Page 38 of The Little Liar
Adolescence did not so much arrive for Nico as pounce upon him. He sprouted six inches in height. His lovely features grew sharper. His voice deepened to a soft baritone, and he put on twenty-two pounds. This does not count the weight of his deceptions, which is beyond calculation.
But those deceptions kept him alive. Nico became, as Udo had labeled him, “a good little liar,” undoing a lifetime of honesty almost overnight. This is not without precedent. Did Adam not lose paradise with a single bite of an apple? Was Lucifer not a good angel before his eternal expulsion? We are all one fateful act from a redirected destiny, and the price we pay can be immeasurable.
Nico paid such a price.
He lost me.
He could no longer speak Truth. He shunned it like the devil’s breath. Saying true things only reminded him that his honesty may have condemned his family to death. Who among us could stare at such a blazing sun of accountability and not go blind?
So lying became Nico’s new language. He used countless falsehoods to move from place to place. He was helped in these endeavors by certain people he met along the way.
But first, he was helped by a passport.
That passport had belonged to a broad-shouldered German soldier named Hans Degler, who had been rounding up Jews in Salonika, got terribly drunk one night in a Greek taverna, and fell off a rooftop where he had taken a woman for pleasure. His body was found the next morning, sprawled and lifeless in an alley next to a deserted automobile.
Udo had kept the young man’s passport, planning to turn it in upon his arrival in Germany. That was before the day of betrayals, and Nico’s fortuitous discovery of the leather bag hidden in the crawl space, which, in addition to money and badges, also held the now-deceased Hans Degler’s identification. It may strike you as odd, all the benefits a single bag from a former tormentor might bestow. But those who do you the most harm, if you survive them, can inadvertently lead you to good.
Nico disembarked a northbound train in the small Greek city of Edessa, not far from the Yugoslavian border, in searchof someone with a camera. His goal was to switch a photo of himself onto Hans Degler’s passport, which would declare him as eighteen years old. Nico knew that was a stretch, but what choice did he have? Nazi soldiers could insist on seeing “papers” anytime. With a German passport, they might leave him alone.
As he walked through the town with the badge pinned to his shirt, Nico drew stares, but no one challenged him. The people of Edessa, like those of Salonika, had already felt the wrath of the Nazi forces. They didn’t want more trouble.
Nico spent hours looking for a photographer, but could not find one. Late in the day, tired and sweaty, he passed a barbershop and noticed pictures of customers displayed in the window. He entered to the tingling of a bell. A tall, pock-faced man emerged, wearing a short-sleeved tunic and sporting the thickest mustache Nico had ever seen.
“How can I help?” the man said, eyeing Nico’s badge. Nico reminded himself he was playing the part of a German. He tried to look stern.
“Ich brauche ein Foto,” he said.
The man stared at him, confused.
“Photo? You need a photo?”
“Ja,” Nico said, pointing to the pictures in the window, “ein Foto.”
“All right. First, the haircut. Yes?”
The man motioned toward the barber chair. Nico had no desire for a haircut, but he didn’t want to arouse suspicion. He sat down, and twenty minutes later, his blond hair was clipped short and he looked older. The mustached barber wentinto the back, emerged with an old camera, and snapped several shots.
“Come back in two days,” the man said, holding up two fingers. Nico popped from the chair and started to go. The man cleared his throat and rubbed his palm, looking for payment. Nico opened his bag and pulled out a few Greek coins. He noticed the man staring and quickly zipped the bag shut.
“Ein kleines Foto,” Nico said.
“Eh?” the man said.
Nico repeated, until the man seemed to understand. A small photo. Passport size. That’s what he wanted.
“Ich werde zurückkommen,” Nico said. I will come back.
For the next two nights, Nico slept in the train station. He ate some bread and sausage that he’d stuffed in the bag, and drank water from the sink in the bathroom. He found a nearby bookstore and purchased a German language phrase book, which he studied for hours on end, practicing the words by holding imaginary conversations with himself.
On the third day, when he returned to the barbershop, the mustached man was waiting, and motioned Nico into the back room.
“I have your photo here,” he said.
Nico walked through the door and was immediately tackled by two teenaged boys, who held him down while the barber ripped open his bag. He rummaged through the food, clothing, and money, but when he saw the badges, he recoiled.
“Who are you working for? Why do you have Nazi badges?”
Nico writhed against the grip of the two boys.
