3
If the case of a watch is its body, then the dial is its face. We humans gaze into the luminous hand-enameled surface, mesmerized by the fragile metal disk that translates the secrets of the hundreds of mechanisms beneath it into a simple message: 11 a.m. or p.m. or Monday or the twelfth of June.
When the universe of wheels, pinions, levers, and springs inside is in working order, then the dial translates the watch’s secrets into a language we can all learn to read.
Even a complicated timepiece, requiring three times more parts than the simple self-winding caliber, can be read by a child.
When a watch hand points to a baguette diamond applique number, you know, for example, that it’s three o’clock. A watch in working order doesn’t lie.
Perhaps that’s why for months after Christmas Eve my brother, Max, the employees at Abry, even Mila, watched my face as if they could read me as easily as a watch.
Daniel’s gaze roamed over me, continuously on edge, searching for signs of fatigue or pain. Max watched me with a hawklike intensity, as if he was afraid I’d disappear on him. Even Mila would startle and turn to me quickly, as if she had to check on me every few minutes to make certain I was okay.
Their concern was worse than being shot.
So I gave them all a face as brightly polished and luminous as a cream-buffed dial, hand-enameled in opal and pink, hand-set with diamonds and eighteen-karat rose gold.
There’s a technique we use at Abry called guilloché. Lathes engrave grooves that are three hundredths of a millimeter deep, forming a patina of geometric patterns that catches the sunlight and reflects it back in brilliant rays. I imagine my smile in guilloché, reflecting all the light back into the world.
And when I smile at them they all relax, as if like a watch my smile accurately reflects the heart of me.
A dial at Abry can take up to two hundred intricate operations to create, from blanking the dial to milling and guilloché to electroplating and varnishing. I only required two operations, which I think shows great restraint on my part.
The gunshot hit my spleen and, being a pseudo-vestigial organ, it had no apparent purpose other than to cushion the rest of me from a bullet.
I was up and walking within a week and back at my desk after two weeks. I learned years ago that the best way to deal with things you don’t want to think about is to keep so busy you don’t have time to think at all.
So I crammed my schedule, filling it daily from 5 a.m. until midnight. So even if I wanted to ponder being shot in the middle of my Christmas Eve Gala, I didn’t have time—unless I penciled it in.
Days look like this:
5 a.m.–6 a.m. Cardio.
6 a.m.–6:0 a.m. Shower, dress.
6:0 a.m.–7 a.m. Mila up, dressed, breakfast.
7 a.m. Mila to school.
7: a.m. Arrive at Abry HQ.
It goes on from there, broken into fifteen-minute segments, including meetings with the casemaking production team for cases and bracelets, initiatives with post-production managers, a search for a new industrial facility for components production, meetings with the quality control team, updates on new technologies/tools/productions in our sphere, data on reserves and revenue, focus on clean air technologies for the white rooms, etcetera, etcetera. Until:
6 p.m. Home, dinner with Mila, homework help, soccer practice.
8 p.m. Mila to bed.
8:0 p.m. Back to work until I collapse into bed at midnight.
Some days Max or Daniel come by for dinner or a night out. The point is that I stay so busy I don’t have time to think, and at night I’m so tired I don’t dream.
Unfortunately, this strategy doesn’t always work, and my dreams are haunted by a woman with a blurred face urgently repeating, “Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve.”
I always waking up gasping and clutching my chest. It feels as if I’ve been plunged under a giant violent ocean wave and I can’t break through the surface to find air.
Luckily, though, no one knows I dream about the woman or that I dread the mention of Christmas.
The woman was never found. No one even knows who she was. She disappeared in the chaos after she shot me. If I didn’t have the nightmares and the raised sunburst scar on my abdomen, I’d almost believe she never existed.
The police determined it was a random act of violence. A mentally unstable woman who stumbled upon the glow of the chateau.
Daniel accepted the explanation. So did Max.
I’m not so sure.
It felt . . . It felt as if she was telling me . . . something.
Mila asks every now and then, her voice quavering, “What if she comes back?”
I don’t have an answer. But I always say, “She won’t. There’s no reason for her to come back.”
Then I turn Mila’s attention to something else.
Keeping busy.
Always keeping busy.
It’s how I’ve lived life since I was six years old and didn’t know what to do with myself.
“. . . about Christmas Eve?”
I jerk my head, squinting at Hugo Lebrun, director of casemaking at our production facility. “What did you say?”
My voice comes out more harsh than normal. It’s four o’clock and the bright summer sun is glaring through the tall glass window in the conference room. My eyes are gritty and I’m craving an espresso. I didn’t sleep well last night—nightmares.
Daniel frowns at me from across the long mahogany table and I lift a shoulder in a Gaelic shrug. He reaches for the silver carafe of coffee and pours the steaming liquid into a small white mug. Then, with a wink, he pushes it across the table to me.
Hugo’s repeating what I missed and his two team members, both new associates, are scratching notes and nodding. He gestures to the TV on the far wall tuned to the news. It’s the usual. A scrollbar reads that a politician in Canton Vaud has been charged with accepting perks, the Swiss National Bank has a new director, there are road closures downtown. On the screen a reporter looks dispassionately at footage of some natural disaster in a far-off place.
“The leather supplier in Brazil,” Hugo says. “They were affected by the earthquake too. Their manufacturing and tanning facilities were destroyed. I think we were better served in the end, when we shifted to Austria. But . . .” He shrugs. “I was informed they still have not recovered.”
