Page 79 - Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen
P. 79
last, even Fayge and her father began to sing.
Hannah listened to the growing chorus in wonder, as
the song leaped from truck to truck down the long road.
Didn't they know? Didn't they guess? Didn't they care?
She kept remembering more and more, bits and pieces
of her classroom discussions about the Holocaust. About
the death camps and the crematoria. About the brutal
Nazis and the six million dead Jews. Was knowing—or
not knowing—more frightening? She couldn't decide.
A strange awful taste rose in her mouth, more bitter
even than the Seder's bitter herbs. And they were for
remembering. She fought the taste down. She would
not, she could not be sick. Not here. Not now. She
opened her mouth to catch a breath of air, and found
herself singing. The sound of her own voice drowned
out the steady drone of the tires on the endless, twisting
road.
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