Ahmet Tanpinar - The Time Regulation Institute

For it had been Nevzat Hanim’s quiet smile that had led Ekrem to believe her to embody the aesthetic he’d expound upon at length in the days we spent together in the Sehzadebası coffeehouse. Though he had pilfered it from the annals of an outrageous, if not downright ludicrous, English author whose name now escapes me, he called it his aesthetic of poetic purity. To the mind of Dr. Ramiz, women had absolutely nothing to do with poetry, pure or otherwise. When he was in the right mood, Dr. Ramiz was given to analyzing the objects of Ekrem’s desire, most of them dead, more often than not by their own hand, and if ever he happened to be playing the part of a medical doctor, he would diagnose the root cause as anemia. Ekrem Bey never paid much attention to the doctor’s ramblings, which he dismissed as incoherent hogwash, and it was, perhaps, because I was a most compliant listener that he spoke to me at such length about his precious aesthetic, which though it offered the illusion of simplicity, was utterly impenetrable, drawing as it did on seven or eight poets and philosophers whose names he was inclined to confuse.

You can probably imagine how much sense I made of my conversations with Ekrem Bey. But this much is true: the day I first met Nevzat Hanımfendi I said to myself, now here is a woman Ekrem Bey could love for a lifetime. There is a point in life when we have so accustomed ourselves to the slings and arrows of fate that we seem to carry their sadness inside us. Ekrem Bey had prepared himself for his romance with Nevzat Hanım by reading enough books to fill a library. But the manner of our formation does not always suit the shape of the lives we end up living. At the very moment when Ekrem Bey believed himself to have discovered his aesthetic in the flesh, he was confronted by a triple homicide.

And no longer was Nevzat Hanım’s smile the emanation of a splendid soul, glimmering like a distant star before the naked eye, no longer was it a work of art casting its light on the world from above; it was not the solution to all Ekrem’s woes. Behind that smile was a woman entrapped by hopelessness and all manner of oppression. It was only now that Ekrem could see her desperation.

I spoke with Nevzat Hanim that evening at my aunt’s soiree (which I mentioned earlier). Somehow she’d managed to escape from Cemal Bey’s clutches. The truth of the matter is that my aunt had captured Cemal Bey for herself, and Nevzat Hanım, profiting from the freedom that this brief interlude allowed her, had retreated to a window in a far corner, to watch the world go by. For just a moment, she had dropped her light mask of sweetness. The lines on her face were deep and even animated. She was perhaps more beautiful than ever, like a loaded gun. Slowly I approached her, and with the courage that came from playing the uncle, I said:

“You seem so sad here all alone! Look — Ekrem is waiting for you just over there. Why don’t you say something nice to the poor fellow? He’s been waiting for years.”

Her face suddenly softened, losing its chill, but it did not revert to the one we all knew; it lingered somewhere in between.

“Ekrem Bey,” she mumbled. “If he’d been just a little stronger, none of this would have happened.”

Then I put to her perhaps the most idiotic question in the world:

“Shall I tell him this myself?”

Her face grew tense again.

“Of course not! What use would that be? Such things must happen on their own accord. Don’t misunderstand me. Perhaps the fault’s all mine. I’m just so disgusted by everything that…”

Then she took my arm.

“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’ll be all right. Please just leave me alone. You remember when you were close to Sabriye Hanım. Oh, how I hated you then. You were always poking around, hoping to win her favor… but then you disappeared.”

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back as if in search of a pillow.

“But you came looking for me at home.”

“I know. I wanted to know what Sabriye said about me. If possible, I would have teased it out of you. Anyway, that’s all behind us. Now you’re back on center stage! So is everyone else. Do you know what it means to be in such crowded company?”

She paused to look at me, and then she cried:

“Leave me! And please don’t speak about me to anyone.”

And with firm steps she made to lose herself in the crowd gathered around Halit Bey. Our conversation that night weighed heavily upon me. I knew just how far I had compromised myself to be a part of this enterprise, to be treated like anybody else. But I had never fully grasped how much others had suffered for the same privilege. Nevzat Hanim had a place in my heart that she shared with no other, and now I saw the world through the eyes of a woman I had only wanted to help.

A fortnight after our conversation, I had a second encounter with Nevzat Hanım, this time at the home of Seher Hanım. I was with my aunt. When I first heard Nevzat Hanım’s voice floating in from the living room, my first instinct was to turn back. But I couldn’t. We sat opposite each other for two hours. She didn’t say a word to me. As we were leaving together — my aunt had offered to take her home — we found ourselves alone for a moment and she whispered:

“I offended you that evening… Forgive me.”

“I’m not angry with you, but with myself,” I replied.

Whenever I saw Ekrem after that, I would remember what Nevzat had said, and I could not help but pity the young man. He seemed to be half-missing. At one point it looked as if the game was turning in his favor. He went for three full minutes without offering Halit a single chance to regain the upper hand. Then he faltered and never came back. His life was no different. What could I say?

Then Sabriye Hanım tapped me on the shoulder. My entire body went stiff. It had been like this for days. It had gotten to the point where I would cross the street to avoid her. But I was the one who had invited her to come and work with us! Seeing that I had no desire to talk to her, she moved away, walking around the Ping-Pong table to sit down at a small desk and fiddle with a pack of cards. She pursed her lips; her body was as stiff as mine. Her face was strangely pale.

For a minute or two, Halit Bey tried to lure Ekrem back into the game, but he soon gave up hope and brought the match to an end. Ekrem Bey mopped the sweat off his brow. In my mind was the image of Cemal Bey’s body, chopped into pieces. How much longer was this going to last? On our way downstairs we peeked into Asaf Bey’s office. The future head of the Completion Department was struggling to get his arms around the unfortunate Gülsüm Hanım, our fifty-five-year-old office assistant. It was such an absurd and unexpected sight that we couldn’t help but burst out laughing. Halit Ayarcı took me by the arm, and we tiptoed away from the door.

“What do you say, sir?” I asked. “Perhaps we should begin with the second name on the list!”

So I had quite the knack for choosing them: Ekrem had sunk into depression, Sabriye Hanım had become a miserable witch, and Asaf Bey was going senile.

“Thank God you know Dr. Ramiz.”

Throwing on his coat, Halit Ayarcı replied:

“The Completion Department will come together just fine. In fact it’s already looking rather promising, but could you please have those young girls I suggested for the department work as assistants to another friend. Or better yet, let’s pool together all the women who type. As for you, my dear friend, there’s no need to worry. Be sure that you wouldn’t have selected those friends of yours if you were in the state you are in now. You are under the impression that their affection for you is inspired by pity, while in fact you have provided them a safe haven.”