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

by Carly Schabowski

‘Friedrich, you may not go anywhere but this house, is that understood? I will not say it again to you. You may go in the garden, but only use the side gardens, not the rear now that the watchmaker is using the shed. And as you’ve upset your mother, you may go to your room.’

  Friedrich stood, his legs shaking a little. He could see the anger in his father’s eyes, hear the words that had come out of his mouth, so clipped and threatening that he knew to disobey would mean a severe punishment.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mother,’ he said at the dining room door.

  She looked at him briefly and gave a weak smile, then waved him away, the rest of his dinner growing cold on the table.

  As he left, he saw Schmidt sitting in the living room, a foot propped up on a footstool, a glass of amber whiskey in his hand. Friedrich watched him for a moment as he drank, as if he were the man of the house.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ Schmidt barked, as his red face turned to look at him. He stood, placed the glass on the polished table, and walked towards Friedrich.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ His father appeared behind him.

  ‘Nothing,’ Friedrich answered, his head turning from his father to Schmidt.

  ‘He was staring at me, almost as if he wanted something. Tell me, Friedrich, what do you want?’ Schmidt bent down, his face close to Friedrich’s so he could smell the liquor, the stale cigarette smoke and Schmidt’s sweat.

  ‘He’s been difficult since he got home,’ his father said, and pushed Friedrich towards the staircase. ‘Go to bed!’

  As Friedrich took each step, he could hear his father asking Schmidt to come and have some dinner, his mother’s voice singing out that she, too, wanted Schmidt for company.

  Why did they make me come here? he wondered as he opened his bedroom door. What was the point?

  He sat on the edge of his bed, imagining Schmidt eating the rest of his dinner, his stupid fat face shovelling the food in like a pig that scoffs at the trough.

  Friedrich looked about him – at the train set, at the few books on the shelves – and wondered what he could do. His room was beginning to tire him already. The train set had provided some relief that afternoon from the boredom he felt, but he could not fathom spending all his time in this room, or in a side garden, and since he was told not to go to the rear garden, where the shed was, it was all he could think about.

  He left his room and tiptoed across the hallway, tried the doors opposite once more. The windows here would provide a view of the shed, and at least he could watch Isaac, and perhaps see the town in which they lived – maybe even see some children playing. But the doors were still steadfastly locked and there was no way that he would be able to pick a lock.

  ‘Otto could do it,’ he mumbled to himself, as he sat on the edge of the bed. ‘I should have asked Isaac – he could have done it, and he would have had to do as I told him, just like Father said.’

  Then he realised he was talking to himself like Anna, and he giggled.

  He picked up a book from his dresser and lay down to read about the ancient Egyptians, and how they made their mummies and pyramids. He was halfway through the first page when there was an almighty crash downstairs.

  He went over to the door and opened it a crack. He could hear his mother’s voice, loud, sobbing, screaming at his father. ‘How can you ask me to bear living here, day after day? No one wants to visit me here – my friends will not come! And who can blame them! With that place just a mile or so from us, with them infecting our very house!’

  Then Schmidt’s voice, soothing, trying to calm his mother when it was usually his father who would do this.

  Friedrich could not hear what his father said in response, only the rumble of his voice as he spoke. He didn’t dare leave the bedroom, didn’t dare peek at the scene unfolding below.

  Within moments, there was quiet, and then the sound of a door closing. He heard his father’s footsteps and then his voice, more clearly now. ‘She’s broken the damn phone,’ he said.

  Friedrich lay back on his bed. ‘Father is talking to himself now too. Perhaps we are all going mad.’

  Chapter 8

  Isaac

  The morning broke as it had done the day before. Adam the Kapo screamed a wake-up call at them as they lay half asleep in their bunks, huddled into balls to try and find warmth.

  As Isaac dressed and washed his face in the scummy water that others had already used, and took his piece of bread and weak black coffee, he noticed Jan looking at him and then whispering to another man whose large round eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks hollowed.

