Ahmet Tanpinar - The Time Regulation Institute

And then there was Cemal Bey — now Selma Hanım’s ex-husband. He had always been hostile toward me. He was beside himself upon hearing I had become more intimate with his ex-wife. Using the book as a pretext, he launched an assault against both me and the institute. Born liar that he was, he could not stop at denying Ahmet the Timely’s existence; he went so far as to try and replace him with a fictitious character of his own.

And so it was that Cemal Bey came to insist that there had never been an Ahmet the Timely, but at the same moment in history there had indeed been a man known as Fenni Efendi who had been passionate about flowers, interested in mechanics, and who moved in influential circles. According to Cemal Bey, it was this man who had occupied himself with timepieces and time. We had done no more than to attribute the work of Fenni Efendi to our fictitious Ahmet Efendi. And the reason for this was clear: The name Timely best suited our institute and so was easily used in promoting our endeavors. Thus in an effort to generate effective publicity for the institute we had distorted the historical truth. Sitting at the heart of this absurd affair was a paradox: while Cemal Bey claimed the book on horology had been falsely attributed to the fictitious Ahmet the Timely and was in fact the work of Fenni Efendi, master of science, whose existence could be verified, he went on to claim that its criticism of polygamy had no basis, concluding that we must have written the entire book ourselves.

It was a masterstroke. It was to land a more decisive blow that Cemal Bey had given credence to our lies. So instead of launching yet another dead-end debate as to whether such a man could have existed, he had laid claim to one small part of the lie and waged his war on us from there. The moment his outlandish attack was made public, doubts about Sheikh Ahmet Zamanı the Timely began to circulate. Despite Halit Ayarcı’s prompt press conferences and my own written responses to these charges, we were not able to dispel the suspicions. The book’s reputation had been severely compromised.

I was with Selma Hanım when I first saw the article. In fact she had the morning’s paper with her when she arrived for our rendezvous at the pied-à-terre where we’d been seeing one another regularly.

“Just look at this, the viper’s little sting!” she said, and when my eyes fell on an old photograph of myself next to a likeness of Cemal Bey, I flew into a rage.

Cemal was doing everything in his power to bring me down.

The article began: “A charlatan and trickster through and through, Hayri Irdal once served at my firm as a lesser clerk, but I was forced to dismiss him for egregious moral turpitude and perjury.” And it finished: “But the individual truly responsible for this man’s corruption of the good name of a historical figure, his life and his works, a man who can hardly do simple addition let alone lead a discussion on rabia figures, is no other than Halit Ayarcı Bey.”

For a moment, the whole world and everything in it seemed to be crashing down around me; it suddenly became clear to me that I would never be able to find my way back along the roads I’d traveled over the past year. There could be no fate worse than this. The miracle of my good fortune — the money, fame, and status that had come to me unbidden, throwing open doors and revealing new vistas — would be gone, all gone! Most terrifying of all was the glimmer in Selma’s eyes, which had become so strange and timorous since we’d begun to see each other more intimately.

I would now say that it was only after tasting that fear that I began to take my work at the institute in earnest, embracing it with open arms. No longer did I waver between fact and fiction. To be or not to be — that was the question that drove me. I took care to remind myself that certain thoughts were mere whimsy: that they served only as window dressing, to be accepted as read. Unless I took care, I could go back to being a man without a future, without anything. I might even end up on the streets. I could find myself back in the old days, which, after this blessed interlude, could only be harder and more painful to bear. The loneliness, the humiliation, the self-doubt! The beautiful woman seated before me, half-naked and smiling, took on the air of a distant dream. On that spring morning I looked out over a misty sea and reminded myself that this warm and pleasant apartment, this trysting place, this intimate seclusion, and my real life hovering outside — all this could vanish in an instant. Selma had brought spring flowers that morning and arranged them in a vase between us. For one terrible moment, they seemed to wither before my very eyes.

Suddenly the telephone rang. To me, with my shattered nerves, the sound was as terrifying, as intolerable as if it were ushering in the end of the world. As in truth, it did. For the ring was a summons from the outside world, an assault on our secret haven. And I knew that it was my enemy. Fearfully I picked up the phone. I was somewhat soothed to hear the teasing tones of Halit Ayarcı.

“Have you seen it?” he asked.

“Yes, I’ve just read it. We’re ruined. What do we do now?”

His first reply was in jest:

“Yes, the sky’s falling, so just enjoy!”

But then more seriously:

“Pay it no mind,” he said. “But we do need to get a bit more serious now. You must write a careful response to this man as soon as possible. As for me, I shall seek out his Achilles heel and apply pressure. That should keep the masses busy for a while, but what’s most important is for us to orchestrate a counterblow that will astound them all. You know what I mean? Something new, entirely new… Something, my friend, to astound our enemies and friends alike! An institute such as ours will always fall under public scrutiny. Remember this and proceed accordingly. And never forget — you must always rely on your luck!”

“Nothing but words,” I said. “Just words! It’s all over. They’ll take you down with me. There’s no hope. We’ve nothing left to do but pick up the pieces and go.”

Once I had finished, Halit Ayarcı let loose one of his loudest guffaws.

“There will be no plundering, my dear Hayri, no packing up and running! I shall stay put and so shall you! People like us, we who embark on bold pursuits, it is not for us to surrender to our enemies so easily.”

His cool confidence was infuriating. For a moment, I wondered if my good benefactor had his wits about him. Was he aware of the gravity of the situation? As if reading my thoughts, his voice grew more serious:

“Of course,” he said, “the man dealt us a magnificent blow. I never saw it coming. Cemal Bey does indeed know how to wage war with an untruth. Only an untruth can challenge an untruth. Had he attacked us in the usual way, by charging us with invention, he would have come across as a mere crank. Instead he’s turned our own artillery against us. But there’s nothing to worry about. I have faith in my good fortune. See you this evening!”

Halit Ayarcı had assessed the situation correctly. But he was wrong on one count: When it came to Cemal Bey, however could I trust in my luck? Wasn’t he the antithesis of good fortune? Until I’d had the good fortune to meet Halit Ayarcı, hadn’t I spent years down in the ditch, as a direct result of the blows Cemal had dealt me? And now, just as I was getting back up on my feet, I was face-to-face with this man all over again. How strange is the human soul: as I pondered all this, I somehow forgot that it was this man’s wife who had half her body draped over my shoulder as she nibbled on my ear, awaiting my love and attention. Yet I had played no part in Cemal’s separation with Selma. Though of course our liaison upset him.