Ahmet Tanpinar - The Time Regulation Institute

The newcomer placed a firm hand on Halit Ayarcı’s shoulder, as if to keep his friend from standing, and in an affectionate voice, he said: “So how are things, Halit Bey?”

Now this was a voice! Powerful, confident of its authority, deep with suggestion — it was far superior to Halit Bey’s. It was a voice both personal and distant, a voice that embraced you while keeping you at bay, towering over you even as it took you by the arm and walked beside you. It took the man no more than three or four words to work his magic. This was the moment when we grasped Halit Ayarcı’s true importance, for here was a man of even greater importance paying his respects: this alone made him a hundred times more important in our eyes. It wasn’t an ordinary conversation we were witnessing but a mounting multiplication of regard and respect.

“So kind of you to ask, sir.”

“Who are these friends of yours?”

And with this gesture we were born anew. Dr. Ramiz and I cowered in shame and wonder before this Adam newly created in God’s image. But Halit Ayarcı showed no surprise. After introducing Dr. Ramiz, he turned to me.

“One of my dear friends, Hayri Irdal Bey, our country’s most renowned master of watches and clocks. An unrivaled individual indeed.”

From the manner of his introduction I understood that Halit Ayarcı was the kind of man who saw both his future and his past through the prism of the present; he had presented me as an old friend. And the grandee seemed delighted to have made my acquaintance. His face lit up with a childish smile. It was while he was preparing to express his delight that the dish of red mullet on our table distracted him. I could wait, but red mullet could not. They’d go cold, and cold red mullet was of no use to anyone. He picked one up with the hand that had been resting on Halit Ayarcı’s shoulder and with that same childish smile he popped the entire fish into his mouth. But he hadn’t forgotten me, and by way of proof he put his left hand on my shoulder to direct the same smile my way. Clearly he had taken a shine to me. His attention and respect drove me an inch and half deep into the wooden floorboards beneath us. He kept staring at me, and with such tender constancy. There was no need to talk; we understood one another. He had taken to me, and I to him. Oozing confidence, he extended his right hand to the table as if to caress a lock of hair, and soon another mullet was nothing but a pile of bones casually tossed to the wooden floor. He repeated the operation two or three times. There was no need for a fork — a fork would have been far too cumbersome. He was not a man to put on airs. He beamed at me with genuine sincerity. Why should he not give the red mullet the same consideration? Who could expect the man to mediate his affection with a fork? Besides, a fork was for real food, not for simple snacks like red mullet!

He looked at me after his fifth red mullet and I could see that his compassion for me was now a hundred times stronger, as if I had created those fish with my own hands or at least caught or cooked them; with his eyes still locked on mine, he said:

“Divine, absolutely divine… and cooked to perfection. Height of the season, you know!”

Applying his full weight to my shoulder, he gave his final order:

“But please, help yourselves! It’s the season for red mullet.”

With this he released his grip on my shoulder, and as he turned toward his table, his eyes left me too. We had become brothers over red mullet. Was there need for anything more? Then a tray of fresh almonds on ice caught his eye: now here was a new treat. As he sampled the nuts, he exchanged a few last words with Halit Bey, but what a strange conversation. For as he feasted on the almonds, he wasn’t really listening to Halit Bey, and naturally he couldn’t speak himself, not when he was so busy with those nuts; this was a man who did not like to see time wasted, who left it to his entourage to do the talking.

At one point Halit Bey said to him, “I suppose I’ll come and bother you with this one of these days.”

The answer was brief.

“Most certainly, and why not tomorrow? We can have lunch here.”

With some reluctance he withdrew the hand that had found its way back to my shoulder, softening the betrayal with one last tender, heart-shattering glance, whereupon he took his leave, enchanting us with his smile and his sparkling spectacles, and assuming the fatherly air of a man who was, despite his evident superiority, determined to indulge us.

We all sat down. Dr. Ramiz’s face was flushed with joy. If not in seventh heaven, I was at the very least embracing Jesus Christ somewhere in the fourth. And why not? Not even a stone could have resisted flattery this sincere. I looked down at my left shoulder. He had gazed down at my shoulder as if it were bathed in light, as if it belonged to one of those Assyrian gods we read about in our schoolbooks. How could it be that I, Hayri Irdal, I, a miserable waste of life, could be showered with such attention? It was beyond comprehension. Dear Lord! Your glory is truly great!

Only Halit Ayarcı seemed unaffected. The moment he sat down he turned to me, and in a decisive tone of voice that told me an important matter had been settled, he said, “Yes.”

I gathered that he wanted me to carry on with what I had been saying before being interrupted by the new arrival. But I didn’t exactly understand what he wanted me to say. And I felt so far from Nuri Efendi.

But as soon as Halit Bey pronounced his decisive yes, Dr. Ramiz began his babbling.

“Truly a great man,” he exploded. “How fatherly, and so noble. I never would have thought of him like this.”

“Is he always like this?” I asked Halit Ayarcı.

“Yes,” he answered absentmindedly. “He is always like that. Always friendly, always hungry.”

Then he shrugged his shoulders and, with a sly smile, continued. I had truly taken to this important man. I had warmed to him, I felt bound to him, I had taken a shine to him, I was soldered to him — or whatever the expression is — and I begrudged Halit Ayarcı’s belittling him; but do allow me to add that at the time I had just barely made the acquaintance of my benefactor.

“Of course when he isn’t in power… He’s a little different when he has a position. And I don’t mean his appetite; that is constant and never changes. But in this he is not alone: it is the same with his predecessors and successors. That is to say, it runs in the family. I’m referring to his affable manners and easy flattery. In any event, no one ever meets him in person when he’s in power; then you’re more likely just to see pictures of him in the papers, and when he falls from power you see just…

He pulled the evening paper out of his pocket, flipped it open, and pointed to a picture on the first page:

“Here’s the man who took his place. I ran into him here a month ago, and because we were the only ones here we sat together and talked for hours. At the time your gentleman’s picture was the one in the paper. Strange, isn’t it?”

I listened to him with my mouth wide open in surprise.

“But he didn’t seem at all bothered to have lost his position,” I said.

“He wouldn’t… because he’s the very embodiment of power. Or, better said, power embodies him. They walk together arm in arm.”

My eyes were glued to the photograph before me.

“It’s strange though,” I said. “They look so similar.”

I stuttered a little out of fear.

“Indeed they do. What the two have in common is the power they exude. It is a matter of multiple incarnations: I am in you and you are in me…”

He gestured as if to say it was difficult to explain.

Dr. Ramiz winced when he heard this and kept his eyes fixed on the politician’s table. He challenged Halit Bey: