The Watchers Read Free Page A

guessed correctly. All the patrons laughed.
    A single chime rang through the café. Rochat glanced at the old clock above the bar. Little hand between eight and nine, big hand on three.
    ‘Mustn’t be late, Rochat. You have your duties.’
    He looked at his bill and read the numbers. He opened his wallet, carefully counting out his Swiss francs. He checked everything three times, making sure his calculations were correct.
    ‘Very good, Rochat. Numbers can be very silly things. Always moving about when you’re trying to read them.’
    He tied a black scarf around his neck and slipped on his long black wool coat and eased through the crowded café towards the door. The patrons shifted in their chairs to let him pass. Monsieur Dufaux called from behind the bar:
    ‘ Fais attention , Marc, the stones will be slippery in the rain.’
    Rochat felt everyone’s eyes at his back, everyone watching his clumsy limp. He pulled his floppy black wool hat from his pocket, tugged it down on his head.
    ‘ Merci. Bonne soirée, mesdames et messieurs .’
    He shuffled through the curtains and out of the door and into the rain. He checked for shadows on the cobblestones. There was only his own crooked shadow stretching from his boots.
    ‘ On y va , Rochat.’
    He shuffled to the bottom of Escaliers du marché. The steep hill of cobbled-together and mismatched stones looked slippery in the rain just as Monsieur Dufaux had warned. Rochat shuffled to the wood staircase workermen built in middles of ages. Rochat didn’t know who they were but he was very glad they had built it. The wood handrail was sturdy and the red-tiled roof would keep him from getting soaked to the bones. He grabbed the handrail and climbed.
    ‘ Un, deux, trois …’
    The thud of his crooked right foot marking his pace.
    ‘… seize, dix-sept, dix-huit …’
    The old stone buildings along the hill looking hammered into place by the same cobblers who built the road. Skinny flats with painted shutters, empty flower boxes at the windows, small shops on the ground floor. An antique dealer, a hairdresser, Vaucher the Boulanger, a gunsmith, an Indian restaurant with funny statues at the doors and the Place de la Palud bureau of the Swiss Police, who, like all good citizens, closed up shop at night and went home.
    ‘… vingt et un, vingt-deux, vingt-trois … ’
    He quickened his pace till the stone buildings began to bend in the corners of his eyes and he could imagine beforetimes.
    ‘… quarante-sept, quarante-huit, quarante-neuf …’
    And another cobblestone road ….
    ‘… cinquante, cinquante et un, cinquante-deux …’
    … and another stone house, with a garden at the back. The place he lived with his mother through the first ten years of his life. The place he learned to walk on his uneven legs. The only place in the world Rochat had known till a strangerman came knocking at his door. He was tall and had a bald head and there were reading glasses with no arms balanced on the tip of his nose. Rochat’s mother said the stranger had been sent by his father. Rochat had never met his father, only knew him from a photograph. Standing with his mother on a summer’s day on the Plains of Abraham above the St Lawrence River. His mother wore a blue dress, she looked pretty. The photograph taken in the days before she changed. She grew tired and weak, she took lots of medicines. Then her hair fell out and she stayed in bed most of the day.
    ‘… soixante-quatre, soixante-cinq, soixante-six …’
    The man at the door shook Rochat’s hand.
    ‘Good afternoon, Master Rochat. I am Monsieur Gübeli. It is an honour to make your acquaintance.’
    He came into the house and sat at the kitchen table. He opened his briefcase and removed some papers for his mother to sign. He helped her hold the pen steady. Then the man showed Rochat a small red book with a white cross on the cover.
    ‘Your father has secured this Swiss passport for you, Master Rochat, so you may come to