Page 28 of The Watchmaker of Dachau

‘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.’

‘He left this morning for Munich.’

Isaac sighed and lifted his gaze to the boy, who now had his chin balanced in cupped hands. ‘You’ll be bored here.’

‘Teach me to fix something,’ Friedrich said.

‘I can’t.’

‘You can and you have to. I know who you are, and you have to do as I say.’ Friedrich stood now, his hands on his hips. ‘You have to. You are the Jew who can fix things, but Father says that does not mean you are not an animal like the rest.’

Isaac placed the tools on the small table next to him. He looked Friedrich in the eye. ‘I am no animal.’ His voice was firm, cold. ‘You need to leave now.’

The boy’s bravado left him as soon as it had arrived, and he dropped his hands from his waist to hang limply by his side.

‘Go. Now.’ Isaac pointed to the door.

Friedrich began to walk away, then suddenly he turned and kicked at the phone base that Isaac had placed to one side on the floor. He sent it across the dusty boards where it cracked against a metal jerry can.

‘Fix it,’ Friedrich said angrily, then left.

Isaac waited a few minutes after the boy had left, until he stood to fetch the base of the telephone from where he had kicked it.

The boy hadn’t meant what he said, he knew. He could tell when parents had put words into children’s mouths, and he could hear the boy’s father speaking through him as he told him what to do.

His bad leg almost gave way underneath him as he tried to kneel to pick up the phone base. He rubbed at it and wished he could sit in a warm bath, letting the water lap over the muscles and tendons, releasing them and allowing him some relief.

As he picked up the base, he knocked over the jerry can. Isaac crawled towards it to set it right again and saw that it had fallen into a small hole in the ground, where a floorboard had come away. He picked up the can and then he placed his hand in the hole, out of curiosity, almost as if he expected to find his grandfather’s pocket watch inside, as if he were back in his shop once more.

Instead, his fingers found a cloth bundle. He pulled it out. The red cloth was cut from a piece of one of the old blankets he had been using in the shed, and it was bound and tied with a shoelace. Isaac looked behind him at the door, then back at the cloth bundle. Slowly, he untied the shoestring and uncovered a sheaf of papers, each one covered with diary entries, journaling, letters and drawings, the initials J. A. L. written in each corner.

‘Isaac!’ Levi’s voice was coming from outside. ‘Can I come in? I know you are busy, and I’m scared to interrupt you!’ His voice was almost jovial.

Isaac quickly wrapped the pages back inside their makeshift cover and placed them inside the hole, moving the plank of wood on top.

He stood and opened the door to Levi.

‘May I?’ Levi grinned at him and doffed his cap, as if he were wearing a bowler and the two of them were going to sit in an office and have a cordial business meeting.

Isaac smiled. ‘Come in.’

Chapter 9

Anna

‘You need to stop staring,’ Greta warned.

Anna turned from washing the pots in the sink, realising that once again her eyes had strayed to the kitchen window, watching the lamplight in the shed.

She had not seen Isaac that morning when Schmidt had walked her to the house – her workday beginning an hour or so before his, it seemed. She had wanted to speak to him again, just like they had when they had walked back to the camp; she wanted to hear his soft voice and precise words, as if he measured them out before saying them, each one important. Just like Piotr.