Gabe - Three.

Gabe

The rest of us just stood there for a minute after Erich disappeared through the door above us. I felt frozen to the floor, my heart sinking into my stomach. What if I didn’t see him again? What if he really never came back? It took everything I had not to go after him, but I didn’t dare move. I just stayed rooted to the spot, feeling scared and crushed and trapped in that bloody basement trapdoor room.

“You want me to shoot him?”

Peter’s question was so entirely without emphasis, I almost didn’t realize what he was asking. Rebecca and Hersch got it, though.

“Peter!” Rebecca cried. That was when I realized he was talking about Erich. Since coming into the war room, I had been too overwhelmed to say anything, but now I couldn’t even put the words together in my head. I looked, panicking, at Rebecca, and she gave my shoulder a squeeze. My breath was getting quick and shallow, and I wondered how long it would be before I really lost it.

“Put it down, Berezovsky. He didn’t kill you when he could have.” Peter had picked up a shotgun that had been propped up in the corner.

Peter did not look happy, but he dropped the gun on the table. “Well what is your plan, Kolega?” he growled. “We will lose everything if he gets away. Do you understand, Abrahamson! If you think he isn’t headed straight back to the barracks to turn us in, you are out of your head.”

Hersch puffed himself up, managing to face down Peter despite being considerably shorter. “I don’t want to tell you again; we can trust them.” Peter cast a withering look at Jim and me, and promptly transitioned into Polish. “Rebecca, take Banhart and Moretti upstairs. Peter and I have to discuss this.” He didn’t want us around anymore than Peter did, even if Hersch did trust us. Rebecca gave me a nudge towards the ladder, and I followed her up.

Rebecca went angrily to the table; she picked up a knife and started slicing a cold sausage like she was punishing it for starting this whole thing. “Both of them are idiots,” she said to neither of us in particular. Jim and I stood quietly next to the table, listening to the angry Polish coming from below. “Herschel will not accept that we will die if we stay here. Peter just wants to fix things, but he gets frustrated that he cannot do enough.”

“Does this thing vent to the street, or…” Jim had, of course, become distracted while warming his hands at the fire. When I turned around, he had his head halfway inside the old wood-burning oven.

“No,” she shoved Jim out of the way with the pan of sausage. “We sawed off the pipe at the first floor, so the smoke comes out on the inside and doesn’t attract attention.” She rolled up her sleeves, holding onto the pan with one hand, using a fork to poke violently at the meat. It occurred to me that if either Peter or Hersch thought she couldn’t take care of herself, they were sorely mistaken. I noticed how Jim still looked at her, with fascination and bewilderment and awe, his mouth hanging open a little. Smart as he was, he would always be an idiot for Rebecca.

“Why?” I asked, desperate to listen to anything but the fighting beneath us. “Why can’t Peter do enough?”

Rebecca set the pan down on the coals, and poked at the fire with her fork before answering me. “He cannot get the support. Without Herschel, not enough will listen to him. He has enough following to keep the underground running, but what he wants is an uprising, and he’ll never have that without Herschel’s help.”

“Why won’t Hersch get behind an uprising?” Jim asked, managing to form a coherent sentence while watching Rebecca sweat in front of the fire.

Rebecca wiped her brow. It was getting pleasantly warm in there. After spending weeks in the freezing cold streets, I was finally starting to feel comfortable. “He does not see the point. He thinks we will lose more lives than we would have without fighting back. Really, I think he cannot stand the idea that what happened to Kristen might happen again.”

“To him?” It was Jim who asked that; I still didn’t know enough about Kristen to follow exactly what Rebecca meant.

She pulled the pan out of the fire, poking at the slices of meat again. “To anyone. Anyway, Peter is a more… passionate person than Herschel.” She took one look at our faces, and corrected herself. “Not violent. Not towards us, at least. Herschel would not have him here if he were violent towards either of us. Like Erich, but not quite so… angry. More obsessive than angry. The Resistance is all he thinks about. He hates for anything to stand in his way, and right now the two of you are standing in his way.” She scraped the sizzling meat off the pan and onto a chipped plate, while Jim and I exchanged a furtive glance. “Peter says he does not care who we lose in an uprising, as long as we go down fighting. Herschel agrees with him, deep down, I think. But he won’t ever admit it. Here, eat.”

