The Old Clock

 

   THE OLD CLOCK

(DIE ALTE UHR)

 

I

         

Nowadays, I can afford to get up at 8.45 a.m. Being fully retired, I no longer need to rise early to get to work on time – a ‘must’ in industrious and conscientious Singapore.  And I can indulge myself. After a quick shower and a hearty breakfast, I  sit  in an armchair, in my comfortable flat on the East Coast,  and admire my  porcelain mantel clock. As she is an antique, I no longer expect the clockwork to tell the time. The spring may snap and damage the case and the rich embellishments. But I derive real pleasure from contemplating her.

The clock is crafted in an ornate Rococo style. At her centre is a round dial framed by delicate gilded detailing and Roman numerals, surrounded by lavish sculpted flowers in soft pastel shades of pink, blue, lavender, and cream. The white porcelain case curves gracefully, adorned with intricate scrollwork and gold accents that enhance her elegance.

Crowning the clock is a finely dressed gentleman seated casually, while three additional figurines – a young musician and two women engaged in quiet domestic tasks – gather at her base, creating a charming pastoral scene. The entire composition rests on an elaborately shaped base, giving the piece both grandeur and warmth, as though it captures a gentle moment from an 18th-century European salon.

I am not disturbed by the fact that the clock is not a product of Royal Vienna. That factory became insolvent and closed down in 1864. The clock was made around 1880 in Rudolstadt, in the region of Thuringia, Germany – one of the principal centres of porcelain manufacture in the nineteenth century. By that time, the Rococo style of the eighteenth century had returned to fashion, and workshops in Thuringia produced finely modelled ornamental clocks intended for the drawing rooms of the European middle class. The fake beehive mark on the base is the clearest sign of her inauthenticity.

Some of the Thuringian pieces were exported to North America but many were sent to Vienna – which was an active cultural centre in those days. There is irony in this. A fake – made in Germany – was sent for sale to Vienna in the hope that a plain or gullible middle-class person might acquire it in the belief of discovering a treasure.

When I bought the clock, I knew that she was not made in Austria. Initially, I was not certain whether she was of  Bohemian or  Thuringian origin. But when I examined her after her arrival in Singapore, I noted the white texture of the base and back. This removed any doubts.

As the months passed, I found that prolonged contemplation has curious effects. The clock, though silent, began to suggest a presence. Her figures seemed less frozen and her gilded scrollwork less inert. I cannot say precisely when this impression took hold, but I gradually formed the notion that the clock was capable of discourse – albeit in her own language. What follows is my translation and light editing of what she chose to reveal about her creation and travels.

 

II

 

          A human being is born when it is delivered and the umbilical cord is severed. The exact date is recorded in a birth certificate, which – both nowadays and in the 19^th century – was issued by a bureaucratic government body. Things are far less clear in the case of a piece of porcelain. The process is lengthy and can be convoluted. Let me  narrate my own.

I first took shape in a modest workshop in Rudolstadt, in Thuringia, where the air was perpetually dusted with fine white powder and the kilns glowed like watchful eyes. My case was not entirely fashioned by hand, nor wholly surrendered to mechanical uniformity: the principal body was pressed from a carefully prepared mould, ensuring symmetry and balance, but the scrolls, flowers, and figures were modelled and refined by human fingers while the clay was still obedient.

My maker, Klaus Fischer, was an itinerant craftsman of some thirty-five years of age, lean and deliberate in movement, who started his  training some  twenty-five years earlier at Royal Vienna, that is,  before its doors closed in 1864. When insolvency scattered its artisans, he knew he wanted to remain a modeller. Initially, he  hesitated whether to migrate to Bohemia or to Thuringia. In the end, he migrated to the latter because he felt his prospects were better there.

 He carried with him the discipline of Viennese modelling and a quiet pride that refused to perish. It was he who sharpened the folds of the seated gentleman’s coat, who softened the musician’s expression, and who, with a small blade and damp sponge, gave me those flourishes that still suggest a memory of elegance beyond my provincial birth.

A local artisan, Herr Bruno Schmidt, added the flower-work and the remaining decoration. When these adorned the case, Klaus took the next step. Before the clay had fully stiffened, he measured the diameter of the intended movement and marked the aperture with a compass fashioned from wire.

