The Clockmaker – Part 1: Mainspring

The workshop ticked. A hundred clocks on every wall, grandfather cases, carriage clocks, a cuckoo with a broken door, all keeping their own slightly different time. Greta sat at a long bench under a green lamp, a loupe on her forehead, a tiny brass wheel between tweezers.

She was fifty-six, a master clockmaker with silver-streaked hair and a spine of iron. He was forty-four, her apprentice and partner, a graphic designer by day, a gentle, nervous man who had once said, watching her adjust an escapement, that he wished she would adjust him.

When the shop was shut and the blinds drawn, she put the tweezers down and pushed a card across the bench. Workshop Rules. His limits and hers: no marks, nothing painful, no real humiliation, no one else. The word was Stop-work.

"Say it."

"Stop-work."

"If you say it, the Master puts down the tools. We have supper."

"Yes, Frau Meyer."

"Not yet." She pulled on a leather apron and a pair of fine white gloves. Her voice dropped, slow and exact. "Apprentice. You rushed the repair."

"I am sorry, Master."

"You will be." She pointed at a wooden stool in the corner. "Sit. Hands on your knees. Do not move until the long case clock strikes."

He sat. The clocks ticked. The long case clock in the corner was fourteen minutes from the hour. He watched the pendulum swing, and felt his shoulders drop and the whole afternoon's tension slide out of him.

She returned to her bench. She worked, in silence, for fourteen minutes. Neither of them spoke. The clock struck. She did not turn round.

"Are you content, apprentice?"

"Content, Master."

"Good. Patience is the first lesson."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Winding Down.