I was starving, but one look from Jim told me that we both knew not to take food out of Rebecca’s mouth. “No, Rebecca, it’s all right. I’m not…”

“You are starving, Gabriel. And, James, so are you.” She pushed the plate towards us. “Go on, this is all there is this morning. At this rate, Peter will miss delivery orders, so there might not be anything else until tomorrow.” Jim and I looked at each other again, neither of us willing to ignore an order from Rebecca. She was right, too: I was starving. I hadn’t eaten since the last safe house, almost a whole day ago. I took a slice of sausage between my fingers and bit into it. It was so warm and delicious, I thought I might cry. One look at Jim told me he felt similarly.

“All right,” he said as he chewed slowly, savoring his first bite of food in a day. “So what can we do? You wanted us here, so tell us what to do.” The way he said it, I guessed Jim would have followed her into hell if she asked.

Rebecca stabbed her slice with the fork, raising it to her lips. “You can stay here, no matter what Herschel or Peter tries to tell you. You two, you three, are the last chance we have. I promise, I never would have involved you if I did not very truly believe that no one but you four, you goddamn Sons of Thunder, could call up this uprising.”

“Us four?” Jim asked incredulously. “You mean - ”

The door flew open, and all four of us shrieked. Rebecca braced herself against the table, wielding the fork like a weapon. I had no doubt in my mind that she would put that fork in a Nazi’s eye if she got the chance. When I saw who was standing in the doorway, my heart clenched up. Erich was back.

“Amery!” Jim heaved, “What the f**k?”

For a brief, joyful moment, I thought maybe Erich had come back for me. But one look at his face told me that he would not have turned around if something hadn’t gone terribly, terribly wrong.

“You have to get downstairs!” he ordered, slamming the door behind him. He kept checking over his shoulder, wild-eyed, like something was coming from behind him. “Get down to the war room, now. There are guards coming.”

“What?” My breath froze up: he had really sold us out. There was an angry snarl behind me, and then Rebecca shoved past me.

“You goddamn b*****d, you traitor!” She advanced on him, and though she had dropped the fork I was sure she would kill him with her bare hands. “You f*****g traitor, Peter was right about you!” She gave him a shove, but he caught her wrists.

“Would you listen to me?” Erich hissed under his breath.

“Hey, let go of her!” Jim shoved past me to free Rebecca from Erich. “Abrahamson, get up here!”

“Listen!” Erich roared. He let go of Rebecca at the same moment Jim tugged her away, so they both went flying backwards into the table. “I didn’t talk, I swear. They picked up my radio frequency and caught me coming out of the building. Now I’ve got them sniffing around outside but they’ll be here in one minute, so you have to get down in the war room.”

            “Are you f*****g kidding?” Peter had climbed out of the hole, holding his shotgun. Hersch was standing halfway down the ladder, only his head and shoulders visible. “Go down there and be trapped when they come for us? Not on your life.” He pumped the gun threateningly. “We are ready for them.”

            “Berezovsky, enough!” Hersch growled. I was unbelievably relieved when Peter pointed the gun away from Erich, dropping the barrel to the floor at Hersch’s command. Hersch didn’t say anything else, but he spent a full three seconds staring down Erich. Finally, he said, “get down here, he’s telling the truth.”

            Rebecca, Jim, and I obeyed immediately. I trusted Erich. Despite all logic, I believed he really was trying to save us. I believed he was still trying to protect me, and if Hersch thought so too, so much the better. Rebecca and I clambered down the ladder after Hersch, whereas Jim opted to just jump. “Give me the goddamn radio; that’s how they found me.” Rebecca grabbed Erich’s communicator off the table and tossed it up. Not until we were all at the bottom did I realize Peter hadn’t followed us.

            I realized with panic that the only one’s left up there were Peter and Erich, that no one was there to stop Peter from shooting him. Peter’s shadow fell into the war room, the barrel of the shotgun pointed at Erich. I looked at Hersch. He stepped up to the first rung of the ladder, but didn’t dare go further. “Peter, they will kill you.”

