Page 71 of The Little Liar
“Not in front of Tia,” she said.
“Our daughter should know what happened to her family, Fannie. She should know why she has no grandparents or cousins!”
“Why? So it can haunt her, too? Why can’t you let it go?Why do you want to keep talking about Nazis, Nazis? Why must you always go to the past?”
“I’m doing this for everyone I lost.”
“What about the ones you stillhave?”
This argument repeated itself, in various forms, at least once a month. He felt it was a reason to live. She felt it was ruining them. Each would tell you they didn’t want to fight about it, but, in time, the fight was all they had in common.
As Sebastian advanced at the agency, he began to take trips to foreign cities, in hopes of pressuring governments to pursue ex-SS officers living there. Always in his mind were Udo Graf, which he told Fannie about, and Nico, which he did not. Although their sins were hardly equal, he considered each of them war criminals. He hoped to punish them both.
The more Sebastian went away on these trips, the further he moved from Fannie’s heart, until one day, when his train was delayed and he missed his daughter’s high school graduation ceremony, he edged outside it altogether.
As Tia cried in the school auditorium, Fannie squeezed her hand. She told her it was unavoidable, don’t fret, don’t be mad. She took her daughter for ice cream and later kissed her good night. When Sebastian finally arrived, after midnight, Fannie didn’t yell. She didn’t fuss. She barely spoke. The truth of love is that when it fades away, you don’t really care less. You don’t care at all.
A few years later, once Tia had departed to attend a university in Israel, Fannie opened a suitcase, packed her clothes, and told Sebastian she was taking a trip of her own. It was a Saturday, the Sabbath, a day on which observant Jews wouldnot travel. Fannie didn’t care. She watched her husband stand in the doorway, arms crossed, brow furrowed, as she buttoned her coat and lifted her bag.
“When will you be back?” he said.
“I’ll call and let you know,” she said.
But she already knew; she wasn’t coming back. And deep down, because true love cannot lie, so did he.
Fannie’s first stop was Hungary.
For nearly twenty-five years, she had wondered what became of Gizella, who had shown her such kindness during the war. The day the Arrow Cross captured Fannie was the last day she had seen the poor woman. The soldiers said she would die for her treason. But Fannie needed to know for sure. She thought about the poison rosary beads. She prayed that Gizella never had to use them.
She traveled from Vienna to Budapest. From there she took three trains to reach the hillside village where Gizella had lived. Fannie spent nearly a full day walking before recognizing the old road. So much had changed. The architecture. The streetlights. Gizella’s house had been replaced with a larger, more modern one, and Fannie might have passed the property altogether, were it not for the chicken coop on the slope behind it, which was still there.
She walked up the pathway carrying her suitcase. She felt her pulse quicken. She remembered the day the gray-haired woman discovered her, and the morning the guards dragged Fannie away.
She knocked on the door. A stocky, middle-aged nurse answered.
“Hello,” Fannie said, straining to remember her Hungarian. “I am looking for... I used to know... There was a woman who lived here once. Her name was Gizella?”
The nurse nodded.
“Do you know if... Well... Is she still alive?”
“Of course,” the nurse replied.
Fannie exhaled so hard, she bent forward. “Oh, thank God. Thank God. Do you know where I can find her?”
The nurse seemed confused. She pulled back the door, and Fannie glimpsed a woman in a wheelchair, sitting near the fireplace. Her right eye was covered with a patch, and that side of her face drooped. But upon seeing Fannie, she let loose a high-pitched squeal, and Fannie ran to her and threw herself at her feet and began sobbing so hard in her lap that all she could get out was, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
***
The Arrow Cross had dragged Gizella to an interrogation room and had beaten her when she denied the girl she was hiding was Jewish. For three weeks they withheld food, water, even medical attention, trying to get her to talk. Only when an elderly priest from Gizella’s church arrived at the door and paid an undisclosed sum of money was she set free.
The beatings left her blind in one eye and unable to walk without a cane. As the years passed, her hips deteriorated, and she now needed a wheelchair to get around. Fannie apologized so many times that Gizella forbade her to use the words“I’m sorry,” insisting that the war had so many victims, just being alive was something to celebrate.
That first night, Fannie helped the nurse prepare a meal. When Fannie carried over a bowl of soup, Gizella smiled and said, “Remember when I did this for you?”
“I could never forget it.”
“Look at you now. Such a face. Such hair. And your figure! Fannie, you are beautiful.”