“Fi sent aid,” Daniel says. “We sent clean water, food, medical supplies, temporary shelter.”
I sigh and turn away from the TV, now showing the rubbled remains of a small fishing village. I don’t want to see the rubble of someone else’s life—not while mine is still a mess.
I barely remember the earthquake or sending aid. I think perhaps I’ve been keeping myself too busy if I can’t remember events that happened little more than a year ago.
I take a sip of the coffee Daniel poured me, and the bitter cocoa flavor bites on the way down.
“We’re all set?” I ask Hugo.
He gives me a startled glance and I smile to soften my tone.
Gosh, I’m tired.
I rub at my abdomen. There’s an ache where the bullet hit. It’s been throbbing all day.
Hugo nods, then he and his associates gather up their laptops and notes and file out of the conference room. Daniel and I are left alone, the wooden door swinging shut with a humming whoosh.
I look down at my watch. It’s a 1956 Liebspielen, a perpetual calendar Abry with an art deco bracelet in pearls and diamonds. It was the first watch made under my dad’s leadership and the first watch he gave me. I’ve had it since I turned sixteen.
It’s six minutes after four—I’m late for my next meeting. My stomach growls. I forgot to schedule lunch.
“You’re running yourself ragged,” Daniel says, cutting into the silence.
He’s switched to English. Usually, we speak French at work and in the city, but when it’s just family, or when we’re with Max, we always speak English. It comes from the fact my first language is English, and for years after my mum left me I refused to speak a word of French. I was convinced she’d return for me, and I felt that somehow, if I gave in and learned French, she never would. Stubbornly, I didn’t speak a word of French until age twelve. It was six years after she left that I finally accepted the fact she wasn’t coming back for me. So, unlike Daniel—who can juggle a half-dozen languages in his head at the same time—I have the slightly accented French of a native English speaker and a lifelong loyalty to my mother tongue.
I take in a long breath. The air in the office is cool and dry. Outside the wall of windows, the blue mountains climb over green fields. On the other side of the building the outskirts of Geneva sprawl toward the city center.
“I didn’t think you’d notice.”
“I noticed.”
I smile at Daniel, stretching back in the leather chair.
Our headquarters is modern, a design we purposely selected to mimic our forward-thinking philosophy. We moved our headquarters five years ago, after we realized we needed new space for our growing in-house production—casemaking, components production, finishing, post-production—as well as all our support staff. There wasn’t room in Geneva’s city center, and the building Abry was always housed in was an old five-story building on the bank of the Rh?ne with manufacturing partitioned around the city. When my dad and grandad ran Abry, everyone was headquartered in those old stone buildings. There were large windows with light that shone over work desks, tinkling bells heralding the tea-service cart, and gifts of ham to every employee at Christmas. It was a different time.
Now we have sleek leather chairs, cream marble floors, a six-story lobby with a giant glass entrance, and bronze wheels and springs and pinions decorating the white walls next to a ten-foot replica of the Chronomachen.
It’s not quite as cozy as the old stone building that housed our family for more than a century. But we’ve stayed in business and we’re still moving forward.
“I’m keeping busy,” I tell Daniel, swallowing the last of the coffee. I can already feel a buzz flowing through my veins.
He considers me, and I hate to admit it, but for the first time in six months I think he sees right through me.
“Maybe we shouldn’t keep so busy all the time,” he says, shoving his fingers tiredly through his collar-length hair.
I feel a pinch in my chest. I have a memory of my dad making the same exact gesture in his office chair when he told me one day, if I worked hard enough, I’d be a watchmaker too.
“And why not? Life is great. I have Abry, I have you, Mila, Max. Me being busy is a reflection of how happy I am.”
Daniel narrows his eyes and drops his elbows to the table, cradling his chin in his hand. “You’re a terrible liar.”
“I am not.”
He flashes a smile. “I was thinking, you used to worry about me . . . finding someone who appreciates all my charm.”
“I don’t worry anymore. I gave that up. You’re hopeless. If I see another reality-show star on the yacht with you, I’m going to?—”
“What? At least I go out. The last time you went out, it was to pick out a hedge trimmer with Max.”
“That counts.”
“It doesn’t, and you know it.”
I don’t argue. There’s no use. “What’s your point? I have another meeting.”
“My point is, Fi, this can’t keep on. Ever since Christmas Eve”—he can’t bring himself to say, “since you were shot”—“you’ve been running yourself to the ground. You need to take a break. You need to, maybe . . .”—he narrows his eyes—“open yourself up.”
He holds up his hands at my protest.
“I’m only saying,” he says, “I think . . . you want me to find someone to appreciate me. I want the same for you.”
I press my hands to the cold shellacked surface of the wood table. Outside the conference room someone knocks on the door. When they open it, Daniel shakes his head and gestures them away.
“Why are you such a meddler?” I ask him.
“Fi.”
“You know it isn’t the same for me. You know why. I can’t do it.”
Daniel doesn’t say anything—he only watches me with eyes as calm as the ocean on a windless day.
Then he says the exact thing he said to me that day nearly a decade ago. “Then we’ll do it together.”
My heart squeezes at the memory of those words. I can almost hear the crash of the ocean that went along with them.
So I say the exact same thing I said then too. “All right. Together.”