Little White Lies Read Online Free PDF Page A

you?’
    ‘History of Art.’
    ‘You guys are so lucky,’ Annick said enviously. ‘At least you’re good at something. I haven’t got a clue what to do.’
    ‘I thought you were going to do languages?’ Rebecca asked carefully.
    ‘Well, that’s only because it’ll be easy.’
    ‘So choose something harder.’
    ‘Me? Since when do I ever do anything hard? I just hope I get
in
, that’s all. I couldn’t bear it if you two got in and I didn’t. Knowing me, I’m the one who’s going to wind up in . . . where was it? Lobs?’
    ‘Lódz,’ Rebecca giggled. ‘
Now
look who’s being melodramatic. Anyhow, I’d better go. I’m blessing the candles tonight and I’d better not screw
that
up. Mum’ll kill me. Aunt Rosa’s always complaining that they don’t teach me how to do things properly. I wish you could meet Adam. Actually, no, I don’t. One look at you and it’ll be all over for me. He won’t be able to take his eyes off you.’
    ‘Don’t be silly.’
    ‘I’m not,’ Rebecca said glumly. ‘That’s just it. I’m not. Tash is so fucking clever, you’re beautiful . . . me, I’m just average. Tash is going to wind up some hotshot lawyer or something, you’re going to marry someone rich and famous and I’ll be the one who gets left behind. Just you wait and see.’

PART TWO
ESCAPE
    ‘To slip away from pursuit or peril; avoid capture, punishment, or any threatened evil.’

The Oxford English Dictionary

5
1935
    LIONEL HARBURG
Hamburg, Germany
    He turned away from the table, impatient with the talk. His uncle Abraham, eyebrows working magnificently like two thick, hairy
Raupen
– caterpillars – was holding court. To Uncle Abe’s left sat his mother, Sara, the matriarch of the clan. Sitting bolt upright, those dark, attentive eyes missing nothing, she listened without speaking. His older brothers were ranged around the table in order of age and importance: Felix, Otto, and George. And then him, of course. At eighteen, he was the youngest. Ordinarily he wouldn’t have been here at this time. He would have been in uniform, doing his military service, like millions of other young Germans. But six months earlier that particular tradition had ended abruptly. Jews were now banned from serving in the army.
    A tram rumbled past; on the polished sideboard the wine glasses rattled gently. He fished in his pocket for a cigarette, avoiding his mother’s disapproving frown. Couldn’t they all see what was happening? A month earlier, at a rally in Nuremberg, Hitler had announced a new law
for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour
, making marriage between Germans and Jews illegal. Barely a week later, another one had been passed. This time it was the
Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service
. It meant Jews could no longer work in government. The picture was sharpening with each passing month. Slowly but surely, they were being shepherded back into the very same ghettos from which their forefathers had escaped. For the Harburgs, and families like theirs whose very fortunes depended on trade and the freedom to move around Europe, it was a death knell.
He
could see what was happening. It was crystal clear. He drew angrily on his cigarette. It was absurd. Whilst Hitler and his cronies plotted their strangulation, Uncle Abe sat and talked and his own father locked himself up in his first-floor study and listened to Brahms. They were slowly being strangled, ‘strangled to death!’ Lionel had burst out the week before. Uncle Abe laughed gently. ‘
Ach
, such fantasies! We’re
German
,’ he insisted. ‘Always. First and foremost. You think they’ll get rid of
us
? Rothschild? Warburg? Harburg? It’s inconceivable. Inconceivable. They
need
us! This nonsense will pass, you’ll see. It’s not the first time, you know.’
    The sound of girlish laughter from the adjoining room floated through the partially open door. His sisters – Lotte, Barbara, Rebecca and the youngest of