Page 83 of The Little Liar

1973

At her daughter’s urging, Fannie visited a memorial for the Jewish victims of the “Holocaust,” a now-common term for what had happened under the Nazis. It came from the Greek wordholocauston, which means a burned sacrifice. Fannie said the phrase was inappropriate. When Tia asked what word she would use, Fannie said there was no word, and there should never be one.

The memorial, called Yad Vashem, was built into a hillside in western Jerusalem. There, Fannie saw detailed photos from the camps. She saw images of the sick, the starving, the emaciated, the dead. Alongside some of the photos were printed testimonies from survivors, detailing what they had endured.

She read one account of a mother who had lost her seven-year-old son. His name was Yossi. He had been ripped from her arms by Nazi soldiers. For some reason, it made Fannierecall the death march out of Budapest, the boy with the backpack who died in the snow. What if that was Yossi? What if Fannie knew the child’s fate but his poor mother did not?

She began to cry, slowly at first, then uncontrollably. “What’s wrong, Mama?” Tia asked. “What is it?” But Fannie could only shake her head. The bearded man on the train had said, “Tell the world what happened here.” But she could not yet speak that Truth. She did not want to talk about what really happened, not with anyone, not even her own daughter.

1974

Fannie returned to Hungary. Gizella, now in her late sixties, was in failing health. She forgot many things. At night during the winter, she would sit by the fire, holding Fannie’s hands, and sometimes she would turn to the other room and speak to her long-lost husband, telling him to “bring in more wood from outside, our daughter will be cold.”

1975

One morning, lying in her bed, Gizella asked that Fannie remove her eye patch.

“Why?”

“Because I am going to see Jesus.”

“Please don’t leave me. Not yet.”

Gizella reached for her hand. “I never left you all the time we were apart. How could I leave you now?”

The autumn sunlight shifted through the window.

“Oh, Gizella,” Fannie said, her words cracking, “I keepthinking you’d have been better off if I never came into your life.”

The old woman could barely shake her head.

“Without you, I would have died a long time ago.”

She squeezed Fannie’s fingers.

“Please? My eye?”

Fannie slowly removed her patch. Although the wound was difficult to look at, she did not turn away. Gizella rolled her head back, as if gazing at something above them.

“He is waiting for you,” she whispered.

“Who?” Fannie said.

Gizella took her final breath and died with a smile.

1976

In August, when the redheaded man showed up, Fannie was sitting on the porch. As he approached with the bag, she lifted a blanket in her lap to reveal a pistol pointed straight at him.

“I need to know who is sending this money. Now.”

The redheaded man dropped the bag and raised his arms. He took a step back.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Honestly. I get paid like everyone else, once a year. He warned me if I ever say anything, the money stops.”

“Who warned you?”

“The Gypsy.”