The Watchmaker of Dachau: An absolutely heartbreaking World War 2 historical novel

by Carly Schabowski

  ‘I have no idea. I would imagine so – you should ask her,’ Isaac said.

  ‘She is your friend, isn’t she?’

  ‘She is.’

  ‘So do you think she will be mine too? Then when you teach me about watches maybe Anna can come too?’

  Isaac looked at his hands and did not speak.

  ‘Is that not a good idea?’ Friedrich asked.

  Isaac looked at him. ‘It is the best idea I have heard for a very long time.’

  Friedrich stood. ‘I have something important to do,’ he said. ‘I’ll come back soon.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Isaac called after him, as he ran back towards the house.

  Friedrich turned and smiled and waved, his plan in motion.

  Friedrich knew his father and mother would be out that evening – it was just a matter of dealing with Schmidt. He had done it before and would do it again.

  Friedrich found Anna in the kitchen that afternoon, interrupting her as she chopped vegetables for dinner whilst Greta stirred at something on the stove. ‘Anna, can you dance?’

  ‘Should you be in here?’ Greta warned, looking behind him as if his parents were there.

  ‘Oh, Greta, Father said can you please go and see him in the study – he has something to say to you about this evening.’

  Greta slowly walked towards him, her face showing the same pain Isaac’s had when he had moved his leg.

  Friedrich waited until Greta had shuffled from the room and asked again, ‘Can you dance, Anna?’

  ‘I used to be able to.’

  ‘Like the dancing with a man, when he spins you around a room? Like that sort of dancing?’

  Anna laughed. ‘Yes. I suppose so. Why do you ask?’

  ‘No reason!’ Friedrich ran out of the kitchen and bounded up the stairs to his parents’ bathroom – he had to act quickly.

  When he returned, Greta was talking to Anna and he stood at the kitchen door whilst they spoke.

  ‘To Munich, tonight?’ Anna asked.

  ‘That’s what he said. Him and the wife. Back tomorrow.’

  ‘What about Friedrich?’

  ‘Schmidt will be staying over to mind him.’

  ‘He makes me feel really strange. He’s always looking at me and things in the house as if he is weighing up whether he wants them or not,’ Anna said.

  ‘Oh, Friedrich.’ Greta caught a glimpse of him. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’m hungry,’ he said. ‘Can I please have one of those cakes you made yesterday?’

  ‘Now?’ Greta glanced at the clock. ‘It’ll be time for tea soon enough.’

  ‘But if Mother and Father are going out, maybe they won’t take tea, so maybe I could have my cake now?’

  Greta shook her head and Friedrich held his breath – he needed that cake. ‘Fine, here.’ She cut a slice of stodgy fruit cake and handed it to him on a small plate.

  He scurried from the kitchen and sat waiting in the living room. He would pounce as soon as his parents left.

  By four, his parents stood at the doorway of the living room, explaining that they would be back tomorrow.

  ‘Don’t misbehave for Schmidt,’ his father said.

  His mother barely glanced at him, her eyes on the front door, waiting to make her escape. She had managed to dress herself properly, Friedrich noted, her dress perfectly fitted, though it was at odds with her wild hair and pained expression.

  ‘Yes. Yes, be good. Come now, Peter, let’s go.’

  He watched their chauffeured car disappear down the drive and turn onto the road. Then he jumped up.

  He knew where Schmidt was, where he always was, in his father’s study. He knocked on the door, but this time did not wait for Schmidt and simply left the cake outside the door, hoping that he would think Greta or Anna had left it for him, just in case he had connected his previous tiredness with the unexpected gift from Friedrich.

  He waited in the living room once more, hearing the study door open then close. He tiptoed back – the plate was gone.

  Greta brought him a sandwich which he ate at the dining room table, as though he were king of the house.

  ‘Greta,’ Friedrich said to her retreating back, ‘Father said to tell you that you can go home because you have been poorly; he said Anna could give me my supper and Schmidt will take her back to the camp.’

  ‘He did, did he?’ She raised her eyebrow at him. ‘Are you sure that’s what he said?’