Porcelain shrinks in the kiln, and an error of a few millimetres would condemn the entire case. With a steady blade Klaus cut the opening, then thinned and smoothed the rim so that, once fired, the brass movement might sit snugly without strain. He added two modest apertures at the rear – one for winding, the other for regulation – for elegance must never impede function.

When this process was completed, Klaus showed the completed clay structure – the embryo – to Bruno, who came over to have a look. Smiling with satisfaction, he assured Klaus that it was ready for the first biscuit firing. I recall the heat of the kiln  and the  vapour that left the clay.  When I came out of the kiln, I was pink. Klaus dipped me in a white glaze and proceeded with what is known as the porcelain firing. When I emerged, I was pure white.

  Further enamel firings followed the painting of my back with nice colours and patterns. In reply to Klaus’ question, Bruno confirmed that the porcelain work was complete. I was then sent over to another workshop, where an artisan fitted a German clockwork into the opening. Klaus was delighted when I was sent back to his own workshop.

Winding up the clock, Klaus  observed: “Now our newborn has a heart.”

“Let us then send the newborn over to the export division,” suggested Bruno who had come over once again. That department was far more profit-orientated than either Klaus or Bruno. I watched sadly how some fine pieces were sent to a place called New York. The keen businessmen of the factory calculated that this was a sound  commercial step. For all I know, they might have been right.

I fared differently. Packed in straw and marked for export, I left Thuringia by rail from the station at Saalfeld, rattling through wooded hills and along the Danube routes toward Vienna – the very city whose prestige I discreetly imitated. I approached not as native son, but as calculated resemblance.  However, the shrewd financial planners at Rudolstadt concluded that this was the best market for me.  

 

III

 

As I admire my clock, I recall how I awaited her  arrival in my City of the Lion. The New Jersey dealer, from whom I had acquired her, dispatched her with reassuring professionalism, enclosing photographs of the packing process: layers of tissue, bubble wrap, reinforced corners, and insurance forms signed in duplicate.

The dealer was also conscientious about transportation. He dispatched her not by mail but through a well-known courier. This increased the costs to be borne by me. But I did not care. I wanted the clock – die Alte Uhr – to enjoy a pleasant journey. 

All the same, none of the steps taken by him quieted me. Once the clock left his warehouse, she entered a chain of anonymous hands and cavernous transit halls, her porcelain body vulnerable to jolts, indifference, or a single careless drop.

I tracked her progress obsessively — Newark, Anchorage, Hong Kong — each update bringing both relief and fresh apprehension.  The tracking number provided to me exacerbated my fears. In the early hours of the morning, I would imagine the clock shuddering in a cargo hold, her gilded scrolls grinding against unseen pressure.

The stopover in Hong Kong caused me real anxiety. Some thirty years earlier, I had purchased a nice porcelain centrepiece from a dealer in Chicago. He had packed it conscientiously but, by error, added ‘China’ as the last line of the address. 

When the piece made a transit stopover in Hong Kong, it was sent on to China. I do not know what had happened to it thereafter: I never got it. Following three months of correspondence my outgoings were refunded by an insurance company. I also got a letter of apology from the dealer, coupled with a promise to let me know if and when he got another such centrepiece for sale.  One day – God alone knows when – he might keep his promise. Some ten years later, I finally managed to acquire another centrepiece from an estate sale. It is now displayed in one of my cabinets.

I feared that the clock might meet a fate similar to that of the first   centrepiece. In my anxiety I asked eBay – the online platform through which I acquired the clock – to check that the address had been  correctly set out on the package. The reply reassured me, but I continued to worry. It had taken me years to spot such a clock. Getting her was the fulfilment of a dream.  But I feared that a moment’s mishandling might shatter it.

 

IV

My railway journey to Vienna was uneventful. At the Bavarian–Austrian frontier near Passau, where the Inn meets the Danube, customs formalities were conducted with methodical courtesy. Goods did not pass without inspection, yet the exchange was brief. I remained undisturbed in my crate.

