Page 44 of The Watchmaker of Dachau

‘Don’t thank me yet.’

The following morning, Isaac worked quickly. He took the tiny face from the woman’s watch, leaving just the leather strap which was worn and ripped. The hands were still, yet the design on the face was nothing like he had seen before. Where each number should be was a tiny design. There were birds at twelve, as if they were kissing, made to look like the number itself. The number one was a tiny weeping willow, two a swan, then three a squirrel eating. It was something he would have thought suitable for a child, yet the tiny pictures were almost miniature works of art that only an adult could appreciate. When he had seen the watch face in amongst the others, he had thought at once of Anna, of her tale of the forest and the trees and animals that dwelled there. It was made for her, he knew, and he would make it even more exquisite.

He knelt down and placed it in the hole where the bundle of papers lay, along with the tiny clasps he had taken from the man’s wristwatch weeks before. Bit by bit, he would make something new, something beautiful that would work and live again – something for Anna so he could see her face when he gave her his creation. He wanted to see her eyes smile, just as Hannah’s had done.

‘I’m alive!’ Levi’s voice was behind him, and Isaac got to his feet as quickly as he could.

‘So you are! Where have you been? Have you been sick?’ Isaac said, shaking Levi’s hand, both of them grinning at each other as if they were long lost friends.

Levi sat on the upturned bucket, his long legs in front of him, thinner than before, his face almost skeletal. ‘I was. A bit of a bad chest, that’s all. Took a while but I made it. I knew I would.’

‘How did you know?’

‘I didn’t smell lemons,’ Levi said, then began to tie up a shoelace that had come undone.

‘Lemons?’

‘Yes, lemons.’

‘Levi, you will have to elucidate.’

Levi sat up straight. ‘Lemons. It’s what you smell when you are dying.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘My grandfather and grandmother smelled lemons,’ Levi counted on his fingers, ‘my cousin, and probably my dog – he couldn’t actually tell me, but I knew.’

‘So that’s what I need to remember: if I smell lemons, I am near death.’

‘Well,’ Levi considered. ‘I mean, if you are perhaps near a lemon tree then you can logically conclude that it is not death you are smelling but an actual lemon.’

‘Thank you for explaining.’ Isaac sat down and added some oil to his lamp.

‘To work I must go.’ Levi stood. ‘Promise me if you smell lemons whilst I am gone, you will resist.’

‘I promise. What have they got you doing today?’

‘They want a brick wall instead of a fence around the back of the garden.’

‘Perhaps they are worried you will finally find a way to escape?’ Isaac grinned.

‘Perhaps. I think it is more likely they are worried who may want to get in.’

Levi pretended to doff his cap, then left Isaac alone.

He looked down at his work, at the watches staring silently at him, waiting for him to make time pass once more.

Each watch told a story to Isaac as he mended them. The way they were worn, the way they broke, gave clues to him like a detective at a crime scene – a crack in the glass coupled with a missing link spoke to him of a busy, distracted husband, perhaps wealthy, who did not care what happened to his timepiece. Isaac imagined that he would come home each day and undo his watch, throwing it in the general direction of a table, yet missing, not even noticing when it fell on the floor with a thud.

A thin gold chain that was attached to a pocket watch caught his eye. There was no cover, simply the watch face that ticked the seconds by. It was not broken. He lifted it and held it to his ear, listening to the soft tick-tock as it counted the seconds. There was nothing remarkable about the watch; it was simple, with no decoration or engraving, yet the thought of the gear train stopping to allow for the sound, the balance wheel oscillating back and forth to keep the time, was magical to Isaac, and he found himself laughing with joy.

‘Why are you laughing?’ Anna appeared in front of him – how long had she been standing there?

‘It’s this. Here.’ He held the watch out to her.

She placed the mug of coffee she was carrying onto his desk and held the watch.

‘It’s very nice,’ she said, and raised her eyebrow at him in question.