Page 24 of The Watchmaker of Dachau

She looked at him briefly and gave a weak smile, then waved him away, the rest of his dinner growing cold on the table.

As he left, he saw Schmidt sitting in the living room, a foot propped up on a footstool, a glass of amber whiskey in his hand. Friedrich watched him for a moment as he drank, as if he were the man of the house.

‘What are you looking at?’ Schmidt barked, as his red face turned to look at him. He stood, placed the glass on the polished table, and walked towards Friedrich.

‘What’s the matter?’ His father appeared behind him.

‘Nothing,’ Friedrich answered, his head turning from his father to Schmidt.

‘He was staring at me, almost as if he wanted something. Tell me, Friedrich, what do you want?’ Schmidt bent down, his face close to Friedrich’s so he could smell the liquor, the stale cigarette smoke and Schmidt’s sweat.

‘He’s been difficult since he got home,’ his father said, and pushed Friedrich towards the staircase. ‘Go to bed!’

As Friedrich took each step, he could hear his father asking Schmidt to come and have some dinner, his mother’s voice singing out that she, too, wanted Schmidt for company.

Why did they make me come here? he wondered as he opened his bedroom door. What was the point?

He sat on the edge of his bed, imagining Schmidt eating the rest of his dinner, his stupid fat face shovelling the food in like a pig that scoffs at the trough.

Friedrich looked about him – at the train set, at the few books on the shelves – and wondered what he could do. His room was beginning to tire him already. The train set had provided some relief that afternoon from the boredom he felt, but he could not fathom spending all his time in this room, or in a side garden, and since he was told not to go to the rear garden, where the shed was, it was all he could think about.

He left his room and tiptoed across the hallway, tried the doors opposite once more. The windows here would provide a view of the shed, and at least he could watch Isaac, and perhaps see the town in which they lived – maybe even see some children playing. But the doors were still steadfastly locked and there was no way that he would be able to pick a lock.

‘Otto could do it,’ he mumbled to himself, as he sat on the edge of the bed. ‘I should have asked Isaac – he could have done it, and he would have had to do as I told him, just like Father said.’

Then he realised he was talking to himself like Anna, and he giggled.

He picked up a book from his dresser and lay down to read about the ancient Egyptians, and how they made their mummies and pyramids. He was halfway through the first page when there was an almighty crash downstairs.

He went over to the door and opened it a crack. He could hear his mother’s voice, loud, sobbing, screaming at his father. ‘How can you ask me to bear living here, day after day? No one wants to visit me here – my friends will not come! And who can blame them! With that place just a mile or so from us, with them infecting our very house!’

Then Schmidt’s voice, soothing, trying to calm his mother when it was usually his father who would do this.

Friedrich could not hear what his father said in response, only the rumble of his voice as he spoke. He didn’t dare leave the bedroom, didn’t dare peek at the scene unfolding below.

Within moments, there was quiet, and then the sound of a door closing. He heard his father’s footsteps and then his voice, more clearly now. ‘She’s broken the damn phone,’ he said.

Friedrich lay back on his bed. ‘Father is talking to himself now too. Perhaps we are all going mad.’

Chapter 8

Isaac

The morning broke as it had done the day before. Adam the Kapo screamed a wake-up call at them as they lay half asleep in their bunks, huddled into balls to try and find warmth.

As Isaac dressed and washed his face in the scummy water that others had already used, and took his piece of bread and weak black coffee, he noticed Jan looking at him and then whispering to another man whose large round eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks hollowed.

Isaac sat on the edge of his bunk and ate slowly, trying to pretend he was simply at home, having breakfast before going to work.

‘You got yourself a nice job then?’ The man with the hollowed cheeks stood in front of him, leaning his arm on his bunk.

Isaac looked at Jan, who sat on a lower bunk across from him, an unlit cigarette between his fingers.

‘I hear our Kapo singled you out – you know him, do you?’ the hollow-cheeked man asked.

Isaac shook his head. ‘I don’t know anyone.’

‘You see that cigarette Jan has? You know, there are better ways to get things you want, or things you need, in ways that don’t make you a traitor.’