From there I continued south-eastward by rail toward Vienna. On arrival at the Südbahnhof [the Southern Rail Terminal], I was transferred to a horse-drawn dray and conveyed through the broad avenues of the expanding city to the Ringstrasse – that proud boulevard raised upon the former line of fortifications. My destination was the showroom of Herr Nagel, a dealer in ornamental wares who catered to the respectable middle class.

He placed me in the display window, where passers-by paused to admire the gilt scrolls and painted flowers. Several inquired after the price, but the sum of forty gulden gave them pause. It represented roughly a month’s salary for a junior clerk, and considerably more than the wages paid to Herr Nagel’s shop assistant. I was admired more often than purchased –  yet esteem, too, is a form of value, especially when people thought that I had been produced by the  defunct local factory prior to its collapse.

For a few weeks, I remained the centrepiece in the shop window. This was a vantage point, enabling me  to  admire the passers-by – formally dressed men and beautifully made up women. I suspect many were just as keen to be seen as they were intent on making modest purchases in the prestigious shops of this fine part of the town. Then, one bright day, an impeccably dressed gentleman – whose neat tie was perhaps slightly too loud for his conservative suit – made his entrance. He was greeted warmly by my Mr. Nagel, who  came out of the alcove in which he spent most of his time. I recall the ensuing conversation vividly.

“Nice to see you again, Herr Liebermann. We haven’t had the pleasure for quite some time.”

“We spent our yearly break in Bad Ischl, Herr Nagel. What a lovely spot.”

“I’m glad to hear that you liked it. I’m told that the place has excellent restaurants.”

“We ate in the pension, Herr Nagel. And yes, the food was good. And so is the clock in your shop window.”

“Please have a look at it.”

After a careful examination, Herr Liebermann asked about the price. He also wanted to know whether I had been constructed in Vienna or elsewhere. Giving him a truthful reply, Herr Nagel emphasised that my style was Viennese, drawing attention to the beehive displayed on my base. He then assured Herr Liebermann that pieces similar to me graced the salons of the aristocracy. Eventually, they  settled on a price of 32 gulden.

In the afternoon, Herr Liebermann came back to pay the price and asked Herr Nagel whether he would be interested in buying a samovar that he brought with him. After agreeing on a price Herr Nagel pointed out that a tag, stuck to the samovar’s base, read ‘Levitzki’.

“That was our name in Kiev,” explained Herr Liebermann. “I changed it after settling in Vienna.”

The shop assistant packed me carefully into a carton, padding me with fine tissue paper, straw, and cloth.  After a short trip in a fiaker [a horse-drawn carriage], we arrived in the five- storey block house in the Obere Donaustrasse in the 2^nd district – Leopoldstadt, in which the Liebermanns had rented a spacious apartment.

“What a nice clock, Motl,” said Frau Sarah after the attractive maid, Litzi, had unwrapped me and placed me in the family’s display cabinet. Noting Herr Liebermann’s grimace, produced by Frau Sarah’s heavy Yiddish accent, Litzi said: “A really beautiful piece, Herr Marcus.”

Without answering, Herr Liebermann smiled at her warmly, the familiarity of it undiminished by the years. Later his children came back from school. They admired me and, each of them, wanted to wind up the clock. To them I was a living object – not a status symbol.

All three liked me. The youngest – Karl Heinz – took a special interest, wound the clock and gently cuddled the four figurines.

“I’ll dust our new clock,” he said in pure German but with a slight Viennese accent. I realised that he must have acquired it during his school days. For just a moment Herr Liebermann tensed but then bestowed a warm glance on his youngest.

“Let him, Motl,” said Frau Liebermann in her heavy accented German. Her accent was unmistakably foreign and, I sensed, she would have preferred to talk in Yiddish. In the ensuing weeks, it dawned on me that this tongue was proscribed by Mr. Liebermann. Still, when husband and wife wanted to discuss topics  not meant for the ears of their offspring, they resorted to it. But on all formal occasions – like visits by friends – Yiddish was out of bounds. In a sense, this was perplexing: most of the people they associated with were fellow Jews, conversant in this typical Ashkenazi Jewish language.

