1943
“It’s a lie.”
The large man’s voice was deep and hoarse.
“What’s a lie?” someone whispered.
“Where we’re going.”
“They’re taking us north.”
“They’re taking us to die.”
“Not true!”
“It is true,” the large man said. “They’ll kill us once we get there.”
“No! We’re being resettled! To new homes! You heard the boy on the platform!”
“To new homes!” another voice added.
“There are no new homes,” the large man said.
A shriek of train wheels silenced the conversation. The large man studied the metal grate that covered the only window in this lightless wagon, which was intended to carry cows, not humans. There were no seats. No food or water. Nearly a hundred others were crammed inside, a solid block of human beings. Old men in suits. Children in their sleeping clothes. A young mother cupping an infant to her chest. Only one person was sitting, a teenaged girl with her dress hiked up over a tin bucket the passengers were given to relieve themselves. She hid her face in her hands.
The large man had seen enough. He wiped sweat from his forehead then pushed through the bodies toward the window.
“Hey!”
“Watch it!”
“Where are you going!”
He reached the grate and jammed his thick fingers through the holes. He grunted loudly. With his face contorting, he began to pull.
Everyone in the cattle car went silent. What is he doing? What if the guards come? In the corner, a lanky boy named Sebastian stood against the wall, watching all this unfold. Next to him was most of his family, his mother, his father, his grandparents, his two younger sisters. But when he saw the man pulling at the window grate, his focus turned to a thin dark-haired girl a few feet away.
Her name was Fannie. Before all the trouble began, before the tanks and the soldiers and the barking dogs and the midnight door-pounding and the rounding up of all the Jewish people in his home city of Salonika, Sebastian believed that he loved this girl, if there is such a thing as love when you are fourteen years old.
He had never shared this feeling, not with her or anyone else. But now, for some reason, he felt swollen with it, and he focused on her as the large man wiggled the grate until it loosened from the wall. With a last mighty pull, he ripped it free and let it drop. Air rushed through the open rectangle, and a springtime sky was visible for all to see.
The large man wasted no time. He pulled himself up, but the opening was too small. His thick midsection could not fit through.
He dropped down, cursing. A murmur went through the train car.
“Someone smaller,” a voice said.
Parents clutched their children. For a moment, nobody moved. Sebastian squeezed his eyes shut, took a deep breath, then grabbed Fannie by the shoulders and pushed her forward.
“She can fit.”
“Sebastian, no!” Fannie yelled.
“Where are her parents?” someone asked.
“Dead,” someone answered.
“Come, child.”
“Hurry, child!”
The passengers shuffled Fannie through the scrum of bodies, touching her back as if sealing wishes upon it. She reached the large man, who hoisted her to the window.
“Legs first,” he instructed. “When you land, curl up and roll.”
“Wait—”
“We can’t wait! You must go now!”
Fannie spun toward Sebastian. Tears filled his eyes. I will see you again, he said, but he said it to himself. A bearded man who had been mumbling prayers edged forward to whisper in Fannie’s ear.
“Be a good person,” he said. “Tell the world what happened here.”
Her mouth went to form a question, but before she could, the large man pushed her through the opening, and she was gone.
Wind whooshed through the window. For a moment, the passengers seemed paralyzed, as if waiting for Fannie to come crawling back. When that didn’t happen, they began pushing forward. Ripples of hope spread through the boxcar. We can get out! We can leave! They crushed up against one another.
And then.
BANG! A gunshot. Then several more. As the train screeched its brakes, passengers scrambled to put the grate back over the window. No luck. It wouldn’t hold. When the car stopped moving, the doors yanked open, and a short German officer stood in blinding sunlight, his pistol held high.
“HALT!” he screamed.
Sebastian watched the hands fall away from the window like dead leaves dropping from a shaken branch. He looked at the officer, looked at the passengers, looked at the teenage girl crying on the waste bucket, and he knew their last hope had just been extinguished. At that moment, he cursed the one missing member of his family, his younger brother, Nico, and he swore he would find him one day, make him pay for all this, and never, ever, forgive him.
