Page 68 of The Watchmaker of Dachau

Jan’s face appeared, his hand on Isaac’s forehead. ‘He is. You are.’

‘I’ll be fine.’ Isaac made to get out of bed. ‘It’s just a cold. Nothing more.’

He allowed Elijah and Jan to help him up, get him dressed, and walk him to the roll-call square.

As they walked, Isaac saw three men carrying a body, the figure somehow familiar, adding it to the pile beside the morgue – the overflow of death all around them, dotted in heaps as if they were mounds of manure, waiting to be spread in a garden.

A garden. Levi.

Isaac pulled away from his friends and hobbled as quickly as he could towards the men, towards the body. It lay on top of the pile, the face contorted, the mouth wide open, a fly settling inside.

‘Died a few days ago,’ one of the prisoners who had carried the body told him. ‘Knew him, did you?’

Isaac stroked Levi’s forehead, then tried to push his eyelids down to cover the dark staring eyes. He felt the rise of a moan but swallowed it down, where it lodged like a piece of stale bread in his throat.

‘Won’t work. Rigor has set in.’

‘You can’t leave him here, like this,’ he croaked, willing himself not to cry.

‘No choice. We can’t leave any of them here, but where are we meant to put them? The guards won’t let us bury them.’

‘He always smiled,’ Isaac said. ‘He always smiled and told jokes. He was going to get out – I knew he was.’

Elijah was now by his side. ‘Who knows who is going to survive, Isaac? Come. We have to be counted.’

He did not hear his number called; he did not care. Levi’s face haunted him. The grin gone, the humour and light disappeared.

When he sat in his shed later that morning, he could not remember getting there. It was the same feeling he had had when Hannah had died – one minute he would be in his workshop tinkering with a broken clock, the next he would find himself at home, sitting in front of the empty fireplace, wood in his hands as if ready to light it, yet with no memory of how he’d got to this point in time.

He coughed, a tightness in his chest, wishing it would overcome him, forcing his heart to stop right there and then so he could go to Hannah and dance in the field, just like in his dream.

When he had calmed his breathing, he managed to extract his gift for Anna from underneath the loose floorboard. This was something he could do – something his brain could concentrate on. He laid it out in front of him, the watch face with the tiny designs, the strap that linked together gold clasps, the tiny rubies and sapphires he had taken from the bracelet straps of some of the finer ladies’ watches. The only thing left to do was to empty the insides of the quiet watch she had so admired and transplant them into this one.

With shaking hands and wheezing breath, he spent hours picking up cogs and springs with his delicate tweezers, fitting them together in a puzzle only he knew how to solve.

‘Isaac?’ He was dreaming again. It was Anna’s voice in the dream. Where was the music?

‘Isaac?’ she said again, this time releasing the anchor of sleep, leading him into the cold reality that made him feel nauseous as he surfaced.

‘You were sleeping,’ she said, as she placed a mug of hot water in front of him. ‘You are still so unwell. I thought hot water with some lemon juice, sugar and honey would help more than coffee.’

He took the drink, still dopey with sleep, and sipped at it, tasting the sweetness, feeling the warmth seep to his belly.

‘Thank you,’ he managed to croak, his voice becoming hoarser with each coughing fit.

‘Let me find you something to eat.’ She turned to hurry back to the kitchen.

‘No.’ He stopped her, waving the suggestion away. ‘I’m not hungry.’

‘You must eat, Isaac. You must.’

‘I cannot. Not today. Please.’

Anna hesitated, then sat and faced him, her brow crinkled with concern.

‘You shouldn’t worry like that,’ he said. ‘Your face may stay that way.’

She grinned at him. ‘I knew you had it in you to make a joke.’