Page 12 of The Watchmaker of Dachau

Anna stood straight, her eyes ahead, focusing on the backs of women’s heads that were illuminated by the spotlights that came from watchtowers. The warmth of their breaths hung in the still air, their bodies twitching and shaking with the cold.

Suddenly, the roll call stopped.

‘Over already?’ Joanna whispered to Anna.

Before Anna could respond, a cry rang out and all the women turned to the right, to see who Lange had found as her victim.

It was a young woman, perhaps Nina’s age or younger. Lange was screaming at her for fainting. Anna saw Lange bent over the woman, her arm rising to get traction with the truncheon that she hammered into the woman’s body, making it jump like a fish out of water.

With each blow, Anna flinched – One, two, three, four. It couldn’t go on much longer. Five, six. Anna bit down hard on her lip, tasting the metallic blood in her mouth. Seven, eight.

The woman’s body had stopped moving. She was as still as Marguerite.

Nine. Ten. Then, Lange stopped. She stood and straightened out her jacket, then wiped sweat from her brow.

‘Let that be a lesson to you all,’ she said, then nodded. ‘Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?’ she said with a smile, as the women froze to the spot and the counting began once more.

‘Two hours today,’ Joanna said as the women began to disperse, making their way to their work detail. ‘I counted. Each second, I counted. Two hours. In the other camp it was longer – sometimes five. You’re lucky, you know, to have come here and only here. I was in two other camps before this one.’

Lucky, Anna thought. She was lucky to have only been here five months. She was lucky not to be as thin and fragile as the others. She picked up Marguerite’s legs once more as Joanna heaved her up by the arms.

She looked at Marguerite’s face as they walked towards a cart already laden with the dead from the morning. She had always imagined that when people died, they looked at peace – at least, that was what her mother had told her when her father had died; he was at rest. Marguerite did not look at rest. Her skin wasn’t skin anymore, it was like tightened leather that had been left to bleach in the sun; her top front three teeth were gone, leaving gummy, gappy holes; her lips were dry and cracked and brown. She was not at rest.

They hauled her body onto the cart where it rested on top of two other women, their ages indistinguishable, their eyes still open, glassed over and dry.

‘If I go next, make sure you are the one to carry me to roll call – will you do that, Anna?’ Joanna asked, as she wiped her hands on the skirt of her dress.

Anna nodded. Joanna walked away, leaving her with Lange to be taken to the gates, where Schmidt would be waiting to rush her to the Bechers’ home.

When Schmidt left her at the kitchen door of the house, Anna could hear the call of the young boy Friedrich as he shouted for his mother.

Anna entered into the kitchen, where Greta, a local woman from the village, sat on a small wooden stool peeling potatoes, letting the washed skins fall into a bucket at her feet. Anna had the sudden urge to take a handful of the peelings and gorge on them until her stomach would silence itself.

‘She’s at it again,’ Greta said by way of greeting, her grey wiry hair caught back in a bun that seemed too tight on her scalp, so that her eyebrows were always pulled up in surprise. ‘Shouting this and that as soon as she woke. The young boy can’t even find her – he’s been at it too – asking for toys, food. It’s not even breakfast and I’m worn out by both of them. Here, make the coffee, will you?’

Anna moved to the polished silver coffee pot engraved with the Becher family crest – an eagle perched atop a cliff. Anna doubted it was really their crest; it was more likely that Liesl Becher wanted to show off to her friends when they visited.

‘You eaten?’ Greta stood by Anna’s side, and silently placed a lump of bread from the counter into Anna’s pocket. ‘You finish the coffee and I’ll take them breakfast. You pop into the garden and fetch some carrots, eh? Help me make the lunch.’

Anna smiled at Greta. She wished she could hug her for the kindness she had shown her since she had been given this work detail, just a few days before.

‘Of course,’ Anna said, her hand already in her pocket, feeling the warm bread under her fingertips.

Chapter 4

Isaac

The line of men moved slowly towards the high fences of the camp, which were topped with barbed wire and soldiers with guns who leaned over lookout towers, watching as the silent trudge of the new prisoners came closer.

Isaac’s hands shook as he walked and his teeth chattered, knocking against each other, making his head hurt. He could not see the others from the train as they walked under the black iron gates that welcomed them with the words Arbeit Macht Frei.

The sky seemed to hang lower inside the camp, so that Isaac wasn’t sure where the ground ended and the clouds began. It reminded him of strange, frantic dreams he had had as a child, where he would be walking through smoke, seeing shadows, yet he could never find a way through to clear air, to being able to see properly again.

He followed the man who wore a star like his own, the man who had been called the Kapo, who pushed and shoved at the new arrivals as they walked, seemingly delighting in their fear.

The men were marched into a room towards a desk where three soldiers sat, ledgers in front of them, demanding to see their identity cards, then telling them to go through to the room next door.

One by one, the line of men in front of him disappeared until it was only Isaac left, standing in front of the panel. The Kapo approached the soldiers, mumbling something in their ears.