Ahmet Tanpinar - The Time Regulation Institute

Years later, when I conveyed these very words to Halit Ayarcı, my esteemed benefactor, he fairly swooned with excitement, nearly throwing his arms around me as he cried, “But, my good friend, you have worked alongside a great philosopher!” Later I will describe in full detail the day, or rather the evening, I first met Halit Ayarcı. But I will note here only that our institute’s slogans, which surprised, amused, and even challenged the minds of the people of Istanbul, were born of these sayings first uttered by Nuri Efendi.

How strange that for years as I listened to these and all the other sayings born of my late master, I suffered under the illusion that I was squandering my youth. In reality it was these very words that would lead me to enjoy the success and well-being that only heartfelt public service can provide.

But what other road was open to me? In those years I was struggling to finish college (a goal I was likely to achieve only if I stayed as far away as possible from my teachers and the school itself), so what could I really have understood of the affinities Nuri Efendi saw between watches and human beings, and watches and society? And with no explanation forthcoming, how was I to see these affinities reflected in his life and his philosophy of human fellowship? Because indeed it was an authentic philosophy, according to what both Halit Ayarcı and Dr. Ramiz later told me. But let me make this clear at once: Dr. Ramiz came to understand the value of Nuri Efendi’s words only after Halit Ayarcı declared his own admiration for them, though he had heard those words many a time, and long before he ever introduced me to my benefactor. Dr. Ramiz was so absorbed in his own world that he found everything beyond it difficult to comprehend. Certainly he was not inclined to stray far from public opinion. And the same applies to his dealings with me: He was always unfailingly pleasant and kind. He enjoyed his chats with me and never tired of listening to my troubles. If our paths didn’t cross, he would seek me out to ask after my children’s health and even offer to help with minor matters. It was through him that I came to know Halit Ayarcı. But he didn’t see my true worth; he saw me only as others saw me, which is to say that he took me for a reprobate redeemed by a paltry array of virtues, a half-deranged eccentric who viewed the world in a singular way. But upon discovering Halit Ayarcı’s admiration for me, he changed his opinion, and from then on he never ceased to sing my praises. So much so that in the indexes of his four most recent works, the name that appears most often after those of Freud and Jung is none other than my own. I appear almost as frequently as my late mentor Nuri Efendi and Seyh Ahmet Zamanı. Though in my view he went a bit too far. I’m not the kind of man worthy of being discussed in such scientific studies. Of course, considering my love for humanity, I wasn’t about to overlook these flatteries: I had Ramiz duly remunerated. I’ve always supported the man with modest increases in what I paid him. But let me not be entirely unfair: Dr. Ramiz treated me for quite some time, and he had much to do with making me aware of the part of my life that was bound to that of another, Seyit Lutfullah, as my readers will discover in due course. This only goes to show that Halit Ayarcı was the first person to appreciate me and Nuri — or, more correctly, Nuri through me, and, naturally, me through him — and the first person to discern the preternatural role that time pieces play in our lives, with time itself ruling them by imperial decree.

And let us not forget one of Halit Ayarcı’s more outstanding qualities: his knack for uncovering hidden talents and treasures.

Nuri Efendi and Halit Ayarcı—my life circled these two great poles. One I met when I was still quite young, at a time when my eyes had only just opened to the world and the people in it. The other stepped into my life when I had lost all hope, when I believed the story of my life was at an end. These two men, so distinct in virtue and mentality, were likewise distinct in their understandings of time, but in me their opposites merged in such a way as to never again diverge. I was the product of their combined efforts. I was like the secondhand watches Nuri Efendi repaired by carefully assembling parts made by different craftsmen; I was a mechanism made of two personalities combined and harnessed to the caravan of time, an “amended” alloy, a composite work of art.

Nuri Efendi was perhaps more meticulous in regulating watches and clocks than in repairing them. An unregulated timepiece would drive this otherwise mild-mannered man to despair. As more and more clocks appeared around the city following the reestablishment of the constitution in 1908, he would no longer set foot outside his workshop for fear of “exposure to an unregulated clock.” To him a broken or damaged clock was like a sick human being, and while it was natural for man to fall ill, an unregulated clock had no such excuse. To his mind it was a social affront, a mortal sin. And it was inevitable that these unregulated timepieces would provide the devil with yet another way to delude humanity, driving men from the road to God and robbing them of their time.

As Nuri Efendi so often said, “Regulation is chasing down the seconds!” This was yet another of his deft turns of phrase that so astonished Halit Ayarcı:

“Think about the implications of these words, my dear friend Hayri Irdal. This means that a properly regulated clock never loses a single second! And what are we doing about it? What about the people in this city, in the country at large? We’re losing half our time with unregulated clocks. If every person loses one second per hour, we lose a total of eighteen million seconds in that hour. Assuming the essentially useful part of the day consists of ten hours, we are left with one hundred eighty million seconds. So in just one day a hundred eighty million seconds — in other words three million minutes; this means a loss of fifty thousand hours per day. Now perform the calculations and see how many lifetimes suddenly slip away every year. And half of these eighteen million people don’t even own watches; and if they do, they don’t work. Among them you’ll find some that are half an hour, even a whole hour, behind standard time. It’s a maddening loss of time… a loss in terms of our work, our lives, and our everyday economy. Can you now see the immensity of Nuri Efendi’s mind, his genius? Thanks to his inspiration, we shall make up the loss. Therein lies the truly beneficial aspect of our institute. Let the critics say what they will. Our society will undertake this vital task. I want you to get right to work on an accurate and comprehensive statistical field report, so we can print brochures this weekend… But, then again, I’ll prepare them myself — I mustn’t delegate such a delicate job. You shall write the life of Nuri Efendi, a book in the European style. Only you can meet such a challenge — it is your duty to introduce this man to the world.”

I never wrote the book; instead I wrote The Life and Works of Ahmet the Timely , using all the same ideas and materials, as it was deemed more beneficial and more contributive to the politics of our institute. Was this a betrayal of my master?

Nuri Efendi never gave me much work, and what he did pass on to me he never expected me to finish right away. There was never any need to rush. He was the proprietor of time. He’d spend it as he wished, and, to a certain extent, he gave the same privilege to the people around him. More than anything, he had accepted me as an avid listener. From time to time he’d say, “Hayri, my son. I cannot say if you’ll ever become a fine watchmaker. Of course I’d be the first to wish you such good fortune, for you’ll be sure to face grave problems in the future if you don’t fully commit yourself to a profession early on. But as the humble image of the Great Creator, you lack the fortitude to endure this life and everything it will thrust upon you. Only work can save you, and it’s a shame that you lack the necessary focus for this kind of work.” Then to flatter me, he’d say, “Nevertheless you love watches and clocks, and you take pity on them. That is important. What’s more, you’re a good listener. Of that I am sure. You know how to listen, and that is a rare talent. If nothing else, it masks one’s shortcomings and elevates one to the level of an interlocutor!”