Page 86 of The Watchmaker of Dachau

That night, Isaac was sent back to the camp; the atmosphere in the bunkhouse was electric with fear and hope.

‘I heard they are evacuating us tomorrow,’ Jan said, as he and Elijah helped Isaac into his bunk.

‘All of us?’ Elijah asked.

‘Who knows. That’s just what I heard. A few have decided to hide in the infirmary.’

‘You?’ Elijah asked.

‘I’m going to try,’ Jan said. ‘You two should come too.’

Isaac lay back on his bunk, his chest weighing heavy on him as if a boulder had been placed there. As Jan spoke, a scent reached him, pricking at his nose – lemons.

He turned on his side and closed his eyes, waiting for the lemon scent to get stronger, falling into a fitful sleep in which he imagined he was in the street that Adam had described, sitting with Mordecai and Ismail, drinking coffee, whilst all around them people were screaming.

He thought he had been asleep only moments when the guard with the scar over his eye woke him and half dragged him from his bunk.

Isaac started coughing but the guard did not care, and pushed him in front of him towards the door.

‘Herr Becher needs you now,’ he told him.

The sun was just breaking as he reached the house, birds waking up to sing for their breakfasts, the trees swishing and rustling as if telling secrets to one another. Isaac looked at the sky for a moment, marvelling at the world, at the nature all around him. He could not smell lemons anymore.

Herr Becher was revving the engine of the black car and asked Isaac to check it once more.

He fiddled with the petrol pump, as if it would help, and declared to Becher that everything was in working order.

‘Thank you, Isaac.’ Becher patted him on the back. ‘You have done a very good job, very good indeed.’

It was then that Isaac noticed he had shaved off his moustache, leaving a clean top lip spotted with sweat. His clothes had changed too. Now he wore brown slacks, a white shirt, as if he were someone entirely different.

‘You’ll be rewarded,’ Becher said, ‘I owe you for this.’

‘Shall I take him back?’ the guard with the scar asked.

‘No. No. Isaac will stay here. In the shed, Isaac, off you go. I haven’t quite finished with him yet,’ Becher told the guard, whose eyes never left Isaac as he hobbled away back to the shed.

He had one chance now, and this was it, he knew. He got on all fours and crawled, painfully, to the hiding place where he took out J. A. L.’s papers, placing the watch for Anna inside, then took a few sheets of spare paper and began to add his own story – one for Anna and Friedrich, the family that had been brought back to life.

As his hand began to scratch words on the paper with the pencil, he smelled them again – lemons. He needed to be quick.

Chapter 32

Isaac

My dearest Anna,

I write to you with a hurried hand, to try to tell you things I have thought during our friendship.

To begin, I wanted to say thank you – you brightened my days by just being you, by talking to me, and by caring for me. I think often of our talks, of how I was able to tell you about my life, my losses, which has relieved me of a weight I was not aware that I was carrying with me all these years. The dance we shared is seared into my memory – a memory where I felt young again, hopeful and free. And I have you to thank for that too.

Now I feel lighter, freer. It has helped me to imagine a future – one which I am not sure I will see, but one that gave me hope. In my imaginings, you were by my side, just as Hannah had been before. You are so much like Hannah – not just in the way you look at me, but in the way you consider everyone, worry for everyone and try to help. You brought Hannah back to me and for that I am forever thankful, as my heart is full once more with love, and I did not want to die consumed with hate and sorrow.

I know that you are broken too – your fiancé, parents and brother all taken from you – but know that you can be mended once more. You can have new parts of your life, new memories to replace the old, which will keep you moving, keep the time ticking along.

Remember, dear Anna, that you are strong, and you can overcome anything.

To Friedrich,