Ahmet Tanpinar - The Time Regulation Institute

Once I tried to convey these feelings to Halit Ayarcı over the phone, and after listening to all I had to say, he replied: “My dear Hayri Bey, we keep coming back to the same old point. Be a realist!”

And he hung up.

Naturally this harked back to what he had told me in Büyükdere, but this time he seemed on the verge of laughter. He called back an hour later.

“Hayri Bey,” he roared. “Still afraid of losing that little wage? Stop entertaining such nonsense and be realistic!”

And he hung up on me again.

I no longer concealed my concerns from Nermin Hanım. When she actually allowed me to speak, or rather to finish what I had to say, I tried to explain to her as best I could why this job had no future. But she had complete confidence in Halit Ayarcı.

“Impossible!” she cried. “Uncle Halit’s never wrong. He’s a man of action. He’d never take on a job he didn’t completely believe in. You still don’t really know him.”

“But why doesn’t he ever come to the office?”

“He’ll come… But only when everything is in place. He’s going to Ankara tomorrow to discuss the project!”

What else could I do but quietly pray that he wouldn’t actually explain anything to anyone.

Perhaps my paranoia began to get to her, because Nermin Hanım began to worry too:

“I really don’t need the money,” she said. “But I certainly don’t like the idea of shutting myself away at home again, right under my mother-in-law’s nose, strapped with all those household chores. She’s a good woman, but she never opens her mouth. She just scurries away. How can anyone live with such silence? But, you know, ever since I got this position my mother-in-law’s completely changed, and she’s doing all the housework herself.”

Even so, Nermin Hanım was nothing like me. Her manner of speaking could not have been more different. She leapt from one thought to the other like a sparrow prancing from one branch to the next; by the time she reached her third sentence, she had left her original point far behind to dive into a subject that had nothing to do with it. Her life was governed by her tongue and her two lips. No sooner had she begun discussing the travails of being pent up at home with her mother-in-law than she was expounding on her first husband with some fury, and then, before you knew it, she was delving into her childhood in a family kiosk somewhere near Küçükmustafapasa, only to stop in midflow to ask if you thought the hat she had recently purchased truly became her.

All this was amplified by digressions both major and minor. Each began the same way: “Maybe you know…” She could have been referring to at least twenty different people, and if I told her that I didn’t know the person in question, she would seem temporarily undone, but then she’d rally, supplying me with such descriptions as to make the individual worthy of my notice; but then, in the middle of her description, the man’s daughter or wife would be mentioned, and it was back to the beginning.

One encounter was enough for Nermin Hanım to adopt a new friend, and to each new friend she related her life story, in installments. The man who put in our linoleum floors, the electrician, the upholsterer, the porters, the public notaries who came to sign our accounts — each had at one time or another listened to some saga from her life. But she was beginning to suspect that perhaps this job wouldn’t last for much longer. Eventually her idle talk, previously content to flutter from one branch to the next, came to hover around one central point.

Soon our office assistant, Dervis Efendi, was also infected by our concerns. The poor man had truly warmed to the new office, even though there weren’t many visitors, and not much in the way of tips. But he was comfortable, and no one bothered him. He wasn’t made to wait beside the door or anything like that. He sat in a chair next to Nermin Hanım’s desk, listening to her stories and praising her hats — there was a new one every day and each one deserving of a masallah ! If he ever bored of her conversation, he could always leave with the good intention of making Turkish coffee.

Surely this job was the easiest he could ever find. Thirty-five years working as an office assistant, and suddenly he’d found himself in an office managed the way an office should have always been managed. But he too wasn’t sure what work we were meant to be doing; he was more than a little surprised that an entire company had been formed just so he could watch me tinker with watches until nightfall and listen to Nermin Hanım’s life story as she knit sweater after sweater. He never tired of us, or told us to do anything else; he was content enough, but it simply did not make sense. One day he came to me and said rather sheepishly:

“Sir, I too am a little confused by this job. I’m beginning to feel a little suspicious about the whole thing. Sometimes I even wonder if I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

Until then, it had never once occurred to me that these creatures called office assistants might conceive of a paradise designed to fit their lifestyle. But why couldn’t our ideas about happiness comply with our standards of living?

Our fragile peace was disrupted toward the end of the third month by a great upsurge of activity. One morning Halit Ayarcı arrived at the office with the mayor of Istanbul and one of his assistants. Nermin Hanım was engrossed in knitting Halit Ayarcı’s third sweater, and I was busy regaling everyone with tales of Seyit Lutfullah’s romantic adventures with his beloved Aselban. Needless to say, we were thrown into a great confusion by this unexpected visit, and we sprang to our feet at once. Before I could begin to think of how to welcome a man of the mayor’s stature, Halit Ayarcı was already introducing me:

“My most valuable assistant, Hayri Irdal Bey. We are so fortunate to have him working on the project with us.”

Then he added:

“Do you know, Beyefendi, that for the sake of the institute Hayri Irdal is working here more or less as an honorary member?”

The mayor grasped my hand as if to say, I shall never let go of this — our only chance to bring success to our institute.

“His remuneration is truly shameful. Something to be ashamed of indeed…”

My dear benefactor spoke as if he might weep over the injustice I had to endure. The strange thing was that even the mayor seemed truly concerned; he lowered his head and stared at his shoes.

“There’s no other way this will work, Halit Bey.”

And then he shook my hand more firmly than before, as if to thank me from the bottom of his heart for all my sacrifices.

“Of course the current situation is temporary. When, thanks to his efforts, we finish organizing everything, Hayri Bey will be appointed our assistant manager.”

This bit of good news seemed to revive the mayor. He lifted his head from his shoes to look joyfully into my eyes. And for the first time in my life I beheld a man who was happy for the happiness of another man.

“Nermin Hanım is our head secretary. She’s a top-flight intellectual. Hers is a different sacrifice altogether, as she left her blessed home to be with us.”

Nermin Hanım blushed bright red, like a young schoolgirl who was wearing for the first time a dress she had brought with her on holiday. When asked if she was holding up well, she flashed a sweet smile, as if she were sucking on a candy.

“So we’ve stolen our dear friend right from her home…”

To show how much he was tickled by this idea, Halit Ayarcı said:

“Yes, very much indeed. Stolen right from her own home.”

Looking rather pleased with his line, the mayor made an even brighter observation, in a way never before expressed: