Page 63 of The Little Liar

Sebastian, like his brother, Nico, had never finished his schooling. But without the money to do so, his work options were limited. He knew the tobacco business from his father, and in time he found a job with a company that imported cigarettes to Crete. That brought in enough money for food and clothing, and Fannie, happy with her daughter, did not ask for more.

One night, for Tia’s fourth birthday, they took a rowboatout from a nearby fishing village and looked back at the harbor. Oil-lit streetlamps framed it in a ring of light.

“I think Tia needs a sister,” Fannie said.

“Or maybe a brother?” Sebastian said.

Fannie touched her husband’s hand. “Do you ever wonder about your own brother?”

Sebastian scowled.

“No.”

“What if he’s alive?”

“He probably is. He always found ways to get what he wanted.”

“You’re still angry at him?”

“He was working with the Nazis, Fannie. He was telling their lies.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw him! You saw him!”

“I saw him for a second.”

“And he told you everything would be OK. There would be jobs. Families united. Right?”

She looked down. “Yes.”

“Like I said.”

“But why would he lie? What was in it for him?”

“They let him live.”

“Maybe they lied to him, too. Did you ever think of that?”

Sebastian clenched his teeth. His anger toward his brother took physical forms.

“What were you doing with him that day?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know. In the house.”

“This again?”

They had rehashed that morning so many times. Fannie had explained over and over about hiding in the crawl space, about being too scared to come out, about holding Nico’s hand, about leaving an hour later. She hated this conversation because, step by step, it always led to her father’s death in front of the apothecary.

“Never mind,” Sebastian said. “It doesn’t matter.”

But it did matter. Jealousy rarely forgets. The part of Sebastian that sensed Fannie had once preferred Nico was a devil born in his adolescence. And even though Fannie had taken his hand in marriage and had given him a daughter, that devil, at times like these, still whispered in his ear.

***

One day Sebastian read a magazine story about a man in Vienna who had created an agency dedicated to finding former Nazis. Apparently, many of them were hiding with new identities. This man had funding, an office, even a small staff. Some called him “the Nazi Hunter.” He’d already had several ex-SS officers arrested.