Lies That Bind Us(39)

“Maskelyne figured he could put his knowledge of sleight of hand and illusion to work for the war effort,” he said. “So he joined the Royal Engineers. Studied camouflage techniques and added his own stage trickery. He didn’t want to just hide stuff from the enemy—he wanted to mislead them, right? They say stage magic is all about misdirection, about drawing attention to one hand while the other one does all the real work.”

“So what did he do?” asked Simon, moving to the burgers with a spatula only to get a headshake from Brad.

“I already flipped them,” he said.

“The German invasion of Crete was a nightmare for both sides,” said Marcus. “Heavy casualties. The Allies were massively undersupplied and only had a few aircraft, while the Germans had to come in by glider and parachute and then consolidate their position. There were brutal attack and counterattack moves for the next two weeks, but the Nazis had massive air superiority in the region, and the Brits, Aussies, Kiwis, local partisans, and other ragtag imported troops didn’t really have a chance. There’s a monument in Rethymno commemorating them. The fighting was all along this coastline. Awful stuff, and after the Nazis won, they led reprisal raids against the nearby villages, rounding up people, imprisoning them, executing them—”

“Well, this is cheery vacation chat,” said Melissa.

“What was left of the Allied force limped off to Alexandria on the Egyptian coast,” said Marcus, ignoring her. “Ferried at night by whatever bits of the Royal Navy survived the German air assault.”

“What does this have to do with your magician?” asked Brad, nibbling something he had fished off the grill with a long-handled fork.

“He was in Alexandria,” said Marcus. “Which was the Allies’ only toehold in the region. It was the spot they used to launch their counterattack against Rommel and the Italians in North Africa, then the Allied assault on Sicily and the backdoor into Germany. After the Battle of Britain, take the Russians out of the equation, and holding Alexandria becomes the Allies’ most significant achievement in the war. Without it, they lose, plain and simple.”

“Is this what you’re like in class?” asked Simon. “I feel like I’m in school again. It’s freaking me out.”

“Shhh,” said Kristen. “I want to hear.”

Marcus smiled. It probably was, I thought, what he was like in class, and that was why he seemed so at ease, so in control of his story. I liked watching him, hearing the way he built the narrative, laying it out like one of those Greek myths I had so loved in college. It was sexy.

“So there’s Jasper Maskelyne,” said Marcus, “and he knows—everyone knew—that if they lose Alexandria, they are toast, so he puts his mind to using all those old sleight of hand tricks he had learned, and he comes up with this amazing idea: make the enemy think that the Allies are stationed somewhere else and, to make sure the city doesn’t get flattened anyway, hide it.”

“What?” exclaimed Simon skeptically. “How?”

“Well, the first part of the misdirection is to draw the eye to the stuff that doesn’t matter, right?” said Marcus. “So he gets the army to lay out big painted sheets that, from the air, look like buildings. They add plywood aircraft models and inflatable tanks, all stuff the Brits would do again in southern England in 1944 before the D-day landings so that the Germans wouldn’t know where the attack was going to go. He makes sure Alexandria is in full blackout at night, and then sets up fake lights farther down the coast, including a lighthouse, so that when the Nazi night raids come, they bomb the wrong place. He claims he even used a complex mirror system so that when you looked at the city in daylight, it appeared to be several miles from where it really was.”

“Claims?” I said, getting a sinking feeling.

“Yeah,” said Brad. “What does that mean?”

“Means it almost certainly wasn’t true,” said Marcus, smiling. “Maskelyne was a deceiver by trade. A liar. And like a lot of liars, he was ultimately feathering his own nest, building his reputation by claiming responsibility for stuff that was done by other people or that never actually happened at all. He got a lot of press, made some money, but came under more and more critical scrutiny and eventually died a poor and embittered drunk.”

There was an odd, baffled silence. I got up.

“Excuse me,” I said.

I went back inside at the closest thing to a walk that I could manage but then ran up the stairs, locked myself in the bathroom, and vomited into the toilet.



I had retreated to my room and, like the first night I had spent in this place, burrowed under the covers, prepared to sleep out the long evening till breakfast time, but I was still awake when the knock came at the door.

For a moment I lay still, saying nothing, but when it came again, I flung the covers aside and went to it. I was still dressed, but I only opened the door a crack, ready with speeches about how I wasn’t hungry and just wanted to rest.

It was Marcus. He looked abashed.

“Hey,” he said.

“What is it, Marcus?” I said, not opening the door any wider. “I’m really tired and—”

“I just came to check on you,” he said.

I didn’t know what to say to that.

“Yes?” I said, defiant.