Page 10 of The Watchmaker of Dachau

‘You’re good at everything.’ Anna smiled at Nina and touched the tip of her nose with her own. ‘You work hard and that’s what you must do. Then one day, you can do whatever you want to do.’

‘Like be a dancer.’ Nina closed her eyes for a moment, and Anna imagined that she was picturing herself twirling in front of an audience applauding her.

‘What do you want to be, Anna?’ Nina opened her eyes.

‘I’m too old for that now.’

‘You’re only twenty-nine, you can still decide.’

‘I feel older than that.’

‘Me too. I feel old. My bones and my legs – everything hurts.’

Anna flexed her toes in response and felt the pain as she did. It was as if all her muscles and tendons had tightened since she had arrived, like her bones had been broken and put back together again, the skin shrinking over her as the fat that had filled her breasts, her thighs and her stomach had seemingly melted away, leaving little else than a structure to hold her head and make her work.

‘I don’t know. For now, a maid is what I am, and then maybe one day things will be different.’

‘They will be, isn’t that what you always say? Don’t you think they will be different?’

‘Maybe for you, dear Nina.’

‘Why not for you?’ Nina’s face in the darkness looked pained, as though she was going to cry.

‘Maybe for me too,’ Anna said, taking her arm from under the thin blanket and stroking Nina’s hair, which was beginning to grow back after being shorn at Auschwitz, reminding Anna of downy baby hair. ‘Maybe for me too.’

Anna’s hand soothed Nina to sleep and back to a dream, where, she hoped, Kuba was waiting, telling his sister that all was well, and that they would be together again.

The second time Anna woke that morning was to the sound of Aufseherin Margarete Lange’s voice booming around the bunkhouse, alerting them that it was the beginning of their day.

Nina was no longer in Anna’s bunk but making her own bed, pulling the blanket over her pillow, taking as much care as if she were at home.

Anna swung her legs out of her bunk and placed her feet on the wooden floor, feeling the freezing cold seep through her soles. She dressed quickly in her work dress, tying the blue scrap of cloth over her greasy brown hair, made her bed and then quickly got in line for breakfast.

In front of her was Joanna, a woman she had met at the camp, but had since found out was from the village next to her.

‘It’s not even light,’ Joanna said, as the other women woke and dressed. ‘You’d think they wouldn’t want to get up before dawn just to wake us up.’

‘Lange seems to enjoy it,’ Anna said, as the Aufseherin wandered the bunks, pushing women aside, swatting them with the back of her hand now and then if she thought they were moving too slowly.

Anna watched as Lange made her way to the back of the bunkhouse and shouted at the lump that was Marguerite, still huddled in bed.

‘Up! Up, you lazy pig!’ Lange shouted.

When there was no movement, Lange hit the lump with her baton, waiting for some reaction, but there was none.

‘You – you there.’ Lange pointed her baton at Anna. ‘Come here.’

Anna walked over, knowing what she would see when she was made to remove the blanket from Marguerite.

‘Pull the blanket back,’ she ordered.

Anna did not want to. She imagined what was underneath and could not bear to see any more death. It was daily – either in this bunkhouse or others – as each stream of new prisoners arrived from other camps, their bodies already frail, sick and failing. They were dying before Anna’s very eyes.

‘Pull it back, I said!’ Lange swatted at Anna’s arm, causing her skin to sting with pain.

Anna slowly peeled the blanket back, and there beneath it was the pale, skeletal body of Marguerite, her eyes closed, her lashes so black against her porcelain skin. Anna gently touched her neck to find a pulse, even though she knew there wouldn’t be one.

‘Dead?’ Lange asked, raising an eyebrow.