Ahmet Tanpinar - The Time Regulation Institute

From then on, one could see the flicker of superstitious fear in the indulgent European smile Aristidi Efendi had once flashed in the face of Lutfullah’s ignorance; in the company of our friend he became as restive and indecisive as an army with no option of retreat.

What Seyit Lutfullah really wanted was the power to unlock the mystery of the universe and thus gain spiritual control over matter. “Gold is not to be made in an alembic but forged of the soul. How much of it is already in the earth? The problem is to produce it without using our hands,” he would say.

But when leading experiments in the secret laboratory behind Aristidi Efendi’s pharmacy, surrounded by alembics and vials and various bottles and stills, he was ready to try anything, as were all the others; he’d present Aristidi Efendi with questionable formulae fished from old manuscripts, and heated arguments would ensue, often lasting days.

Through these battles, Aristidi Efendi’s well-mannered European patience and indulgence were challenged by Seyit Lutfullah’s humility, as well as his proud and powerful hold on the spiritual world, and the two opposing powers swirled around each other as if melding in a great cauldron set over an open fire. All I remember of the great debates I myself witnessed are Lutfullah’s favorite terms: “purification,” “putrefaction” “thickening,” “marriage,” “birth,” “dissolution,” and “connections”; they shimmered like doors to a greater world, answering only to powerful displays of will.

And yet we have all witnessed, in the most unexpected of circumstances, such doors bursting open before us. Aristidi Efendi (who liked to claim all the glory for these experiments, despite the fact that they were funded mainly by Abdüsselam Bey) was working alone one night when an alembic cracked and his laboratory went up in flames. Only an hour later did the fire department and neighborhood volunteers make it to the scene and find the body of Aristidi Efendi half-consumed by the fire. It was February 1912, and with Aristidi Efendi’s death all effort to make gold in an alembic came to an end. And so the only hope that remained for the small group was the treasure.

VIII

But why have I burdened my chronicle of the Time Regulation Institute with these distant reveries? And why have I allowed myself to be seized by these shadows of the past? People today fail to grasp the importance of such questions. They overlook the truths and absurdities that lie beneath. I myself am now far too old to take pleasure in visits to the past or even, for that matter, from simple reminiscing. But even so, there is no disputing the fact that from the moment Halit Ayarcı came into my life I became a new man. I became more at ease with reality, more accustomed to confronting it. Indeed the man created a whole new life for me. I now feel distant from all these characters and long-ago events; a part of me has turned away from the past, though I still claim it as my own. But however I might regret it, I cannot explain myself without looking back. I lived among these men for years and with them chased after their dreams. There were times when I even dressed like them, adopting aspects of their personalities. Without my quite knowing, I would on occasion even become Nuri Efendi or Abdüsselam Bey or, yes, even Seyit Lutfullah. They were my models, the masks I hardly knew to be masks. I would don one personality or another before heading out to mingle with the crowds. And still today when I look in the mirror I can see these men reflected in my face. First I see Nuri Efendi’s indulgent smile, and then Lutfullah’s deceitful gaze, and I shudder at the thought of the horrible things I might have done. Or I am devastated to detect the desperate jealousy and impatience of my father. I can see these men’s traits in my attire too. The moment I put on a suit sewn for me by one of those celebrated tailors, I can be no other than Abdüsselam. And just the other day I noticed I needed new spectacles: off I went to look for a new pair with gold rims exactly like the ones Aristidi Efendi used to wear, though I knew the style was well out of fashion. Perhaps this is what we mean by “personality”: the rich array of masks we store in the warehouses of our minds and the eccentricities of those who manifest themselves in our person.

But there may be a deeper and more powerful force that intervenes on occasion to obstruct these inherited traits. This is something I’ve always had in me. I cannot say that the same goes for everyone. Naturally there are those who live differently, those who consider themselves stronger and closer to reality, and unique.

Such matters are distant from the memoir I am writing. I am busy with my own chronicle. But to return to my earlier point, I was never quite able to escape the hold these friends had on me. As my son once told me, I had no experience of what he called “proper, organized employment.” Like my friends, I wandered from whim to whim. Ahmet was never like me; indeed he made a concerted effort not to be. And for this he deprived himself of numerous opportunities. Nevertheless, as soon as he finished high school he won himself a state scholarship. And although I suggested he continue his studies in America after completing medical school, a choice befitting our wealth and position at the time, he rejected the idea out of hand and instead went to Anatolia. Thereafter he lived without ever consulting me on such matters, forever refusing all I offered.

It would be wrong to say he never loved me. Yet he was vehemently opposed to my mode of thinking, which was not in harmony with his way of seeing the world. Nevertheless I maintain that a part of me lives on in him. I even saw this for myself one day, as I watched him examining a patient at his clinic. I would have examined a watch in exactly the same way. Or rather it was how Nuri Efendi would have examined a watch; I always wished my son would one day resemble this man, for he was always more master of the trade than I.

For whatever reason, it is my past, and not my current position in life, that holds the key to my problems; I can neither escape from it nor entirely accept its mandate.

IX

Some four years ago, I discovered a piece of an old balustrade. Having bought it on the spot, I had it mounted over the French door in my office, which looks out onto the Clock Villa’s veranda and garden, with its seasonal flowers. I am in no doubt that this balustrade is what has led me to labor over certain points in my memoirs. When I look up at its star-and-tulip motif I have the impression of looking deep into my despairing and poverty-stricken past, but at the same time I can see through to my childhood and its days of fantasy and hope. Whenever, in those days, I went to see Seyit Lutfullah, to give him various items people had abandoned at Nuri Efendi’s workshop, and would pass through that ruined medrese , I would stop before this same balustrade and daydream about the share I would receive of the treasure Lutfullah was sure to unearth one day, or the mercury that Aristidi Efendi would one day transmute into gold — though no one had ever actually promised me a share, I was convinced that someday, somewhere, something would come to me — and I would dream, too, of repairing the cemetery and its toppled walls and maybe even the mosque itself.

But fortune and chance ushered in quite the opposite. Although I had vowed to bequeath our grandfather clock to a mosque when I was older and in secure financial circumstances, I eventually, some twelve years ago, sold it; and something similar happened with this balustrade. One day I’d found it dangling from the wall, like the wings of one of the hunter Nasit Bey’s birds, and I made off with it in broad daylight and sold it to an antique dealer for just thirty liras.