The younger generation – including Karl, who befriended me over the years – were natural German speakers. I sensed that outwardly  their Jewish roots were getting thinner, although they too mixed with fellow Jews. Still, neither Karl, nor his brother and sister, ever attended services in synagogue, except on the Jewish New Year and Yom Kippur.

As the years passed, each of Herr Liebermann’s three children opted for a career. His oldest son went to the University and majored in chemistry. The daughter married a fellow assimilated Jew and left the family home. The youngest, my friend Karl, went steady with an Elsie, a pretty girl he had met when he became the ‘procurist’ [chief clerk; second in command]  of Mr. Liebermann’s firm. Herr Liebermann approved. The girl – who was a typist and receptionist – came from old Viennese non-Jewish stock; had a worldly outlook and took religious affiliation with a pinch of salt. Frau Liebermann let her concern show but suppressed her reservations. Still, I recall how she reminded her Motl that harmony of a married couple is more easily attained if the spouses ‘come from the same stable’.

The tensions that prevailed in the two years preceding the outbreak of World War I (‘WWI’) did not disrupt the lives of Herr Liebermann and his offspring. Then, in 1916, Karl was mobilised. Prior to his engagement on the Eastern front, he married Elsie. After  being decorated in 1917 and discharged in 1918, he moved, with his wife, to a fashionable flat in  Alserstrasse. He took me with him.

Karl and Elsie enjoyed a happy marriage. I recall how both attended Herr Liebermann’s funeral when he died from an attack of pneumonia, which was incurable in those days. Then, in 1933, Adolf Hitler was democratically elected. Initially, Austria tried to keep out of his grasp but in 1938 aligned with Germany.  

Karl saw the writing on the wall. I recall his bitter outbursts. He had considered himself an Austrian of the Jewish faith. Hitler’s racist policy differed. He proclaimed that anybody who had a Jewish ancestor  during the preceding four generations was sub-human. Karl read the new decrees twice. He realised that notwithstanding his having fought bravely for the Kaiser in WWI, he was now to be treated as an outsider. The decoration medal – that had been proudly displayed in the sitting room – was hidden behind a screen.

Elsie – who up to then had been a good wife – did not sympathise with Karl’s predicament. She had come to believe what was daily proclaimed in print and on the radio. After  a few weeks, she left their home. I felt deep sympathy for him but had nothing to say. To Karl, Elsie’s  departure  was the last blow. Packing his personal effects and taking me with him he boarded a ship sailing to the New World.

 

V

 

I spotted the clock – Die Alte Uhr –  when advertised on eBay. Actually, I have a very large collection of European porcelain. My flat is full to the brim. My trusted live-in maid has taken strong exception to my buying  extra pieces. All the same, I have continued to browse  eBay and other sites for specific pieces of interest. Old Vienna is one of the few factories on my search list.

When I showed the clock’s picture  to Ati, she agreed that it was beautiful but insisted that finding a place for her would be difficult. If placed outside a cabinet, the clock would require regular dusting. And the cabinets were already cluttered. She convinced me. Had it  not been for a visit of a friend, who has visited me regularly since I retired from my professorial fellowship and town consultancy, I would have given the clock a miss.

My friend, though, convinced me. Smilingly, he told me: “You like the ambience and the clock may bring back pleasant memories. I am sure you can find a suitable place. Why don’t you buy it and then decide where to place it?”

His words convinced me. You see, I grew up  in Palestine, saw the foundation of Israel and graduated from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I then went for further studies to Oxford. During my years there, I travelled to Vienna to visit my father, who had returned to it after the Russians withdrew from Austria. In the course of these visits, I developed a deep affection for Vienna, where I had been born in 1933. I liked the museums, the theatre and, above all, the music and the ambience. Under my mother’s influence, I  kept reading Austrian and German literature. Even during my years in Tel Aviv, I kept listening to Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. Later on, during my life in Singapore, I took flights to Vienna not only in order to visit my parents, but in order to enjoy the relaxed Viennese atmosphere, which contrasted  with that of efficient yet prosaic Singapore.

