Page 54 of The Watchmaker of Dachau

‘It was Hannah who told me. She ran to me just like she had as a child, kicking dust up in her wake. But it was not a cry that I’d heard before – not one of joy, of pure excitement – it was like an animal that had been caught in a trap, in pain, unable to find its way out. I knew what had happened as soon as I saw her, as soon as I heard it. I knew my son was dead.’

Isaac cried without making any noise. He sat staring at her, letting the tears fall freely from his eyes. She felt a lump in her throat, the sadness not just for Isaac but of knowing the noise that his wife had made – she had made it once herself.

‘You asked me before about my fiancé,’ she said. ‘The day I found out he had died, I made the same noise as your wife. I remember that I fell to the floor, pulling at the skirt of my dress, then I put it over my head as if I could make it all go away – make myself go away.’

Isaac stood and walked towards her. He took her hands in his and squeezed them gently, as he had done when they had walked back to the camp one evening.

Then he turned from her, got down on all fours and scrambled around near an old jerry can.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked, wiping her face with the back of her hand.

‘Wait. Just wait there.’

A minute passed as Isaac looked under a floorboard, and then he stood upright, a bundle of papers in his hands.

‘What is it?’ She stood and looked at the papers in his hands, all covered with curly, neat writing.

‘I found them,’ he said proudly.

‘Where?’

‘Here, in the shed, underneath the floorboard.’

‘What are they?’

‘Letters, diaries, look here – drawings even.’ He pointed to a beautiful picture of a bumblebee that sniffed at a rose.

‘Sit. Sit.’ He waved his hand towards the upturned bucket. ‘I’ve been reading them. Not many. Perhaps we can read together? That way we don’t have to dwell on our own memories; we can read someone else’s.’

Anna sat, her heart pounding as if they had both found the secret way out of the camp, and waited for Isaac to begin.

Chapter 18

J. A. L.

August 1944

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

I begin my writing today with Shakespeare once more. This time with words of love as I cannot find my own.

Love endures. Is that what Shakespeare meant? I hope that is correct; I hope that love can endure, even in the doom we now find ourselves in.

Love.

I learned the word when I was little: first the love for my parents and my siblings, and then for a pet dog. Each love was different though – the love for my parents stupidly taken advantage of, as if they would always love me and me them. The love for my siblings was similar, yet I was aware that at times we could hate each other for any slight that we assumed one had committed.

The love I had for my dog, for Bernard, was different again. This was a love for a best friend, and something that I had to care for. It made me wonder sometimes if it was how my parents felt about me.

Bernard was truly my best friend in the whole world. My sister was jealous of him, of the bond I had with him, yet I know she loved him too and would find her napping with him, her arms wrapped around his neck, afraid to let him go.

I did not have many friends as a child; I didn’t like playing the games the boys at school enjoyed. Instead I was happier with my nose in a book, trying to imagine the worlds that were described to me, trying to imagine what it would be like to live that life.