Ahmet Tanpinar - The Time Regulation Institute

The phone rang immediately after I hung up. It was Cemal Bey. His voice sounded the same as ever: polite and proud and cold enough to freeze a polar cap.

“Hayri Bey,” he intoned, “would you be so kind as to have a look at the paper today, if of course you could spare the time? There’s an article that might tickle your fancy!”

“No need, Cemal Bey, no need at all,” I replied. “An old friend brought me the paper this morning.”

And I hung up.

Although Cemal Bey had indeed divorced Selma, he was still jealous. He had learned of our trysting place. He had followed us; we were his overwhelming obsession.

And now Cemal Bey had swallowed me whole. Selma raised an eyebrow, lost in thought.

“I don’t understand it at all!” she said. “Not one bit. You cannot begin to appreciate how much rancor this man has toward me. He thought I was small and helpless. At home he would call me an artificial flower and never let me leave the house without an artificial flower pinned to my chest or coat collar. ‘You should carry one,’ he’d always say, ‘because that’s how I have to carry you around with me!’ If anyone thought to compliment me on my fake flower — oh, how he loved it! Oh that malicious smile…”

It goes without saying that Selma was not just my lover. She was also my revenge against the monstrous thing called my past. It was thanks to her that I could turn to the dark days I’d left behind and say, “So there you have it! What have you got on me now? I am presently in the arms of the one person before whom I was so cruelly humiliated. What more could I ask for?” It was strangely pleasing to see my former boss so jealous, and it only added to my sense of well-being. This woman was the amulet who protected me from my past.

Both Halit Ayarcı and I responded to Cemal Bey’s attack. In my written responses I assumed the air of a man unjustly treated. It could have happened to anyone. But I was the victim. The injustice was clear. I did not expect Cemal to furnish any proof of perjury or any evidence of an ethical breach. I was a man with inherently good moral values, whom he had dismissed after accepting that he couldn’t corrupt me. In my second statement, I continued as I had begun, assuming the same victimized tone, but this time taking care to disclose inside information about his company. Halit Ayarcı was a little more vindictive in his meetings with the press. And in the official statement released by the Clock Lover’s Society, the fury was positively volcanic. But Cemal Bey was undeterred; he carried on with his offensive. We needed something else, something new, something that would erase all memory of the matter and absolve us forever. I cannot remember a time I cudgeled my brains more desperately. But it was hopeless: neither Halit Ayarcı nor I could come up with any idea that might swing public opinion back in our favor. We were floundering in a void. We could not manage a single step beyond the ordinary.

Meanwhile Cemal Bey was paying close attention to my affair with Selma. Wherever we met, we almost always received a telephone call from him. And Pakize received countless anonymous letters.

It was just around this time that I thought up the cash-punishment system I brought to the reader’s attention at the beginning of these memoirs; the idea came to me one evening, while I was watching Halit Ayarcı play a round of backgammon with my wife, but when I first blurted it out, it was only to underline the hopeless intractability of our predicament.

“I’ve racked my brains and that’s all I could come up with. Could our situation be any worse?”

But Halit Ayarcı had already thrown down the dice and was on his feet. There was a strange stillness in his eyes.

“Now, just say that again, will you?”

And before I could finish, he threw his arms around my wife.

“We’re saved! A clear victory, Hayri Bey — a resounding triumph,” he cried.

Three days later we had finalized our cash-fine program, complete with an elaborate system of bonuses, lotteries, time agreements, and reductions. Halit Ayarcı announced my innovation in the Hollywood method par excellence, and within a few weeks everyone had forgotten all about Ahmet the Timely, and the Time Regulation Institute was garnering unprecedented attention and growing steadily in prestige. On the heels of this new success, the Clock Lover’s Society succeeded in setting up Time Regulation Teams in the villages across the country. The number of Time Regulation Stations had already multiplied. The city was ours. An army of young girls and boys donning uniforms designed by Sabriye Hanım and wearing our rosettes on their collars were soon to be found throughout the city, to the delight of all who saw them.

And so everything was back on track. Once again we were the champions of the day, more powerful than ever before. I was indulged like an uncle. With every passing day, I received more praise for my eccentric past, my knack for invention, and my sincerity. There wasn’t a circle of society that didn’t seek my company. And to be honest, I wasn’t shy in making the best of my newly acquired fame. Everything was designed to complement this success: my spectacles, my umbrella, my hat that never sat just right on my head, my suits that were a little too baggy, my fatherly airs — even the prayer beads I twirled in my fingers. Wherever I went, I was the center of attention; I was quizzed on every topic under the sun. I was loved because I lived in a manner that never disturbed the balance set by public opinion.

Yet Cemal Bey still dogged my life, as ever the ambassador of my ill fortune. One day he would rear his ugly head, and it would be all over. When I told Halit Ayarcı of my fears, he lost his temper and reprimanded me:

“You’re only thinking this way because you don’t really believe in your work. If a person undertakes a job for no reason other than personal gain, and if he thinks of nothing else, well then, surely he will blame himself in the end, just like you are doing now!”

“That’s all fine and well, but isn’t this a little different?”

“No, not at all. If you didn’t have this worm gnawing inside you, then you wouldn’t fear Cemal Bey or anyone else, for that matter. Your fear stems from your lack of self-confidence. You’re a cynic. And you’re only working for money, pursuing your own personal happiness and nothing more. Weren’t you this way when the institute first opened? Weren’t you afraid of your office boy’s wages being cut? Didn’t you take every opportunity to remind me?”

Once the dust had settled, my good benefactor reverted to his usual tone, speaking now of our lofty ideals. He wasn’t entirely incorrect. He was the play’s producer. He had to act accordingly.

But for me it was a different matter. Cemal Bey was an ache from the past. He was part of my life; waiting inside me, ready to lash out at a moment’s notice, like a cancer in remission.

VIII

And that’s just what happened. My final encounter with Cemal Bey caught me entirely off guard. Yet this last surprise encounter didn’t spell the end for the institute, nor did it generate any undue financial strain or alter my station. Nevertheless both Selma and I remained profoundly affected for many months to come.

I saw the story the moment I picked up the morning paper: Nevzat Hanım and Cemal Bey had been murdered by Zeynep Hanım’s ex-husband, Tayfur Bey, who, following the double murder, took his own life. The suicide note revealed the mystery Sabriye Hanım had been so assiduously, if also hesitantly, trying to solve for all those years. Sabriye Hanım was right. Contrary to public opinion, Zeynep Hanım hadn’t committed suicide; she’d been murdered by her own husband, Tayfur Bey, who was desperately in love with Nevzat Hanım. The police had just discovered the diary he had been keeping for all those years, or so they said.