April 11, 1941

Hersch -

Friday, April 11, 1941

            Well, Gabe and Erich both survived their first week of fire wardening. They were both in such a bad mood when they got back I was sure they would quit. That was before they found out the perk: the both get to miss first period the morning after! Lucky b******s. If I would have known that, I wouldn’t have tried so hard to win that race. I guess it’s not like I deserved to win anyway. Gabe had the thing all wrapped up before Erich took him down, the a*****e. I swear, sometimes I think that guy should just bash Gabe’s brains out and have done with it.

            Besides that, it’s been so agonizingly boring around here I seriously can’t take it any more. It’s not just that I can’t stand the boredom, but I can’t bear anymore time alone with my thoughts. Sometimes I lie in bed and look at the pictures from home and I just want to cry. I think of everyone I left behind to get away myself and it makes me want to jump the next train back to Poland. I can’t take it anymore.

            On top of that I can barely get to my journal anymore. It’s been cold out, so the guys have constantly been in the dorm. And God forbid I show any hint of weakness to them. They would eat me alive. But I have to do something. My mind hasn’t shut off for days and it’s making me crazy. I haven’t slept at all. If something doesn’t happen soon to take my mind off the past, I don’t know what I’ll do.

 

Gabe "

            Erich and I made it through our first two shifts as fire wardens without speaking and without incident. He didn’t throw me off the roof and neither of us froze to death. I mark that as a success.

            We discovered our bonus after the first night, completely by accident. The two of us didn’t get in until five in the morning, which left us about two hours of sleep. Though he had already done plenty of snoring on the roof, Erich passed out cold in British History. Professor Lefebvre (who was, ironically, French) rapped on the desk with his ruler and Erich tipped backwards in his chair. He was about to throw Erich out of class, and I really did not want to research our midterm essay alone.

            “Sir!” My hand shot up in the air and a hundred faces in the lecture hall turned to look at me. “Amery and I were on fire warden duty last night, sir,” I squeaked. “Surely you can forgive his… um… fatigue,” I said hesitantly.

            Erich glared at me as he climbed back into his chair. Professor Lefebvre looked at us from under his glasses and informed he did not appreciate being interrupted. Then he excused us both. My stomach dropped with embarrassment, thinking I had been thrown out of class for sticking my neck out for Erich. But on our way out he told us he would make a note of our absence for the remaining Wednesdays and Fridays of the term.

            I practically skipped out of the lecture hall, so happy to be free. “Erich, did you hear that?” I said, excessively giddy. “No more Brit History! Wednesdays and Fridays, amico!”

            He swatted at me and I immediately swallowed my smile and fell behind him. “I could have handled that by myself. I didn’t ask for your help,” he muttered.

            This was irritable even for him. I figured he was just exhausted; I was too. So I just didn’t answer, watching his massive back walk away from me as we headed back to the dorm for some well-deserved sleep.

…

Erich "

            Well that ought to teach them not to give us power over our own schedule. Gabe and I quickly took to skipping class altogether after our fire warden shifts. Obviously we knew we couldn’t keep it up forever, unless we wanted to get expelled and sent back home, but apparently when given the option, we would rather sleep than learn about economic patterns or the Magna Carta.

            Weird guy that he was, Gabe always ran off to go to third period. Half the time he woke me up dashing out that door so fast. That anatomy class must have been really tough.

            Even with the perks, I hated being a fire warden. It was cold and exhausting and awkward as hell up there on the roof. Gabe and I seriously never said a word to each other. I usually slept propped up against the chimney and he just sat there and gnawed on his nails. I swear, I’ve told him to knock it off so many times he must be doing it just to annoy me.  I was starting to hear his clicking teeth in my sleep.

            What was really strange, though, was that I quickly came to be glad I was stuck with Gabe. When it came right down to it, I liked him the best. Never in my life would I have admitted it, but if I would have had to spend my nights with Hersch or Jim, I really would have thrown myself off the roof.

             Gabe’s pathetic loyalty was usually ridiculously irritating. But in a lot of ways, he was a good companion. My world had always been so solitary; it was calming to be around someone who didn’t feel the need to talk. But, even without conversation, he was always right next to me. I was isolated, but not lonely, which was exactly how I wanted it. Up there on that roof, sometimes it just felt good to see the smoldering end of his cigarette light up his face. The guy was growing on me.

