Beginning to Unravel Herschel bows low, brushing his lips against the palm of my hand. His sorrowful eyes rise up to meet my own…but in a heartbeat, he’s gone, in a burst of vermillion flame and tendrils of smoke. "Herschel, Herschel," I plead, but he’s left and he’s gone and in the midst of the flickering flames… I’m alone. The flames blaze brighter around me as I jerk awake, to darkness. But then I see the silhouette of my mother, a shadow in the dim lighting. "Mother..?" "Something’s happened," she answers shortly, her voice thick with tension. "The Germans are destroying everything. They’re burning the synagogues and destroying the stores. We’re leaving. We have to see Mr. Grynszpan." Before I can repress it, my hope leaps, but my heart leaps higher. Herschel’s father. Herschel. I tumble out of bed, slipping on an overcoat and lacing my boots. Delicately slipping Herschel’s picture in the linen pocket of my coat, I hesitate, grazing my finger over the smooth picture, remembering the glow in his hazel brown eyes, the feel of his warm, secure fingers wrapped around mine. It’s then that I hear the voices outside and the rigid knock on the front door. Mother tenses, the air around us stilling imperceptibly. She shifts, slightly, so that our eyes link together – and in her eyes, I can see a raw anxiety, a tactile helplessness. Nothing scares me more than that, not even when we hear a crash from below and heavy footsteps approaching the doorway, not even when I realize that the German soldiers have come into our house, not even when a rough hand grasps the collar of my overcoat and pulls me away from my mother, because all I can see are her eyes. * * * It’s dark. I shiver, my breath shuddering. A mist of fog spills into the shadows, lingering in the air, the only light in my darkness. Some children are crying silently to themselves, whimpers in the dark. The boxcar sways slightly, and I hold my breath, counting the miles, the seconds that I move farther away from Mother. I can sense the girl next to me, her shoulder bumping into mine, her long, coarse hair prickling against my upper arm. Suddenly, I feel her hand against mine, her fingers grasping my own, clenching our hands together. I can feel the vulnerability in her hold, the unrefined desperation. Yet something is familiar about her touch, the softness of her skin against the firm grasp of her hand. "Esther?" I whisper, not daring to hope that it’s her. Esther, Herschel’s older sister, the one last connection I have to him, to a life that I know has begun to unravel. "Kelila?" she breathes, her voice muddled with disbelief. When I hear Esther’s voice, I let my body sag against hers, tears coursing down my cheeks. When I feel her tears on the side on my neck, my breath catches – Esther, strong, sturdy, reliable Esther, weeping beside me in this silent jail. My tears fall harder, my hope along with it. And in the darkness, even with Esther beside me, I’ve never felt more alone. "Who was it?" Hushed whispers, then silence. I squint my eyes, glaring up at the sunlight filtering in through the air vent. "Who was who?" I hear, from my left. Closing my eyes, I lean my head back on the side of the boxcar, trying to lapse back into sleep, into a world that isn’t the one I’m in right now. Anything but this. "The guard I overheard said the kid was a Jew. Herschel something; he shot a German official. I wonder what kind of man would be foolish enough to do that," the first girl continues. Esther stiffens beside me. My breath hitches - Herschel, my Herschel, with a gun? Herschel, my Herschel, shooting a guard? Never. Impossible. Breathlessly, I spin to face Esther, her face distorted in the sunlight grazing through the window. She turns her face to me, her eyes brimming with anxiety, fear…and regret. "I wrote him," she whispers, horrified. "I told him everything…about the deportation, about the Germans…oh Kelila, I wrote him," Esther murmurs, and begins to cry into her hands. I don’t move, or speak. "He must have been trying to avenge our family or save some of us or…" her voice trails off, and I stay silent. There are no words to say, and no ways to say them. The boxcar tilts, and the left side of my body collides with the wood. Exhaling softly, I rub at my left shoulder. It aches, but my heart aches harder. What, now, is there to live for?
It stops. The boxcar stops. The whispering, the crying…fade away. Voices. Footsteps. Light. The back door of the boxcar hinges open, and I hold my breath. The soldiers stand calmly before us, smiling grimly, not a crease in their jade-green suits. Silver braided chains run from their shoulders to a gleaming silver button on their front, sparkling in the sunlight. "Out," the taller of the two commands briskly, and hastily, the boxcar empties. "Welcome to Hell," the other leers unpleasantly, and I see the gate – marble white, stretching out in both directions. Black iron letters spell out "Sachsenhausen." The first soldier laughs, turning away from us. "Did you hear about vom Rath?" he mutters, quietly. The second guard sobers. "Who didn’t?" " I heard that the Gynzspan kid who shot vom Rath was intimately involved with him. At least that’s what the kid’s saying for his trial." The second guard sucks in his breath. "I don’t know about that. But what Grynzspan doesn’t know is that those three bullets he fired just triggered something he’s going to regret for a lifetime. I heard the Stormtroopers killed about ninety, just last night, and they’ve already brought in 30,000 down to the concentration camps. They destroyed every Jewish store they could find, and they’ve been burning down synagogues for hours. All that for just three bullets? It’s not even worth it." "Right," the taller guard agrees gravely. "Three bullets to a life every Jew in the world will regret." Their talking fades away, and I let out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding. Anger burns in my heart, charring away everything that makes me who I am. I want to scream at the guards, hurt the guards, tell them that I love Herschel, that he loves me. I want them to know that Herschel would never hurt anyone, that he’s the gentlest, kindest man I know. Esther lets out a low breath. Neither of us speaks. The first guard nudges a girl with the butt of his rifle, shoving her over to stand in a corner. Slowly, he weeds through the girls, sorting them into groups, our first determination of life and death, and nothing in between. I stand straight, facing forwards, watching evenly when Esther is sorted into the other group, watching evenly when Esther is marched away with another group of girls, watching evenly even when my heart feels like it’s breaking. I stare at Esther’s retreating back, counting the footsteps she takes away from me, away from freedom. But with all my hope and more of my heart, I hold on to the picture of Herschel in my pocket, running my finger over the frayed edges of the photograph, cherishing the one, last, happy memory I have, of a life I know I can never return to.
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