Herschel's Log - Entry Fifteen

Herschel’s Log

Wednesday, May 6, 1941

There has been no time to write for more than a week, and it’s driving me crazy. It has not been helping that Jim started rationing the cigs, so even now as I write this my hands are shaking for a smoke. Or maybe that does help, because we’ve all been allowed to act a little unusually. Jim has been jumpy, Gabe seems to have stolen Erich’s personality, Erich’s been studying like a madman, an (as far as the other guys are concerned, I’m sure) I’ve been disappearing.

I’ve been disappearing for the same reason I have not had time to write. The time I usually devote to my log, between classes, mornings and evenings �" generally any time the other three aren’t around �" has been taken up with planning. I feel like I’ve called everyone in the country this week, trying to find a way home. Every spare second I have has been spent desperately yelling into the telephone in Knight’s office, clinging to the receiver with the wartime transportation laws mapped out on the desk in front of me. I am trying to find a boat, a train, a plane, anything that will take me back into Poland.

Knight is cooperating now, even though we fought last week. I was so angry with him, I’m still so angry with him.  I can’t see for a second why my father held him in such high regard. For my whole life, I learned to respect who Papa respected, so I tried to give Knight a chance.

But I felt so absolutely betrayed by the fact that he would not support me in the fight my father �" his best friend �" had started and died for. Knight didn’t understand at all, and the worst part was that he thought he did. He had tried to tell me what my father would have wanted. My father! As if he knew Papa better than I did. Believe me, there is nothing Papa would have wanted more than to see me finish the job he had started, and nothing would have hurt him more than knowing I had run away. And if Knight thought anything else were true, then he never knew Herschel Yissakhar Abrahamson Sr. at all.

I’m leaving. I don’t know how or when yet, but fighting with Knight only made up my mind faster. He has been grudgingly accommodating so far, once he realized there was no changing my mind, even letting me use his telephone. The problem is no one on the decent side of this war is willing to take me into Poland. It will take everything I have to find a way in before the semester is over.

I won’t tell the guys. They would just tell me not to go, like everyone else, because they don’t understand either. Besides, none of them know what is going to happen to them when the term ends either, so why should I put more stress on them? It’s awful to think that none of us will ever see each other again. Actually, it makes my throat all thick to think about never seeing any of them again. But that’s how it has to be, I guess, and the sooner I get out of here the sooner I can forget any of this ever happened.

I just wish I didn’t have to be so hard on Rebecca. I love my sister, but we will never see eye to eye on this. She She won’t even talk to me now. She doesn’t want me to go, and she certainly doesn’t want to go herself, but I think she knows a lost cause when she sees one. I don’t want to have to leave her here, but if that’s what it comes to, I think I would be able to. God, I hope it doesn’t come to that.

Anyway, for obvious reasons I haven’t been sleeping well. I wrote Wednesday on this entry, but it might be after midnight by now. I’m hoping I don’t set the bed on fire, because I’m writing under my covers with the lighter. Jim crept out of the room a few minutes ago. He’s probably smoking on the sly, if I had to guess. I can tell Erich is awake too. Gabe is talking in his sleep, poor kid. I know that Leo he always dreams about is dead, I just know it. I see it in his eyes as clearly as I can see it in my own: he lost the person he loved.

Erich is tossing around. I don’t think he can sleep with Gabe moaning like that. Neither can I, to be honest. It’s so sad, the way he �"

S**t! Erich is getting out of bed! What the hell is he doing? I have to put out the light. Something’s wrong. Something is really wrong.

Reviews

[Arianna]

YOUR GONNA KILL ME! someting is really wrong! is that any way to end a chapter. the awnser is NO! its fantastic to hook writers, but :( but... now i have to wait. ive decided you like to torture me. :'( anyway i like the way this read, the She she part i think was a mistake or your missing a comma. anyway i really loved it and cant wait to see whos next :) .display. .ana.008.
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