Friedrich Holst climbs the narrow stairs of the clock tower at eight on a Tuesday morning, as he has done twice a week since 1995. The stairs are stone for the first two flights and wood for the last. He counts them under his breath, in German, the same way every time. He says it keeps him honest about his knees.

There are 134 steps. He says when he can no longer make 134 steps, he will find a successor. So far he has not found one.

Friedrich is seventy-three. He retired from a career as a mechanical engineer at a precision-instruments company in 2008. The clock had been a side project since 1995, when the previous keeper, a watchmaker named Herr Brandt, died without naming a replacement.

The town hall sits in the center of a small market square. The clock has been there in some form since 1644. The current mechanism is from 1872, with several twentieth-century repairs.

Friedrich reaches the mechanism room at eight-eleven. He hangs his coat on a peg his predecessor installed. He puts on a pair of cotton gloves. He greets the clock by patting the iron frame, the way a farmer might pat a horse.

The room smells of brass polish, machine oil, and a faint cold dampness that he says comes from the stone walls regardless of season.

He inspects the mechanism slowly. He listens first. He says you can hear a problem before you see it. He does not say what kind of problem. He says it depends.

The clock has three faces, one each on the north, south, and east sides of the tower. The west side is blank, because in 1872 the town could not afford a fourth face. Friedrich finds this funny. He says they could afford one now and have not bothered.

“The clock has three faces, one each on the north, south, and east sides of the tower.”

He winds the weights twice a week. They are heavy. He uses a crank he keeps on a hook by the door. He counts the turns. He has counted the same way for thirty-one years.

He oils the pinions on the first Tuesday of each month. He inspects the escapement on the third Tuesday. He tests the strike train on the second Friday. He keeps a logbook. The logbook is in its fourth volume since he took over.

The clock strikes every quarter hour. He has lived close enough to the square for thirty years that he no longer hears it consciously. He says his wife heard it for the first year and then never again.

His wife, Ingrid, is a retired schoolteacher. She comes to the tower occasionally. She does not climb. She waits in the cafe across the square and waves at him through the open shutters of the mechanism room.

She likes that I have a thing, he says. She had a thing for forty years. I needed mine.

The town pays him a small honorarium. He says it does not cover the time. He says he does not want it to.

Twice a year, in spring and fall, he adjusts the clock for the time change. The procedure takes three hours. He sets aside the morning. He brings a thermos of coffee. He does it alone.

Once in 2011 a tourist from England came to see the clock. The man had read about it in a niche horology journal. Friedrich gave him a tour. They corresponded for three years until the man died. Friedrich still keeps his letters in a folder.

The clock has stopped four times in thirty-one years. Once in 1998 because of a broken pivot. Once in 2004 because of a bird that found its way in and disturbed the pendulum. Once in 2013 during a brief power issue that affected the electric chime backup. And once in 2022 for reasons he has never been able to explain.

The mysterious one bothers me, he says. Mechanisms do not stop without reason. I have not yet found the reason.

He has trained one young person, a woman in her thirties named Anja, who works at a hardware store in the next town. She comes once a month. She is good with her hands. She is not yet ready, in his estimation, but she is closer than anyone else has ever been.

He does not push her. He says clocks are patient. He says people should be too.

He leaves the tower at ten-fourteen. He locks the door with an iron key that has been the same key since at least the nineteenth century. He goes to the cafe across the square. Ingrid is there. She has ordered him a coffee.

He sits, and she reads, and he watches the clock face from below. He says he likes seeing it run. He says it is the only honest thing in the square.

He will come back on Friday.