Let Me Tell You Who I Am
You can trust the story you are about to hear. You can trust it because I am telling it to you, and I am the only thing in this world you can trust.
Some would say you can trust nature, but I disagree. Nature is fickle; species thrive then flame out. Others suggest you can trust faith. Which faith? I ask.
As for humans? Well. Humans can be trusted only to watch out for themselves. When threatened, they will destroy anything to survive, especially me.
But I am the shadow you cannot outrun, the mirror that holds your final reflection. You may duck my gaze for all your days on earth, but let me assure you, I get the last look.
I am Truth.
And this is a story about a boy who tried to break me.
For years, he hid, during the Holocaust and after it, changing names, changing lives. But in the end, he must have known I would find him.
Who could spot a little liar better than me?
“Such a beautiful boy!”
Let me introduce you to him, before all the lying began. Stare at this page until your eyes drift into cloudy subconscious. Ah. There he is. Little Nico Krispis, playing in the streets of Salonika, Greece—also known as Thessaloniki—a city by the Aegean Sea that dates back to 300 BCE. Here the ruins of ancient bathhouses mix with streetcars and horse-drawn wagons, the olive oil market bustles, and street vendors sell their fruits, fish, and spices taken off the morning boats from the harbor.
The year is 1936. The summer sun is heating the cobblestone by the famous White Tower, a fifteenth-century fortress built to protect Salonika’s shores. In a nearby park, children shriek happily in a game called abariza, where two teams draw chalk boxes then chase one another between them. If they are caught, they must stand in the box until they are “freed” by a teammate.
Nico Krispis is the last one left from his team. He is being chased by an older boy named Giorgos. The captured children shout “Look out, Nico!” whenever Giorgos gets too close.
Nico grins. He is fast for his age. He dashes to a streetlamp, grabs hold, then spins around, launching himself like a slingshot. Giorgos pumps his arms. It’s a footrace now. Nico’s toe touches the edge of the chalk box just as the older boy slaps his shoulder.
“Abariza!” Nico yells as the children scatter. “Liberté! Freedom!”
“No, no! I got you, Nico!” Giorgos declares. “I tagged you before you touched!”
The children freeze. They turn to Nico. What’s it going to be? He looks at his sandal. He looks at Giorgos.
“He’s right,” Nico says. “He got me.”
His teammates groan. They stomp away.
“Oh, Nico,” one laments, “why do you always have to tell the truth?”
I know why.
I can always spot an admirer.
* * *
Now, perhaps you ask: Why focus on this one little boy? Of what interest can he be? Are there not billions of lives that Truth could share, baring the intimate accounts of their time on earth?
The answer is yes. But with Nico, I offer you a story of consequence, one that heretofore has never been told. It concerns deception, great deception, but also great truth, and heartbreak and war and family and revenge and love, the kind of love that is tested over and over. Before the story ends, there is even a moment of magic, set against an endless tapestry of human frailty.
When we finish this story, you may say, “That was impossible.” But here is the funny thing about truth: the less real something seems, the more people want to believe it.
So consider this about Nico Krispis:
Until he was eleven years old, he never told a lie.
That will get you noticed, at least by me. If Nico snuck a sweet roll from the kitchen, he would admit it the moment he was questioned. If his mother said, “Are you tired, Nico?” he would confess he was, even if it got him sent to bed early.
In school, if Nico was unable to answer a teacher’s question, he would willingly share that he had not read his homework. The other students laughed at his honesty. But Nico’s grandfather, Lazarre, whom Nico adored, had taught him early on of my precious value. When Nico was only five years old, they were sitting near the harbor, staring over the gulf at the majestic Mount Olympus.
“My friend told me
the gods live up there,” Nico said.
