Marie Chavanon watched the setting sun move across the façade of her late husband’s factory. Unlike their home, which was lauded for its modernity, the factory was built in a style loosely imitating a château, with a high sloped roof, and windows and doors surrounded by stone lintels. At odds with this suggestion of a historic building, the exterior walls were decorated with art nouveau murals. When she had first visited, she thought the buildings and the family delightfully eccentric; years later she was ready to label them crazy.
In the opposite direction, down the steep hill, sat the grim gray town of La Chaux-de-Fonds. She quickly drew her eye away, wondering what UNESCO saw that she didn’t. World Heritage Site, indeed. The whole place was nothing more than a well-laid-out and regularized factory town. She slapped a dish towel onto the countertop. All well and good a hundred years ago when their ridiculous house was built and the town accounted for 60 percent of all Swiss exports. A factory town to support the world’s insatiable appetite for the luxury of Swiss watches. She knew that era was over, even if the townspeople didn’t realize it.
The sun shifted steadily, and she wondered if her husband had ever stood on the floor of his factory, gazing out the high windows, and had these same thoughts. Guy professed to look toward the future, but she didn’t believe him. All those hours surveilling activity at the factory, as his father and grandfather and their forebears had done? He had to admit that in his case it was not to check that all was well with the stream of workers coming and going, but to remember what had been. To remember what time and change and bad decisions had lost. How could it all be about the future with such a past?
Since his death, she wished she had asked more questions, at the same time knowing that she wouldn’t have done anything differently. Guy was proud of his heritage as the descendant of one of the earliest and finest watchmaking families. Despite living in the house where he was born and raised, working in the same factory where his ancestors oversaw the rise of a great dynasty, where generations had designed and consulted and imagined precision timepieces that were also masterpieces of art and elegance, he had been obsessed with the future. Obsessed.
The sun dropped farther, and Marie turned her attention inside. There was too much food left over from the funeral reception the day before. She’d sent everyone away before it was eaten, no longer able to tolerate people in her home. Feeling them wondering. Judging. She glanced around the kitchen and out to the hall and living room, remembering what it had looked like when she’d first visited the older Chavanons. A newly engaged young woman, she had been thrilled to meet Guy’s parents and to see and admire the fine house and its pedigree. To live in a house designed by Le Corbusier was beyond her imagination. She would be part of a legacy.
At first, she was shocked by the stark interiors, but was too timid to say anything. Even now, all these years later, it was impossible to pass judgment on such a famous architect. After all, until she met Guy, she’d only ever lived in her quaint neighborhood in Lausanne. A city girl surrounded by apartments, not a girl who dreamt of a villa.
Her first visit was nearly twenty years ago, and the house was even sparer now than then. A house for a modern couple, Marie said to the neighbors who noted the changes. The past could be overwhelming, she claimed. Now she looked around, wondering what was left to sell before she couldn’t make excuses.
“You shouldn’t go tomorrow,” a man’s voice said. Marie started. Stephan Dupré was through the side door and into the kitchen before she noticed he’d crossed the lawn. He was a lean tall man, his face angular. All of him was angular, as if distilled to pure energy draped over skeleton. At fifty, he was handsome in the way of men whose charisma blurred any need for classical features, and she could never see him without thinking of Guy. Stephan was a doer while her classically handsome husband was a dreamer.
“I don’t have a choice,” she said. “I have to pay the bills. Leo depends on me.”
Dupré dropped a pile of papers on the table, then veered to the other window, as if appreciating the view he’d seen a thousand times before.
“I brought your mail up.” He stepped to the phone and turned the ringer back on.
Marie glanced through the stack and selected a large envelope labeled with the Institute’s logo. Inside were photographs. She smiled. They were similar to the one Leo had texted to her three weeks ago. Although his shot hadn’t been the best—a ski glove blocked a corner of the frame and the boys’ faces were halfway covered by caps and scarves—the sheer joy in their eyes had reminded Marie why her son lived fifty kilometers away. These formal shots from the school photographer were clearer and would make their way into a frame, but they didn’t capture the joy of the selfies.
“Leo’s gone?” Dupré said. “I thought you were taking him tomorrow.”
“I was delaying. He’ll be happier with his friends at school, and Narendra drove us. He’s checking on Gisele and Ivo for me.” Tears formed in her eyes. “Guy always took Leo to school. I thought it would seem less lonely than him going alone with his poor old mother.”
“You’re not old.”
“Don’t say that.” Marie set the photographs down. “He needs to get back in his routine, and he can’t stay here alone. I should have been at Baselworld today.”
Dupré took a step closer. “Gisele and Ivo can take care of your booth. They did the setup without you, and the first two days have gone well, haven’t they?”
She swung to face him. “They don’t know our merchandise like I do. They can’t make larger deals on my behalf.”
“Do you have merchandise for larger deals?”
She moved as if to put a fist on his chest, but stopped short. “Yes, I have merchandise.”
“You know what I mean.”
She drove her hands into her pockets, crossed the room, and turned on a lamp.
“I don’t know why you go to Baselworld anymore,” he said. “You didn’t want to go this year. You told me you didn’t, and now you don’t have to.”
“It’s different now. Guy’s family has had a booth since the show began. A hundred years. I can’t quit the week he died.” Her voice softened. “The fee was paid. Next year, I’ll see.”
“Will there be a next year?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Did Guy reveal his world-changing idea? Do you have that? Is that what you’re counting on to pay the bills?”
Marie pressed her temples. “Stop it. He’s only been buried one day.”
“Have you been in his workshop? Seen what he left you?”
“You need to leave.
“Do you even have a key?”
She bit her lip.
“Because I do.”