  Isaac sat on the edge of his bunk and ate slowly, trying to pretend he was simply at home, having breakfast before going to work.

  ‘You got yourself a nice job then?’ The man with the hollowed cheeks stood in front of him, leaning his arm on his bunk.

  Isaac looked at Jan, who sat on a lower bunk across from him, an unlit cigarette between his fingers.

  ‘I hear our Kapo singled you out – you know him, do you?’ the hollow-cheeked man asked.

  Isaac shook his head. ‘I don’t know anyone.’

  ‘You see that cigarette Jan has? You know, there are better ways to get things you want, or things you need, in ways that don’t make you a traitor.’

  ‘I’m not getting anything,’ Isaac said. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Apart from a nice little job with our Commandant? Maybe an extra meal or two? And what do you do for that exchange, eh? Tell him about some of us – what we do? You know, last night, two of our friends were beaten to death, right out there at roll call – which you missed. Don’t you think that’s a nice coincidence?’ The man came closer to Isaac, then took the last of his bread from his hand and ate it.

  ‘That’s enough.’ Jan stood now. ‘All my friend is saying, Isaac, is that if you are perhaps helping them for your own good, then it’s not too late. You don’t have to be like Adam, you understand?’

  Isaac saw Adam, the Kapo, shoving an elderly man, whose arms were over his head in expectation of a beating, from the bunkhouse.

  ‘Do you understand, Isaac?’ Jan repeated.

  Isaac nodded. ‘I’m not helping them. It’s just a job. It’s not my fault.’

  Jan patted Isaac’s hands. ‘I believe you.’

  ‘I don’t,’ the hollow-cheeked man said. ‘I’ll be watching you, Isaac.’

  The pair walked away from him and Isaac looked at his hands, which were now shaking from fear as well as the cold.

  That afternoon, Isaac found that he wasn’t alone in the shed. After he had fixed the grandfather clock, Schmidt took him back to the garden and handed him a small bag containing wristwatches and pocket watches of all sizes and shapes, all of which were silent.

  ‘I’ll let Herr Becher know that you were successful,’ Schmidt said, as he left Isaac outside the shed. ‘He requested that once you completed your task, you fix what is in that bag.’

  ‘To whom do they belong?’ Isaac asked, opening the bag to peek inside.

  ‘None of your business. Fix them.’ Schmidt walked away, leaving Isaac feeling somewhat lost. He had hoped for something more when the grandfather clock had begun to chime once again, ticking away, the cogs and wheels moving perfectly together, the chime for midnight and midday ready for the hands to strike the hour.

  If he had been at home, he would have taken a drop of whiskey to celebrate, and if it had been when Hannah was alive, he would have told her all about it, feeling as proud as if he had cracked a safe that held the King of England’s crown.

  He opened the shed door and was startled to see a hunched figure wearing the same uniform as himself, sitting on his chair, his head bowed as he napped.

  Isaac coughed, once, twice, then a third time, louder.

  A man, perhaps the same age as Isaac, with heavy eyebrows that almost obscured his eyes, and lips white with cold, raised his head.

  ‘You’re new,’ the man said to Isaac.

  ‘I was going to say the same thing to you,
’ he replied.

  ‘I’m not new. Rather, they had little work for me lately, but now I hear they can’t bear all the dead leaves and would like them to be removed. They like to remove things.’ The man stood and smiled at Isaac, which unnerved him as the smile reached the man’s eyes – no one he had known in this place so far could claim such genuine happiness.

  ‘What have they got you doing, then?’ the man asked.

  Isaac lifted the bag. ‘Fixing these.’

  The man did not wait for Isaac to show him; instead, he grabbed the bag from Isaac’s hands and began to take out each watch.

  ‘You know where these are from, don’t you?’ the man said.

  Isaac shook his head.

  ‘From the camp. From our belongings. They’ll sell them, or gift them to the guards, you’ll see.’

  Isaac took the bag roughly from him and began to place the watches back inside.