            Of course, he still did things that made me want to kick him. Like when he tried to cover for me in Brit History. I absolutely hated when people thought I needed help. It made me feel weak, which was the worst thing I could possibly feel. I had ignored him the rest of the day.

            After dinner on Friday, we wall split up. I went to see if there was any way for me to pass Economics, Gabe ran off to work on something for his Anatomy class, Jim headed for the library, and Hersch disappeared into the shadows.

            It did not take much to convince the Economics don to accept my excusatory letter, really forged by Jim, from the infirmary, explaining my absences on Wednesdays and Fridays. Actually, it took less time than I thought. So I dug in my pocket and found that I had my lock picking pin on me.

            During one particularly long, boring weekend, Hersch had taught us how to pick locks. It wasn’t hard, once you got used to it; the school had the same simple dead bolt on all the doors. I had reminded them more than once that my way had worked better when it came to Knight’s door. But I guess we can’t just go through campus kicking down the doors.

            I broke into the kitchen pretty easily. The kitchen was our top priority now that we could get in. There was already a stockpile of stolen apples and sweet rolls mingling with the cigs and whiskey in the boiler. The place barely had anything we didn’t already get at meals, but after some digging I found a bunch of grapes and figured it was the best I would get.

            It was a warm night, so I decided to walk outside to get back to the dorm, even though I was already in the main building. It was almost totally dark, but it didn’t take long to recognize the light-footed, almost delicate, silhouette that was dashing down the path in front of me.

            “Moretti!” I called. He stopped in his tracks. Gabe had a strange carrying case with him, and he immediately shoved it behind his back when he saw me.

            “Erich!”

            I caught up and came to a stop in front of him, craning my neck to get a better look at the case. “What’s in there?”

            Gabe threw an uneasy look behind his back? “This? Well this is… equipment… for my class… um… Anatomy class!”

            I eyed his suspiciously, but did not ask anything else. Obviously he was hiding something, but whatever it was I didn’t want to know. I knew if I wanted him to stay out of my life, I would have to stay out of his.

            So I shrugged and said, “Want a grape?” Gabe took one and popped it into his mouth, swallowing nervously and stifling a sigh of relief.

            “You headed back to the dorm, then?” he asked.

            I nodded and started back down the path, with Gabe falling into his natural place two steps behind me.

            We made our way back to the room in silence. As we made our way down the outdoor stairs I felt, once again, strangely grateful for his silent company.

            As soon as Gabe had closed the door behind us, we saw Jim rush out of the room, slamming the door behind us and turning a few panicked circles before spotting us. He dashed towards us.

            “Moretti!” he hissed, skidding to a stop in front of us. “Amery!”

            “What the hell, Banhart?”

            “Guys,” he wheezed, “Hersch has a girl in there!”

 

Jim "

            I had avoided Hersch like the plague for days. Every time I looked at him, all I could see was that surprisingly large hard dick. As far as I knew, he had no idea I had seen him, and I intended to keep it that way.

            The problem was that Gabe and Erich had formed some kind of weird partnership (actually Gabe seemed more like a pet than a partner in the situation), so without Hersch I had no one. That meant I started spending a lot more time in the library. So when everyone broke off after dinner on Friday, off I went.

            I didn’t spend a lot of time there that day. I really just wanted to get back to the dorm and sleep. But I didn’t know where Hersch had gone, and I did not want to end up alone in the room with him. I only stayed in the library until I figured it was safe to go back.

            At the door of the dorm, I took a good long listen before going in. I heard someone moving around, but by that point I was so tired I didn’t even care if it was Hersch. So I went in.

            Unlike the last unexpected thing I had walked into in that room, this took me a long moment for me to realize what I was seeing. A girl in a somewhat outdated pleated dark blue dress sat on my bunk. She looked up from under her round-brimmed hat with her long-lashed brown eyes and smiled. “Herschel!” she said happily. She furrowed her brow when she realized I wasn’t Hersch. “Who are you?” That seemed like it was my question to ask, but she got there first.

            That accent, those eyes, that face. In a second I knew who this girl was.

            Becky

            Everything occurred to me in a matter of seconds, during which all I could do was stare at her with my eyes bugging out of my head. First, I realized she didn’t recognize me, a fact which made my heart sink. But that assured me that she was definitely not there to see me, demanding money or claiming me to be the father of a baby or something. She had been waiting for Hersch, I realized next. This Jewish call girl was here to see Hersch.