In the circumstances, my friend’s supportive words were music to my ears. Shortly after his departure, I contacted the dealer. Naturally, I did not bargain in the Viennese manner of Herr Liebermann. My exchange with the dealer was conducted through polite electronic messages, stripped of gesture and tone. As eBay discourages direct negotiations between buyer and seller, we had to communicate through this site. Yet beneath the overt civility there was calculation on both sides. He had described the clock as being an Old Vienna product. I knew that this was  not the case. All the same, I knew that both  the clock and I had a Viennese core although neither of us was of truly Viennese origin.

In the event, a bargain was concluded. The price of USD270.00 compared poorly with the price the clock would have fetched when newly manufactured. The average monthly wages of a skilful worker in Singapore were considerably higher. But the market for this type of Rococo imitation piece was limited. And the damage to the arm of one of the pastoral figurines was noticeable as, indeed, was the fact that the clockwork was no longer keeping time. In the ultimate, neither the dealer nor I had any reason to regret the outcome.

I paid punctiliously and the clock was shipped within a few days. The freight, alas, was close to the very cost of the item. Still, I wanted to ensure its safe arrival in Singapore and so requested the use of extra padding. I suspect that eBay found the prolonged communications between buyer and seller tiresome. But then, they were getting their  commission.

 

VI

The sea voyage to New York was unpleasant. The ship rocked and rolled. Still, all cargo – including the crate in which they placed the padded carton in which I rested – were securely fastened. But, even so, I felt relief when I found myself again on terra firma. Karl Liebermann rented a small flat in Manhattan. I watched with concern as he returned every evening with the minute wages paid for the odd jobs he had to carry out. His business training in his late father’s firm did not prepare him for life in the New World. I wanted to console him and encourage him. Karl alas was unable to converse with me.

Shortly after his arrival, he received  a letter sent through the German embassy in New York. Elsie advised that, having filed her application, their mixed blood marriage had been annulled under a German law then in force. To my relief Karl shrugged his shoulders. An episode in his life had come to its end. He was not bitter but, in all following correspondence, he changed his surname to Lieberman by omitting one ‘n’.

Later, Karl had a stroke of good luck. In the course of an English language class, a course attended by him regularly ever since his arrival in New York, he became friendly with the teacher – an attractive girl, who acted as volunteer in a  programme initiated by a Jewish Reform organisation. Rebecca Cohen was lively and vivacious. Before long Karl and she went steady and, after a few months, tied the knot. To his own surprise, Karl – the highly assimilated Jew – had a  Jewish wedding ceremony  under a canopy.

Karl went from strength to strength. Shortly after marrying Rebecca, her father asked him to be chief waiter in the family’s restaurant. Karl, I believe, was in charge. He displayed an American image; yet, from time to time, he hummed Viennese songs when he returned home after work.

Then, early in 1941, Moses Cohen suggested that Karl launch a new restaurant in New Jersey and financed it. Once again, I travelled, this time with other effects of the  young couple. Prior to the opening of the new establishment, Moses and Karl had a frank chat. When Moses pointed out that ‘Lieberman’ did not suppress all link with Austria or Germany, his words fell on listening ears. When the restaurant submitted the forms legally  required for the opening of the business, it specified:  “Proprietors: Moses Cohen and Charles Levine.” 

Through each alteration of name and address, I remained unchanged – neither wholly Viennese nor wholly foreign. Effectively, I remained Charles’ link with the past.  Whenever he glanced at me – and such moments became infrequent – he would sometimes pause before turning away, as though uncertain whether he was remembering or forgetting. I realised that in his heart of hearts, he – just like me – remained multi-cultural.

His emotive transition was tested in 1947, that is, some two years after the end of  WWII, when an unexpected letter arrived. It bore Elsie’s careful handwriting. The years had altered her circumstances; the certainties of 1938 had dissolved. She wrote without defiance and without apology, suggesting that perhaps what had been broken might yet be repaired. If he wished it, she would come to America.

Charles – for so he was now known – read the letter twice. He did not crumple it in anger but felt no tenderness.  Replying with deliberation and without reproach, he informed Elsie  that he had remarried, that he had joined a Reform congregation, and that he was the contented father of two American sons. He wished her well. For just a moment he thought of enclosing a photograph of his new family, even took it up once and held it to the light. Then he set it back in the drawer; the breach between them was final, and a photograph would only blur what must remain clear.

