Page 32 of The Watchmaker of Dachau

‘I think he would now,’ she told him.

They soon reached the train station, but were not allowed on the platform. Instead, they were herded into a pen of sorts, with a high fence topped with barbed wire. Once they were inside, the gate was locked, and the guards lit cigarettes and talked as if they were not even there.

Anna, Elias and their mother sat on the dusty floor until the sun rose, and were still there when the sun began to set again. They shared what food they had with the others, and water that someone had thought to bring, but soon it was gone, and they still sat in the pen, still not understanding what was happening.

Her mother was ill – her heart, which had plagued her with palpitations for years, was succumbing to the stress, her face pale, and she clutched at her chest, her lips turning a strange blue.

Anna screamed, her own heart racing, her eyes already glazed with tears as she watched her mother struggle for breath. She looked for Elias who was on his feet, running towards the gate, shouting at the guards for help, but they turned to him, then laughed and turned away.

He ran back to Anna, looked at his mother and ran back to the gate once more, this time frantically pulling on it, yelling.

‘We need help!’ he screamed at them. ‘She’s dying!’

Someone in the crowd was a doctor and had come to their aid, trying to breathe life into her, but Anna could see it was too late; her eyes had glassed over, her chest still.

‘Please! Please!’ Elias was still screaming.

Anna looked to him, and saw the guards pointing their guns at him – warning him. She stood, ready to run to him, to tell him to stop, that it was all too late – and then a gun fired.

Anna did not want to remember any more. She did not want to remember how her brother’s body fell, crumpled to the ground after the shot rang out. She did not want to remember how she ran to him, seeing his face still contorted with anguish, save for the small bullet hole in his forehead, so neat and round that she could not take her eyes from it, expecting it to be messy, bigger.

The doctor who had tried to help her mother pulled at her arm, trying to get her away, but she had resisted – lifting his head with her hand, feeling the warm, wet, bloody mess at the back of his skull.

She drew her hand away, looking at the crimson that covered it, the blood dripping into the dust.

‘Come, get up, come with me.’ The doctor had his hands under her armpits, pulling her, then dragging her away as she kicked and screamed and cried.

People were moving; a gate had opened. They were getting on the boxcars.

‘You have to come now,’ the doctor said.

Anna didn’t know how that doctor had got her into the train, how he had helped her to stand and walk. All she knew was that the train began to move, clacking its way away from her home, from her family, her head resting on the doctor’s shoulder as she stared at her brother’s blood on her hands.

Suddenly, Anna felt Nina’s hand on her head, stroking it to soothe her.

‘You’re crying,’ she whispered.

Anna turned to her friend. ‘I remembered – I remembered it all.’

Chapter 10

Friedrich

Friedrich stood in his mother’s bedroom, staring at his reflection in the mirror. He looked at his gangly frame, his brown trousers and green knitted jumper, and tried to see what Anna had been so sad about.

He had liked his mother’s dress on her – it was the same colour as the cap she wore – and he had been about to talk to her, to tell her that she was beautiful, but that was when she had got angry and started to cry, and then he hadn’t known what to say.

‘What are you doing in here?’ His mother was in the doorway, her face flushed, her hands full of bags.

‘I had something in my eye,’ Friedrich said. ‘I was trying to see it.’

She shook her head at him and came into the bedroom. She sat down on the edge of the bed and said, ‘Come here, come see what I bought.’

His mother was happy, her eyes bright. She pulled dress after dress from the bags to show him. Friedrich tried to find nice things to say about them, and each thing he did say made her smile.

‘You are a good boy,’ she said, as she stood and kissed the top of his head.

He wondered whether he should tell her about Anna – whether it would make her happy that he had been a good boy and told her what people had been doing when she was away. ‘Mother, I—’