Page 60 of The Watchmaker of Dachau

‘I don’t see how this can be a joke,’ I said. My eye caught the naked bodies of the boys once more, flies already buzzing around the taut skin across their ribs, their pubic bones jutting out.

‘I can’t,’ the vomiting man said.

‘We’ve no choice,’ I replied.

Between the three of us, we picked up the tall boy and carried his body towards the hot water. We laid him there and did the same with his smaller friend, who weighed so little, I think I could have carried him in my arms alone.

‘We should give them names,’ I said.

‘That’s disgusting. What on earth are you saying that for?’ the vomiting man said.

‘They deserve a name before we do this. They deserve to be thought of as people.’

‘Fine,’ the non-vomiting man said. ‘The tall one, he can have my name, Alexander.’

‘And he, the small one, he can have mine,’ the vomiting man said, ‘Jeremiah.’

I nodded and said a small prayer for them both. Then together we placed each one in the vats of boiling water.

‘They’re not going in all the way,’ Alexander said. I looked and saw his dead counterpart’s head bobbing on top of the water.

‘We need to weigh them down,’ I said.

We took them out once more, feeling the warmth that came from their skin as if the water were making them alive again. With effort, we secured some rocks to their feet and tried again, this time seeing them sink under the water.

‘What do we do now?’ Jeremiah asked. ‘Watch them cook?’

‘I think so.’ I sat near the vat and prodded at the coals with a stick that had been left for us, along with a heap of coal and a few bits of firewood.

I tried not to think of the boys in the water. I tried not to think of their parents who would wonder what had happened to them.

‘How do you think they died?’ Alexander asked.

‘I don’t even want to guess,’ I said.

‘They were experimented on.’ Jeremiah sat the furthest away from the vats, his eyes searching the camp grounds for something to look at.

‘Experimented?’ Alexander asked.

‘There’s a doctor. Well, he was a doctor. He was asked to work in one of the buildings here. He said that they experiment on women, men and children. They like twins, he said, when they are identical. He said he saw twin girls have injections given to them every day that made them cry out for their mother. He could not sleep after seeing that. He wanted to save them – but what could he do, what can any of us do?’

‘I didn’t know,’ I said. I felt foolish, useless – how could I not know? Had I been blind, or did I just not want to see?

‘I hear you work at the house?’ Alexander tried to change the subject.

I nodded. ‘Gardener.’

‘Is that who you were before?’

‘I was a student. I will be again.’ Then I looked at the vats and realised that I probably would never be the same person again.

We were allowed lunch. A thin soup in the mess hall whilst two others watched over the boiling bodies.

For the first time in months, I could not eat. Neither could Jeremiah or Alexander. My stomach growled and moaned with hunger; even my saliva was not upset by what I had seen and filled my mouth at the scent of food. Yet, there was a block between my hunger and my heart. I could not, would not eat today. The boys in the water deserved that much from me.

When we returned to the vats…

I don’t think I can write it.