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

by Carly Schabowski

  ‘I must be going,’ Becher said, his eyes once more trailing Anna as she pegged the last sheet. ‘I’ve told the maid to bring you coffee and food each day – I cannot have you wasting away, can I?’ He laughed.

  Isaac forced a smile, realising that Becher had no idea about Greta’s small gifts of food. Perhaps he could save some, take it back to the camp for Elijah?

  ‘Work your magic,’ Becher said, walking away, following Anna into the house.

  Isaac watched him. He touched Anna’s shoulder just before she reached the kitchen door. She turned and Becher said something to her. She smiled, but Isaac could see from her body language that she was terrified.

  Becher laughed, then pushed past Anna so that his arm brushed against her chest. When he had gone, Anna looked to her chest, then smoothed her brown dress in place and walked inside after him.

  Isaac turned away and spilled the bag of watches onto the table – gold pocket watches, silver, and heavy men’s wristwatches, all of good quality. A few were engraved with messages from a wife to a husband, from children to their fathers, birthday wishes and all with love.

  Isaac imagined Becher sitting in a smoky bar in Munich, his colleagues next to him, all of them bartering each other’s treasures whilst they drank and talked of women, of their rich lives, of the new world they were making for their own children.

  ‘What did Father give you?’ Isaac turned to see the boy at the door of the shed, holding something in his hands.

  ‘Watches. More watches.’ He turned away from Friedrich, from the meanness of the boy’s tongue that could whip him again.

  ‘I brought you these.’ Friedrich stepped forward and gave him what had been in his hands. Isaac sat down and looked at the gift – a pair of black woollen gloves, the fingertips cut away.

  ‘My hands are smaller than yours, so I thought if I cut the fingertips out then they would fit you and you could still mend things.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Isaac turned the gloves over and then held them out to the boy, ‘but I can’t take them.’

  ‘Please. It’s from me, to say I am sorry for what I said the other day. I wanted to bring them to you sooner, but Mother has been home, and Father. They’ve gone out now – he’s taking her to an opera, they won’t be back until late.’

  ‘If they see me with them, they will take them away. It’s pointless that I keep them.’

  Friedrich sat on an upturned bucket. ‘Then hide them in here and just wear them when you’re working. They’ll keep you warm. If anyone finds them, I’ll say I put them in here when I was playing and forgot them.’

  Isaac smiled at the boy and pulled the gloves on.

  ‘Are you magic?’ the boy asked, his elbows on his knees, his palms upturned to hold his chin.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I heard Father say that you had to work your magic. Are you then? Magic?’

  ‘I don’t know magic, no.’

  ‘That’s a shame. If I were a magician, I would make myself disappear from here.’

  ‘And where would you go?’

  ‘I’d go to see my friend Otto. His father lets him build treehouses. My father won’t let me.’

  ‘That sounds like a nice idea.’ Isaac picked up a wristwatch, its glass face smashed, the tiny clock face scratched and scarred. He doubted he could mend this one.

  ‘Where would you go?’ The boy stood and peered at the watches, and reached out his finger to trace the engravings of birds, ships and flowers etched into the pocket watch cases.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If you were magic, where would you make yourself go? Would you stay in the town with the others or would you leave?’

  ‘I would go home.’

  ‘Where is that?’

  Isaac leaned back in his chair and watched the boy for a moment. Could he really talk to him, share something with him?

  Before Isaac could answer, Greta’s voice rang out, shouting for Friedrich to come for lunch.

  Friedrich looked towards the voice, then at Isaac. The boy grinned and said, ‘See you later!’ and ran from the shed, his jacket flapping out behind him as if he were really going to take flight, lift from the ground and disappear to Otto’s home.

  For the third time that day, Isaac found himself smiling.

  That afternoon, Anna came to the shed and stood before him, a cup of coffee in one hand and a plate with bread and cheese in the other.

  ‘I was told to bring you something every day. Herr Becher wants to make sure you are fed,’ she said.