            There was a long silence, then the shadow disappeared and Peter dropped into the hole with us. I kept looking up, praying to catch a glimpse of Erich. He was there, looking down at us as he pulled the trapdoor closed.

            “I’ll have them out of here in two minutes. They won’t find you. They won’t know.” It didn’t look like Erich would say anything else, but he stopped again when I caught his eye, just for a second. I was trying to show him that I trusted him, that I believed him, but I’m sure I just looked scared. “I promise,” he added, before closing us inside.

            All four of us stared apprehensively, listening as Erich covered the door with the rug and shoved the table back over us. “He has us trapped in!” Peter cried, pointing the his gun at the ceiling, where the floorboards creaked under Erich’s feet.

“Give me the gun,” Hersch said to Peter, not taking his eyes off the door above us. Peter snarled at him, but he handed over the shotgun. Hersch pumped the gun and pointed in at the ceiling, but I felt better with Hersch holding it. I could at least not trust him to shoot Erich through the floor, which I could not say with any certainty about Peter. Peter pulled out both his cleaver and his butcher knife, and I could already tell that he could kill anyone just as easily with his knives as with a gun. He looked terrifying, standing at the ready with two giant knives. I knew Rebecca was right: he wasn’t a bad person, just single-mindedly committed to his Resistance. But still, he scared me.

            We listened as Erich made his way over to the stove. There was a sizzle of the fire being extinguished, then the room was cast into total darkness. “Where the f**k did he get water?” Peter hissed. Hersch and Rebecca shushed him together.

            “We should get away from the door,” Rebecca whispered, taking me by the wrist and nudging Jim towards the back of the room. Hersch and Peter stayed where they were. “Herschel!” she urged. Neither of them moved. They would fight, if the soldiers found us. It would be a losing battle, but they would fight. Jim and I followed Rebecca, crouching under the long table. I felt useless and young and scared; I wished I could fight.

            “Isn’t there another way out?” Jim breathed, trying not to sound as scared as I’m sure he felt. There was a fumbling upstairs, and I could tell Erich was rushing to clear away evidence of Hersch and Rebecca’s home.

            Rebecca shook her head. “It comes out on the street outside. If they are really outside, like he said, it won’t do us any good.”

             In the room above us, the door slammed open loudly. Jim jumped and I had to clasp a hand over my mouth, but Rebecca just took a deep breath and put an arm around each of us. I could see the shadowy figures of Hersch and Peter standing under the door, weapons ready, standing firm as ever. They exchanged a look, and I suddenly saw exactly why the two of them commanded the kind of respect they got in this place.

            Half a dozen heavy pairs of boots charged into the room, casting their shadows between the floorboards. The floor creaked as the soldiers covered the perimeter of the room, muttering in German. They didn’t sound terribly suspicious �" more annoyed than anything. I recognized Erich’s voice, though I didn’t pick up much of what he was actually saying, since he was talking so fast. He was trying to get them out of there, trying to explain, trying to apologize.

            They wouldn’t leave, though. I felt cold fear, deep in the pit of my stomach. Even after everything it took to get to Poland, I hadn’t been this afraid in years. Nothing scared me too much anymore, unless I had to be afraid for Erich too. Crouched under the table with Rebecca and Jim, I was suddenly reminded of the bombing at Wellington’s, before I pulled Erich out of the music building. I wished he was down there in the dark with me, or that I could stand up there with him. I wondered why this crippling need to keep him safe never went away, even after two years.

            Then, miraculously, the footsteps passed through the doorway, making their way out of the room. There was one more German voice, scolding Erich, Erich sounding contrite, and then another slam as the door closed. Erich stood alone, in the middle of the room, for just a second. I knew he must have been thinking about the enormity of what he had done, helping members of the Resistance, outsiders and Jews, evade the Germans. He was in so deep now, he would never get out. But all I could think, all I cared about, was that he really had kept us safe. He had risked everything to hide us and detain the soldiers.

Rebecca let go of me to, of course, hug Jim around the neck. Peter and Hersch didn’t see, or they would have had something to say about it. They just held onto each other like they were the only two people in the world. Jim put his head on her shoulder and let out a relieved sigh. I couldn’t even bother to be jealous that they could still be together. I just felt warm and light and happy, knowing Erich had kept us safe.