  ‘I’m Levi, by the way.’ The man did not seem upset at Isaac’s briskness. ‘And you are?’

  ‘Isaac. Are you going to be in here much longer? I’ve work to do.’

  Levi suddenly laughed. ‘My, my, you sound as though this is your shed, your workshop. Good for you, Isaac, good for you.’

  Levi picked up a rake and, whistling a tune, made his way out of the shed, leaving Isaac with the bag of inmates’ belongings.

  Isaac had been working less than an hour when Herr Schmidt came to the shed and handed him a telephone, the base broken and the wires escaping like octopus tentacles. ‘Fix this,’ he said, and placed it on the homemade table. ‘They’ll need it today, so be quick.’

  Schmidt left as quickly as he’d entered, and Isaac heard him shout something at Levi, who did not reply.

  The phone was dented in the base, a crack along the stem. He had never fixed a phone before – had never owned one either.

  He stood and opened the shed door, calling out to Levi, who ambled over, the smile on his face once more.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ Levi asked, leaning on the rake.

  ‘Have you seen a telephone before?’ Isaac showed him the mess that he had in his hands.

  ‘I actually had one myself. Two, if you count the one in my office. I’m not so sure I know how they work, mind you.’ Levi looked closer at the wires, the base. ‘Seems to me those wires there need to be connected to the base – see where they have come away. Then, I suppose, check the earpiece and the speaker, make sure they are all connected too – I can’t see how else you could do it.’

  ‘They need it by today,’ Isaac said worriedly, looking at the foreign object.

  ‘You’ll do it, I can tell,’ Levi said.

  ‘And how can you tell?’

  ‘You just look like you can.’

  Isaac did not look at him, his gaze on the telephone, imagining using it, calling someone for help – but who?

  ‘You need to smile more, you know,’ Levi suddenly said.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Isaac raised his head.

  Levi was staring at him as if he could read Isaac’s thoughts and see his memories, his brows knitted together as he spoke. ‘I mean it, you need to smile more. Start smiling and soon you’ll feel happier. It works.’ Levi bent down to pick at some weeds.

  ‘There is nothing to smile about.’

  Levi stopped pulling at the weeds and propped himself on the wooden rake once more. ‘You have known me what, an hour or so at best, but have you seen me without a smile?’

  ‘You look as though you are simply having a rest from tending your own garden; leaning on your rake as though you have all the time in the world.’

  ‘And I do. Have all the time in the world. You didn’t answer my question. Have you ever seen me without a smile?’

  ‘No,’ Isaac answered. ‘It makes you look simple. As if you don’t see what is going on around you.’ He lowered his gaze and began to look at the mess of wires once more, Levi’s questioning unnerving him – reminding him a little of Hannah, who always told Isaac to stop being so serious, to try and look at the world through kinder, happier eyes. ‘You can’t find happiness here,’ Isaac said simply.

  ‘You know, Isaac, my home was taken from me. My business. My wife and children sent to a different camp, where I expect they are dead or dying.’

  ‘And yet you smile.’

  ‘Yet I do. Can’t you see, Isaac? They have taken everything from me – everything. But this – my humour, who I am – they cannot. I was happy before in my life. Always joking, playing, smiling. I decided that no matter how I feel, no matter what they try and take away from me, I will keep this humour, I will keep who I am. Who were you before you came here?’

  Isaac stopped and looked up once more. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Of course it matters. Come on, who were you before?’

  ‘I was Isaac, with a dead wife. I was alone with my workshop and my watches. I had friends who I ate and drank with. I had God. But now, I have nothing.’

  ‘You still have God,’ Levi said, opening his arms towards the sky as if God Himself were visible above him.

  Isaac looked at the grey mulch of clouds overhead and tried to see through them – above them – towards the heavens. ‘I do. But I am not sure he can hear me anymore. Not from here.’

  ‘He can hear you anywhere, my friend.’

  ‘You should work. If they see you not working, what do you think they are going to do? Share a joke with you?’

