Page 92 of The Watchmaker of Dachau

‘Not quite! You’ve still got a few years on me yet.’

‘I didn’t think you would make it,’ she said, as she directed him towards the purple flowered sofa. ‘I didn’t get a letter back, so I assumed you were away somewhere again on your travels.’

‘I was, but by the time I got your letter, there was no time to reply. I simply got on a plane and now here I am,’ he grinned.

‘Drink?’ Frank asked him. ‘We’ve anything you can think of – wine, scotch, champagne even!’

‘Scotch would be great,’ Friedrich said.

As soon as Frank left, the pair fell into the language that came naturally to them, catching up on each other’s lives since the last time they had seen one another.

‘You still like it here then?’ Friedrich asked her.

‘What – England, you mean?’

‘I always imagined that you would return home at some point.’

‘I’m not sure where home is. I know it has been here, with Frank and the children. That’s enough of a home for me.’

‘I went back, you know, to the house and the camp.’

‘When?’ She sat straight now, her eyes on his.

‘I couldn’t help it. I was on a train platform in Munich and there was an announcement that the next train to Dachau would be leaving in five minutes. Before I knew what I was doing, I was running to catch a train I wasn’t sure I really wanted to be on.’

‘What was it like?’ Her voice was quiet now.

‘The house, my parents’ house, is a museum now. My little red engine in one of the display cases – can you imagine that?’

‘And the camp?’

‘People go there and look around. I never saw it as it was, so I don’t know how it is different, but I saw the photographs that the Americans took, watched the reels of films. I saw it as best I could through your eyes.’

‘I knew it had become somewhat of a tourist attraction, but I have never met anyone who has been.’

‘It’s more than that though.’ He leaned forward and took her hand in his. ‘It’s not for amusement, it’s to educate – so that it is never forgotten.’

‘And yet I have tried most of my life to forget.’

He nodded then sat back, letting the cushions behind envelop him.

‘You look tired,’ she said.

‘I’m always tired.’

‘Still have trouble sleeping?’

‘Scotch helps.’ He raised the glass that Frank had handed him and grinned.

‘Your parents,’ she ventured. ‘They still haunt you, don’t they?’

Fredrich ran his hand over the stubble on his chin, that too turning grey. ‘I know they are dead, but yes, they do. Like ghosts. It’s almost like I can hear them telling me I am useless, or Father berating me for not eating quickly enough. When Mother died, when I was what, seventeen? I thought then that my life would be easier – isn’t that terrible, to be glad when your parents die and not grieve for them? Anyway. It was Father I could not leave. He was almost dead when we arrived in Argentina. He drank to escape what he had done, but it didn’t work; it made him a sad, useless man who soiled himself and needed his son to wipe his behind.’

‘And yet you think of them.’

‘And yet I do.’ He drank the scotch back in one go, and went to find Frank to pour him another.

When he returned, she saw him playing with something in one hand.