Why Do You Wear a Cheap Watch?

(1931)

My father’s a watch-maker – that’s right, my old man has a watch shop, I could say he’s awash in watches, and that’s not just a way of speech – but I, his only son, wear a nickel watch that cost two eighty-five, chain included, with a one-year guarantee. I bought it for myself, and not at my father’s shop either.

My friends ask me: Why do you wear a nickel watch? Are you down to that?

I could answer them: Hush, friends! Times are hard, it’s a struggle for everyone. Or I could say: I’m giving the two-eighty-five mechanism a try-out. I may be a law student, but watches are in my blood, I’m studying this mechanism for my father.

No, I hate diplomatic lies! I tell them: The reason I’m wearing this nickel watch is because my father is mean, stingy, selfish. He doesn’t have a gold watch for his only son, he deals in watches, he doesn’t give them away, that’s what he’s like. That’s what I tell them, and it’s true.

My friends say: Oh dear, poor lad, with such a stingy father.

But then I ask them: Don’t you think my father’s behaviour is correct?

It was my big day: I had passed my school exams. Since I don’t have any children yet myself, I can be frank: it was a mediocre pass, I just about scraped through. When I come to have my own children, then I’ll say to them that I passed with distinction, the education ministry sent an official specifically to congratulate me, he shook me by the hand, tears of emotion welled up in his eyes: Young man, that was the best exam ever taken in these cloistered halls …

So, no, for the time being anyway it was a moderate exam, but my father went ahead and gave me a gold watch. It wasn’t from his shop, no it was an heirloom from an unpleasant and happily long-deceased godfather, who used to call me ‘little monkey’ and ‘howler’ by turns.

Perhaps his dislike of me had transferred itself to the watch, which didn’t accompany me so much as keep its distance from me. My friend Kloß keeps a sailing boat on the Wannsee. We sail out, we bathe from the boat; our clothes are left on deck.

I’ve had enough of swimming, I want to get back in the boat, I pull myself up the side, the boat tips and all our things glide into the water. Kloß was there, and we fished everything out of the water, only my gold graduation watch had plummeted fifty feet straight to the bottom.

My father is a tidy man, my father is a methodical man, it’s an occupational disease with him. It’s not possible to tell him that the watch I inherited from my godfather wound up in the drink. No, we were in the public baths, and from the water we saw someone going through our things. We swam back as fast as we could, and gave chase, but he got away.

‘Hmm,’ went my father. He let things rest for a week, then he gave me a gold watch from his shop, a Glashütte, flat as an oyster, gorgeous.

That watch and I got along, it was the most dependable of watches, it never let me down.

Nor was it easily parted from me … This time it wasn’t Kloß, it was Kipferling with whom I went on a trip to Munich. Munich is a fine city, there are many things to do there; both Kipferling and I ended up wiring our parents for travel money home. By the time we were actually ready to leave, our travel money had melted away.

We had only one object of value: my Glashütte watch. Kipferling set off with it, I begged him only to pawn it so that I could redeem it once we were back in Berlin; nothing doing, he came back with the watch, it was outright sale or nothing. So we took the plunge.

All the way home I was racking my brain for a plausible story to tell my father. But my imagination had seized up, I couldn’t think of one. Finally I was left with a thief on Munich station, heaving crowds, suddenly my watch was gone. Those international pickpockets …

My father remarked, a trifle dryly: ‘Well, you’d be the best judge of that, son.’ I thought it didn’t sound very nice. I was left waiting quite a long time for my next watch. In fact, I had to help get it; I was always late for everything, every appointment, the theatre – what could I do, without a watch …

Finally, I got one. It wasn’t so flat, but it had two lids, and a loud tick. It was what we call in the trade a potato – reliable, gold, nothing spectacular, but in the end we are at the mercy of the feelings of our makers, and I was reasonably happy with it.

Well, so I go to play tennis, I play tennis, I get dressed afterwards, and what do you know? Eh? Yes, my watch has disappeared! Imagine my despair! My dependable potato – gone!

So now imagine my situation: what do I tell the old man? Yes, what do I tell him? Go on, tell me, give me a way out … That older generation is so suspicious!

Well, the upshot is that ever since then I’ve worn a two-eighty-five nickel watch, with a one-year guarantee.

I tell everyone perfectly truthfully that my father’s stingy. Or do you think he’s behaved well?

He simply won’t believe that my watch was stolen. Won’t believe it. Now you say something!