The Game of Opposites (2009)

Norman Lebrecht's novel was published by Pantheon in 2009. In an unnamed country at the end of a world war, Paul Miller escapes from a labor camp, is nursed by a young woman, Alice, and stays to marry her, rebuild the village and become its mayor, until the camp's commandant returns. (Open Library)

Watches

Tissot (unidentified model): Drawing plans in the camp office, Paul finds the commandant's personnel file under a wristwatch, a Tissot by the look of it, heavily scratched and on a thick strap in a runic pattern. He lifts it to read the name, Hannes Joachim Kerner, and puts it back (p. 21). His own Tissot, a thirteenth-birthday gift from his mother, was taken at the strip-down parade. Years later Hans says he picked his watch off a mound of prisoners' possessions; Paul wonders if it is his own (p. 238) and produces it (p. 250). The maker is named; the model is not.

Source text: Paul tried to read the name on the cover but could not decipher it because a wristwatch had been left across the dossier, a semi-precious Swiss job — a Tissot, by the look of it. (Norman Lebrecht, The Game of Opposites, scan cataloged as Pantheon Books, 2009, p. 19; Internet Archive scan OCR)