Page 4 of The Watchmaker of Dachau

‘I have nothing,’ he simply said.

‘Nothing? A Jew with nothing?’ The man stared at the yellow star on Isaac’s coat.

Isaac held his hands open.

The man smirked at Isaac as if he had been waiting for someone just like him. He walked three or four steps towards a tall SS guard who stood aside, smoking a cigarette, his thick black coat wrapped around him, the lapels pulled up to keep his neck warm. He reminded Isaac of a crow.

The black crow listened as the man spoke to him, his moustache twitching, perhaps in a smile. He flicked his cigarette with expert fingers so that it flew into a pile of slushed snow. Isaac imagined that it extinguished with a hiss, like the candles he used at home.

The pair walked towards Isaac and he looked to Elijah, who was mumbling to another man about his magazine and whether he was indeed right to have brought it rather than the sheet music.

‘Name?’ The moustached man stood in front of Isaac, easily a head taller or more.

‘Isaac. Isaac Schüller.’

‘My Kapo here says you have no belongings?’

‘No.’

‘Not one thing?’

Isaac could feel sweat colleting under his armpits, even though his breath hung in the frigid air.

‘No. Not one thing.’

The moustache twitched again, then he turned to his Kapo and whispered in his ear, making him smile.

Suddenly, the butt of the Kapo’s baton was pounded into Isaac’s stomach. He hit the ground and curled himself up into a ball as the man struck him on the back, the kidneys.

‘Straighten out!’ the Kapo commanded. ‘Move your legs!’

Despite the pain, Isaac unfurled himself and lay flat on the ground, his breath quick and ragged.

The Kapo kneeled over him, his hands rummaging in the inside pockets of Isaac’s coat, his face set and disappointed at the lack of jewellery, watches or wallet. Then, he smiled. Slowly he drew out a leather pouch, just larger than an envelope. He held it up to the moustached man like a prized trophy.

‘Ah now, nothing you said,’ the moustached man said. ‘Stand up.’

Isaac placed the palm of his hand on the stony ground and heaved himself up, standing slightly doubled, wrapping his arms around his stomach where the brunt of the blow had hit him.

He looked left to see if Elijah was there, a face, someone who could help him, but he was lined up with thirty or so other men, their eyes facing towards a line of barracks and barbed wire that lay ahead.

Isaac looked back to the moustached man who was now unwrapping the leather pouch, revealing the tiny gold and silver instruments that lay within. He pulled out a miniature screwdriver, and held it close to look at the tiny engraving of Isaac’s name.

‘What are these?’ he asked.

‘They were my father’s,’ Isaac managed to gasp the words, his lungs feeling bruised. ‘They are mine now.’

‘Yours? And what do you do with them?’

‘I fix watches, clocks. Sometimes music boxes and jewellery puzzle boxes. Sometimes toys.’

‘Toys?’

‘Yes, children’s toys.’

‘Steam engines?’

Isaac nodded.