Page 22 of The Watchmaker of Dachau

‘I’m Friedrich,’ the boy started again. ‘I think you should know my name, because I know yours and that’s polite, isn’t it, to introduce yourself when you meet someone new?’

‘It is polite, yes. It is good to meet you, Friedrich.’

‘And you, Isaac.’

‘Here, I think it is done.’ Isaac placed the engine on the line, then moved the broken slats away and re-joined the tracks together. ‘It will be a little shorter for your train to run, but it will work.’

Friedrich jumped off his bed where he had been sitting and watched as the engine started to crawl slowly forward, then, picking up speed, it chugged along. Friedrich clapped his hands together in joy and Isaac found himself laughing along with him.

‘It works! It really works! You are a magician! Father couldn’t fix it and I couldn’t fix it, and then you come and it’s all fine!’

Isaac stood and watched Friedrich play for a moment, connecting the carriages to the engines, placing the small figurines of passengers at the station to await their train and their onward journey. He wished he could stay and watch the boy forever, the simple joy of playing with a train and naming the stations, the people, and the conversations they would have as they travelled to a foreign land.

‘You’re welcome, Friedrich,’ Isaac said. The boy looked at him and smiled.

Isaac left the bedroom and walked slowly down the stairs, trying to stretch the minutes before he was once more sent to the cold shed, or even worse, back to the camp.

The day disappeared quickly beneath the winter sky, plummeting Isaac into a cold darkness in the shed, with only the thin light of the lamp to aid him. He scribbled more notes on the paper, ready to fix the clock when beckoned, but no one came for him.

He was not used to having no work. He sat and stared at the shed walls, the thin gaps in between each slat that let the icy air creep in so that his warm breath was forever hanging in front of him.

Work would help – it would keep his mind off the hunger that chimed in his belly each minute, causing a rush of saliva to culminate in his mouth, expecting a meal that would not come. Work would also keep his mind away from the camp, from the life he now found himself in. He chuckled to himself in the quiet – he had been so lucky so far – so very lucky. Years of hiding away in his village, in his work, and no one had come for him, and, just as news reached them about the Americans and the British who were drawing closer each day, he was taken.

He chewed at a piece of skin next to his thumb as the door was flung open and Schmidt entered.

‘Time to go,’ he said, already turning away. Isaac made to stand, his legs feeling wobbly underneath him.

He turned off the lamp and hobbled after Schmidt, the hunger replaced with nausea as he remembered the high fences, the soldiers with guns, and the cold stares of the guards.

But then, it all disappeared – Anna exited the house through the kitchen door, smiling weakly at Isaac as she noticed him.

As Schmidt walked Isaac and Anna back to the camp, Isaac looked behind him at the house, the lamps glaring from the windows, as if the house had sucked in all the light, leaving Isaac in the inky stillness of the night. The sleet from the morning had turned into thick flakes that settled quickly, layering one on top of the other, weighing down branches that creaked and shifted with the load.

Schmidt walked behind them, humming a tune and smoking his cigar, now and again asking them to stop – Isaac was sure for no other reason than to slow them down and keep them in the cold for as long as possible.

Isaac’s arm bumped into Anna’s and she flinched.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered to her.

‘No. I’m sorry. It’s not you. It’s this place – every time I hear something, or someone touches me, my body just can’t help itself.’

‘You have been here long?’

Anna shook her head. ‘Since September last year. You know, they only opened the women’s block last year – I was one of the first. I often wonder, why me, why now?’

Isaac chuckled. ‘I have just been wondering the same thing myself. Almost five years of freedom and now here I am.’

‘Piotr would have called it fate,’ she said. ‘Kismet. Like we have no choice.’

‘Piotr?’ Isaac asked.

‘My fiancé. He believed in destiny and even that dreams could tell you things.’

‘And you don’t?’

Anna shrugged, her shoulder now brushing his comfortably, adding a smidgen of warmth to his body. ‘I don’t know what to believe anymore.’

‘Hush!’ Schmidt commanded from the rear. ‘You think I can’t hear you two whispering? Do you think I am stupid?’