Ahmet Tanpinar - The Time Regulation Institute

Zehra was in a talkative mood. Just like any other young girl, she wanted to talk about herself. And I had no idea how much truth there was in any of it. But I was pleased that she was opening her heart to me.

“Besides, we can’t even really argue,” she said. “You’re like me. How can a man really argue if he thinks that everyone else is right?”

“Whatever do you mean, my girl?”

“Isn’t that how it is?” she said. “Isn’t that the way you are? Even if I haven’t done anything wrong, I still can’t forgive myself for meddling in other people’s lives!”

“Well, are you at least happy now?” I asked.

Her face suddenly lit up.

“Of course I am,” she said. “We’re no longer living on top of one another. Everyone has their own life. But, then again, the work we’re doing — it seems so strange. I keep thinking to myself, where’s it all going? And another thing, everyone’s changed so much that…”

She was right. Everyone had changed.

“Only Ahmet’s the same. He’s still closed off to everyone, always so serious. We did something without telling you. Ahmet sat for the state exams and passed.”

So that was it. That was reason for the secretive air at home over the past month.

“Why didn’t you tell me? There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“He didn’t want to tell you till after it was all done. He wasn’t going to tell you if he didn’t pass.”

For a moment I wondered if Zehra and her mother would have gotten along this well if her mother were still alive.

“You’re not angry, right?”

I couldn’t believe that my children still loved and respected me. Even Ahmet wanted to protect me from needless pain. This was undoubtedly something he had inherited from Emine. I felt a jolt of pain in me. If Emine had lived, I wouldn’t have found myself in such a predicament. How wonderful it would have been to pull the burden of life together, like two carriage horses harnessed side by side, one forever keeping an eye on the other. I remembered my elation upon stepping into the courtyard of our old home on the day I was released from the Department of Justice Medical Facility.

I sat alone in my study until late that night, at a loss for what to do. I just didn’t want to go to bed. The memory of Emine was so overwhelming that I couldn’t bear the sight of Pakize, even though she was asleep. Still, I knew I was being unfair.

That evening the weather was oppressive. At around half past one, thunder and lightning shook the sky. The curtains in the room billowed dramatically, one after the other, before fading into the green glow beyond. Then the sky was rent asunder and released a violent rain. Pakize was afraid of thunder. So with a heavy heart I crept into the bedroom and lay down beside her. Sensing my presence, she instantly awoke. Mumbling coyly, affecting a voice she must have assumed intimated tender compassion, she said:

“Up working late again? Hayri, you really should go easy on yourself.”

Not even the stilted female voices in radio commercials were as cold as her voice. At first I thought she was making fun of me. If only that were the case, but, no, she was serious, even though she knew very well that I hadn’t actually been working, that I didn’t do any work. She was merely playing the role of the sensible, well-intentioned wife thinking only of her husband’s health. She threw her arm over my neck, and my body went cold. How was she any different from a wind-up clock or an automaton? I considered how steadily her interest in me had grown since I’d started work again. Indeed her attention made me feel as if I’d been living in a refrigerator for half a year. I almost missed those days when Pakize thought me spineless and slovenly, indolent, moronic, and clumsy, only acknowledging my existence when she was sexually aroused. At least then she seemed more herself.

At first I felt an overwhelming urge to leap out of bed. But then she’d wake up and start talking. The best thing was to stay in bed but entirely still. Slowly I extricated my every limb from hers, shrinking up against the wall where, eyes still wide open, I listened to the rain and thunder as I waited for morning. I kept asking myself, is she an idiot or just a liar? She was both. Perhaps she lied out of idiocy. Or perhaps it was something far more horrible than just that. She simply didn’t have a personality. Occasionally the rain subsided and I heard her breathing. “If nothing else,” I thought, “I hope she’s more herself in her dreams.” At one point I sat up and stared at her face. Her lips were parted and she seemed to be smiling. Her face seemed contracted, as sometimes happened when she was emotionally overwhelmed. As if she was no longer of this world! Yet how beautiful she was like that: with her eyes shut, lips slightly open, her breathing shallow and — most emotive of all — her selflessness. But why was she always so happy in her sleep? Why and for whom was she smiling? This was no ordinary smile. It spoke of bliss. So she was happy, like Zehra. Perhaps she had attained this peace of mind because she felt she was doing her part. Or perhaps in her sleep she could escape everything and everyone, to take refuge in a corner all her own. So she too had a secret. She was happy and she was beautiful, even though she was absent from her body. For a moment, I felt envious of her wholeness. I was about to disturb her, break the spell. But what would that do? Within minutes she would have become the person I knew, the same old stone statuette.

With this thought in mind, I shrank back against the wall. Toward morning, I drifted off to sleep. The dream I had then may go some way to illustrating my frame of mind.

I dreamt I was in the living room of our old home. I was studying my reflection in a vast mirror, muttering to myself as I studied my face more closely: But this isn’t me? Could this be me? It’s simply impossible… And indeed the face before me wasn’t mine. Every moment it changed — changed so dramatically that I could hardly capture it in my gaze. Then I heard my aunt cry, “Come on, we’re late,” as she tugged me. We were hurrying quickly through narrow backstreets. But with every step one of us lost a shoe, and we had to stop and put it back on before racing off again. “At last, we’re here!” she cried. And I found myself all alone in a rather large square where some kind of celebration was underway. I could hear horns and drums, and suddenly I was on an enormous merry-go-round made of layer upon layer of overlapping rings. With every turn, I saw someone I knew, and we waved to each other as we laughed and laughed. Then slowly the rings started to turn faster and faster, and the ring I was riding together with Halit Ayarcı, Selma Hanım, Cemal Bey, and my aunt snapped abruptly off its axis, and, still spinning, rose up to the heavens. Terrified that I might die, I threw my arms around the neck of the animal I was riding: it was Seyit Lutfullah’s turtle. Holding on for dear life so as not to fall, I fixed my eyes on my aunt. She was no longer mounted on one of the merry-go-round animals. She was flying all by herself. I woke up to Pakize saying, “Come on, wake up! It’s nine o’clock! You’ll be late to work!”

VI

Snug in her armchair, my aunt was telling her entourage what sort of man I was.

“Sister, you have absolutely no idea. He’s completely unpredictable. My late brother should have named him Misfortune, and not Hayri. He didn’t pay me a single visit in twenty years. But I always wondered what he was doing, what would become of him. Was it easy for him? He’s the last in the family. And of course I love him. If not for him, the dynasty of Ahmet Efendi the Some Timer would vanish from earth. Then at last I saw his name in the paper, and I said to myself, well, at the very least, I said, I should go and see him. Not a small feat for a woman at my age, I’d say.”