Jim - Five.

Jim

            Honestly, my day went from bad to catastrophically worse when Erich’s panicked voice came over the radio that morning. Peter had promised, albeit grudgingly, to take me to the underground headquarters. I hadn’t exactly looked forward to spending quality time with Berezovsky, but I was eager to start pulling my own weight. I thought he might be impressed with how much I could do already, with my experience moving through the underground on the outside over the last year.

            As my luck goes, though, I never even got the chance. Hours before dawn, I took the tunnel to the eyeglass shop; Peter said the closed tunnels made it impossible to get to the underground without going through the Abrahamson’s store. I had waited and waited in that creepy, sad storefront, until the sun came through the cracks in the boarded-up windows. It slowly became apparent that Peter wasn’t coming. Not wanting to face Hersch and Rebecca a failure, I stewed alone for an hour or two, angry that Berezovsky had brushed me off. I was useful, goddamn it. Peter and Hersch were both keeping me in the dark out of spite, even though I thought I could really help if I had the chance. How the hell did those two idiots lead anything around here, I wondered. I sat at the stool and seethed and eventually fell asleep with my head on the counter.

            I woke up not much later to Hersch’s exasperated groan. “Oh, come on, Banhart. Why are you even here?” I started awake. “Can’t I take my eye off you for a few hours? Get the hell back to the rooms.” Hersch was none too pleased with me lately, and I hadn’t even told him about kissing Rebecca. All he knew was that I had taken her outside and we had seen Bartholomew killed, and that was enough for him to decide I was not to be trusted. He said I put Rebecca in too much danger. It really wasn’t a fair conclusion, in my opinion, coming from the guy who put her here in the first place.

            “I’m waiting for your goddamn pal Berezovsky!” I got up, groggy and irritated. “He was supposed to bring me to underground headquarters.”

            Hersch looked annoyed. “Peter got picked from the lineup for the work squad.”

            “Work squad?”

            He scowled. “You think everyone else here just sits around all day? The soldiers pick laborers every morning. Women sew in the factory on the other side of the wall, men haul brick, or patch up the wall, or dig.” Dig what? I shuddered when I thought of it. The mass graves were well hidden enough that I had never seen one, but the sight had traumatized other agents in the underground. “Peter’s breaking up rocks in a field a few miles from town now. He’s worried the soldiers are after him. He usually never gets chosen for work. He’s too disobedient and he gets everyone else riled up.”

            “Why haven’t they done anything about him then?” Hersch looked furious and I realized I probably could have phrased that differently. “I mean, Peter isn’t like you, in hiding. If the Nazis are afraid of him, and they know he’s here and where he is, why haven’t they come after him before?” I shoved back the memory of the soldiers dragging Bartholomew into the street, wondering why they would execute a bricklayer but not a openly defiant Resistance leader.

            Hersch continued frowning, shaking his head. “They don’t really believe Peter is the leader, now. They know he was a youth leader before the war and a friend of mine, but they think I’m leading the underground and the Resistance. There are a few who suspect him, from what I hear, but Peter isn’t much more than an angry kid to them. And we want to keep it that way. I’m only good for throwing the Nazis off Peter’s trail. They’ll always think I’m the dangerous one, even when I haven’t done anything. As long as I’m here, I can keep Peter out of trouble.”

            I snorted. “You’ve got your work cut out for you, Abrahamson.” The idea that Peter really was the leader made me nervous, though. I wouldn’t have a chance of getting Hersch and Rebecca out of there if Peter had anything to say about it. “Hersch,” I asked quietly, “why won’t you stand behind an uprising?”

            Hersch wouldn’t look at me. He stared into a glass display case and sighed. “Everyone will die in an uprising. Peter doesn’t care, as long as we go out fighting. But I came back to protect the people here, and I won’t ask them to die for me.”

            He made sense. Hersch was alarmingly attuned to other people, and I understood his strong ties to the people he had grown up with. But I wondered if he really couldn’t see that everyone was going to die, uprising or not. Even without liquidation, the soldiers could starve everyone just by cutting off the underground. Hersch knew everything; surely he knew that. “Hersch…” I wasn’t even sure how to reason with him. This was his place, and he thought he knew what he was doing.

            Hersch already looked ready to argue, but he didn’t get the chance. The radio in his pack exploded static and I stumbled back against the counter. I hated that damn thing. It made no sense to me. Hersch dug the gigantic boxy rectangle out of his pack and put it to his ear. There was a fuzzy, German-accented voice on the other end, and when my panic subsided, I realized it was Erich.

            “Abrahamson, are you there? Come in Abrahamson.” He did not sound okay.

            Hersch snarled into the receiver. “Don’t call me that, idiot!”

            “F**k you, you need to hear this! Get to the war room. I’m coming to you.” The level of alarm in Erich’s voice was enough to squash Hersch’s anger. His face was suddenly, terrifyingly, filled with fear.

            “Look, Amery, you have to tell me if they’re coming. Are we in danger? Do we have to get out?”

            Erich cursed in German. “They’re not coming now, but I’ve heard something. You have to meet me, now!”

            “I’ve got Banhart with me.”

            “Good. Bring him. I’ll radio Gabe.” I felt inappropriately satisfied with myself, that Erich though I deserved to be there.

            “Amery, are you sure…?”

            “All of us, Abe,” Erich growled, cutting Hersch’s name short.

            Hersch could hear this was serious, serious enough to make him take orders from Erich. “On our way,” he rasped into the radio. He shoved the antenna down and tossed the thing in his bag. “Come on!” He rushed to the hole in the back room as I scrambled behind him.

            “Hersch!” I called as we dashed, splashing, through the tunnel. “He said we weren’t in danger!” I couldn’t imagine what was so urgent if the soldiers weren’t actually coming.

            “Not right now, but if Erich’s coming to us it’s something bad. Come on!”

            My stomach was in knots by the time we reached the ladder to Hersch’s rooms. I clambered up behind Hersch. Everyone was there already, even Rebecca. My heart sank when she immediately inquired after Peter, though I told myself that it was only because this was something he should hear too. I bent over, rubbing my legs, as Hersch explained. I wasn’t a great runner anymore, unsurprisingly, since I’d had my legs crushed under a building. The joints didn’t work quite right anymore, so I hobbled like an old man if I moved too quickly. I tried not to let on to anyone, though. The last thing I needed was Hersch, or even worse Peter, thinking I was some kind of cripple.

            “What happened, Erich?” I heard Gabe ask in a small, scared voice. He had spoken so rarely since we came here, his voice still sounded odd to me.

            But Hersch knew what Erich was going to say. He wanted us to think he was ready to hear it, though what Erich said would devastate him more than any of us.

             “Liquidation,” Erich said. “They are planning for liquidation.”

            We all exhaled like we had been collectively punched in the stomach. Rebecca steadied herself against the table and Gabe gripped her shoulder. Hersch took a few deep breaths, and said through gritted teeth, “when?”

            Erich shook his head, looking down at the floor. “A month. Maybe more. There’s nothing official yet, but they heard from the general that the order will come down from headquarters in the next week or two. We’ll have to wait for supplies and a battalion of reinforcements, but it shouldn’t be much more than a month.”

            “What kind of liquidation?” I asked shakily, since it seemed Hersch was losing the ability to speak through his locked jaw. It was a question I actually felt qualified to ask. I had dealt with liquidation before, in the last year.

            “Deportation to Sobibor, north of here,” Erich said, finally looking up at me. “And firing squads on site.”

            “Oh, God,” Rebecca cried, sinking into a chair.

            “Why reinforcements?” Hersch managed, clearly trying to stay calm.

            Erich looked unsure, nervously gripping his hat in his hands as he turned to Hersch. Holy s**t, his right hand looked bad! I got distracted for a second surveying the vicious tendon damage. “Dietrich thinks the Resistance will fight back.”

            “Dietrich!” Hersch roared. So much for calm. I jumped. Of all the things that could have made him angry right then, I did not expect the name of some German commander to be what upset him. Rebecca’s head snapped up.

            “I know,” Erich said, and it sounded like he really did. Who the hell was this Dietrich? “But be quiet, they might be on patrol.”

            Hersch’s breath was coming short, fists clenched and nostrils flared. “Everyone into the war room,” he growled.

            Erich nodded and helped shove the table back from the trapdoor. I was amazed that Erich was helping us like this, considering that the last time I saw him Hersch barely trusted him not to turn him in, and Berezovsky was threatening to shoot him. It was all for Gabe, I thought. We were just lucky to have Gabe on our side.

            We dropped into the room one by one and Hersch pulled the light on the swinging bulb. None of us sat at the table, though. We stood apart from each other, our awkward group assembled. Hersch braced himself against the table, rubbing his eyes anxiously with this fingers.

            Rebecca, surprisingly, spoke first. “You know what this means, Herschel,” she said quickly, taking Hersch by the arm. “You and Peter have to call the uprising now, before it is too late.”

            Hersch snarled, but Erich interjected before he could say anything. “That’s the last thing it means. This means you all have to get out of here.” Erich went to Hersch at the table, crouching to his ear. They looked almost like comrades, really. I could see how strongly Erich was aligned with us already. His voice was hushed, like he thought maybe the rest of us wouldn’t hear him. “I can do it, Abrahamson. I’ll smuggle you out, all of you. It will only take a few days.” My stomach felt fluttery and anxious. Erich really could do that, I realized. This could all be over now.

