Page 37 of The Watchmaker of Dachau

‘I would go home.’

‘Where is that?’

Isaac leaned back in his chair and watched the boy for a moment. Could he really talk to him, share something with him?

Before Isaac could answer, Greta’s voice rang out, shouting for Friedrich to come for lunch.

Friedrich looked towards the voice, then at Isaac. The boy grinned and said, ‘See you later!’ and ran from the shed, his jacket flapping out behind him as if he were really going to take flight, lift from the ground and disappear to Otto’s home.

For the third time that day, Isaac found himself smiling.

That afternoon, Anna came to the shed and stood before him, a cup of coffee in one hand and a plate with bread and cheese in the other.

‘I was told to bring you something every day. Herr Becher wants to make sure you are fed,’ she said.

Isaac cleared a space on his little desk, and Anna placed the cup and plate down.

‘You have a new dress,’ Isaac said.

‘It was Greta’s idea, to make me blend in a little better.’

‘You need to blend in?’

‘Frau Becher doesn’t like me being in the house. Maybe this way she won’t notice me so much.’

Isaac nodded and thought of the way Becher had noticed her instead.

‘I’ll bring coffee again this afternoon.’ Anna made to leave, then she suddenly reached out her hand to touch the broken wristwatch on the table. She picked it up and placed it on her tiny wrist.

‘I’ve never had a watch,’ she said. ‘This one… this is so like Father’s.’

Isaac leaned over and helped her with the clasp. It was far too large, and drooped over her hand. Anna laughed. ‘I look like a child playing with adult things.’

‘It can’t be fixed, I don’t think.’ Isaac watched her.

‘It can’t? Whose is it?’

Isaac shrugged.

‘Never mind.’ Anna took the watch off her wrist and placed it on the desk. ‘At least you have something to keep your mind occupied.’

‘You don’t?’ Isaac held the watch she had removed, noticing that the links of the strap had smaller links between the larger ones.

‘Cleaning and cooking doesn’t engage your mind. It makes it worse – it wanders free from itself, imagining things, trying to understand things. When I was younger, I had diaries, I would write in them when I couldn’t sleep – anything I was scared of, I would write down and then, in the morning, it was as if it had disappeared into the night.’

She smiled weakly at Isaac. ‘Silly, I know. I wish I could write my diaries now.’

Anna shrugged then went to the door, leaving Isaac alone to his meal. Her eyes, so much like Hannah’s, made him feel protective of her, as though he wanted to wrap her in a blanket and let her tell him all the things she was scared of so he could make them disappear into the night.

Ignoring his coffee and food, he thought of the secret bundle of papers underneath the floorboard, and wondered whether there was perhaps a spare sheet, just one page that he could give to Anna so she could write once more.

He scrabbled around on the dusty floor and prised the board away, taking out the bundle. He did not intend to read anything; he merely wanted to find a gift for Anna. But the first page caught his eye, the sentences calling out to him to be read:

Today I remembered the time that Father took me fishing. It was a day much like today, when the blossom buds unfurled on branches, finally covering their nakedness with the most delicate and colourful of clothing…

Chapter 12

J. A. L.