Ahmet Tanpinar - The Time Regulation Institute

I am not talking about a first offense. It is often the case that the first offense might, like a first marriage, leave feelings of regret. But it is common knowledge that, following a second offense — and the increased penalties it entails — a person will find himself swept away by the hopelessness he might feel at an auction when the price is spiraling beyond his means. This is why in our fining system we prevented this outcome and its natural reactive elements by implementing a reduction of fines up to 30 percent on the seventh or eighth offense. Of course this aggregative and incremental system of fines brought attention to our institute. Naturally there was a business rationale for it. We were in effect doing business with revenues neglected by the municipality. And what enterprise does not seek to extend some kind of discount to its regular customers? As it turned out, I hadn’t been wrong in assuming that the people of Istanbul — who were accustomed to end-of-season sales and who could conceive of only a small fraction of the profits large businesses were making — would be pleased with our system. Suffice it to say that one is not in the habit of expecting so much from a quasi-official establishment, and so it was quite easy for the public to enjoy the system and speak highly of it to others.

And that is precisely what happened. Unable to believe such a thing was possible, or simply assuming it to be some kind of joke, people began to storm our centers with their watches in hand or to stop our inspectors on the street and ask to be fined. Throughout the city, it was suddenly all the rage to pay these fines voluntarily, and even with a smile. There was no longer any need to buy children toys; the little dears had found a more exciting way to share in the happiness of adults.

I should mention that it was not just the people of Istanbul who took a passionate interest in the fines but also those in surrounding villages and even in cities some distance away — so much so that in the initial months of enforcing the system of discounted fines, and particularly when the subscription plans were instated, the state railway management bureau was forced to add additional trains to several lines. Every day the railroad stations of Haydarpasa and Sirkeci would be overrun with people smiling, often splitting their sides in laughter, as they cried, “My goodness, take a look at this!” or “Unbelievable, but true!”

So eager were the masses pouring in from the countryside that we were forced to take regulation teams from as far out as Pendik, on the city’s Asian side, and Çatalca, in Thrace, and relocate them to stations closer to the city and the central terminals. Not only did we have to transfer some of our people to different posts, but when we needed to recruit new regulation teams in the villages, we were also obliged to hire youths, for we had insufficient manpower to carry on as it was.

It would not be incorrect to say that much of the fame our institute won abroad is due to this system of cash fines. Certainly you’ve read in the papers how cruise ship passengers forced captains to change course for Istanbul, where they would stay a week in the city, returning with receipts of discounted fines in hand before continuing on their journey, and how many of these passengers would not leave the city until they had been granted an interview with either myself or Halit Ayarcı, and how they scoured the city shops for our photographs.

I shall not enumerate all the indignities our institute has suffered in recent times. As I progress through these memoirs, my readers will see for themselves just what kind of cruelty was thrust upon us. Yet here again I simply cannot continue without making just one personal observation.

Like those who criticize the Time Regulation Institute, those who praise it always overlook one fundamental aspect: the strong connection it has to my person — in fact to my past. I would never deny that the institute was born of Halit Ayarcı’s entrepreneurial gifts and powerful mind. In every sense and meaning of the words, he was both my benefactor and a great friend. But my role in the Time Regulation Institute was by no means what those on the outside claim or imply: I was not merely a cog, or a means to an end. It could very well be that the institute was the result of Halit’s imaginative mind and that all my life I was destined to live through the contingencies born of his creation, with much pain and suffering as the price. But this is the very essence of my being.

My first responsibility in writing these memoirs is to discredit all who have slandered or scorned the institute or its late founder; my second, of no less importance, is to assert a small but very important truth.

III

I’ve already mentioned on several occasions my life’s various misfortunes. As my memoir unfolds, my readers will see how want and privation have been my lifelong companions, together serving practically as a second skin. But it would be wrong to say that I have never been graced with happiness.

I was born into a family fallen on hard times. But I had quite a happy childhood. As long as we are in harmony with those around us — assuming, of course, the right balance — poverty is never as terrifying or intolerable as we might think. For it offers certain advantages. The privilege I most treasured as a child was that of freedom.

Today we use the word only in its political sense, and how unfortunate for us. For I fear that those who see freedom solely as a political concept will never fully grasp its meaning. The political pursuit of freedom can lead to its eradication on a grand scale — or rather it opens the door to countless curtailments. It seems that freedom is the most coveted commodity in the world: for just when one person decides to gorge upon it, those around him are deprived. Never have I known a concept so inextricable from its antithesis, and indeed entirely crushed under its weight. I have been made to understand that in my lifetime freedom has been kind enough to visit our country seven or eight times. Yes, seven or eight times, and no one ever bothered to say when it left; but whenever it came back again, we would leap out of our seats in joy and pour into the streets to blow our horns and beat our drums.

Where does it come from? And how does it vanish with such stealth? Are those who bring us freedom the very ones who snatch it away? Or do we simply lose interest from one moment to the next, passing it on to others as a gift, saying, “Here you are, sir. I have already had my share of pleasure from this. Now it’s yours. Perhaps it will be of some use to you!”? Or is it like those treasure troves that sit gleaming at the back of fairy-tale caverns, only to turn into coal or a pile of dust at first touch? I must confess I’ve always found freedom an elusive concept.

At the end of the day, I must conclude that no one really needs such a thing in the first place. This love of liberty — and here I’ll borrow a phrase much loved by Halit Ayarcı, as he can no longer reprimand or tease me for dipping into his personal lexicon — this love of liberty is nothing more than a kind of snobbism. If we really needed such a thing, or if we truly felt passionately about it, then wouldn’t we have grasped onto one of its many avatars and never let it out of our sight? But to what end? The next day it already would have vanished. How strange that we accustom ourselves to its absence so quickly. We are content to invoke its name in the odd poem or schoolbook or public speech.

The freedom I knew as a child was of a different kind. First, and I think most significantly, it was not something I was given. It was something I discovered on my own one day — a lump of gold concealed in my innermost depths, a bird trilling in a tree, sunlight playing on water. There was no going back; from the moment I discovered it, everything changed: my humble existence, our humble home, the very world in which we lived. In time I would lose them all. Nevertheless I owe all the most precious things in my life to freedom. It has filled my days with miracles that neither the miseries of my early years nor the comforts of today could ever take from me. It has taught me how to live without possessions, without a care in the world.