Ahmet Tanpinar - The Time Regulation Institute

But Sabriye Hanım, through force of will, achieved the impossible: she broke the rules. Instead of directly answering questions posed by the spiritual mentor, the spirits speaking through her preferred to address the more mundane issues of the world beyond. If the hypnotist happened to question Sabriye Hanım on the purification of souls, a matter thoroughly discussed by the medium Hüsnü Bey, son of the old sheikh Kadiri, the tenor of a conversation changed dramatically. According to the spiritualist lexicon, the word “purification” described a soul’s deliverance from evil passions and its return to innocence, but Sabriye Hanım took the word to mean “liquidation.”

“Oh come on!” she cried. “Liquidate the company? Not at all! It’s more prosperous than ever before. Company shares have only gone up and will continue to do so!”

But then if the hypnotist asked Hüsnü Bey, “Have you ever connected with a higher being?” The medium might give the following answer:

“It would take at least ten thousand years of suffering to attain that height. And besides, if I ever reached a higher being, I’d have nothing to do with any of you.” But if the mouthpiece for that very same spirit was Sabriye Hanım, she might say:

“No, I’ve never tried. Truth is, I’ve never even thought of trying. I’ve been too busy following Rudolph Valentino’s latest love affair! If you like, I’ll tell you all about it!”

Several times, in the midst of a deep trance, she’d suddenly interrupt the spirit to cry:

“I can’t find her. I can’t find Zeynep Hanım. I suppose there’s an isolated wing for those who’ve taken their own lives.” And apologizing, she said, “I’m new here. Forgive me.”

Sometimes when the spiritual mentor asked the same gracious, pious, kindly spirit what needed to be done to make people more immaculate and pure, she would cry:

“Are you all fools? Forget about all this and look at what’s right under your noses. Over the last few days, someone among you has been preparing for something that will surely make you quake!”

Sabriye Hanım’s success as a medium lay in her ability to leave her body behind and travel only with her thoughts. Once given a task, she would cast off her corporeal form like an old dress and stare blankly, blissfully out the window, running her eyes up over the walls as she described everything she saw in sumptuous detail. This was of course only the most natural manifestation of her curiosity. Once she found the opportunity to quench it, she used every trick in the book to avoid coming out too early, and to avoid returning to our world she would beg and badger the spiritual mentor: “I’ll just have one more look to see what’s happening on the opposite building’s third floor. I thought I saw Suat Hanım, but it wasn’t her. The woman was blond… and tall. I didn’t recognize her.” Describing to us everything she saw, this normally unprepossessing woman was transformed: her face lit up as if she had just awoken from a happy dream, and she seemed almost beautiful.

Sabriye Hanım put forward just one condition before she engaged in these séances, and that was that the hypnotist wasn’t to wake her up before she took a quick look around Nevzat Hanım’s home. Awake and fully compos mentis, she’d exclaim, “What did I say? Did I see anything? You let me have a look around, right?”

The truth was that Sabriye Hanım believed Zeynep Hanım had shot herself after uncovering a secret love affair between her husband and Nevzat Hanım. She also believed that Murat, like Aphrodite’s aunt, was a fiction — a fiction invented to cover up a love affair, a criminal love affair that had resulted in the death of someone she dearly loved.

The association did not merely disagree with Sabriye Hanım; it rejected her theory wholesale. Murat was nothing like Aphrodite’s aunt. He wasn’t the kind of spirit that could be knocked out in just one blow. So much of the association’s quaint warmth came from this churlish and outspoken but loveable spirit. Who will ever forget that sudden rush we all felt the evening when a capricious Murat cut the electricity and we all huddled together in fear? The following week the association was compelled to ban new members, if only to protect this dearly loved creature from exposure.

So the promises the hypnotist made to Sabriye Hanım were never honored: he made every effort to keep her far from Nevzat Hanım’s home. Though she probably could have indeed conversed with Nevzat Hanım, no one could be sure to what extent she could actually converse directly with Murat. And no one wanted to offend him.

Sabriye Hanım’s skepticism and her affinity for tragedy were not entirely unappreciated. But it was never forgotten that she was a naturally inquisitive character, with a formidable grip on affairs of the heart.

She was well aware of all this and so reluctant to partake in hypnotic séances, preferring homelier ways to communicate with the departed. She often led séances at home or at the club during which she treated those spirits who’d accepted her invitations to lectures on the nature of the true torments in the world beyond. It was hard not to be taken aback by her questions. In séances of this nature she preferred not to call those spirits who were already accustomed to the operating styles of the hypnotist or the sheikh. This was why she chose to fall in league with Seyit Lutfullah, whose story I had shared with her, undertaking a momentous collaboration with him, of which more later. I arranged for Seyit Lutfullah to attend Sabriye Hanım’s lecture “Spiritualism and Social Hygiene” at the association the following week; in the talk she fervently declared her commitment to her art, going so far as to explain under what conditions a secret service of spirits might be assembled, and expounding on the many benefits such an assembly would afford. We all knew that Taflan Deva Bey was lending her tremendous support in her efforts. This refined and learned man of no small means indeed had an overwhelming passion for social hygiene. I often think how different — and more wonderful — our lives would be had our country’s more gifted individuals succeeded in finding their rightful places. I cannot imagine a person among us who, after listening to him for just ten minutes, would not be swept away by the overpowering desire to have Taflan Deva Bey made mayor of Istanbul, or of any other province in the country, for life and to spend every penny he had to make it possible. He was aided by his insight and good manners and his ability to attract individuals from all social strata. What a pity that Deva Bey was only concerned with the social and moral manifestations of hygiene. For him, streets, homes, and the entire cities were themselves always secondary and tertiary points of considerations. What was most essential for him was a society’s ability to purge itself of deviant thought.

Thus it was Sabriye Hanım’s curiosity that led me to reconnect with Seyit Lutfullah one night, at a time in my life when I least expected to see him. The truth is that I had begun to feel closer to him since joining the Spiritualist Society. No matter how pure the association’s scientific goals, and no matter how serious its debates and investigations, he was the true master of the manor! It was as if he were standing there next to me from my first day there. And in certain communications, it was all too clear that he had intervened.

X

My life might have gone on like this forever had I not been pulled out of the Spiritualist Society through the entirely unexpected intervention by Cemal Bey, who offered me an attractive and handsomely remunerated position in his company. My work for him was to be made official. “We’re already friends, aren’t we?” he said. But to accept I had to be free for work during daylight hours. Not only was I obliged to leave the post office in Fener; I also had to sever my ties with the Spiritualist Society. Enticed as I was by the conditions of employment, I accepted the offer without fully considering the consequences. In Cemal’s words, I was at last making a career for myself. And from this rung I would only climb higher. I was an individual with talent, he said — so why had I been content to drift from one menial position to the next? It simply made no sense for me to waste any more time in service.