  Isaac cleared a space on his little desk, and Anna placed the cup and plate down.

  ‘You have a new dress,’ Isaac said.

  ‘It was Greta’s idea, to make me blend in a little better.’

  ‘You need to blend in?’

  ‘Frau Becher doesn’t like me being in the house. Maybe this way she won’t notice me so much.’

  Isaac nodded and thought of the way Becher had noticed her instead.

  ‘I’ll bring coffee again this afternoon.’ Anna made to leave, then she suddenly reached out her hand to touch the broken wristwatch on the table. She picked it up and placed it on her tiny wrist.

  ‘I’ve never had a watch,’ she said. ‘This one… this is so like Father’s.’

  Isaac leaned over and helped her with the clasp. It was far too large, and drooped over her hand. Anna laughed. ‘I look like a child playing with adult things.’

  ‘It can’t be fixed, I don’t think.’ Isaac watched her.

  ‘It can’t? Whose is it?’

  Isaac shrugged.

  ‘Never mind.’ Anna took the watch off her wrist and placed it on the desk. ‘At least you have something to keep your mind occupied.’

  ‘You don’t?’ Isaac held the watch she had removed, noticing that the links of the strap had smaller links between the larger ones.

  ‘Cleaning and cooking doesn’t engage your mind. It makes it worse – it wanders free from itself, imagining things, trying to understand things. When I was younger, I had diaries, I would write in them when I couldn’t sleep – anything I was scared of, I would write down and then, in the morning, it was as if it had disappeared into the night.’

  She smiled weakly at Isaac. ‘Silly, I know. I wish I could write my diaries now.’

  Anna shrugged then went to the door, leaving Isaac alone to his meal. Her eyes, so much like Hannah’s, made him feel protective of her, as though he wanted to wrap her in a blanket and let her tell him all the things she was scared of so he could make them disappear into the night.

  Ignoring his coffee and food, he thought of the secret bundle of papers underneath the floorboard, and wondered whether there was perhaps a spare sheet, just one page that he could give to Anna so she could write once more.

  He scrabbled around on the dusty floor and prised the board away, taking out the bundle. He did not intend to read anything; he merely wanted to find a gift for Anna. But the first page caught his eye, the sentences calling out to him to be read:

  Today I remembered the time that Father took me fishing. It was a day much like today, when the blossom buds unfurled on branches, finally covering their nakedness with the most delicate and colourful of clothing…

  Chapter 12

  J. A. L.

  May 1944

  Today I remembered the time that Father took me fishing. It was a day much like today, when the blossom buds unfurled on branches, finally covering their nakedness with the most delicate and colourful of clothing. Everywhere you looked, life was beginning again – newborn lambs and calves that suckled at their mothers, and played and ran with their little friends in fields that were a thick carpet of green.

  The birds were the first to alert me to the change of today, that change of hopefulness. A nest in the tree behind me has finally come to life, the squeaks and squawks of hungry mouths keeping their blackbird mother busy most of the day. It is nice to hear the birds sing once more. In the camp there are only crows, hawking and screami
ng as if they too realise what is happening on the ground below them.

  But today is for remembering. Father and I went fishing for the first time. I was perhaps five or six, yet I felt like a grown man with my fishing rod slung over my shoulder, Father’s cap on my head too large and slipping constantly. I walked with him, three or four steps to keep up with his own long stride, and as we walked through the city, people waved at him, said hello, and I felt so proud to be by his side.

  Father did not usually fish. He was not a man for the outdoors, preferring to stay inside and read his books, write a new lecture for his students, or make his children sit at his feet as he told us stories from his research, or sometimes from his own mind.

  I cannot remember why he took me fishing that day, other than when I woke, he was there at the dining room table, a small fishing rod bought just for me propped on the wall, waiting for me.