As time went on, the restaurant prospered. Whilst not aspiring to elegance, it offered consistency. Regular patrons returned. Before long, Mr. Cohen encouraged Charles to open new outlets. In due course, it became a well-known chain.

Charles’ sons grew into tall young men with easy American speech. In tandem with their orientation, the name “Charles Levine” settled upon its bearer as though it had always been his own. At home he was attentive, if never effusive. On rare evenings, after the accounts were closed and the house quiet, he would stand before me and wind my mechanism, though he no longer expected precision. The gesture was habitual rather than sentimental – a faint acknowledgment of continuities he seldom named.

Then, one sad morning, the Levine’s housemaid brushed me too intensively. In the process, the hand of one figurine broke off. Dismayed, she ran to advise about this accident. To calm her, Charles observed that ‘time takes its toll on everybody and everything’.

The years accumulated without spectacle. Rebecca’s laughter, once quick and bright, softened and then ceased; she departed this world before her husband, and initially the house grew subdued. Charles Levine and his two sons missed her. Life, though, had to continue. Before long Charles’ older son met a nice girl in the college he attended. In due course they married. To Charles gratification both decided to enrol in a medical school.

Charles younger son, Jacob Fred, joined a merchant bank as  cadet. He was a steady and highly responsible employee. His urbane bearings and good temper were appreciated. During his year of service, he met a Korean employee, Irene, and married her.

The young couple’s honeymoon included a pleasant drive through Europe, spending a few days in the Kaiserstuhl and then onward to Cologne. Prior to their return to the United States, they spent a week in Vienna. Back in Newark (in New Jersey), Jacob told his ageing father that he found Vienna quaint but was glad to be back at home. Charles Levine – formerly Karl Liebermann – smiled.

At Irene’s suggestion, the young couple  continued to live together with Charles in the family’s flat. Irene, who thought highly of me, liked to look at me with admiration. Still, she thought that winding the clock embedded in my chest might become risky. Putting a prosaic modern clock on the mantle, she arranged to move me to a  side cabinet in a guest room, not in disgrace but in gentle displacement. In her eyes, I had become a cute antique.

Her children, Charles’ grandchildren examined my figurines with polite curiosity; to them I was decorative, vaguely European, unconnected to their own beginnings. On rare occasions, Charles, who was aging, spoke to Irene about Vienna. When he did, it was without bitterness and without overt longing, as though recalling a country glimpsed from a passing train. In advanced age, his hearing deteriorated, his movements slowed and his gaze lingered on nothing for long. He died quietly, in his own bed, having outlived both enemies and illusions.

After the funeral, his offspring set about the practical duties that follow all deaths. They divided what was useful, stored what was uncertain, and consigned the remainder to a dealer who specialised in estates of “Old World” households. I was wrapped, catalogued, and transported once more. No one quarrelled over me; no one protested my departure. Affection does not always survive translation across generations.

It took the dealer a while to find me a new home. On quite a number of occasions, when I was placed in an auction, I failed to secure a bid meeting his reserve. Pieces like me were no longer popular and in demand. In consequence, I languished in a warehouse far removed from the Danube and the Hudson alike, awaiting  a discerning glance.

In the end, it came  from a gentleman who spotted me when the dealer finally advertised me on eBay. That person, though born in Vienna, had long settled in yet another land. But he recognised in me something of the city he continued to cherish. Thus, I arrived in Singapore, where I now rest in dignified retirement. My mechanism is silent, yet I remain what I have always been: a vessel of layered identities, neither wholly authentic nor wholly counterfeit, sustained less by accuracy of time than by continuity of memory.

VII

The conscientious courier advised me that the ‘parcel’ was just about to arrive. I waited for it anxiously. When the carton was finally placed in front of my entrance door, I was too nervous to open it and unwrap the clock. In the event, Ati took over. After discarding the carton, the bubble wrap and the silk paper, she placed the clock on  a mantle in my sitting room. I then came over to admire it.

A few nights later, I experienced a bout of insomnia. Sliding out of my bedroom – keen not to wake up Ati who occupied another room, I sank into an armchair facing the clock.  To my delighted surprise, the clock spoke to me.

