Page 8 of The Little Liar
Lazarre asks about others they knew, Jewish men who’d signed up to fight as Lev had. Lev shakes his head at each name. Tanna puts her hand over her mouth.
Sebastian watches his father from across the room. Something about seeing him so weak keeps the boy from speaking. But Nico is unaffected. He approaches his father and hands him some drawings he made to welcome him home. Lev takes them and forces a smile.
“Were you a good boy while I was gone, Nico?”
“Not all the time,” Nico says. “Sometimes I didn’t listen to Mama. I didn’t finish all my food. And the teacher says I talk too much.”
Lev nods wearily. “You just keep being honest like that. The truth is important.”
“God is always watching,” Nico says.
“That’s right.”
“Did we win the war, Papa?”
Lev breaks his own advice and lies.
“Of course, Nico.”
“I told you, Sebastian,” Nico says, smiling at his brother.
Tanna leads her son away. “Come, Nico, time for bed.” She looks at her husband, fighting her tears.
Lazarre rises to the window and pulls back the curtains.
“Papa,” Lev says, his voice barely audible, “it’s going to happen. The Germans. They are coming.”
Lazarre pulls the curtains closed.
“They’re not coming,” he says. “They’re here.”
We are in 1942.
A hot Saturday morning in Liberty Square, Salonika’s main gathering center. It’s been more than a year since Lev’s return from the war. Shortly after that, the German army invaded the city with tanks, motorcycles, rows of soldiers, and a musical band. Ever since then, food has grown scarce. Services are closed. Nazi soldiers roam the streets and life for Jewish families is horribly restricted. Signs hang in shops and restaurant windows.NO JEWS PERMITTED.Everyone is afraid.
Today the July sun is baking. There are no clouds. The scene in the square is bizarre, almost surreal. It is jammed with lines of Jewish men, shoulder to shoulder, nine thousand of them, standing just inches apart. They were commanded to gather by the Nazi forces who now control the city.
“UP, DOWN! UP, DOWN!” officers scream. The Jewish men hold their hands out and squat, then rise, then squat, then rise again. It looks like calisthenics, except there is no end to them; if a man stops, rests, or falls over exhausted, he is beaten, kicked, and attacked by dogs.
Lev is among the men rounded up here. He is determinednot to break. Sweat soaks his skin as he goes down, up, down, up. He glances to a balcony that overlooks the square. Young German women are taking photographs and laughing.How can they be laughing?He looks away. He thinks of the war. He thinks of what he endured in the winter cold. He can handle this, he tells himself. How he wishes for cold right now.
“UP, DOWN! UP, DOWN!”
Lev sees an older man fall to his knees. A German officer yanks on his beard, pulls out a knife, and slices the hair from his face. The man screams. Lev turns away. Another man who has fallen down is kicked in the stomach, then dragged to the street. A bucket of water is tossed on him and he is left there, groaning in pain. Bystanders do nothing.
“UP, DOWN! UP, DOWN!”
It will come to be known as “the Black Sabbath,” chosen deliberately by the Germans to violate the Jewish holy day, forcing men who would otherwise be praying in synagogue to be humiliated in public for no apparent purpose.
But there is always a purpose to cruelty. The Germans wanted to change me. They wanted the Jews of Salonika to accept a new version of Truth, one in which there was no freedom, no faith, and no hope. Only Nazi rule.
Lev tells himself he will not succumb. His muscles are so exhausted, they are quivering. He feels nauseated, but he dare not throw up. He thinks of his children, the girls, Elisabet and Anna, the boys, Sebastian and Nico. They keep him going.
“UP, DOWN! UP, DOWN!”
Lev does not know that at this moment, Nico is approaching the scene. He is used to roaming freely around the neighborhood, something his mother has warned against doing. But he slips out anyhow and follows the noise that can be heard blocks away.
When he reaches the edge of Liberty Square, he lifts on his toes to see over the crowd. A German guard spots him.