“There is only one God, Nico,” Lazarre replied. “And he does not live on a mountain.”
Nico frowned. “Then why did my friend say it?”
“People say many things. Some are true. Some are lies. Sometimes, if you say a lie long enough, people believe it’s the truth.
“Never be the one to tell lies, Nico.”
“I won’t, Nano.”
“God is always watching.”
Three things to know about Nico Krispis.
- He had a remarkable facility for languages.
- He could draw almost anything.
- He was an attractive child.
The third item will prove significant as we go on. Nico was blessed with the best features of his tall, muscular father, a tobacco merchant, and his fair-haired mother, who volunteered at a local theater in hopes of taking the stage. I claim no credit for a person’s physical features, but I can tell you that whatever countenance you were born with, Truth will enhance it.
I have a look.
Nico wore that look on a face that was so pleasing, even strangers stopped to admire him. “Such a beautiful child,” they would say, touching his cheeks or his chin. They would sometimes add, “He does not look Jewish.” This, during the war, would also be significant.
But what strangers were mostly drawn to with Nico, beyond the wavy blond hair, the sparkly blue eyes, or the full lips that spread over prominent white teeth, was his pure heart. There was no guile anywhere.
He was a boy to be believed.
Over time, people in his neighborhood began calling him Chioni—the Greek word for “snow”—because he seemed so untouched by earthly deceit. How could I not take note of such a creature? In a world full of lies, honesty glimmers like silver foil reflecting the sun.
The Rest of the Cast
Now, to fully tell you Nico’s story, I must include three other people, who will intertwine constantly over the course of his unusual life.
The first is his brother, Sebastian, whom you’ve met already on the train. Three years older, dark-haired, and considerably more serious, Sebastian tried to be a good son while quietly harboring an older brother’s envy of his pampered younger sibling.
“Why do we have to go to bed now?” Sebastian would moan.
Translation: Why does Nico get to stay up as late as me?
“Why do I have to finish my soup?”
Translation: Why doesn’t Nico have to finish his?
The older brother was bony where the younger was lithe, and self-conscious where the younger was at ease. Many a time when Nico was entertaining the family with comic imitations, Sebastian would be curled up near the window, a book in his lap, a frown on his face.
Was Sebastian as truthful as Nico? Sadly, no. He lied about the usual things, brushing his teeth, taking coins from his father’s drawer, whether he’d paid attention at synagogue, and, once he reached adolescence, why he was taking so long in the bathroom.
Still, the older boy was fiercely devoted to his family, his mother, Tanna, his father, Lev, his grandparents Lazarre and Eva, his twin baby sisters, Elisabet and Anna, and yes, when pressed, even his younger brother, Nico, who was his rival in racing through the olive oil market, or swimming off the city’s east side beaches.
But Sebastian saved his greatest devotion for the girl named Fannie.
Fannie is the third person in the little liar’s tale. Before the train ride that changed her life forever, Fannie had been a shy twelve-year-old on the cusp of young womanhood, her features in midbloom, flashing olive eyes, generous lips, a shy smile, a slim, budding figure. Her raven corkscrew hair covered her narrow shoulders.
Fannie’s father, a widower named Shimon Nahmias, owned an apothecary on Egnatia Street, and Fannie, his only child, would help him organize the shelves. Sebastian would often visit the shop on the pretense that he needed something for his mother, but he was privately hoping for time alone with Fannie. Although they had known each other all their lives, and had played together as children, things had changed in recent months. Sebastian felt a rumble in his stomach whenever she looked at him. His hands began to sweat.
Sadly, Fannie did not share this attraction. Being younger, she was actually in Nico’s class in school, where her seat was just in back of his. The day after her twelfth birthday, she wore a new dress that her father had purchased as a present, and Nico, forever honest, smiled at her and said, “You look pretty today, Fannie.”
From that moment, her heart was set on him.
I said I had a look.