“So, you have come over for a chat, Sir?”

“Please don’t ‘Sir’ me,” I replied. “I’m Peter to my friends. And how shall I address you?”

“Rudolia will do,” she advised me. “You could say ‘Uhr’ [‘clock’] but this is artificial.”

“Tell me, Rudolia, are you glad to be here?”

“I am, Peter, in more than one way I am back at home.”

“You need to explain this!”

“Both of us moved between environments and settled comfortably. I metamorphosed from a time-telling status symbol into an antique. You, Peter, dropped your boyhood veneer and settled in an alien environment. But both of us accepted the respective moves. We are multi layered or, speaking bluntly, mongrels. Our home is where we are comfortable. You – in your study; I – on a display mantle.”

“You put your finger on it, but I remain puzzled by one aspect, Rudolia.”

“Tell me, please.”

“Both of us settled comfortably in our alien environments. But we do think affectionately about a city and state of which we are no part and parcel.”

“But is this surprising? In reality, both of us yearn for a world of yesterday – die Welt von Gestern – which may have never existed. The Viennese world of Karl Liebermann was not paradise. Poverty and misery endured together with the charm and lavishness we think about. Both of us think about the past because we idealise it. Karl had a rude awakening. Do not overlook this. And to his offspring the place is alien.”

“Aren’t you disheartened and pessimistic, Rudolia’chen?”

“No, Peter – or may I call you Peter’le. I am a realist. And so should you be!”

“You may be right,” I conceded. “But – in a way – both of us perform a function extraneous to our respective backgrounds. I was hoping to be a proficient courtroom advocate and ended up as a teacher. When Klaus formed you, he intended to create an adorned timepiece. But you ended up as a counter of epochs. When you left his workshop, cars were still a thing of the future. But to me you have travelled by air.”

“True, Peter’le. But, in the ultimate, we crave for the elusive ambience which we know is beyond us. Perhaps, this emotion has enabled both of us, and also  Karl Liebermann, to come to terms with everyday existence.”

This straightforward chat with the clock lingered in my thoughts. Yet one consideration refused to recede. Both of us were vulnerable to accident. She might slip from a careless hand and shatter beyond repair; I might stumble on a pavement or be struck down by a passing car. But there was a difference between us. My span was finite and measurable. Hers, though not infinite, was elastic. She might endure beyond my knowing, resting on other mantles, in other hemispheres, beneath other lights.

The thought unsettled me at first. Then it clarified something. If continuity was to be her fate, I should not leave it to chance. I therefore made provision in my will. Upon my death, she is to go to a friend in Melbourne – a man patient in temperament and generous in judgment, who understands that objects sometimes carry more than ornament. I did not inform him immediately. The decision felt less like disposal than entrustment.

When I mentioned it to Rudolia, she received the news without alarm.

“So, I am to cross another sea?” she asked lightly.

“Yes.”

“And will I be welcome there?”

“You will,” I said. “Not because you keep time, but because you have travelled through it.”

She was silent for a moment – or perhaps I only imagined the pause.

“You and I,” she said at last, “have both mistaken movement for loss. Yet each removal has left us intact. Altered, yes – renamed, re-shelved, reinterpreted – but not erased.”

I considered this. “Still,” I said, “there are places that remain within us.”

“Of course,” she replied. “But what we remember is not geography. It is atmosphere.”

Her words – if indeed they were hers –  carried neither melancholy nor consolation. Only recognition.

Now, in the mornings, when I sit facing her, I no longer ask whether she is authentic, or whether I am. The gilding has dulled slightly; the fractured figurine still bears its scar. My own reflection in the glass cabinet is less steady than it once was. Yet none of this troubles me.

One day, she will stand in another room, on another continent. Perhaps a child will glance at her without curiosity. Perhaps someone will wind her carefully, though her mechanism no longer keeps faithful time. Perhaps she will simply rest, as she does now, between memory and presence.

And I – like Karl, like Klaus and like so many others who believed themselves settled – will have passed into footnotes of private recollection.

But she will remain what she has always been: not a counterfeit, not a relic, but a traveller.

And that, I think, is enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

  

       

 

 

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