The Clockwork Man (3 page)

Herr Maier, the butcher, seemed especially pleased to see us, wishing Fräulein Gruenwald and me good morning and kissing Giselle’s hand, which he does quite frequently, and has since just after her fifteenth birthday. He is an unusual-looking man, perhaps in his mid-forties, with a long narrow face and large round eyes so dark he appears to have no pupils. His gaze lingered on her for some time before he gave us a toothy grin and stepped away to fill our order.

“You seem to have an admirer,” Fräulein Gruenwald said. “A little old for you, I think.”

“I’d say he’s more a match for you,” Giselle said as Herr Maier chopped meat in the back of the store. “You should let him know you’re not spoken for.”

Fräulein Gruenwald blushed deeply. “Oh, nonsense,” she said. “I’m not a young woman anymore; I can’t imagine what he might see in me.”

Giselle shook her head. “You ought to think more of yourself. You’re a pretty woman, and ought to have gentlemen callers. Don’t you think so, Ernst?”

“Yes,” I said. We have been through this exchange often enough for me to know the appropriate response.

“There, you see?” Giselle said. “Even Ernst thinks so. I’d bet if you let your hair down right now Herr Maier would whisk you away and marry you tomorrow.”

I could see that Fräulein Gruenwald had turned nearly purple, and as Herr Maier returned with several paper-wrapped meat parcels, she attempted to hide her face. One by one he handed me the bundledroasts and pork loins; I am most useful for such errands, as I can carry a heavy load without effort.

“Don’t you think Eva’s new hairstyle looks lovely?” Giselle asked the butcher as we were leaving. I found this a strange question, as Fräulein Gruenwald has not changed her hairstyle as long as I have known her.

“It’s absolutely splendid,” he replied, and smiled wide.

Once we were out the door, Giselle turned to her. “See?” she said.

When our business with the butcher was finished, we walked four blocks to the dressmaker’s shop to buy Giselle a few skirts Frau Gruber would find acceptable. “This is pointless,” she said on the way. “I can’t imagine why she cares so much how I dress.” More often than not, while at home, Giselle is clad in old cotton skirts and a smock for use in the Master’s workshop, and rarely wears expensive dresses, though she possesses a few for important social occasions.

“Your grandmother just wants what’s best for you,” Fräulein Gruenwald replied. “If she’s difficult with you, it’s only because she cares.”

“I think she only cares whether I’ll embarrass her,” Giselle said. “If it were up to me, I’d wear coveralls around the house like Father does. Why doesn’t Jakob have to dress up when she comes?”

“He’s a boy. He’s supposed to be scruffy.”

“You’d think he could at least wash once in a while.”

Fräulein Gruenwald asked the dressmaker to bring out several outfits in Giselle’s size; over the course of an hour and twelve minutes, she tried on each one, stepping briefly outside the changing room to model them for Fräulein Gruenwald’s approval. She quickly settled on the first—a blue plaid skirt with a high-necked, frilly blouse; thesecond was a dark maroon dress with long white sleeves, which billowed like butterfly wings when she turned in front of the standing mirror.

“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s so … feminine. Something a
Hausfrau
would wear.”

“It’s fine,” Fräulein Gruenwald said. “Your grandmother will be pleased.”

Giselle sighed, squinted at herself in the mirror for over three minutes. “What do you think, Ernst?” she finally asked.

I have never developed a particularly strong aesthetic, but there was an indefinable quality to the dress I found pleasing, for lack of a better word. “It is beautiful,” I said.

“You’re sweet,” she said. “Father’s made you into quite the gentleman. I suppose I’ll take it, then.”

At 11:45, we stopped at a small café a few blocks from the Master’s home so the ladies could eat lunch, and so Giselle might have a few more moments free of her grandmother, who was due to arrive later in the afternoon. The two shared a carafe of black coffee and an assortment of small pastries—petit fours, Giselle called them, though I was unfamiliar with the term—while I watched over their parcels. They invited me to sit with them, and even the café’s owner urged me to sit down—because of the Master I am something of a local celebrity, and often draw onlookers—but the Master insists I conduct myself like a gentleman at all times, and it is my habit to do so.