I could hear Erich shoving the table out of the way and rolling back the rug, then he appeared in the door above us. After more than two years, it felt like a miracle every time I saw his face.

“All clear,” he muttered. “Would you mind putting the gun down, so I can come down there?” Hersch disarmed and Erich climbed into the hole.

“What the f**k was that?” Peter demanded, once he could see Erich eye to eye. “How the hell did they find you here? This place has been secret for almost four years, and the goddamn Germans find it five minutes after you bring these three in.”

“Leave him alone,” I stepped out from under the table, finding the courage to speak more than two words in front of Peter for the first time. How could he possibly deny that we were there to help, after what Erich did? “We would be dead without him.” Peter barely acknowledged me, but when I turned back to Rebecca, she gave me an encouraging nod.

            Erich scowled at us. “It wasn’t my fault. You turned on my goddamn radio, somehow, when I gave it to you. They picked up the signal and someone on the ground caught me coming out of here.

            “Did they hear us?” Hersch asked urgently. It occurred to me that even though they hadn’t found us, this incident could still put the Resistance at risk.

“I don’t think they heard much, but they were suspicious.”

Peter growled and pounded on the table, cursing in Polish. “Goddamn it! Do you know what this means, Abrahamson? They know you’re here now, I know they do! And when they come for you, this will be the first place they look.”

“Calm down, Berezovsky.”

“No, he’s right.” I couldn’t believe it, but Erich was agreeing with Peter. “They know you’re here, or at least they think you are. You won’t be safe here much longer.”

Hersch snorted. “It won’t be safe for anyone here much longer.”

“Quiet, Herschel!” Rebecca snapped. “There is no proof that they will liquidate any time soon. We will be fine.” Liquidation: the word sent a sick feeling to the pit of my stomach. I could hear the tone of unsure denial in Rebecca’s voice. Sooner or later, this ghetto would be emptied, just like all the others.

            Erich set his jaw, trying to ignore what Rebecca had said. “Well, if I’ve saved your lives enough for one day, I’ll get back to my post.”

            “And what about these two?” Hersch asked before Erich could turn his back. “I can see they aren’t going anywhere.” He glanced, irritated but defeated, at Rebecca, who had obviously won us at least another night in the ghetto.

            Peter growled. “Abrahamson…”

            “They can’t do any more harm than they’ve already done,” Hersch told him. I guessed it was probably true. “Another day might help change their damn minds.” I knew Hersch wanted to give us a few days to realize how hopeless the situation was, but I had seen enough already to know I wasn’t going anywhere. “Amery, can you take Gabe back with you?”

            Erich gave me a long, unsure look. It was impossible not to hold his gaze. To my disappointment, he shook his head. “Can’t do it. He’s too suspicious to be sneaking in and out every night.” That was a legitimate problem, but I couldn’t help but feel like he was scared to be in close quarters with me again. I imagined his hand on the other side of the window, feeling fluttery.

            Hersch scowled at him. “Well I have Jim set up down here, but there isn’t room for all of us in this place. Rebecca and I have got the room upstairs, and Jim’s in the only closet of a room that isn’t destroyed. It would be too dangerous to have everyone here anyway, all in one place, if the soldiers come back.” He turned expectantly to Peter. “Berezovsky?”

            I wasn’t exactly sure what Hersch was asking, but Peter sure was. “Oh, come on! You want me to take the little Brit with me?”

            “The butcher shop is a safe place, Peter. The safest.” Butcher. The knives made a lot more sense now. We can’t keep everyone here, so it’s him or �" ” He nodded towards Jim, who was somehow already worse off with Peter than I was.

            Peter’s lip curled at the idea of going anywhere with Jim. He grumbled angrily in Polish, but Hersch wouldn’t respond to him. “Moretti, you’ll stay with Peter at the butcher’s.”

            I nodded, just glad that I had a place to stay, and followed Peter towards the ladder. But before either of us could get there, Erich grabbed a hold of Peter’s arm and snarled. “I don’t want Gabe going with him, Abrahamson. This guy doesn’t want us here. How do we know he won’t cut Moretti’s throat?”

