Apart from rocket science, truth, in its basic everyday variety, is something simple and attainable. So it seems until you get into a situation where you have to stand for it. Only then do you realize that it might not be all that simple and perhaps not always attainable.

The summer of 19.. I spent in a sports camp run by the school district. The camp, composed of six cottages, a kitchen, a bathhouse, and toilets, stood in the middle of a conifer forest. Coaches lived together with groups of boys aged eleven to sixteen, whom they trained during the school year for track-and-field competitions.

All six boys I lived with on the first floor of the cottage—my seniors—were bigger, stronger, and faster than me and, to a large extent, were people I looked up to. I was very happy and proud that I had been accepted in their company. My “friends,” as I mentally referred to them, treated me generally fairly. Even if sometimes I would get a wedgie or a kick in the butt, I wasn’t offended or hurt; in a boys’ company there is always the rule of the strongest. Whenever tension arose with boys from other groups, my guys stood up for me: “Hey, keep your hands off him. He’s with us.”

Our coach, Boris, used to be a drill sergeant in the army. He was, if not loved, then respected and considered by everybody as strict, rugged, gruff, demanding in training and in private life, but fair. Under him everybody was on their best behavior. Without him everybody relaxed and, although no one did anything crazy, did things we couldn’t have done in his presence.

Each time, for example, when our coach left the camp on administrative business, we’d play cards, simply because cards were forbidden. One of those times, when he had left for the city after breakfast, we played a game called “Fool.” As usual between boys, we joked, laughed, trash-talked, and had a great time.

When we were in the middle of the game, the door opened and we saw the coach’s tall silhouette in the doorway.

Our enthusiasm and vitality evaporated. Everybody hung their heads low, fearing to look directly into the coach’s light, steely eyes, and only observing his actions with peripheral vision. It was quiet; the buzz of two flies could be distinctly heard. The coach said, with a smile:

“Playing…?” The dimples on his always well-shaven cheeks became pronounced.

“Yes,” the answer came from everybody, flaccid like a tired brain.

“Cards…?” We didn’t even answer. It was obvious.

“Maybe you’ll let me participate?” The jaw muscles danced on his face.

He sat down, shuffled the cards, and started dealing them to each of the players.

“What’s the stake?” He nodded toward some money that lay on the table. Everybody was still silent. Whoever had played “Fool” knew that, although it is possible to play it for money, it’s not set up for it, like poker or baccarat. The pocket change had been left on the table by accident.

“What’s the stake?” he repeated, raising his voice just a bit.

Again, no one answered.

“WHAT’S THE STAKE!” he roared, pounding on the table so hard the money leaped up and fell on the floor, rolling and jingling.

Then his voice became peaceful again. This was even more ominous than the preceding roar. The atmosphere felt as though it was crackling with static.

In a calm and even forgiving voice he began to ask each player individually.

“…Look, I understand that at the beginning you didn’t want to play for money. At the beginning you played just for fun, yes? Is that right? And then, just to make the game more interesting, you thought… right? Am I on the right track? Come on, I was a boy myself. I know that you didn’t play for money, SERIOUSLY. After the game was over, you all planned to give the money back to the original owners. Yes? See, I understand. Well, what happened is what happened. You don’t have to lie to me. You’ll be punished, but not as much as if you lie to me. What I really hate is lies!”

And the guys confessed—one by one. A chill went down my spine. Something was terribly wrong. Because we hadn’t played for money—neither I nor anyone else.

Then it was my turn. I was the youngest and, therefore, he dealt with me accordingly.

“Well, Nick, I hope you’ve understood that it’s bad to play for money.”

“Yes,” I said, my voice trembling.

“So, you understand you did a wrong thing?”

“Yes, I did a wrong thing… playing cards.”

“…for money…” He stood slowly, towering above me like the Hall of Justice.

“I didn’t play for money…”

The coach’s right eyebrow rose. He tilted his head to the left and narrowed his eyes, as if not understanding.

“Excuse me? Can you say that louder?”

“I didn’t play for money.”

“What? Hahahahaha.” He turned his head toward the guys as if inviting them to join, and everybody laughed along.

“So,” he chuckled, “everybody played for money and you didn’t?”

“I didn’t.”

“Everybody, listen to this!” The coach’s voice was loud, and it sounded sincerely amused. “As it turns out—though the rest of you did—Nick here didn’t play for money! Hahahahah….”

Suddenly, he became serious.

“Don’t you EVER lie to me, Nick. I see right through you, so don’t try to con me. If you did a wrong thing, at least have the courage and fortitude to confess. Understand?” he barked.

“I didn’t play for money.” I bit my lip, but tears started dropping from my eyes.

The coach put his hand on my shoulder.

“Well, well, don’t cry. You’re not a little boy anymore. You’re eleven years old, aren’t you?”

I tried to strain every nerve and finally managed to stop the tears. But they were still inside, hovering in a state of unstable equilibrium, ready to resume rolling down at any second.

“Okay, okay. Now I see that you’re a man. Right?”

I nodded.

“Okay. Now that you’re calm, please explain to all of us how it is that everybody else played for money, yet you say you didn’t. You just don’t want to admit it, right? Hm? Why are you silent? Can’t answer, huh?”

I was silent because at that moment I realized, with the clarity of a starting chessboard position, that all the other guys, unable to withstand the pressure, had simply given up.

But it was one thing to admit that, although they had played for money, they had “fortitude and character” to admit their wrongdoing. With this they could live. It was an entirely different matter to be publicly exposed for exactly the opposite sin—the absence of fortitude and character—by their junior. They’d never agree with me in this situation. Moreover, they would hate me if I proved to be right.

Arduously, I sought an answer. Tears again started rolling down my cheeks. What was I standing for, anyhow—to prove that I wasn’t playing for money? Who cared? I knew nothing I said or did at that point would change my punishment. I knew all the guys wanted me to admit I was wrong, like they did, and be done with the whole affair. But somehow I just couldn’t. It was as if someone had thrown a wrench into the mechanism of my compliance and the gears got stuck.

“Well? Are we going to sit here all night until tomorrow?”

At that moment an idea came to me… it drifted into my mind like smoke under the door. It was a long shot, but I had to try it.

“I didn’t play for money because they wouldn’t let me. They said I was too little.”

Everybody started to laugh; they laughed for a long time, causing the coach first to grin, then, caught in the moment, eventually to chuckle and finally join in the laughter.

And although my explanation was thin, relieved that I had come up with something, everybody readily accepted it.

The atmosphere discharged. The coach distributed the punishment, and that was that. When he left for his room upstairs, the guys surrounded me, tapped me on the shoulder, and told me to take it easy and that I was a good guy. They all knew I had saved their faces, and they knew I knew it too, but it was now a secret held between us all.

For my punishment, the coach made me clean the toilet. As I scrubbed it I felt sad, but not because of the smell of feces and urine.

Everyone I thought I knew and had looked up to had suddenly, in an odd way, turned strange to me. Not only they, but I myself, were exposed as strangers—people never really known and, as it turned out, people I wasn’t so proud of either. Worse than that, the “Truth” that had always seemed such a basic, simple thing had diverged into a winding compound lie that somehow, strangely and easily, violated the matter of my reality and, from that point on, dwelled in it like an occupying army.