Page 27 of The Watchmaker of Dachau

‘You should work. If they see you not working, what do you think they are going to do? Share a joke with you?’

Levi suddenly laughed. ‘See, I knew you were funny! Share a joke with me, I like it. Do you think they would like my joke about Hitler – here.’ Levi leaned towards Isaac and said quietly, ‘Hitler and Göring are standing on top of the Berlin radio tower. Hitler says he wants to do something to put a smile on the Berliners’ faces. Göring says, “Why don’t you jump?”’

Despite himself, Isaac felt himself smile.

‘You’ll laugh one day – one day, I promise you, you will laugh again. And in the meantime, I will keep you company and try my best to make you see some humour here.’

‘You need to keep that joke quiet,’ Isaac said. ‘If anyone hears you…’

‘Then what? They’ll kill me?’

Isaac watched Levi as he resumed raking the dead leaves off the grass, his eyes bright, his movements swift like a dancer. Just a man tending his garden, who looked as though he had all the time in the world.

He returned to the shed and set about trying to understand the mechanics of the phone, yet Levi’s grin, his voice, seemed embedded in his mind. He replayed the joke Levi had told and allowed himself to laugh. He remembered, then, a time when Hannah had told him he would smile again and laugh again, when the engravings that he had made on his tools would not haunt him so much. Had she been right? Had he smiled since then?

He thought of the grandfather clock he had fixed in the Bechers’ home, that now neatly chimed and called the minutes and hours. All the time that had gone before, all that had happened to him, each minute ticking quietly by, and he had not laughed in years, not felt a ball of joy grow in his stomach as he went about his day, his life. He had surrounded himself with the ticking of time, yet had paid no attention to it as it had propelled him forward.

But Levi – Levi who had had just as much despair in his life, still swore to cherish the time, to smile and to find some measure of joy.

He thought of Hannah once more. She had been right – he would smile and laugh again one day, but he never thought it would be here.

He shook his thoughts away and began his new task to fix the telephone. After some time, he felt he had a grasp on what each wire might do, and where it should be connected. Oddly, he felt content. It was a new, strange task, but he was engrossed in fixing something he had never seen before.

It was not long until he was interrupted again. He didn’t look up when Levi entered but continued concentrating on his task.

‘What are you doing?’

Isaac looked up, surprised to see the boy there, his hands in his pockets, a miniature image of his father.

At first he smiled, happy to see him, and then his smile disappeared. ‘You’re not to be in here. Go back to your train set,’ he told the boy.

Friedrich ignored him and his eyes moved about the shed, as if he were looking for treasure.

‘It’s cold in here,’ he said.

‘It is. That’s why you should go back to the house and keep warm.’

‘What are you doing?’ Friedrich asked again.

‘Fixing this.’ Isaac sighed and showed him the telephone.

‘Mother threw it last night,’ Friedrich said.

‘She did?’

‘Yup. She threw it at Father. They think I don’t know but I heard them.’

‘How’s the train?’ Isaac asked.

‘It works. But Father says I can’t play with it too much. He says that I am almost a man and can’t play with toys much anymore, so Schmidt told me to find something else to do. He sent me to the side gardens, but there’s not much there – nothing to play with. He said I have to keep out of his way because he has important work to do for Father, but I saw him sitting in the living room with Mother and they were laughing at something, so I don’t know if that’s what he meant, or…’ Friedrich raised his arms as if in question.

‘So you came here – nothing to play with here either.’

Friedrich sat on the floor of the shed in front of Isaac and crossed his legs. He picked up a small golden screw. ‘What’s this?’

‘A screw.’

‘What’s it for?’