  Levi suddenly laughed. ‘See, I knew you were funny! Share a joke with me, I like it. Do you think they would like my joke about Hitler – here.’ Levi leaned towards Isaac and said quietly, ‘Hitler and Göring are standing on top of the Berlin radio tower. Hitler says he wants to do something to put a smile on the Berliners’ faces. Göring says, “Why don’t you jump?”’

  Despite himself, Isaac felt himself smile.

  ‘You’ll laugh one day – one day, I promise you, you will laugh again. And in the meantime, I will keep you company and try my best to make you see some humour here.’

  ‘You need to keep that joke quiet,’ Isaac said. ‘If anyone hears you…’

  ‘Then what? They’ll kill me?’

  Isaac watched Levi as he resumed raking the dead leaves off the grass, his eyes bright, his movements swift like a dancer. Just a man tending his garden, who looked as though he had all the time in the world.

  He returned to the shed and set about trying to understand the mechanics of the phone, yet Levi’s grin, his voice, seemed embedded in his mind. He replayed the joke Levi had told and allowed himself to laugh. He remembered, then, a time when Hannah had told him he would smile again and laugh again, when the engravings that he had made on his tools would not haunt him so much. Had she been right? Had he smiled since then?

  He thought of the grandfather clock he had fixed in the Bechers’ home, that now neatly chimed and called the minutes and hours. All the time that had gone before, all that had happened to him, each minute ticking quietly by, and he had not laughed in years, not felt a ball of joy grow in his stomach as he went about his day, his life. He had surrounded himself with the ticking of time, yet had paid no attention to it as it had propelled him forward.

  But Levi – Levi who had had just as much despair in his life, still swore to cherish the time, to smile and to find some measure of joy.

  He thought of Hannah once more. She had been right – he would smile and laugh again one day, but he never thought it would be here.

  He shook his thoughts away and began his new task to fix the telephone. After some time, he felt he had a grasp on what each wire might do, and where it should be connected. Oddly, he felt content. It was a new, strange task, but he was engrossed in fixing something he had never seen before.

  It was not long until he was interrupted again. He didn’t look up when Levi entered but continued concentrating on his task.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Isaac looked up, surprised to see the boy there, his hands in his pockets, a mini
ature image of his father.

  At first he smiled, happy to see him, and then his smile disappeared. ‘You’re not to be in here. Go back to your train set,’ he told the boy.

  Friedrich ignored him and his eyes moved about the shed, as if he were looking for treasure.

  ‘It’s cold in here,’ he said.

  ‘It is. That’s why you should go back to the house and keep warm.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ Friedrich asked again.

  ‘Fixing this.’ Isaac sighed and showed him the telephone.

  ‘Mother threw it last night,’ Friedrich said.

  ‘She did?’

  ‘Yup. She threw it at Father. They think I don’t know but I heard them.’

  ‘How’s the train?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘It works. But Father says I can’t play with it too much. He says that I am almost a man and can’t play with toys much anymore, so Schmidt told me to find something else to do. He sent me to the side gardens, but there’s not much there – nothing to play with. He said I have to keep out of his way because he has important work to do for Father, but I saw him sitting in the living room with Mother and they were laughing at something, so I don’t know if that’s what he meant, or…’ Friedrich raised his arms as if in question.

  ‘So you came here – nothing to play with here either.’

  Friedrich sat on the floor of the shed in front of Isaac and crossed his legs. He picked up a small golden screw. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘A screw.’

  ‘What’s it for?’

  ‘To hold the base of the telephone together.’ Isaac felt something – a memory trying to resurface, but he pushed it down; the boy’s questions reminded him of someone else.

  ‘I always want to use the telephone, but I don’t. I don’t have anyone to call. Father says it’s for business.’

  Isaac nodded and gently tried to coax a wire out of the speaker, to connect it to another thread of wire. His hands shook. ‘You should go and play. If your mother finds you here, you will get in trouble.’

  ‘She’s busy with Schmidt.’

  ‘Your father then.’