Twelve minutes after we arrived, a young man of about twenty, judging from his sparse beard, came up to me. “You, sir, are a work of genius.” He handed me a small clothbound notebook. “May I trouble you for your autograph? I’m thinking of becoming aclockmaker myself, and it would mean a lot to me.”

I thanked him, and looked to Giselle for approval; the Master encourages me to be courteous, but I did not wish to disrupt the ladies’ meal.

“Go ahead, Ernst,” Giselle said, through a mouthful of greenish pastry. “You’re famous, after all. Enjoy it.”

I took the young man’s notebook and scribbled my name onto the page he presented me, which seemed to give him great joy. “Thank you, sir,” he said. “You’re every bit the gentleman the newspapers say you are.” He tipped his hat and ran off like a young child.

Once Giselle and Fräulein Gruenwald had finished their lunch, we walked the seven blocks back to the Master’s house. When we arrived, Frau Gruber was already there with the Master and Jakob, and she rose to greet her granddaughter with a loose, quick embrace, tapping her shoulder to signal when the display of affection was to end. The smile left her face when her eyes fell upon me. “What is
that
doing here?” she said. “I thought I had made my wishes clear.”

The Master sighed and rose from his corner chair. “Oh, Mother,” he said. “Ernst, the cellar awaits.”

“Of course,” I said, and followed him downstairs to his workshop. He asked if I wished any books, but I said I was content to remain there among all his grand designs.

“I envy you,” he said as he led me down. “If it were up to me you’d be up there with her, and I’d be at work down here.”

“Frau Gruber is a good and gracious woman,” I said.

“And a lot of other things as well,” he said, and trudged slowly back upstairs. I could hear Jakob laughing, but through the locked door the sound was too muffled to determine the cause.

Upon further thought, I feel it necessary to explain that exile into the Master’s workshop is not an unpleasant fate. It is not simply some bare-walled cellar devoid of stimulation—quite the opposite. In fact, I find myself fascinated by the many sketches and designs for his great clocks, those already constructed and others he is currently planning. The blueprints are so intricate, it would take me many hours to fully comprehend the design and function of each component, much less the whole mechanism. A few of these magnificent spectacles have taken years to construct, particularly the steeple design commissioned by a hotel owner in London, which features hundreds of tiny swallows perched all over the clock’s face, who flap their wings at seven o’clock each morning. The Master fashioned them one at a time, testing each individually before mounting them to the clock. While he was completing the project, the tiny, feathery, flapping things covered his worktables so that there was not a free inch of space. They were quite realistic, with real feathers he and Giselle had glued on, and beady, glinting onyx eyes, though I have come to expect nothing less from his craftsmanship. When Jakob, then only five, saw them flapping their wings on the tabletops, he screamed, and the Master laughed with pride before rushing up to comfort him. (Giselle has since informed me that, during a foray in the park before I was wound, he wandered too close to a flock nesting in several trees, and was attacked.) On occasion he still has nightmares in which he is swarmed by dense flocks of tiny birds, pecking and scratching at his limbs and face. (The problem was once so severethe Master feared Jakob would require the services of a mental health specialist, but it has since leveled off to rare bouts.)

And there are smaller scale models as well as the blueprints, tiny replicas of his works, the real versions of which are often the size of a small house—a magnificent gryphon whose larger alter ego stands in Trafalgar Square in London, whose wings unfold like a great eagle’s; a small replica of the American President George Washington standing at the stern of a rowboat moving across a river of gray clay (its larger counterpart having been built for an American Senator who came to visit last summer); and the Master’s latest project, a daisy-shaped clock whose hour hands are turned by a mechanized hummingbird which emerges from the base on a wire arm. The wings have posed a bit of a problem for him; he says if I can follow their movement, they are still too slow. It is to be a gift for the Master’s nephew Kurt; Herr Gruber would like the boy to become his apprentice one day, as he already has a gift for taking things apart and putting them back together again. (Once, while I was distracted by Giselle’s dancing, he somehow removed my left hand in a matter of seconds without my noticing.) Sadly, skilled as she is, Giselle seems unlikely to take up her father’s craft, and Jakob has yet to show interest in such things.