  ‘Completely sure. He said to tell you just before he left. He said he didn’t have time to be giving orders about me, so I was to tell you instead.’

  Greta seemed to believe him, nodding her head and returning to the kitchen. Soon, he saw her walking past the dining room window, her coat buttoned up, her hat placed firmly on her head.

  The gramophone was heavy, and it took him a while to get it from the living room into the dining room, which overlooked the garden and was close to the kitchen. Once he had it in position, he ran back, his hands sweaty, and chose the record that had a picture of a woman on the sleeve cover, the music he remembered as something his mother had played years before.

  Just as he was threading the hole of the shiny black vinyl onto the spoke, he heard the study door open.

  He held his breath, the record hovering above the player. There were no footsteps, there was no voice shouting out.

  He heard a grunt, then the study door closed again.

  He hadn’t eaten the cake yet.

  Friedrich placed the record down. He had to get rid of Schmidt – but how? He was sure he would eat the cake; he was sure that the sleeping tablets would work again. He just had to wait.

  Suddenly there was a crashing in the study, as if a heavy tome had fallen off a shelf.

  Anna came running from the kitchen and saw Friedrich. ‘What’s going on?’

  Friedrich shrugged. ‘It came from the study.’

  Anna’s eyes glanced at the gramophone, then she walked quickly away, Friedrich at her heels.

  At the study door she knocked once, twice, three times, and there was no answer.

  ‘Maybe we should go in?’ Friedrich suggested. ‘Just to check.’

  Anna’s hand went to the doorknob, then pulled back again.

  ‘Here, I’ll do it. I’ll go in first – that way, if he shouts then he can shout at me. He does it all the time anyway.’

  Anna nodded at him, and with confidence he opened the door to find Schmidt face-down on the rug in front of his father’s desk, drool spilling out of his mouth as he snored.

  ‘Oh!’ Anna gasped behind him. ‘He’s hurt.’

  ‘No! Not hurt.’ Friedrich pushed her out of the room, closed the door and stood in front of it, barring her entrance. ‘He’s just sleeping. He does that all the time, especially when Father goes out.’

  ‘Sleeping – on the floor?’ Anna’s hands were on her hips.

  ‘Yes. Father said he could not sleep on the couch as it was not his, so I saw him lie down the other day and go to sleep.’ Friedrich wanted to laugh at how easily the lies rolled off his tongue. He wished Otto were here so he could witness his prowess.

  ‘Are you sure – maybe we should call a doctor to be safe?’

  Although Anna looked concerned, she did not move to go to the telephone and Friedrich realised that she wanted to believe him.

  ‘Really, Anna.’ He took her hand in his, leading her away. ‘Better let him sleep. You know how grumpy he is. Imagine if we make a fuss and wake him, imagine then how angry he will be.’

  Anna left him in the hallway and returned to the kitchen, and he noticed that she walked with her head a little higher now his parents were gone and Schmidt was no longer a threat.

  He went back to the gramophone and finished setting it up. Then, he lit some candles around the room, closed the drapes, and pushed the large table out of the centre of the room as much as he could, leaving some space on the floor.

  He stood back and looked at his handiwork – it was magical,
he decided, fit for a king and queen.

  Isaac was still tinkering with a piece of rubber piping when Friedrich opened the door to the shed, blowing into it and then cleaning it with a black rag.

  ‘Come with me,’ Friedrich said, making Isaac look up.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘It’s a surprise. Please, come with me.’

  ‘I can’t, I have to finish this for your father.’ He held up the rubber piping. ‘It’s for the car, for the fuel. It had a hole in it.’

  ‘Father and Mother have gone to Munich. They won’t be back tonight. Please, Isaac. If you do this for me, I promise in my whole life whilst we are friends, I will never ask for anything else. Please!’

  Friedrich had come so close – so very close. He had not thought that Isaac might not do as he wanted.

  ‘It’s Anna!’ he suddenly blurted out. ‘She needs you.’

  ‘Anna?’ Isaac stood and looked to the house. ‘I thought you said it was a surprise?’

  ‘It is. Sort of. I was in a rush and my words got all jumbled. Anyway, please, it’s Anna, she needs you.’

  Slowly Isaac nodded and he followed Friedrich to the house, through the kitchen door where Anna was washing sheets in a large sink, water creeping up the arms of her brown work dress, causing it to darken.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Anna spun round, water dripping onto the tiled floor.

  ‘Come with me.’ Friedrich held out his hands to the two of them and dumbly they took them, allowing him to lead them into the dining room.

  Anna gasped when she entered. ‘This is what you’ve been doing?’

  Friedrich dropped their hands and placed the needle on the record, the smooth melody of a saxophone ringing out, then accompanied by the tinkle of light keys on the piano.

  ‘It’s for you both. To dance. It made Mother happy when Father would dance with her. And when Otto and I would dance at school. I thought you would like it.’

  They both stood as still as statues, staring at him.

  He had got it wrong; he had got it all so wrong. They didn’t want to dance – they didn’t like his surprise.

  He felt tears prick at his eyes, then Anna stepped forward, crouched down and put her arms around him.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered in his ear, her voice breaking. ‘Thank you. It’s perfect.’

  A woman’s voice began to sing – deep, rich with English words that Friedrich did not know.

  Isaac still stood motionless, and Friedrich watched as Anna moved towards him and took his hands in hers. ‘May I have this dance?’ she asked him.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, Isaac put his arm around Anna and the two began to sway to the music, moving silently, carefully. Friedrich sat on a chair and watched them, the flicker of the candles in the darkened room causing shadows to jump on the walls, so that their shadows danced too, as if there were more people in the room, all of them dancing whilst the voice of the woman, who his mother had said was named Billie Holiday, sang out, making Anna cry.

  Chapter 23

  Isaac

  April 1945

  Isaac dreamt that he was with Hannah. They danced in the spring meadows, the music filtering from the heavens, a woman’s voice, rich and deep, the tinkle of piano keys helping her to hold the melody.

  There was someone else with them too – a child, a boy, who clung to them both – who had Hannah’s eyes. In that moment he felt a rush of warmth, of happiness swelling in his body.

  Hannah did not speak to him as they danced. They held each other close.

  When he woke, he felt bereft. His body was cold, his fingers numb, and he realised where he really was.

  ‘You were muttering in your sleep,’ Elijah told him as he climbed out of his bunk.

  ‘What did I say?’

  ‘I don’t know – just mutterings. We all do it, I suppose. But I haven’t heard you do it before.’

  Isaac tried to talk but a wave of coughing overtook him, and he felt Elijah’s hand patting him gently on the back.

  ‘You’re getting worse,’ he said.

  Jan’s face appeared, his hand on Isaac’s forehead. ‘He is. You are.’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’ Isaac made to get out of bed. ‘It’s just a cold. Nothing more.’

  He allowed Elijah and Jan to help him up, get him dressed, and walk him to the roll-call square.

  As they walked, Isaac saw three men carrying a body, the figure somehow familiar, adding it to the pile beside the morgue – the overflow of death all around them, dotted in heaps as if they were mounds of manure, waiting to be spread in a garden.

  A garden. Levi.

  Isaac pulled away from his friends and hobbled as quickly as he could towards the men, towards the body. It lay on top of the pile, the face contorted, the mouth wide open, a fly settling inside.

  ‘Died a few days ago,’ one of the prisoners who had carried the body told him. ‘Knew him, did you?’

  Isaac stroked Levi’s forehead, then tried to push his eyelids down to cover the dark staring eyes. He felt the rise of a moan but swallowed it down, where it lodged like a piece of stale bread in his throat.

  ‘Won’t work. Rigor has set in.’

  ‘You can’t leave him here, like this,’ he croaked, willing himself not to cry.

  ‘No choice. We can’t leave any of them here, but where are we meant to put them? The guards won’t let us bury them.’

  ‘He always smiled,’ Isaac said. ‘He always smiled and told jokes. He was going to get out – I knew he was.’

  Elijah was now by his side. ‘Who knows who is going to survive, Isaac? Come. We have to be counted.’

  He did not hear his number called; he did not care. Levi’s face haunted him. The grin gone, the humour and light disappeared.

  When he sat in his shed later that morning, he could not remember getting there. It was the same feeling he had had when Hannah had died – one minute he would be in his workshop tinkering with a broken clock, the next he would find himself at home, sitting in front of the empty fireplace, wood in his hands as if ready to light it, yet with no memory of how he’d got to this point in time.

  He coughed, a tightness in his chest, wishing it would overcome him, forcing his heart to stop right there and then so he could go to Hannah and dance in the field, just like in his dream.

  When he had calmed his breathing, he managed to extract his gift for Anna from underneath the loose floorboard. This was something he could do – something his brain could concentrate on. He laid it out in front of him, the watch face with the tiny designs, the strap that linked together gold clasps, the tiny rubies and sapphires he had taken from the bracelet straps of some of the finer ladies’ watches. The only thing left to do was to empty the insides of the quiet watch she had so admired and transplant them into this one.

  With shaking hands and wheezing breath, he spent hours picking up cogs and springs with his delicate tweezers, fitting them together in a puzzle only he knew how to solve.

  ‘Isaac?’ He was dreaming again. It was Anna’s voice in the dream. Where was the music?

  ‘Isaac?’ she said again, this time releasing the anchor of sleep, leading him into the cold reality that made him feel nauseous as he surfaced.

  ‘You were sleeping,’ she said, as she placed a mug of hot water in front of him. ‘You are still so unwell. I thought hot water with some lemon juice, sugar and honey would help more than coffee.’

  He took the drink, still dopey with sleep, and sipped at it, tasting the sweetness, feeling the warmth seep to his belly.

  ‘Thank you,’ he managed to croak, his voice becoming hoarser with each coughing fit.

  ‘Let me find you something to eat.’ She turned to hurry back to the kitchen.

  ‘No.’ He stopped her, waving the suggestion away. ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘You must eat, Isaac. You must.’

  ‘I cannot. Not today. Please.’

  Anna hesitated, then sat and faced him, her brow crinkled with concern.
r />   ‘You shouldn’t worry like that,’ he said. ‘Your face may stay that way.’

  She grinned at him. ‘I knew you had it in you to make a joke.’

  ‘A wise man once told me that I should smile more and try to find the humour, even here. I thought he was mad. But I have come to realise that he was right. It is the only thing they can’t take away from us – the part of us that makes us completely ourselves, completely unique.’

  ‘When we danced,’ Anna said, ‘that’s when I felt myself again. As if the music and the movement brought me out once more. I have a friend, Nina, and she loves to dance. I haven’t told her yet that I danced in Sturmbannführer Becher’s dining room, but when I do, I can’t wait to see the surprise and delight in her eyes.’ Anna paused, looking thoughtful, and then she nodded towards the hiding place.

  ‘Will you read me some more?’ she asked.

  Isaac thought of the last time he had read – the bodies in the vats of water.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he said.

  ‘Please. It will fill our minds with something else.’

  Before he could protest, Anna went to the loose floorboard and lifted it, pulling out the pages.

  ‘Here.’ She handed it to him.

  He was glad that he had kept the watch in his pocket, ready to give it to her, but now she sat there, he wanted to wait, wanted it to be a special moment, like the dancing, something that would bring them both joy. He looked at the pages in his hands. He wasn’t sure that J. A. L.’s writings would achieve that goal.

  The last entry he had read alone, he discarded.

  ‘All right, let’s see,’ he said, and began.

  Chapter 24

  J. A. L.

  September 1944

  My love, I have not written you for some time. It is not that I did not want to, rather my words were not of love, not of beautiful things or drawings that I think will amuse and delight you.

  Today though, my mind is clearer. Autumn has set in, and as I raked leaves today, I marvelled at the colours before me. The yellows, golds, reds and browns, all mingled together, all different and yet the same.