Ahmet Tanpinar - The Time Regulation Institute

“I had never thought of this before. You do indeed find all the shortcuts, Halit Bey. This principle will clear a good many obstacles. This means, then, that you will have an entrance exam?”

“Oh no, no such thing.”

“A diploma of sorts?”

“Oh no, sir, nothing of the sort. Those are the requirements for run-of-the-mill civil servants, whereas this line of work delves into life itself. We need specialists, not civil servants. And by taking this route, we can extricate ourselves from the legal requirements of pay scales.”

As they both nodded, they looked meaningfully into each other’s eyes.

The mayor paused for a moment. He had more to say.

“You have presented me with a flawless system, and I simply have no objection.”

Halit Ayarcı flashed a modest smile. “Thanks to you, we have been able to make the necessary preparations.”

“In that case we must make due preparations on our end, which means finding you qualified people.”

“I was going to ask you the very same. It’s just that for now let’s try not to generate false hopes.”

“Quite true, yes, you’re right indeed.”

Halit Ayarcı once again looked down at the notebook he was still holding. Just then I took the opportunity to stand up, as I wanted to see just what was in Halit Ayarcı’s miraculous notebook. Apart from a few figures, I saw only a few block letters.

“Eventually we’ll need typists and office boys, and later on controllers and suchlike, to see to secondary office affairs. But we shall appoint these people as and when we need them, and only after we have established our permanent staff. What we do need at once is another secretary. That will be our first concern.”

Then he turned to me:

“Perhaps your own Zehra Hanım would accept the position? There would of course be a modest remuneration. She’d feel quite at home at the institute. It would be something like a second home to her.”

Then he turned to the mayor:

“Zehra Hanım is Hayri Bey’s daughter.”

In the face of this sound evidence and support, the mayor had but one reply:

“May God grant it so!”

Three days later Zehra began work at the Time Regulation Institute, under the supervision of Nermin Hanım — meaning she came to the office with her handbag full of toiletries and the wool she would use to knit Halit Bey a thank-you sweater.

But allow me to add that, within just a few years, Halit Ayarcı came to own what may be the most extravagant sweater collection the world has ever known. There was hardly a typist in the office who hadn’t knitted him one or two. The most beautiful were undoubtedly those made by Nermin Hanım; they were genuine masterpieces: replete with all the colors of an arc-en-ciel and adorned with motifs suggesting timepieces, they sparkled like crystal in sunlight.

The mayor now returned rather abruptly to a previous point, asking if we genuinely needed a head of office operations. He was really quite pleased that we had sacrificed the position of administrative head. If we were to make this additional sacrifice, he would be entirely satisfied.

“I have always been sensitive to such particulars. Later on you’ll be able to promote someone from the auxiliary staff. And the name itself is rather unseemly: head of office operations. In fact it’s rather unfortunate to have to besmirch the institute with such a name. This is an era of pure and unadulterated Turkish.”

Halit Bey seemed to me to have been outplayed by this last objection.

“Well if you say so, sir…”

The poor mayor seemed as delighted as a child to have scored a victory in the name of the public good. Then suddenly he remembered:

“Naturally you’ll be submitting a memorandum of justification.”

Halit Ayarcı smiled:

“Don’t worry about that. It’s long since prepared. We’ve been working on this for the last two months. Just the other night I went over it once again with Hayri Bey. This morning I made a few alterations before consulting you, but they are really not so important, one or two minor points, and then I will send it on to you.”

As he uttered these final words, he looked in my direction.

“If you like, I could just go over the main points, or better yet I’ll read them to you.”

And he made a motion to retrieve something from his jacket’s inner pocket.

A glum expression settled on the mayor’s face.

“By all means,” he said.

And he closed his eyes as if surrendering to whatever torment was in store for him. But the mayor was just as clever as Halit Ayarcı and not one to be taken off guard. So with a glance at his watch he suddenly leapt to his feet and cried:

“Oh my, it’s lunchtime. Why not leave that for some other time. We’ve achieved so much today already as it is.”

Then he looked at all of us.

“We’ll all eat together, won’t we?”

Nermin Hanım and I both protested and Halit Ayarcı said:

“They’re fine. Who knows what Nermin Hanım has brought in today for lunch. As I mentioned before, she’s a wonderful housewife.”

He was right. There wasn’t anything the poor woman’s mother-in-law wouldn’t do to ensure Nermin Hanım’s comfort at the office, sacrificing any amount of money or time just so she wouldn’t have to endure her nattering on all day long at home. Dervis Efendi went to their home every day around eleven in the morning and returned with ample provisions.

Upon leaving the office with Halit Bey, the mayor paused at the door and asked me to think a little more about the future staff:

“It’s a good thing we cut those two management positions. We might be able to cut even more!”

Halit Bey answered on my behalf:

“Hayri Bey’s even worse than I am, sir. I might be willing to make the slight cut here or there, but as the primary specialist in the institute I don’t think he would be ready to sacrifice much more.”

Like a baby swallow on its first flight, I leapt into the conversation:

“In an enterprise like ours, the best approach is the one that achieves the highest efficiency.”

Oh my Lord, if only I could tell you how much I longed to be facing a mirror at just that moment, to catch a glimpse of my hungry reflection. For the first time — yes, perhaps for the first time in all of my life — I had uttered words of true importance.

They left the office arm in arm. Nermin Hanım and I escorted them as far as the stairwell, where, for the last time, the mayor extended his thanks to us both.

Having returned to the office, I sat down, took my head in my hands, and set about rubbing the top of it with great vigor. I had been doing this ever since our famous night in Büyükdere. I felt as if I’d been walking on my hands ever since, with my two feet waving in the air; everything seemed upside down, obeying a logic I did not recognize.

Nermin Hanım was entirely charmed.

“Isn’t the mayor just the most delightful creature? Once I finish this sweater for Uncle Halit, I’ll start working on one for him.”

Before I could come up with an apposite reply, Dervis Efendi stepped in, holding an enormous tray of food.

And so it was that I came to understand why the institute was a success and how its staff was to be organized. But when it came to the organization of our statistical studies, and in particular the graphic representation of such studies, I was quite the tyrant. It took Halit Ayarcı no more than three or four days to fill in the gaps. I found him, one morning, working in front of my desk. He’d taken off his jacket and hung it on the chair behind him. He’d rolled up his sleeves and was leaning over a large and almost completed chart. You could see from his face and shoulders that he was engrossed in the work at hand. I went over to him and said: