The Watchmaker of Dachau by Carly Schabowski

Author:Carly Schabowski [Carly Schabowski]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781838886400
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2021-01-19T18:30:00+00:00

I will go now, and write soon.

I love you.

July 1944

In summer my mother cleaned the house, from top to bottom. She would say that most people do it in spring, ready for the summer months, yet she wanted the warmth that the season provided.

She would fling open every door and window, allowing the cool breeze to seep into our home, take out rugs and, with our help, beat the dust out of them with a wooden beater.

The dust would fly up in the air and I would wonder where it went. Did it just rain back down and cling once more to the threads of the carpets? Did it cling to me?

Father said that dust was particles of us – of our life – our skin, our hair, the outside that we brought in with us on our shoes. When I told Mother this, she would frown with distaste and say, ‘All the more reason to clean them then.’

I didn’t like that she was getting rid of us, our past year. In my child’s mind I would imagine that the dust was me, playing with my friends as we fought battles down by the river, the dirt and soot I brought home with me forever clinging to the life around us.

There is dust in the air today.

It began just after I arrived at the house, and I can hear the crackle, smell the burning, see the clouds of smoke that filter into the sky and block out the sun. Dust – that is what we all are and what we become, filtered back into the sky and back into the world once more.

It is macabre that I think this way. But it gives me some sort of joy to think that those bodies burning in the pyre today are finding their way back to their loved ones, where they will cling onto their clothes, their hair, the furniture in their homes, reluctant to leave.

I have promised myself that if I ever leave here I will never beat a carpet again, I will not move the dust that settles around me; I will let it sit, and let it live next to me, allowing those who have died to come back once more.

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