  I am sure we must have talked during our walk through the busy city streets, past the flower market that lit up the grey, gothic buildings around it with reds, yellows and purples. Past the university where students sat on the grass, reading, enjoying the spring sunshine, and waved at my father. Soon we reached the river that was held captive by bridges and pavements in the city, and followed it until we reached the outskirts, where buildings were fewer, and human traffic had quietened.

  The cathedral’s dome, mottled green, sat behind a stretch of river which Father had deemed perfect for our outing, telling me that we would hear the bells chime the hours and we could listen to a simple, beautiful sound that we perhaps did not listen to very often.

  ‘What’s a cathedral?’ I asked him as I settled onto the bank, careful not to let my feet get too close to the thick mud that slopped into the water; the thought of being stuck in there forever was on my mind.

  ‘It’s where people go to pray and to talk to God,’ my father said. He sat a little way behind me on a blanket he had brought from home, and emptied his bag which he had filled with a picnic and a jar of worms for me to hook onto my rod.

  ‘Like a synagogue?’ I asked.

  ‘Exactly so.’

  ‘So why don’t we call the synagogue a cathedral?’ I took a wiggly worm from him and impaled him on the hook as I’d seen my friends do.

  ‘Very good.’ Father nodded his approval at my handiwork. ‘We don’t call it a cathedral, because we are Jewish and people who go to a cathedral are not Jewish.’

  ‘But you said they talk to God?’ I was confused and struggling to get the line in the water.

  Father stood and took the rod from me, casting it out into the dappled water until it plopped with a satisfying noise into the depths. We sat back then and waited, the rod in my hand, Father pouring two cups of fresh orange juice. Then, he lit his pipe.

  ‘There are a lot of people who will tell you I am wrong, but all I can tell you is what I believe. I believe that they too are talking to our God, that we Jews and they Christians are not so different after all.’

  ‘So it doesn’t matter then, where you talk to God?’ I moved the rod into my left hand and gulped down some juice.

  ‘It doesn’t matter one bit. Why, you can talk to Him here if you like!’

  ‘Right here?’ I looked out across the river, the line of the city not far away.

  ‘Right here. He’s everywhere, so whenever you feel like talking to Him, just talk, He’ll hear you. All of this, He created. Look around at all the new life that spring brings – that’s where you can see God most at work.’

  I nodded. I liked to think that I could just have a quick talk with God wherever I was, and vowed to do so.

  Perhaps the memory came to me today, not because of spring, or even those baby birds, but to remind me that I can still talk to God, that He is still here, even though it does not feel like it at all.

  It is hard to believe that God is here when all around me I see my friends, my camp mates, starving to death, dying of diseases that wreck their bodies, see them shot, beaten and then disappear.

  The blackbird has returned to the nest and her babies are now giving a quiet chirrup of satisfaction at their meal. Perhaps, if I close my eyes and listen to the birds and pretend I am on the riverbank with my father once more, I can remember how to talk to God, I can remember how to pray, I can remember how to feel hope.

  A parcel arrived today that caused much excitement in the house. Her Majesty, Liesl Becher, was awake before dawn as I worked in the garden, raking the last of the dead leaves and heaping them ready for a fire.

  She surprised me. I have never seen her awake so early before, but her face was at each window every few minutes, staring out onto the driveway in anticipation. I knew it must be important as I was told to leave clearing the driveway and return to the shed, lest anyone see me – she hated the thought of visitors seeing a prisoner on the grounds of her home. When they hide me away in this dank shed, I am glad of it. I get to sit, to write, to stretch my body out.

  I keep a keen ear out for any movement so I can always look as though I am working. Around me are scattered old pots and a few packets of seeds, to seem as though I am planting, if anyone ever bothered to check, but I doubt they will.

  I heard the crunch of tyres on the driveway and crouched down to look out of the window. All I could make out was the side of a van, and then two men coming round towards the kitchen door. Neither had anything in their arms to begin with, but then they returned to the van and brought out a package which they carried together carefully.

  There was a cry from Liesl inside, annoyed that they had used the kitchen entrance, but then a hush descended, and I realised that Herr Becher must be at home – he is the only one who can silence her.

