Ahmet Tanpinar - The Time Regulation Institute

In making that outlandish journey from the graveyard back to her home, in drawing upon the strength of her will to subdue all those around her — for the crowd surely would have preferred the serenity of a burial to the fated resurrection — in embarking on this adventure, my aunt had at last discovered this thing called life. Swayed by a soft March sun shimmering behind a thin curtain of gently falling snow, and by the biting wind blowing over the old city walls, not to mention the ever-multiplying, weeping crowds and the faces looming over her, she was beset by emotions that until then had lain dormant. Life did exist after all! Both the rich and the poor were alive. They laughed, shouted, cried, worried, loved, and grieved, but above all they lived. Why would she not do the same? Especially now, when she had so much of what these people most desired. She had discovered life on her journey home; crossing over her hearth to watch my father remove precious stones from under his shirt and out of his pockets, she discovered the true value of her fortune.

The third and final change was physical. The fearful joy she’d felt at eluding death and the surge of panic she’d endured while recapturing her fortune combined to jolt my aunt out of illness and paralysis.

The result, you might well ask? It was this: my aunt, who was taken home in a victory chariot like Caesar, accompanied perhaps by a third of the city, woke up the next day from a long and peaceful sleep in perfect condition, and she bounded right out of bed.

The first thing she did was send for the imam, to whom she gave her late husband’s entire wardrobe, along with personal effects she had kept as memento mori. Then she hopped in a carriage and set off to visit a financier who took her to the finest seamstresses in all of Beyoglu. For days, she busied herself with the latest fashions. Meanwhile she had the villa of the warden of the street sweeper’s trade guild cleaned, restored, whitewashed, and renovated. And she even bought herself a small carriage with black rubber wheels.

The day the new carriage arrived, a butler, a male cook, and a new team of chambermaids began working at the villa. Once this team was in place, my aunt relieved her ward, Safinaz Hanım, of the title ahretlik, thus emancipating her from indentured service. In severing this immortal bond, she relinquished all concern with the world to come. The poor woman left the house in a hired carriage with two trunks and a few pennies in her pocket. In the space of a week (seeing as human beings always need companionship), Nasit Bey had taken her place, moving into the villa with his son and daughter to become my aunt’s second husband and our new relative. Six months later they went together to Vienna to take the cure, and not long after their return, Nasit Bey became a deputy member of the Committee for Union and Progress. Thereafter he embarked on a significant business venture, availing himself of my aunt’s fortune.

In all this our only acquisition, apart from the pendulum, was Safinaz Hanım. After living for a short while with a relative in Besiktas, she ran out of money, only to remember that her former guardian had a brother who lived in a small, comfortable, modest, and cozy little four-roomed home in Edirnekapı, and with the last penny in her pocket she hired a carriage and directed it to take her and her empty trunk to our home.

XII

Aristidi Efendi’s death brought an end to our quest for gold. And my aunt’s rebirth wiped out all hope of an inheritance. All we had left was Seyit Lutfullah and the treasure he was still so passionately seeking. Needless to say, another ill-fated and untimely event ruined this, our last, chance.

Seyit Lutfullah had begun delivering sermons on certain days at a small mosque somewhere near the Yemis Pier. During one of these sermons, the poor soul suddenly felt called upon to reveal a startling truth that he had kept secret from everyone until that moment.

After enumerating various material and spiritual threats to the Islamic world and bemoaning the mounting chaos around us, he told the faithful gathered before him that things simply could not carry on as they were and that the time was ripe for a new mehdi , a messiah who was soon to arrive to put an end to the confusion; and at the end of his speech, he trumpeted the good tidings at the top of his lungs: “Lo, I am that new messiah! I have only to make myself known. But I will do so soon enough… and then you shall all flock to my side.”

Though Lutfullah conveyed his triumphant message with astounding lucidity, he pinned his coming to an indefinite date, leaving us with a fair idea as to how much opium he had consumed that day. This did little to help his case, as the government in power took a dim view of the affair; Mahmud Sevket Pasha had not yet been assassinated and Istanbul was seething with political unrest.

Thank God Lutfullah was able to speak more clearly on the matter once the effects of the drugs had faded, particularly during his first interrogation. He spoke at length about Aselban, the treasure of Andronikos, the battles waged by his guardian spirits at the sight of the treasure, and the disgruntled treachery of those evil spirits who pestered him, dressed up to resemble some sort of fifth column. Perhaps the messiah idea had been instilled in him by those same evil and capricious spirits. Having shunted the blame to Abdazah, a spirit so evil as to be well beyond the grasp of any government or police force, he came around to the idea that his case should be viewed as exceptional.

Following Lutfullah’s detention, I was called into the police station, along with my father, Abdüsselam Bey, and Sadi Efendi from Isparta, who had taken Nuri Efendi’s place at the Time Workshop. While waiting in the corridor to give our statements, Nasit Bey (whom we hadn’t seen since his marriage to my aunt) entered the building. And what an entrance it was.

This was not the Nasit Bey we had known — that avuncular man whose face, if not reflecting the simple joy of being alive, conveyed sadness and anxiety about his finances. Now his entire being exuded grandeur and gravitas. His moustache, which had previously drooped over his jowls, pointed upward in defiance of gravity, while his eyes, narrowed by sadness, were as hard as stones, with a piercing gaze that seemed to cut through the seen world to confront the one beyond. With a honey-colored overcoat in place of his old hunting jacket and a golden cane in his hand, he ambled toward us with ponderous steps that bespoke the seriousness of the occasion, which is to say that he left us in no doubt about the significance of his coming all the way down to the station to rescue us. Striding past us with a pride that reflected a fortune worth a couple of hundred thousand liras, and with all the power and prestige of the Committee for Union and Progress behind him, he stepped into the room where Abdüsselam Bey was undergoing his police interview.

About ten minutes later, they burst from the room. My father took this opportunity to congratulate his old friend and new relation and wish him every happiness. I took Nasit Bey’s hand and kissed it before pressing it to my forehead. Ah, the good old days. This man who used to stop me on the street in Büyükçekmece to urge me to take his daughter’s hand in marriage, this man who’d had nothing to say beyond a single bland assurance—“In just a couple years now you’ll be the new young man in our family”—now reluctantly offered me his hand, and after I had kissed it, he abruptly pulled it back to wipe it clean with a handkerchief before putting on his gloves. But having him there — Abdüsselam played a small part in the matter as well — did seem to expedite matters. After the men of importance had given their statements, it seemed unnecessary for us to do the same — in fact it took on the colors of a tiresome chore: “We’ll call you when we need you,” the police officer grumbled, and sent us home.