            “You are going to lose that hand if you don’t take it off me,” Peter growled.

            Hersch stepped between them. “The only other option is to take Gabe with you, okay? You just said you couldn’t do that.”

            Erich gave me a sad, sidelong glance. I felt like my heart was crashing around inside my chest. Erich was trying to keep me safe, but he wouldn’t come anywhere near me. I felt so happy and so sad I didn’t know what to do.

            “No, I can’t.”

There was a long silence. I was suddenly acutely aware that how I felt about Erich wasn’t a secret. There was no hiding the tension or the awkwardness anymore, like at Wellington’s. Everyone, excluding Peter, knew about us. “You can trust Peter, Erich,” Rebecca assured, trying to be the voice of reason.

“She’s right. He’s a friend. My oldest friend. He won’t touch Gabe.” Erich’s fists clenched up, but he didn’t say anything else. “Peter, take your radio. Erich, if you stay a minute I can wire yours to our system.”

“You want him on our radios now?” That was about all Peter could stand. It looked like he would blow up, but Hersch stopped him with a hand.

“You’re in deep now, Amery. You know that.” What Hersch was trying to say, without making Erich or Peter angry, was that Erich was involved now. He had done too much too fast to keep us safe, and now he was a part of whatever unplanned Resistance this was. Erich and Peter growled at the same time, but Erich handed over the radio and Peter climbed up the ladder, muttering in Polish. “Don’t come back here until I radio,” Hersch called after me. I couldn’t if I wanted to; I imagined I would die in those tunnels if I tried to navigate them myself. “Tomorrow night, we’ll meet down here and figure this out.”

            I nodded and reluctantly made my way up the ladder. Though I couldn’t say it, I wished Erich would have taken me back with him, or that I could stay with Hersch and Jim and Rebecca. It didn’t seem fair that I was the only one who had to be alone. I reached the top of the ladder and waited for Peter, who was already halfway to the tunnel entrance, refusing to wait for me. The room was dark now and the fire was out. Erich had done his best to hide the fact that anyone lived here, I thought. The place looked like a hundred other abandoned homes.

            They must have thought I was out of earshot, but through the floorboards, I could hear what Erich said next. “You’ve got to keep him safe, Abrahamson. He’s just a kid. He shouldn’t be here.”

            When Hersch answered, he sounded exhausted and sad. “I’ll do what I can, Erich. Go back to your post.”

            “Move it, Brytyjczyk, I do not have all day.” I scrambled after Peter, head spinning. They were right: I couldn’t handle this. Not just being in the ghetto, but the fighting and the danger, Peter, the tunnels and the fear. And Erich, trying to hold in everything I had felt for two years, and watching him try to push me away and protect me at the same time. He was right. I shouldn’t be here.

            The tunnels had been bad enough the first time, when I at least had Jim with me. With only Peter, all I could hear was the echo of my own footfalls on the damp, brick floor and my short, nervous breathing. I felt weaker and shakier and more and more scared as I made my way through the tunnels, following the dim light from Peter’s little flashlight. He didn’t say a word to me, moving through the tunnels without making a sound. Without the light, I would have lost him. I knew Hersch was sending me with Peter so I would realize that I didn’t belong here, but I hated him for putting me through this. It wasn’t fair.

            Peter came to another ladder, climbing up ahead of me. When I surfaced, I was surprised by how light the sky was outside. The morning sun shone through the boarded up windows, casting line of light on the floor. I blinked hard; I had been underground since dawn.

We were inside another shop. It wasn’t as clearly-inhabited as Hersch’s home, or as well kept as the eyeglass shop. The place was mostly empty. There was no sign that this had been Peter’s butcher shop, until Peter led me behind the counter. The wooden floors and paneling were covered in dark, discolored stains. It took me a long minute to realize it was blood. My stomach turned, and I felt sicker than I already was.

“I will put you in the upstairs room,” Peter grumbled. “I only live here according to the census. Most nights I’m at headquarters. I sleep down here in the day, when I have the time.” The place looked so unlived-in, I imagined that he didn’t often have the time. “The old apartment is upstairs, but I stay down here to keep an eye on the door. You upstairs, me downstairs, understand?” Peter was gruff, but not unkind, I realized. He didn’t have to take me into his home, but he was loyal enough to Hersch to let me stay. I could already tell how the Resistance claimed his life, how threatened he must feel to have us outsiders around ruining his system.