  I desperately wanted to know what was in that parcel. Deliveries occur every day here – dresses she orders, or food, even furniture. It is as though they cannot live one day without something new arriving. But this was different; it woke her before dawn and that meant it was something important.

  I must have dozed off for perhaps an hour, but not more, and it was the parcel that woke me.

  At first, I could not understand the noise – scratching, then a woman singing, loud, then quiet, then silence. Finally, I understood they had taken receipt of a gramophone. Sure enough, Beethoven was soon heard, blasting through the house and sailing out to me in the garden. Then the music changed to something lighter. I imagined both Herr Becher and his wife arguing over which music to play – their tastes so different. They are so different from one another; it is only to be expected. Herr Becher is ramrod straight in everything he does; his orders, the way he moves. He seems kind but can then turn, quick as a flash. He reminds me of the old cat my grandmother had for catching mice. One moment you could stroke him and hear his purr, then the next, he would bite you or swipe at you, leaving a trail of blood, then simply walk away. That’s how Herr Becher is – you cannot trust the smile, the random thanks he sometimes bestows on my work in the garden. You cannot trust it at all.

  Liesl is more transparent. She must be forty, yet she has not aged from being a spoilt child. She does nothing all day but eat and sleep. She will entertain guests now and then, but mostly she is surly and distant until her husband comes home, and then she transforms herself. She dresses for dinner with her husband as if they are going to the opera – ball gowns of silk and velvet, her hair shining and pinned back with mother of pearl pins, her lips rouged and her eyes bright and eager.

  I see her, but she rarely sees me. She cannot help but look at her reflection in the window glass. If her husband is late, she stands fingering the pearls at her neck, as if he is away fighting in some foreign land and not simply down the rutted track that leads to the camp.

  I tried to leave the shed a while ago, but was told to stay inside by the cook. Guests will be arriving soon and I cannot be seen. I asked when I was to leave to return to the camp, but the cook shook her head and has now locked me in here for the night. I cannot say I mind; I have a small torch, a bundle of food, and some wa
ter the kindly cook has given me to see me through the night, and I have made myself a bed from the old sacks and bit of rubbish stashed away in here. Besides, when I lie back, there are cracks in the shed roof, and from here I can see the stars and listen to the music that streams out from the dining room, and pretend I am somewhere else altogether.

  I should talk to God tonight; I am sure He will hear me here.

  Chapter 13

  Anna

  February 1944

  A wave of typhus hit the camp, reminding Anna of those violent winds of summer storms that struck trees, leaving little in their wake. It seemed as though it was located in just one bunkhouse, where each morning Anna, Joanna and Nina were made to check sleeping bodies for a pulse, a breath, and those that expired were to be carried out to a pit at the rear of the bunkhouses where they were thrown in, one on top of the other, then their bodies set alight, the smell of burning flesh and hair clinging on to Anna’s clothes and skin.

  Nina had fashioned them masks from pieces of material she had sneaked out of the laundry, which they wore when moving the bodies and then again when the pyres were lit.

  Anna was moving the first body of the day, a woman from another bunkhouse who had died in the night, the others too weak to help. She carried the woman by her arms, Nina carrying her by the ankles. She looked to Anna the same as the others had – her mouth open, the skin on her body stretched so thin that it looked as though it would rip, her ribs pronounced like the carcasses of cows Anna had seen hanging in butcher shop windows.

  At first, Anna had vomited when she had moved three bodies during those first days, her retching bringing up yellow bile that stung her throat and made her eyes water. She had cried too at night, silently into her pillow, mumbling a prayer for each of them. Yet now, after two weeks, the vomiting had stopped, the crying stilled to a few tears, but she still prayed for each of them.

  Nina would not speak to Anna of the death that surrounded them. Instead she would talk of her birthdays she had spent with her family when she was small, of her father who she had adored, of the books she had read – anything but what was in front of her each day.