Henri answered that it was not available.
Marc noticed it during his second week.
He was waiting near the workshop door while Henri finished speaking to a customer.
The gold case caught the light.
Marc stepped closer.
“That’s nice.”
Henri glanced at him.
“Don’t touch the cabinet.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
Marc examined the watch.
“Is it real gold?”
“Yes.”
“Solid?”
“Eighteen-carat case.”
Marc raised his eyebrows.
“Seriously?”
Henri returned to his work.
“Yes.”
“How old?”
“Early twentieth century.”
“Does it work?”
“No.”
“Can you fix it?”
Henri paused.
“Probably.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
Marc frowned.
“You’re a watchmaker.”
“Very observant.”
“Isn’t the whole point to make watches work?”
Henri looked at him.
“Not always.”
Marc leaned closer to the glass.
The hands were perfectly still.
Eight fifteen.
“What’s special about that time?”
Henri did not answer immediately.
He picked up a pair of tweezers.
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with.”
Marc stepped back.
“Okay. Keep your secrets.”
Henri resumed working.
But after Marc left, he remained motionless for several seconds.
Then he looked toward the cabinet.
Eight fifteen.
He did not need to look at the dial to know where the hands rested.
He could see them even with his eyes closed.
The pocket watch had belonged to Henri’s father.
It was not originally a family heirloom.
His father had purchased it from a watch dealer after receiving a bonus, then carried it for decades in the inside pocket of his jacket.
When he died, Henri inherited it.
He serviced the movement and repaired a damaged winding mechanism.
For years, he used the watch occasionally, usually on formal occasions.
Then Élise was born.
The watch became something she associated with her father.
As a child, she liked opening the case and watching the second hand move.
Henri taught her how to wind it carefully.
He showed her the balance wheel and explained that a mechanical watch kept time through the controlled release of stored energy.
Élise listened politely.
Then she asked whether the watch ever got tired.
Henri laughed.
“Only if you forget to wind it.”
When she was eight, she began borrowing it during games.
When she was twelve, she asked whether it would one day belong to her.
Henri said yes.
Then he warned her that she would have to look after it.
She rolled her eyes.
“Papa, you tell me that about everything.”
“Because everything needs looking after.”
She laughed.
He remembered that laugh.
Always that laugh.
The watch remained in Henri’s possession when Élise grew older.
By then she had begun studying music, met Luc, married, and moved to Lausanne.
She had a son.
Marc.
Henri intended to give her the watch on her fortieth birthday.
She never reached it.
Élise died in a hospital in Lausanne when Marc was still a baby.
The illness had been sudden and severe.
For weeks, doctors had worked to treat complications from an aggressive infection.
Her condition fluctuated.
There were days when the family believed she was improving.
Then came another setback.
Henri travelled between Geneva and Lausanne whenever he could, sometimes leaving the shop closed for hours.
He remembered the hospital corridors.
The coffee machines.
The particular way nurses spoke when they were trying to be both clear and gentle.
On her final evening, he sat beside her bed.
Luc was there.
Marc had been taken home by a relative.
Élise was weak but intermittently awake.
At one point, she asked about Marc.
Luc told her he was safe.
She closed her eyes.
Henri sat holding the pocket watch in his hand.
He had brought it because she once told him that its ticking comforted her.
The watch had been wound that morning.
It was working normally.
When the doctors came in, Henri stepped aside.
There was a period of urgent activity.
Then stillness.
A physician spoke.
Henri heard the words but did not immediately understand them.
Élise died at 8:15 p.m.
Afterwards Henri remained in the room.
Luc went into the corridor to make calls.
Henri looked down at the watch in his palm.
The second hand was still moving.
He watched it pass the twelve.
Then the six.
Then the twelve again.
The sound seemed intolerably ordinary.
He opened the back of the case and stopped the movement.
He did not break it.
He did not damage the mechanism.
He used the setting mechanism to position the hands at eight fifteen, then allowed the mainspring to unwind.
Later, in his workshop, he secured the movement against accidental operation.
He could have made it run again.
He simply chose not to.
The watch remained at eight fifteen.
At first, he kept it inside a drawer.
Then he moved it to the display cabinet.
People assumed he was preserving a valuable antique.
He let them assume.
For years after Élise’s death, Henri found it difficult to speak about her.
Luc tried.
At first, they telephoned regularly.
They discussed Marc’s health, his first words, his school, and the practical arrangements involved in raising a child without his mother.
