The Legend of Franck Muller - Westime

CHAPTER TWO:
THE ELUSIVE FRANCK MULLER
The genius is touched by God.
He is struck by lightning. He
sees angels in the architecture,
spinning in infinity. He reaches
out and touches them. But like all geniuses,
Franck Muller is elusive. And for months I
chased his trail. But Franck was in the
wind. Every now and then, he’d come up
for air and it would feed back to me. A
fortnight ago, Franck was spotted playing
chess on the beach with Gary Kasparov like
in the Fellini film. Then Franck was
reworking the Fibonacci sequence with Bill
Gates to derive a mathematical formula for
cleaning up the BP oil spill. Last week,
Franck was seeking out the Four Noble
Truths in an ashram in Kathmandu. But
where was he now?
Several people have asked me my
motivation for chronicling the history of
Franck Muller. And to them I’ve tried to
explain that, in many ways, it is impossible
to have an appreciation of the modern
horological world without understanding
Franck Muller’s contribution to it. Franck
Muller literally made Swiss high
watchmaking relevant to a whole new
generation. He is our era’s first and
most successful watchmaker; he is of such
a level of technical inventiveness and
commercial acumen that he can rightly be
called the new millennium’s Abraham-
Louis Breguet.
These were the thoughts careening
through my brain as I ploughed steadfastly
up a Thai mountain. With each pedal stroke
of my bike, lactic acid shot through my
bio-machinery. So, it was easy to confuse
the phone ring with the auditory
hallucination that signals the onset of heat
exhaustion. Collapsing by the side of the
road, I heard it again.
“Franck Muller would like to see you
tomorrow,” came the voice.
“I am in Thailand,” I wheezed.
“No problem, Franck Muller is also in
Thailand.” Now I was convinced that I was
lying on the cool sheets of a Thai hospital
bed beneath the canopy of an oxygen tent
as my brain played out fantasies on its
own stage.
“He’s just at his villa at the Amanpuri
and would like you to come tomorrow.
From your location, it is a short flight and
we’ve already prepared your ticket.” The
omnipotence of the Franck Muller machine
was staggering. I touched my skin to check
that a GPS tracking device hadn’t been
injected beneath it. But even as I did, I
knew how this would play out. When genius
summons you, you go. I closed my eyes to
enjoy the momentary respite of the shadecooled
concrete beneath my head.
BAPTISM
“Welcome to the Amanpuri,” called out the
cheery voice of the housekeeper. I
staggered up the stairs with my bicycle,
looking expectantly for a figure in cool
white linen and a Panama hat conjuring up
alchemic wonders of gear wheels and
spring bars out of thin air.
“Where is Franck Muller?” I asked as I
surveyed the two empty swimming pools
and the equally empty house.
“Franck Muller is at the beach, sir,” came
the reply.
The buggy bounced through the
sprawling estate of the private residences
at Phuket’s famous Amanpuri, the
temporary homes of the global elite fleeing
the icy clutches of Europe for days of
bronzed skin and a state of mind best
expressed in the pointillist warmth of
Henri Matisse’s Luxe, Calme
et Volupté.
Arriving on the beach, I was without a
word whisked to a beach chair, provided
for with a soft gossamer bathrobe, a beach
towel, an ice-cold exotic fruit daiquiri, and
a light Bolivar Belicosos. I had everything.
Everything, except Franck.
“Do you know where I might find Franck
Muller?” I asked the small nut-brown
man, turning my chair to face the afternoon
sun like a human sundial.
“There’s Franck Muller!” he exclaimed,
waving toward the clear blue sea and the
vast gold horizon. For a moment, I thought
I’d stumbled upon a disguised Bodhisattva,
replying to what he thought was a
Zen parable.
“Yes,” I replied. “I understand, Franck
Muller is everywhere and all things.
He is…”
“No,” the diminutive man cut me off, “he
is swimming in the ocean. There…” He
gestured far off the coast to a man floating
serenely on his back, his face covered by a
massive white Panama hat. “There’s
Franck Muller.”
I called his name. I waved. I jumped. To
no avail. Franck was in the wind. He was
floating in the vast blue infinity as he saw
angels in the architecture, spinning in
infinity, reaching out to touch them.
I sealed my digital voice recorder in
a Ziploc, placed it under my pink
commemorative Giro d’Italia hat, and
began the long, slow swim toward my