Page 34 of The Little Liar
Hungary had loosely aligned with the Wolf, so it was ostensibly the Nazi cause that Sandor had been fighting for. But Gizella had already learned a hard truth of war: grief does not take sides. Sandor died. His body was sent home. She was left a widow in her thirties, sleeping in an empty bed. The cause made no difference.
When she spotted Fannie hiding by the river, Gizella knew she was a Jew, which made her a refugee from tragedy. It was something they had in common.
So they waited together until nightfall. Then Gizella snuck Fannie back to the hillside village where she lived. She gave the girl a bowl of soup, which the child devoured in seconds, and made a sleeping space in the small chicken coop behind her house. She provided Fannie with some old clothes and took her dress with the yellow star and burned it in the fireplace. She wanted to tell her it was better this way, because many of her Hungarian neighbors considered Jews the same menace asthe Nazis did, and if they found out she was harboring one, both of them could be killed. But the woman and the girl had not a single word in common. They spoke at each other, not to each other, using their hands to try and make their points.
Gizella, in Hungarian, tapped the ground and said: “Here. You need to stay here. Here. In this place.”
Fannie, in Greek, responded: “Thank you for the food.”
Gizella: “It’s not safe outside.”
Fannie: “I was on a train. I escaped.”
Gizella: “The people here, they don’t like Jews. For me, it makes no difference. We are all children of God.”
Fannie: “Do you know where the train was going?”
Gizella: “Here. You must stay here. Understand?”
Fannie: “They killed my father.”
Gizella: “Soup? Do you like soup?”
Fannie: “I don’t understand you. I’m sorry.”
Gizella: “I don’t understand you. I’m sorry.”
Gizella sighed, then reached out and took Fannie’s hand. She brought it to her chest.
“Gizella,” she said softly.
Fannie repeated the gesture.
“Fannie,” she said.
For the first night, that was enough. Gizella shut the wooden door behind her, and Fannie fell into a dreamless sleep on a large pile of hay.
***
In the months that followed, Gizella and Fannie forged a rhythm to their days. Fannie would wake before sunrise andenter the house, where she and Gizella would share a breakfast of oatcakes and jam, and trade words in Hungarian. Later, while Gizella made the rounds of the village, picking up clothes for laundering or tailoring, Fannie hid in the chicken coop. When the sun set, she would rejoin Gizella for a supper of whatever they could scrounge together, potatoes, leeks, bread soup. Once in a great while, Gizella would make dumplings from yeast flour with a small bit of curd cheese inside. Fannie would help her roll the dough.
On Sundays, Gizella went to Catholic church and said a silent prayer for the girl’s survival. She took a pouch of red rosary beads with her and clasped them as she spoke to God.
Over time, a relationship developed. Their vocabulary grew. Fannie and Gizella were able to share details of their families, and found themselves united by the losses they had suffered. Gizella explained that the chicken coop had once been a barn for a horse she’d had to sell after her husband died. Fannie told of being thrown from the moving train, rolling along the hard grass, running when she heard gunshots.
Gizella shook her head. “When this war ends, you won’t have to run anymore. Until then, you cannot trust anyone, understand? Not the neighbors. Not the police. No one.”
“When will the war end?” Fannie asked.
“Soon.”
“Gizella?”
“Yes?”
“When it ends...”
“Yes?”
