Page 70 of The Watchmaker of Dachau

Max scratched at his beard, lost in thought. ‘It’ll have to wait until tonight,’ he finally said. ‘You’ll come with me.’ He nodded at me.

‘I should come too,’ Katharina said.

‘No. You stay here, watch your mother and brother,’ Max told her.

She stepped forward, confident now. ‘I must. I have to say the Kel Maleh Rachamim for him. Mother would have done it. It is for me to do it now.’

Max looked at me – it was my decision now; I was the eldest. I looked to Szymon, waiting for him to say he would go in Katharina’s place, but his earlier bravado had left him, and he looked younger than his sixteen years.

‘I’ll stay with Mother,’ he said, and sat by her on the bed.

I knew I shouldn’t have let her, I knew at the time it was a bad idea, yet I also knew that Father would want his daughter, with her soft, childish voice, to say the prayer for him.

‘Fine,’ I said reluctantly. ‘But you do as Max says. You must stay quiet at all times.’

Katharina nodded; she was ready.

It was past midnight when Max came to the basement once more, and gave both Katharina and me black coats and hats to wear.

Szymon was curled up next to Mother, his arm around her, seeking comfort as he had done when he was very small.

‘If she wakes, give her a few more drops – no more than half the pipette, understand?’ Max asked him.

Szymon nodded.

‘Do you want to say goodbye?’ I asked.

Szymon stood and walked to Father, tears already spilling down his face. He kissed Father’s forehead then returned to Mother, curling himself around her once more.

Katharina and I wrapped Father in a clean white sheet that Max had given us, then a dark blue blanket. Between the three of us, we clambered up the basement stairs to Max’s living room. Max promptly closed the hatch and shifted the dresser back on top of it.

I hadn’t been outside for months – a year perhaps, or more – and it was strange at first to breathe the clean air. It was almost thick, like soup, and I could not get enough of it.

Max had procured a small horse and cart from a neighbour, and we placed the body on the cart, Max setting off quickly down the dark cobbled streets of his village, the horse’s hooves too loud, echoing and bouncing off the buildings so I was sure at any moment someone would appear.

But luck was on our side. The night was clear, so clear that Katharina and I did not speak for some time. Instead we looked to the sky, which seemed so big now, dotted with stars that winked at us.

‘Have they always done that?’ Katharina asked. ‘The stars, have they always looked that way?’

I knew what she meant. It was as though we were seeing the sky, a road, a tree, for the first time. As if we had been blind and someone had given us back our sight.

Max drove up a slight hill and stopped at a thick wood, the town below us.

‘I think this is the best place,’ he said, getting down from the cart. ‘When we can, we will bury him properly, but for now, this will have to do.’

We chose a pine tree to bury him under, close to the grassy slope of a field that ran down into the valley. ‘That way, he’ll still be able to see the stars,’ Katharina said.

Max suddenly realised the time. ‘I’ll have to get the cart back now – they need it for deliveries come dawn.’ He looked at our hole, Father not yet buried, the prayers not yet said.

‘You go,’ I told him. He had done so much for us; I did not want him to worry more than he needed to.

‘Are you sure?’

‘There’s no one about. We’ll be quick as we can, then we’ll walk back to the house. We’ll be an hour or so at most.’

Max bit his lip. ‘It’s risky.’

‘Probably less risky than the empty cart going back into town?’ Katharina added.