Dinah

Through Wooden Boards

Gunshots.

Constantijn starteld awake, his hand shooting out against whatever unseen force his groggy mind had perceived. His hand connected with something warm and crunchy, and his victim hollered.

"Hey!" He shoved Constantijn's arm away and brought his hands to his face as blood began to flow steadily from it. "I thought we were out of the combat zone!"

Constantijn shrank back - he'd ended up next to Theodor Köhler, who was even larger than Dierksen, and clearly not a pleasant guy when punched in the face in the middle of the night.

"We're not," A younger boy said, looking at them. His hair shone silver in the moonlight coming in the window.

"Aww, shuddup!" Köhler stood up and picked his way through the mass of startled and waking soldiers to the bathroom.

Constantijn looked at the other boy, "Well, why're there gunshots, then?" The gunfire still continued, incessant and jarring.

"It must be an Aktion," He craned his neck to look out the window. "The SS goes through the ghettos and clears them out a bit."

Then Constantijn heard a scream, sharp and laced with tears, and flinched.

The other boy smirked at him, "Yeah, it's more than a little annoying. Someone shut the window," He raised his voice at the last sentence, and the window was shut. "Damned ghetto must be right behind the hotel."

It didn't do much to muffle the screaming - well, maybe it did. Maybe it was just in Constantijn's head. He leaned against the wall and watched as the others' exhaustion overrid the noise from the carnage outside and one by one, they fell asleep again. Köhler came back, sending Constantijn a murderous glance, and he shrank as far into the corner as he could.

And then the room was still again, an unnerving contrast to the continuous stream of gunfire and screaming outside. He heard snatches of pleading in another language.

"You can't go to sleep either?" A voice suddenly asked, and Constantijn gasped. Near the foot of the bed where Dierksen lay, a sleeping giant, a soldier sat cross-legged on his blanket. He was shorter, but sturdier-built, and just faintly Constantijn could make out his piercing gaze.

"It's - hard," Constantijn shrugged. If he said anything wrong he was dead. "Noisy," The words coming out of his mouth did not belong to him. If he spoke the words that lingered in the back of his throat this guy would feed him to the wolves.

The guy stared at him. For a long, long time. There was a grandfather clock in the corner of the room. It was five hundred and eighty four clicks before he said, "That's not it, is it?"

Constantijn stared.

He shrugged, "I - I like to consider myself a somewhat good judge of character," His voice was low, in order to not wake anyone else up, but it travelled and warmed the room, "I try to read people. It's not a bad talent to have,"

"They're people, out there," Constantijn murmured.

The other man stiffened. Constantijn froze. He'd done it. He would die for this.

"They are. You should keep your mouth shut," He said, "That's what I make of your character."

Constantijn cocked his head, "Well, what's yours like?"

He was quiet, and then he said, "None of your business, at the moment. But my name's Raul Gottlieb. You can call me Gotti,"

"Alright," Constantijn said, "I'm Constantijn Rot. You can call me Constantijn, and sometimes people shorten it to Con',"

"Okay. It's nice to meet you,"

"You, too,"

They were quiet, and then Gotti said, "They've stopped," A morbid silence had smothered the night, "We'd better get to sleep. You need all the energy you can get,"

"Yeah," Constantijn agreed, and he heard Gotti settle down, and soon another snore joined several others.

Constantijn did not fall asleep. He stood up. He almost didn't feel like he was doing this himself, as he moved to the door and entered the hallway, but then someone in another room would snort or stir, or get up to use the bathroom, and then he felt his heart beating against his ribcage and would very much feel the cold, empty exposure around him and he knew it was his own two feet that walked on the gold-detailed carpet, through the lobby, and out onto the street.

It was dead, except for two patrolmen walking some distance away from him, their backs to him. Constantijn slipped into the alleyway, drawn close to himself, partially because of cold and partially because he wanted to feel invisible.

It was a small alleyway, narrow, and littered with rotting garbage. At least a dozen rats scattered each time Constantijn put his foot down, rippling away like waves. Constantijn didn't like that. He didn't want to make a wave. He just wanted to toss a pebble in the ocean.

He stopped next to the ghetto fence, laying a hand on the rough, splintering board. They were crooked and nailed anywhere they seemed to go, and it clearly was not what was keeping the occupants of the ghetto inside. Constantijn had heard the promises. Lies, feeding the Jews whatever they wanted to hear in order to keep them in the Nazis' hands. That they were only being relocated. Wherever they were going next was the land of milk and honey. All of this was only temporary.

Temporary, because then the Aktions would come, or they would simply be relocated to "labor" camps, and it did not matter then what anyone believed. It mattered only what was happening.

He swallowed his dry throat.

Reaching inside his pocket, he found the piece of cheese from earlier. The wax was beginning to come off of the paper in chunks.

He crouched down and looked through the slats.

There were bodies in the street.

On the step of the nearest house sat a child, shivering, with its knees tucked up to its chest.

"Hey!" Constantijn hissed.

The night air was completely still and his voice was much louder than he intended.

The child's head shot up and eyes roved over the fence, looking for the source of the sound.

Constantijn shoved his hand through the slats, and held the cheese in his flat palm.

It studied it for a long moment, considering, and then scrambled down the steps and, glancing around furtively, ran to Constantijn's hand. It snatched up the cheese and held it close, "Dank," The voice was hoarse, rattled with sickness. Dark eyes pierced his own and a thin smile cracked chapped lips.

"Bitte," Constantijn murmured, and then pulled his hand back.

As fast as he could, he snuck back upstairs, and into his room. He didn't realize until he'd laid down again that he'd never put his boots on.

He curled up and brought his hands close to his face, tucking them under his chin for warmth. He still felt the wax crumbling in his palm and smelled the slightly bitter scent of the cheese.