Ahmet Tanpinar - The Time Regulation Institute

If I had thought it possible, I would have thrown myself on the floor and groveled at his feet. This was how I saw myself throughout my tirade. I wanted to embrace something, to beg and plead, until everyone, even fate itself, believed me.

“Calm yourself, Hayri Bey,” he kept saying. But I continued.

“It’s a lie. Please understand. An insignificant, simple lie. A joke!”

I tried to pull myself together and explain.

“Simply take out the lie and nothing’s there — I’d be saved. I’m not sick at all. If you’re looking for someone who is, well, there’s my wife! I’m terribly worried about her — she’s very ill. She looked dreadful the other day. She wasn’t that bad when I left home, but as for myself, I’m absolutely fine! A man in perfect health.”

Oh, the sound of my voice then. How well I know that voice and the way it makes my entire body heave. How many times in my life have I woken up from dreams with this same fear inside me, with this voice wet with tears still ringing in my ears? Fear. Fear and man, fear and man’s destiny, the struggle of man against man, and needless hostility. But who was I fooling? To whom could I explain myself? For what can a man ever really convey? What grief can one man truly share with another? The stars might speak to one another, but man can never communicate with man.

The worst of it was that Ramiz Bey had no intention of trying to understand what I was saying, let alone even listen. He was interested only in my illness, or, rather, his diagnosis. And really, why would I ever disavow my own father?

“Please stay calm,” he said. “Unfortunately you don’t like the man but not liking someone doesn’t mean rejecting him out of hand. You’re rather mixed up about the whole thing. The confusion began with the Blessed One. Its past exerted an exalted and sacred stranglehold on your home. Domestic values were turned upside down, and your father was relegated to second fiddle.”

“The clock!? That wretched thing? A crotchety old clock… a family heirloom?”

“Don’t you see? Miserable, old, crotchety… You continually speak of it as if it’s a human being. Pay attention to your words: first ‘wretched’ and then ‘old.’ What I mean is that first you spoke of it as if it were a human being, and then you caught yourself and said it was ‘old,’ as if to characterize it as just a piece of furniture. But you weren’t entirely satisfied with that word, and so you added the word ‘crotchety’…” He riffled through his notes. “On the first day you used the following words and phrases: ‘strange,’ ‘bizarre disposition,’ ‘flights of fancy,’ ‘idiosyncratic,’ and ‘those things it would always do.’”

“And?”

“In other words, you spent your childhood in a home dominated by this clock. Even your father was jealous of it. Although your mother named it the Blessed One, your father called it the Calamity. I’m surprised the man never smashed it to pieces, because your father realized the danger it presented well before you did.”

“But he never wanted to smash the thing. He wanted to sell it.”

Delighted, the doctor bounced out of his seat. I’d supplied him with yet another piece of evidence for his case.

“So he wanted it out of the house.”

I bowed my head. It was true. My father behaved as if the clock was a bitter rival, and he would often moan, “The thing never leaves me alone. Oh, the Calamity has practically taken over my home.”

Again I rallied my strength and began to explain. What else was there for me to do?

“Doctor, please! All this is quite unreasonable. Just because the poor man let a few words slip… No one could really be jealous of a clock. Have you ever seen someone jealous of an object? I could understand if it were a person… but why would someone be jealous of their own property? Perhaps they might find it distasteful or become tired of it or throw it away — sell it, burn it, smash it to bits, but…”

“And then there’s Nuri Efendi, Seyit Lutfullah, and Abdüsselam Bey.”

“Nuri was my master, and the best man I’ve ever known. Lutfullah was a hopeless madman, but I was always amused by his words and actions. I liked him as I might like a fairy tale. As for Abdüsselam, the man was very kind to me.”

“Yes, but they all fit into different periods of your life. You followed a different man at each stage in your life.”

Panic slowly welled up inside me. Was that really the case? There’s no doubt I was in some way attached to all these men. Dr. Ramiz suddenly and quite mercilessly interrupted my thoughts:

“How do you explain Abdüsselam naming your first child?”

I held up my hands and once again implored him to return to reason and logic, the only sound approach to all this.

“Have mercy, Doctor, a little mercy… It was a matter of courtesy, for I was living in his home. He had been so kind to me on so many other occasions. He was my benefactor. So call it whatever you like: a blessing, an act of piety to the man, or as the elders call it ‘an auspicious consecration.’”

“So, in a word, he was a father to you. And you wholeheartedly accepted him as such. You accepted him to such an extent that you even allowed the poor man to give your daughter his mother’s name.”

“And that is my fault? He gave her the name — and by mistake.”

“Naturally you were the one who thrust the role upon him. A matter of influence… You’re a powerful man, Hayri Bey, or, rather, a powerful patient.”

By this point all my resistance was broken. There was nothing I could do but stare at him, transfixed by his interpretation. It was the same way I had, for days, stared at everyone in the courtroom in utter surprise. In the same state of mind I had cried, “How can these people actually believe all this?” I suppose it is this state of shock in the face of our fellow human beings that prevents us from going mad several times a day.

Snuffing out my cigarette, I stood up.

“Don’t you think this has all gone too far, Doctor?” I asked. “True, I was never a great admirer of my father. He had such strange moods. He was cantankerous, and he spoke too much, and he had no self control. All in all, he wasn’t the kind of man anyone really loved, respected, or, for that matter, held in much esteem. He’d had bad luck — that was certain. But he was still my father. I pitied him even if I didn’t love him. He had such a soft and battered soul… To look for someone to replace him, and so many years after he passed away? Now, maybe if I were my mother, I might be able to choose another man for myself…” He gestured for me to sit down.

“This is true, quite true… But what can be done? Such is your condition. Your own words indicate as much. Didn’t you say the deceased was not the kind of man to be loved, respected, or esteemed? Yet a father should always be loved — should be someone who is always respected. This is the case whether you like it or not. You see, you aren’t at all envious of your father, but normally a father is envied. Things would be quite different if there were envy. But you were never envious of your father.”

“What aspect of the man could I envy?”

Every time I spoke, the doctor’s smile took on new shades of meaning.

“You were never envious of him because you never found anything of merit in the man! Now, now — there’s no need to panic. These kinds of conditions are found in almost everyone. You’re just a little late in this regard. You still haven’t become a father. But when you do, all this will pass.”

“I never became a father?! But I have two children. I even named the second child myself. Goodness me, I was the one who decided on the name Ahmet.”