            Oh God. Hersch had a hooker.

            I didn’t answer her question, but fumbled for the door handle behind me and managed to garble out “Could you… um… just stay here… for just… excuse me a second!” I was out the door before she could answer.

            I had intended to run away as fast as possible, but Gabe and Erich were coming down the hall, and I had to tell them. ““Moretti!” I hissed, dashing over to them, “Amery!”

            “What the hell, Banhart?”

            “Guys,” I wheezed, “Hersch has a girl in there!”            

            Gabe’s jaw dropped end Erich screwed up his face in disbelief. “What?”

            I didn’t really know how to make it any clearer. “There’s a girl in there from that bar in London. And she’s here to see Abrahmson!”

            “You’re kidding.”

            “I swear!”

            “How do you know she’s a call girl?” Gabe asked.

            I bit the inside of my cheek, not wanting to go into detail. “I just… ran into her during the raid.”

            Gabe believed me, but Erich was smarter. “You ran into her, or you ran into her?’ he asked suggestively, raising a pale eyebrow.

            If it was any of the other guys, I would have hit him. “That’s not important, Amery.”

            “Jesus! You screwed her!”

            “No I didn’t!” I insisted through gritted teeth. That was the truth. “Listen, it was nothing! I’ll tell you guys about that later, but right now we need to do something about the situation in there!”

            “Okay, let’s not panic!” Gabe broke in. “Maybe it’s nothing. What you need to do is go back in there and figure out why she’s here!”

            “I’m pretty goddamn sure I know why she’s here!”

            “Well either way, you have to keep her occupied,” he insisted. “You can’t let her go looking for her. If Knight catches a girl on the grounds, he’ll have all of us kicked out of here in a second.”

            “Why can’t you two do it?” There was nothing I wanted less than detain Becky while she waited to f**k Hersch.

            “She knows you,” Erich said. “Maybe you can find out what a girl like her wants with Hersch.”

            I cringed, but knew they were right. “All right, you two stay right here. If Hersch comes, try to detain him so I can get out before he catches me talking to her.”

            “Believe me, we’ll be right outside the door,” Erich smirked.

            “Piss off!”

            “Get in there! She’ll go looking for you.”

            Erich gave me a shove and I was galloping back towards the dorm. I took a deep breath and went back into the room

            Becky was still there, of course. She was sitting on Hersch’s bunk looking around at the room. She narrowed her eyes when she saw I was back. The fierceness in her face assured me that she was the girl I knew. “Who are you?” she asked again, harsher this time.

            “Um… Jim. James,” I told the truth before I could think of a lie. “I was in your… uh… room. The night of the air raid a… a few weeks back. Remember?” Idiot! I heard in my head. A*****e! Don’t remind her!

            But it was too late. A look of realization and horror passed across her face and she covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh God, not you!” she moaned.

            I was so confused as to why she was there I couldn’t even process the insult. “You’re not here for me, are you?” I already knew she wasn’t, but for some reason I kind of wished she was.

            She laughed humorlessly. “Does it look like I even remembered what you look like?” She removed her hat and set it on the bed, revealing her short, choppy haircut. “I am here to see Herschel.”

            I gave a croaking, unnatural laugh. “I figured.”        

             She stood and took a step towards me, making discomfortingly forward eye contact. “James,” she said, more harshly than before, “what the hell are you doing here?”

            I just looked at her, blindsided by her impoliteness. “I live here,” I said scornfully. “I go to school here. This is my dorm. What the hell are you doing here?”

            She was clearly surprised that I had answered just as sneeringly as she had. “I told you,” she said, seeming a little hurt, “I am here to see Herschel.

            I felt bad, even though she had insulted me first. “Sorry,” I muttered, wondering why in the world I was apologizing.

            Becky did not seem to notice my apology. “He lives here too, doesn’t he?”

            “Um, yes. Him and me and two other roommates,” I said, feeling the need to explain the situation. A snicker came from the other side of the wall.  I swiftly kicked the door, but Becky knew.

            “They are out there, are they not?” she asked, annoyed. “The other roommates, the German and the feminine one.”