But all right. To complete the introductions, let us return to that train, which in the summer of 1943 was barreling from Salonika up through central Europe. Many today are unaware that the Nazis, in their efforts to conquer the continent, invaded Greece and claimed that hot country as their own. Or that Salonika, prior to the war, was the only city in Europe with a Jewish majority population—which made it a ripe target for the Nazis and their Schutzstaffel, or SS, troops. They did there what they did in Poland, Hungary, France, and elsewhere: rounded up the Jewish citizens and led them to their slaughter.
The final destination of that train from Salonika was a death camp, the one called Auschwitz-Birkenau. The large man had been right. Not that it did him any good.
“HALT!” the German officer repeated, as he pushed his way through the passengers
and reached the window. He was squat and thick-lipped, his face tightly cut, as if there were no spare skin to soften his jutting chin or bulging cheekbones. He waved his gun at the grate on the floor.
“Who did this?” he asked.
Heads looked down. No one spoke. The German lifted the grate and examined its sharp edges, then gazed up at the bearded man, the one who’d told Fannie to “be a good person” and “tell the world what happened here.”
“Was it you, sir?” the German whispered.
Before the bearded man could answer, the German swung the grate into his face, ripping the skin from his nose and cheeks. The bearded man shrieked in pain.
“I’ll ask again. Was it you?”
“He didn’t do it!” a woman screamed.
The German followed her eyes to the large man standing silently by the window hole.
“Thank you,” the German said.
He raised his pistol and shot the large man in the head.
Blood splattered the train wall as the large man collapsed. The gunshot’s echo froze the passengers in their shoes. The truth was (and I should know) there were enough people in that car to overwhelm the German officer and put him down. But at that moment they could not see me. They could only see what the German wanted them to see. That he, not them, was the minister of their fate.
“You want to go out this window?” he announced. “Very well. I will let one of you go. Who should it be?”
He turned his head left and right, considering the haggard faces before him. He stopped on the young woman clutching her baby.
“You. Go.”
The woman’s eyes shot back and forth. She edged toward the opening.
“Wait. First give me your child.”
The woman froze. She pulled the infant closer.
“Did you hear what I said?”
He pointed his gun at her nose and grabbed the baby with his free hand.
“Now you can go. Hurry up. Through the window.”
“No, no, please, please,” the mother stammered. “I don’t want to go, I don’t want to go . . .”
“I’m giving you the chance to leave. Isn’t that why you destroyed my window grate?”
“Please, no, please, please, my baby, my baby.”
The woman collapsed into the legs of her fellow captives. The officer shook his head.
“What is it with you Jews? You say you want something, then you don’t.”
He sighed. “Well. I said one of you can go. I must keep my word.”
He stepped to the window, and, with a swift swing of his arm, tossed the baby through the opening. As the mother howled and the prisoners trembled, only Sebastian made eye contact with the officer, long enough to see him smile.
His name was Udo Graf.
He is the fourth person in this story.
A Parable
When God was about to create Man, He gathered all the top angels to debate the merits of the idea. Should it happen? Yes or no?
The Angel of Mercy said, “Yes, let Man be created, for he will do merciful deeds.”
The Angel of Righteousness said, “Yes, let Man be created, for he will do righteous acts.”
Only the Angel of Truth disagreed. “No, let Man not be created, for he will be false and tell lies.”
So what did the Lord do? He considered all that was said. Then He cast Truth out of heaven and threw him to the depths of the earth.
* * *
Well, as your young people say: that hurts.
The story is accurate. How else could I be here, talking to you?
But was I wrong to warn God that Man would be deceitful? Clearly, I was not. Humans lie constantly, especially to their Maker.
Still, the reasons for my heavenly expulsion are hotly debated. Some suggest I was buried beneath the ground to rise when mankind was elevated to its best nature. Others say I was being hidden on purpose, as my virtue is beyond your capacity.
I have my own theory. I believe I was hurled to earth to smash into billions of pieces, ...
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