            “No,” Hersch growled.

            Erich didn’t listen to him. “Or else, Banhart and Gabe, how did you two get in?”

            I said “The underground’s smuggler’s hole,” at the same time as Gabe said “back of an army truck.” Neither sounded like viable options for multiple people.

            Rebecca looked momentarily puzzled. “You fit through that hole?” she asked. The hole in the wall, as I understood, was mostly used by kids recruited by the underground. Lucky me, I was about as big around as a ten-year-old.

            “We’re not going,” Hersch snarled again, finally looking up from the table. “I won’t leave everyone else to die, Amery!”

            “So you want an uprising now?” Erich asked, irritated and disbelieving.

            “No!”

            “Herschel!” Rebecca sounded distressed.

            “Listen to me, Rebecca. There won’t be an uprising.”

            “Then what do you want?” I asked angrily. Hersch’s whole apathetic agenda was really getting the better of me. I hated that he had come back here to just to rot for two years. I hated that he wouldn’t listen to Rebecca. I hated that he took the credit for work Peter did, even though I hated that b*****d too. And I hated that he wasn’t willing to escape or to revolt. All he was willing to do was die, and that wasn’t good enough for me. “F**k, Hersch, what the hell did you even come back here for?”

            “Shut it, Banhart! You don’t know anything.” Hersch whipped around to yell at me.

            “I know enough!” This was it. This was the only chance I would get to tell Hersch what I thought of his goddamn pitiful situation. “How dare you be like this, Hersch? How could you just sit here for two goddamn years, when you were supposed to lead these people? You loved them so goddamn much you were willing to die, and get Rebecca killed, coming back here. But, God, you won’t do anything to help them! Whoever decided that you could lead anyone?” I could hear myself yelling, but couldn’t stop.

            “That’s enough, Banhart.” I was going to get punched. He was making the face that meant I was going to get punched.

            But I kept going. I’d bottled it up ever since I saw how he was living, thinking that it wasn’t my place to tell Hersch what to do. I wanted him to explain himself, and not to brush me off like he did every goddamn time. I wanted to make him angry enough to listen, and I knew how to do that.

            “Your father would be ashamed if he could see you now.”

            Hersch was on me in a second. I was face-up on the table and three punches down before I knew what hit me. I scrambled to protect my face while Erich and Rebecca had to pull Hersch away together. I wiped the blood from my lips and tried to glare back at him. He was practically foaming at the mouth. I hated doing that to Hersch; I hadn’t known I could do that to Hersch. But I was right, and he knew it.

            Erich was not amused by any of this. “Both of you calm the hell down, all right?” he growled. “I mean, f**k, are you two on the same side or not?” He was still holding onto Hersch, who I did not doubt would come after me again if Erich let go. “I have heard about enough of this constant father-son s**t. Why the hell does it matter what your goddamn father would think, Abrahamson?” It was no secret that Erich wasn’t exactly a fan of his own father. For all I could tell from the little Erich talked about his family, the man was a Nazi b*****d, probably abusive. Erich couldn’t even comprehend having the respect for his father like Hersch.

            “The glory of sons,” Gabe’s small voice came from behind them. What was he on about? What he said rang a bell for me, but seemingly not for anyone else.

            Hersch turned angrily on him. “What?” he seethed. Erich tightened his grip, predictably working harder to protect Gabe than to protect me.

            “It’s Proverbs,” I cut in, trying to protect Gabe from the fight I had started, “right? ‘Grandchildren are the crown of old men, and the glory of sons is their fathers.’” Hersch knew the verse. He knew what we meant. Everything Hersch had came form his father. Hersch was his father’s pride, his successor. But Hersch didn’t deserve his father’s name if he wouldn’t even fight for what his father had died for. All of his devotion to his father, all of the glory of sons, would mean nothing if Hersch wouldn’t act.

            Hersch’s looked angry and pained, but he stopped struggling and Erich let him go. He turned away from us and stared despairingly at his goddamn maps.

            “What the f**k is happening with these goddamn Bible verses?” Erich asked agitatedly. “Hell, do you two just have them on tap for any goddamn situation? They don’t do any f*****g good!” I saw Gabe’s hand go to his rosary beads. “Look, Hersch, what are we going to do?”

            Hersch was quiet for a long goddamn time. Rebecca took a step closer to him but wouldn’t try to touch him. He pressed his hand to the map on the wall and said firmly, “We have to call everyone together. I’ll have Peter and the Underground get the word out, and we’ll get everyone who can make it to headquarters so we can tell them.”

            I don’t think any of us wanted to ask the question that had to come next. “Tell them what?” Rebecca said quietly.

            Hersch kept his back to us, shaking his head. “I don’t know.”