Page 46 of The Little Liar
Nico nodded and hurried to the vehicle. The actress kept staring straight ahead, appearing more angry than frightened.
“Do you have a way out of here?” Nico whispered in Hungarian.
She turned, and Nico felt goose bumps. She was beautiful in a way that could knock you back with a flash of her eyes. The woman studied him for a moment, then pinched two fingers under her lipstick-painted mouth.
“My driver is over there,” she said.
Across the plaza sat a black vehicle with a man inside it. Without thinking, Nico pulled the transport door open.
“Go.”
The actress looked both ways, as if this were a trick. Then, as the fight by the theater grew more raucous, she slipped out quickly and ran to the waiting vehicle.
Nico closed the transport door, lowered his head, and walked around the corner. As soon as he was alone, he tookoff the Nazi coat and hat and walked briskly to the café where he worked, so he could retrieve his bag. He was breathing fast and kept blinking his eyes, as if not believing what he had just done. What if the Nazis found him? How much trouble was he in? Why did he take a risk like that—for a stranger?
Once he got his bag, he ran toward the train station. He ducked down an alley and raced through it. As he emerged on the other side, he heard a screeching of tires and jumped back just before he was hit by an oncoming car.
Its rear door swung open.
“Get in,” the actress said.
***
Her name was Katalin Karády, and she was once the biggest movie star in Hungary. Raised the poor daughter of a shoemaker, she became a singer and film icon and rose to great fame. She had an unusual voice that attracted legions of fans, and her sultry look and fashion style were copied by thousands of Hungarian women, who dressed, did their hair, and fixed their makeup just like her.
Katalin’s personal life was often in the news, which gave her even greater celebrity. But when the war came, she was fiercely anti-German, and since everything she did or said quickly became public, it cost her dearly. As Hungary slipped deeper into Nazi control, her songs were banned and eventually her movies, too.
The night she snuck Nico into her car, they drove to Budapest and she let him stay in her apartment, which was moreluxurious than anything Nico had ever seen. A chandelier hung in the middle of a large sitting room, and lace curtains draped every window.
“So,” she said, pouring herself a glass of wine. “You haven’t told me your name.”
“Hans Degler,” Nico said.
“You’re German?”
“Ja.”
She grinned. “Young man, I am an actress. Don’t you think I can tell when someone is pretending?”
Nico presented his German passport, which made her smile.
“Even better,” she said. “An actor with papers.”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I haven’t used my real name in years. My manager created ‘Karády.’ He thought it sounded more Hungarian.” She sipped her wine. “These days, everyone is whoever they need to be.”
Nico studied the woman. The color of her cheeks. The way her eyelids were painted.
“Aren’t you afraid they will come for you again?” he asked.
“Oh, I know they’ll come for me. If you stand for something during a war, you are going to pay a price.”
She looked Nico straight in the eye.
“What do you stand for... Hans Degler?”
Nico hesitated. He had never been asked that question.What did he stand for?He could only think of his grandfather, the most principled person he knew. He thought of the story he had told Nico and Sebastian at the White Tower, about the prisoner and his offer to paint his way to freedom.
“A man, to be forgiven, will do anything,” Nico said.