            Again with the fairy thing! “Um… probably,” I muttered embarrassedly, hoping to change the subject. “So… is this your first time…” I didn’t know how to say it, “… visiting Hersch?” I hoped she got what I meant.

            Becky smiled. “Yes. But we’ve been keeping in contact.”

            That was confusing. Hersch must have been setting this up for a long time. I assumed he had seen her dance that night at the bar and had liked what he saw. “So he saw you the night of the raid?” I asked.

            To my surprise, Becky’s face filled with horror. “What? Herschel was there that night? He saw me?”

            “Oh, no,” I mumbled. I must have been wrong. Hersch must have met her when he first came to London. Obviously he wasn’t supposed to know she was working at the bar. “No, actually he ran off before he could have seen you, I guess.”

            She seemed relieved. “Thank God,” she sighed, then looked agitated again. “You didn’t tell him, did you?”

            “What? No!” I was glad that, at least, was true. “I… I haven’t told anyone.”

            Becky smiled knowingly. “I suppose it was embarrassing for you.”

            I looked down nervously and lit a cig. “Yeah,” I coughed.

            She extended a gloved hand. “May I?” Becky asked, reaching for a cigarette. I nodded a little too enthusiastically and handed her a cig and the lighter. “Ah,” she breathed, inhaling the smoke, “much better.”

            “Yeah,” I said again, still looking down. “So, Hersch must be pretty… fond… of you.”

            Becky nodded. “I suppose he is.”

            I nodded back and bit my lip as I took the plunge. “So I guess you’re supposed to be… you know… exclusively his?”

            If Becky looked horrified when she thought Hersch had seen her in the bar, she looked traumatized when I finished stumbling through the uncomfortable question. “WHAT?”

            I tried to back peddle. “Well, you’re a call girl. And you’re here to see…”

            “Oh God!” she cried. “You don’t know who I am?” This was quickly headed downhill. Who the hell was she?

            I never got the chance to ask her, because there was suddenly a commotion outside. There was scuffling and muffled pleading, then I heard Hersch yell: “What the hell? Get out of my way!”

            I whipped my head back towards Becky, who was suddenly just an inch away from me. “Listen to me, James. If you say a word to Herschel about the bar and I swear I’ll personally rip off your balls and feed them to wild dogs!”

            The door opened behind me and I turned back around before I could react to Becky’s threat of castration. Hersch stood there, more imposing than usual, in the doorway. He looked angry, and I knew he would have had to fight through Gabe and Erich to get there. “Jim, what the… Rebecca?”

            Rebecca gave the first sincere smile I had ever seen on her face and threw herself at Hersch. “Herschel!” He wrapped her up in a warm, but completely unromantic, hug.

            Hersch seemed stunned. He took her by the shoulders. “Rebecca! What are you doing here?”

            She laughed and turned back to me with uncharacteristic sincerity. “Well, right now I’ve been speaking with your roommate. He’s such a lovely boy!”

            Hersch looked at me disbelievingly. “Jim? Are you kidding?” She shrugged and he put an arm around her shoulder. “Jim, this is Rebecca, my sister.”

            “Sister?” The word was said in unison by me, Gabe, and Erich (who tumbled through the door at that second). What the hell? This was Hersch’s sister?

            Hersch did not seem to notice, but was ridiculously happy to see her. “Rebecca, these are my roommates.”

            Becky’s smile was sly again. “Oh, we’ve met.”

Author's Note

VERY ROUGH! Posted for NoElWriMo (basically a contest to see who can write the most in a month). So be kind.

PS: ASHES - This chapter and every chapter that will follow it have been written before June 1

Reviews

[Arianna]

i really like it...
i was thinking that.... maybe that was what who she was
:) great chapter.

.novelists.elite.info.
.display. .ana.016.
.memberID. 016
.division. II
.division.leader. Shane
.name. Arianna
.username. nerdypenguin2427
.novels. Sanctuary, Right Side Up
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.join date. 04-03-2011

[emily]

Whoops! I wrote 1943 instead of 1941!! My mistake!

[trish420]

and shouldnt this one be titled w/a 194ONE date? i was confused for a min when the next one came out lol

[The Old Ashes]

You mean.. they were written AFTER june 1st? Lol Em you're funny. i got your word counts going for this :)

[trish420]

I KNEW IT!!!!!!! It HAD to have been his sister..... I feel so clever LOL LOVE the new chapters coming out so fast too ;)