Page 56 of The Watchmaker of Dachau

‘So we’re not going to France?’ Szymon asked.

‘No.’

‘We will be safe here.’ Katharina shunted over to him and wrapped her arm around his shoulders. ‘We have been safe so far and we will stay safe.’

I remember sitting on the other chair, my eyes darting from my brother to my sister and then to my parents. I had to figure a way out for us, I had to get us to safety.

But how?

Chapter 19

Isaac

Isaac stopped reading. Anna’s face showed the emotions he felt – fear, sadness.

‘What happened next?’ Anna asked.

‘We can continue tomorrow,’ Isaac said.

‘Is it wrong that I want to read more? It’s as though the voice, the words – I don’t know.’

Isaac nodded. ‘I know what you mean. It is as though it is our story, all the things we wished to say.’

Anna picked up the empty mug from Isaac’s desk. ‘Tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow,’ he said, watching her leave and walk down the path towards the house where lights began to illuminate the darkened interior, where the Bechers awaited their breakfast and coffee, the fires to be lit.

He placed the papers back into their hiding place and took out the pieces of watches he had hidden for his masterpiece.

Ignoring the bag that held the jewellery he was to work on – removing engravings, fixing bracelets and earrings – he continued to work on the watch for Anna, wanting her to have something beautiful in her life that would always be hers.

That evening Isaac returned to the camp, somewhat satisfied with his work for the day. The watch was coming together nicely, especially the strap, which he was joining together with gemstones and gold links so that whichever way the wrist moved, it would catch the light.

He sat with Elijah in the bunkhouse, where tired yet eager faces awaited their evening meal. Tonight, it was soup again. Watery with vegetables that tasted rotten – one ladle each into a tin bowl, one lump of bread to be halved and kept for breakfast the following day, and a weak cup of coffee or a cup of water.

‘I cannot bear it.’ Elijah was crying over his soup. ‘I cannot bear even eating it.’

‘You’re sick?’ Isaac asked.

Elijah shook his head. ‘I want to eat it, but then as soon as I do, it is gone, and I am hungry, and I cannot bear it being gone.’

Isaac looked at his own bowl. He had eaten some bread that day, brought to him by Greta, who looked as thin and gaunt as he did now, her chest rattling with her cough.

‘Eat yours, then you will eat mine,’ Isaac said.

‘Really?’ Elijah wiped his face with his sleeve. ‘You really mean it?’

‘I do. Now eat.’

Isaac watched his friend gulp the first bowl of soup down, then, taking Isaac’s, he ate slower, as if he were at home eating dinner with a family, his spoon politely dipped in and out of the liquid.

‘Where’s Jan?’ Isaac asked, looking around and not seeing his stern face.

‘He was taken from work this afternoon – he had to do a job or something,’ Elijah said between sips. ‘But he didn’t come back.’

Isaac’s mouth was suddenly dry. ‘Were others taken with him?’

Elijah nodded. ‘A few. They said they had a special job for them.’