stay a moment longer in Salonika.
As soon as they received some assistance, they boarded a boat heading south (Fannie refused to get on a train), and after several stops, they disembarked on the mountainous island of Crete. The sky was streaks of white against a brilliant blue, and the heat felt good on their necks.
“Where should we live?” Sebastian asked as they walked through the port city of Heraklion.
“Not here,” Fannie said. “Someplace quiet. Away from people.”
“All right.”
“Maybe you could build us a house?”
Sebastian smiled. “Me?”
Fannie nodded, and when he realized she wasn’t joking, he stopped himself from saying he had no idea how to build a house, and simply answered, “If that’s what you want, I’ll do it.”
It took him more than a year, making many mistakes borne from bad advice. But eventually, on a patch of land by an olive grove near the east end of the island, Sebastian constructed a three-room house made of bricks and cement, with a wooden roof covered in clay tiles. On their first night in this tidy domicile, Fannie lit the Sabbath candles and said a blessing she hadn’t recited since her father was alive.
“Why now?” Sebastian said.
“Because,” she said, “now we have a home.”
That night, they made love in a gentle, passionate manner that had been missing from their earlier efforts. And soon they welcomed their first child, a little girl whom they named Tia, after Sebastian’s departed mother, Tanna. Fannie showered the child with all the love she had locked away during the war. As she held the baby and kissed her wispy locks of hair, she felt a breath fill her lungs that was tingly and new, and she shifted her heart into a warm and wondrous place called contentment.
Sebastian tried to let go of the war. But it would not let go of him.
The contentment Fannie found eluded him. Like many who suffered in the camps, his nights were haunted by the dead. Their faces. Their bony frames. The times he dropped them in the mud or snow. Small horrors would return during his sleep and wake him bathed in sweat, his hands shaking. He would gasp for air and tears would rush down his cheeks. It happened so often, he kept a wooden spoon by his bedside to bite down on, so Fannie wouldn’t hear him sobbing.