I have come to enjoy studying these designs, as it gives me insight into the time and effort required for my own construction—many times it has occurred to me that his tireless work was an act of love. Indeed, I was in the process of examining some of the Master’s notes when I heard footfalls on the stairs. By their lightness, I immediately knew they were Giselle’s. She was wearing the maroon dress she had bought earlier in the day, and had dark circles under her eyes.

“I just came to say hello,” she said. “Jakob is in bed, and Father and Grandmother are both asleep in the den. Those two do love their
Apfelwein
. Were you lonely down here?”

“No,” I said.

“I’m sorry about all this. Grandmother can be such a gorgon sometimes. I wish Father would stand up to her, just once.”

I did not know how to respond, but the Master has taught me that a pleasantry will always do in such situations. “She cares for you very much.”

She sighed loudly. “Sometimes, I wish she’d care a little less. She says Father’s spoiling me for all the young men.”

“I have never known you to be anything but a lady.”

“You give me too much credit. Come, sit down with me.” She pulled two wooden chairs from under the workbench. With some effort, I sat down, the chair creaking under my weight.

“I don’t think you know how special you are, Ernst.” She leaned over to rest her head on my shoulder. “You don’t judge or criticize, and you always seem to see the good in people.”

“I try. The Master says that …”

Giselle yawned. “I know. Father says this, Father says that. But some of that has to come from you. I meant what I said before; you’re a gentle soul.”

“Thank you.”

It took me fourteen seconds to realize she had fallen asleep leaning up against me—a long time, perhaps, but in my defense I was examining the curious, intense hue of her hair, listening to the perfect rhythm of her breathing, exactly three-and-a-half seconds per breath. I said her name twice, as quietly as possible, and after the second time her onlyresponse was, “Mm-hmm.” She did not wake as I lifted her out of her chair and carried her up the stairs to her bed, her left arm draped loosely around my neck. The floorboards creaked under my feet as I passed the Master and Frau Gruber sleeping in the den, their heads resting against the backs of their armchairs, nearly identical snores emanating from their open mouths. They did not stir as I carried her to her room; I proceeded as quietly as possible, lest Frau Gruber panic at the sight of her eldest granddaughter in my arms. Giselle smiled sleepily as I laid her on the mattress, and touched my face as I released her. Gently, I drew the covers over her, and crept out just as quietly, back down to the dim light of the Master’s workshop, making no sound but for my ticking and the faint whine of my gears.

The reader may recoil at the intimacy of my actions. But I assure you I merely carried out my duty as this family’s faithful servant, and would have performed such a task for Jakob, or the Master himself, if called upon to do so. I consider it an excellent and fitting end to the day.

A curious thing has happened today, which I as yet fail to comprehend.

I should first provide some context to the event, which happened outside the market on Elisabeth Street at 12:28 this afternoon. The Master and Frau Gruber had gone shopping with the children—despite her exacting standards, Frau Gruber is quite fond of the clothing stores in the vicinity—and at the Master’s suggestion, I accompanied Fräulein Gruenwald on an errand. Frau Gruber, while sifting through the Master’s pantry, had discovered the kosher salt Fräulein Gruenwald had purchased to encrust her pork shoulder roast, and had found it unacceptable. I am still uncertain as to why, but I have no knowledge of the culinary arts and so must assume she had good reason. Fräulein Gruenwald volunteered to replace it with a coarse sea salt, and before leaving the Master instructed me to accompany her, if only to free me from his workshop for a while, and to provide Fräulein Gruenwald with a suitable escort.

Fräulein Gruenwald quickly obtained a substitute from the market, and we had begun the short walk home when we heard the loud, panicked whinny of a horse behind us, then the sound of wood crashing against stone, and muffled cries for help. I turned my head to look; three blocks behind us, a carriage had collided with a newsstand, tipping it over, with a man (perhaps some unlucky customer) pinned beneath it. The carriage driver and another man rushed to his aid, but they were unable to pull him free. Fräulein Gruenwald tugged at my sleeve as they began to call for assistance.

“Ernst,” she said, “I think you’d better help him.”

I strode toward them with as much speed as my mechanical legs would allow, their low whine audible over the shouting. Several onlookers saw my approach and opened up a path for me when I walked past. The trapped man screamed as I knelt next to him and took hold of the stand. “Get away from me, you monster!” he said, pain evident in his voice.