On the night in question, a drab winter evening late in 1946, their little family had assembled around the horrible yellow “breakfast nook” in the blinding linoleum-wrapped kitchen. Only Nadav was eating, forcing down oily chicken soup as Frances, his salvation from the Valley of the Shadow of Death and to whom he owed his eternal gratitude forever and ever in the land of the living, watched him eat. Wilhelm was out, as usual—out with a girl, some American girl he had been going with for a while now, though Nadav still couldn’t remember her name. Frances and her husband Joe, a thick, silent man with more fat than brains, weren’t eating with him because they were going to a cousin’s wedding. Nadav had not been invited, and for that reason he had been looking forward to this particular evening for weeks.

“Make sure you eat all the soup, it’s getting cold,” Frances chirped. “Look at him, Joe, he’s turning into a pile of dried-out bones.”

Joe smiled a halfhearted smile, stifling a snort.

Frances snorted. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you to eat over there? Look at him, Joe, he’s wasting away.”

Nadav didn’t say anything, but he began slurping the soup a bit faster, as if every mouthful might bring him closer to the moment when Frances and Joe, already dressed for the evening, would leave him alone at last.

He was right. As soon as he reached the bottom of the bowl, Frances stood up, with Joe following her in quick succession, and stepped over to the kitchen counter to pick up her purse—revealing behind it the musty framed sepia portrait of a light-eyed baby, a picture Frances seemed to move from one room to the next so that it was never out of Nadav’s sight. Nadav hated it. But this time he grinned slightly when he saw it, leaning his graying mustache against the heel of his hand as Frances bustled around the room for no good reason. It was the beginning of the end.

“We’ll be back by midnight at the latest, so don’t worry about us. If you want to go to sleep before we come home, that’s all right,” Frances sang. Joe smiled at her, and Nadav wondered for a moment: did Joe smile because she was so ridiculous, or was he being just as ridiculous as she was? Never underestimate Americans for ridiculousness, he thought to himself. A few seconds later, Frances confirmed his thought by asking:

“Do you think you’ll be all right at home by yourself, or should I let the neighbors know you’re here?”

Nadav snorted, which, thankfully, Frances took to be an indication of his well-being. Joe opened the door for her, and she sang her goodbyes as she stepped out the door. For a second as the door was closing, she turned back, her lipsticked mouth hanging open.

“Don’t forget to wash the dish—” she began, but the door slammed before she could finish. Which was a good thing, because washing dishes wasn’t on Nadav’s agenda for the evening.