Page 51 of The Watchmaker of Dachau

‘I don’t know. It’s all a bit strange. There are phone calls late at night, and Father was asking me if I like hot weather and Mother got upset about it. And they are always fighting. She wants to go and see her friends, but he says she is not allowed to and that makes her angry. It’s like – I don’t know – like we are locked up in a prison.’

‘A prison, eh? But you get fed nice food, have a bed, can play with your toys?’ Isaac raised his eyebrows at him, willing him to find the correct answer as his teachers did.

‘I suppose.’

‘So not like a prison then. In a prison, you have to work, you cannot play with toys, and you get little food or warmth.’

‘Have you been in a prison?’ Friedrich asked. ‘Are you really a jewel thief?’

Isaac grinned at him. ‘No. I am not a jewel thief, although I wish I were. But I have been in prison.’

‘What did you do? Are you a murderer?’

Isaac shook his head. ‘There’s no need to be afraid. I didn’t do anything.’

Friedrich was confused yet again. His whole day was confusing. Why would Isaac have to go to prison if he had done nothing wrong?

Then Friedrich looked at Isaac’s striped clothing, his hollowed cheeks, his skin so thin you could see the blue veins beneath.

‘The town isn’t a town, is it?’ Friedrich asked finally.

Isaac shook his head.

‘Did Father put you there, in the prison?’

Isaac nodded. ‘It is bigger than that. It’s the war. It’s everyone. Not just your father.’

Friedrich felt stupid. Like a silly little boy who played with trains and believed stories that fell from his parents’ lips. A town where they were happy. A place where they could stay to keep him and his parents safe. He wasn’t supposed to like the Jews, he knew. He wasn’t supposed to like foreign people, or black people, or gypsies. He had sworn his allegiance to his Führer every morning at school, he had read about what all the Jews and foreign people were doing to his country, and yet he did not feel hate for them, and why would he – he rarely met any of them.

Now here was a Jew, and he was nice to him, even though he shouldn’t be. He did not know what he was supposed to think.

‘Do you want to help me with the watch?’ Isaac’s voice was soft and broke through his complicated musings.

Friedrich stood. ‘I do,’ he said, and he pulled the bucket close to the desk and listened as Isaac told him about the magic of time.

Chapter 17

Anna

It was late. The clock in the hallway struck eleven as Anna sat in the kitchen, checking on the plate of food still sitting in the oven, waiting for its master.

Greta had gone home early, the raspy cough she had been trying to conceal finally drawing phlegm and bending her double with painful hacks.

Anna was to stay until Herr Becher returned home, give him his dinner, and then a guard would return her to the camp. If they did not, she was to sleep on the cold tiles of the kitchen floor.

She finally heard the rumble of the car on the driveway and stood, then sat back down again – should she go to the door to greet him? Should she wait?

His footsteps echoed on the lacquered wood as he walked down the hallway, his boots making a heavy thump with each step. She heard him shout out for Schmidt, and then she heard the slam of his study door. Schmidt was still here? She hadn’t seen him all day. Liesl had not left her room and the boy had played quietly by himself, only appearing for dinner which he took to his room.

The study door opened, then slammed closed once more. There was the thump of footsteps, then they stopped and there was quiet. She heard the music next, soft, inviting – he was in the living room. She stood and, using a rag, pulled the warm plate from the oven and placed it on a silver tray along with cutlery and a napkin.

After a quick knock on the living room door, she heard him bid her enter.

‘Anna,’ he said, surprised perhaps.

She set the tray down on the low coffee table in front of him. He relaxed back in the stuffed sofa, his top shirt buttons open, a glass in his hand and the crystal whiskey decanter half empty on the side table.

‘Greta was ill,’ she apologised. ‘She will be back tomorrow.’