I nodded. “Thank you,” I mumbled, unsure of what I could say to him.

Peter didn’t smile, but he nodded back. “No lights, no sound, don’t come down here or go outside no matter what. And if you go down in those tunnels alone, you’ll never make it out. Just stay there until Abrahamson radios. Keep the radio here, and keep it on. You need it more than I do. Now, I have things to do. Get upstairs and don’t get too comfortable. You will not be here long.” He didn’t wait for me to respond before slipping through the grate in the floor and back down the tunnel.

Feeling numb and sick, I made my way up the sagging staircase to the apartment above. The room upstairs was as bare as the main floor. I imagined Peter must have had a small family, maybe just him and his father or mother, because the place was just one room. There were a few items left from the days before the ghetto, a chest of drawers and a small bed, but mostly, everything from Peter’s life was gone.

I dropped the radio on the dresser, making my way over to the bed. I was exhausted. I had barely slept three hours the night before, and in the hour since dawn I had been in more danger than the rest of my life put together. The sheets and mattress were, like everything else in the room, covered in a thick layer of dust, but I didn’t care. I kicked off my shoes and crawled under the covers.

I was used to feeling alone; sometime I felt like I had been alone my whole life. But alone in that abandoned butcher shop, in the eerie quiet of this foreign place, I felt as lonely as I had been those first two years after Wellington’s. When you feel like you’re the last person in the world and you’re drowning in the silence and there will never, ever be anyone to come save you. This was going to be too much for me. I remembered how happy and safe I had felt spending the night before next to Erich, and I felt empty and sick.  I had cried too much in the last few days to cry any more, but I fell asleep shaking with tearless sobs.

 

When I woke up, I felt groggy and unrested, even though the light through the window told me it was early evening. I had slept longer than I meant to, but really, what else was there to do? I had ages to wait before Hersch would radio or Peter would be back.

Erich had been in my dreams. It was impossible not to dream about him, now that I could see him again. He kept saying my name, just my name, over and over, like he had when he kissed me in the rain. As I came back to consciousness, I realized what had woken me up. The voice in my dream was coming from across the room.

“Gabe. Gabe, are you there?”

Erich’s voice, soft and distorted. It took me a minute to realize his voice was coming over the radio. I rushed over to the dresser, grappling desperately with the radio. “Erich, is that you?” I whispered, trying not to sound as shaky as I felt. “What’s wrong?” He sounded scared.

“Gabe,” he sounded relieved, but I couldn’t be sure. There was a long pause on his end, and I realized he didn’t know what he wanted to say. “Are you all right?”

I nodded, then realized he couldn’t see me. “I am. I’m at Peter’s.”

“Good,” he said quickly. “Good.” He was quiet for another long minute. I was scared that was all he would say; I didn’t want him to go away. “I was worried about you. You’re safe?”

“I’m safe,” my own voice sounded so weak and sad, I was sure he could hear it. “Are you safe?”

“I’m fine. Just, I’m just…” I could hear, even over the radio, that the words were fighting their way out of his mouth, “… worried, about you.”

Before, I hadn’t been able to cry. But the sound of Erich’s voice, so concerned and conflicted, put me over the edge. I tried not to let him know, but Erich must have been able to tell. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He knew what was wrong. He knew, he must have known, how much it hurt to hear his voice and know he worried about me, but to not be able to see him or touch him. He must have known. “Just don’t go anywhere, okay?” I made my way over to the mattress again, and laid the radio down on the pillow next to me.

Erich’s long pause told me he was unsure, but after a heavy breath, he said, “I’m here.”

He didn’t say anything else, and neither did I. I just laid on my side next to that radio, listening to him breathe. I closed my eyes and imagined he was on the pillow next to me, that he would touch my face, or put his arms around me. I wanted to believe that Erich was thinking the same thing about me, but I didn’t know. I just cried and thought about him and listened to his quiet breath until I fell asleep again.