Ahmet Tanpinar - The Time Regulation Institute

With one eye fixed on the obscene and dangerous contortions that my daughter had forced on Van Humbert’s large and shockingly clumsy body, I said:

“How could I have imagined this? Not ever in my wildest dreams. And my own daughter…”

“You’re right. Such rapid progress is quite unprecedented.”

“If only they were just a little more aware of what they’re doing. If, for example, my daughter actually knew the steps to this dance, and if my sister-in-law had the faintest idea of what she was just doing, thrashing around on that dance floor, and if the older one didn’t go after musical compositions as if she were smashing a chandelier with a chair…”

In the politest way possible Halit Ayarcı yawned.

“The same old story. Rather, the same old stories! My dear friend, you are an incurable malcontent. Knowledge is secondary in such matters. Action, action, and action alone!” Then, as if talking to himself, he added:

“Knowledge holds us back. Indeed it offers neither an end nor an aim. The main thing is to do, to create. If only they knew, if only they knew… But if they knew, they wouldn’t be doing it. They’d never achieve the same innovation, the same excitement at spontaneous discovery. Knowledge would stifle it all. Your daughter has made the evening. With what? With her ability to create. For creation is life. We are living individuals. We are people who choose life. You can scowl at us all you like!”

“I’m not scowling. I’m simply speaking my mind.”

“Keep your thoughts to yourself, and feast your eyes on this magnificent spectacle!”

It was indeed a wonderful sight to behold. Van Humbert was now dancing without my daughter’s assistance. Executing one outrageous twirl after another, he rose up from the floor only to fall once more. The applause was thunderous.

“Look, my dear friend, study that man’s willpower! What effort, such a life force — it’s the very joy of living! What is knowledge in the face of such power?”

Then he leaned over and whispered into my ear:

“Yes, my dear friend, that’s how I would like to see you.”

For a moment I imagined myself in our guest’s position.

“Oh, please have mercy!” I groaned. “Next you’ll send me to the insane asylum?”

Halit Ayarcı graced me with a delicate smile.

“What a strange idea you have of an insane asylum, sir,” he said. “You would send every one of us there, with of course yours truly at the top of the list. But, then again, there is nothing I’ve done that you haven’t participated in!”

I’d offended him. Although I had no desire to bring a sour end to an evening that had begun so brilliantly, there was no turning back.

“You were fully aware of the state I was in when you first met me!” I replied.

“Yes I was. Indeed you never concealed it from me. That’s just the way you are — everything is out in the open. The truth is this, my dear friend, no sooner had you settled into your comfortable new life than your former life comes back to haunt you. And you find it unnecessary, even extravagant, to think of letting go!”

“No, I just miss my old self.”

“Then go back to it! If you are longing for it, then go back!”

Then his voice suddenly changed.

“But you can’t. You just did the calculations. I read what was going through your mind a few minutes ago: ‘I’ve made peace with my aunt and things are working out well. Why should I walk away from it all?’ That’s what you just told yourself, am I right? But then you relinquished the idea. You’re afraid of the future!”

He had read my mind perfectly. He placed his hand on my shoulder and led me into the inner drawing room. People watching us would have assumed we were merrily chatting away.

“Let me tell you your version of the truth. You can’t turn back now because you aren’t willing to give anything up. Despite all your criticism and self-deprecation, you have a beautiful, forward-thinking wife and a mistress with whom you are madly in love. And I’m quite sure that you would make any sacrifice for the welfare of your daughter and son. What’s more, you enjoy notoriety, and you like being busy, even if it means being engaged in work you dismiss as absurd. At the end of the day, you’re an octopus, with your eight arms wrapped around the world! And you can’t release your hold on anything. How could you ever go back?”

“I don’t want to go back,” I said. “I just want a more reasonable…”

He laughed again.

“Reasonable! Reasonable!” he said, shaking his head. “No, you’re not looking for reason. You’re not such a fool. If indeed you are of the belief that reason operates on its own, well, then that’s different. But, no, you’re after something else.”

“I’m after the truth. Or rather I want it, or at least a piece of it.”

“Truth is either whole or not there at all. My good friend, these unassailable truths you’re speaking of are there for one who is content to live with nothing but the shirt on his back and the odd piece of bread. They are not for someone like you, who wants it all and straightaway! An individual who is pure and complete seeks first of all to meet his own needs.”

With one stroke he had thrown me out of myself.

“But I really don’t want that much,” I said.

“So now you’re negotiating. But such matters are nonnegotiable! At this table the man who wins one and the man who wins a thousand will always bet on the very same thing and play till nothing’s left. You might chance upon a win, but when you lose, you lose it all, and forever. Once you’ve entered the game, you have lost. Bargaining with virtue gets you nowhere. This is why our forbears accepted human nature the way it was. You know the old adage: ‘Words are clear but man’s nature is…’”

Then he darted to the drinks table and filled two glasses. The bogus and outlandishly adorned Blessed One seemed to peer across the room in awe.

“In this world no account, no attachment comes free. They all require the same sacrifice. And there is but one step between the absurd and the sublime. Are you up for the task or will you fold?”

I thought for a moment.

“No,” I said. “I know I won’t. But why are you speaking like this?”

Halit Ayarcı refilled his glass. With a delighted look in his eyes, he glanced first at his glass, then the Blessed One, and then at me.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps I’m drunk. Perhaps I am just trying to settle the score with myself. The best thing, of course, is to rise above the matter altogether.”

“No,” I said. “You’re not settling accounts with yourself. You’re still trying to break down something inside me. And you’re even doing it brick by brick! But why?”

“I’ll tell you: Because we’ve both traveled down the same roads. I am very fond of you, but I’m also at war with you. You remind me very much of myself. Oh no, now don’t flatter yourself too much here! I was never like you. I was never confused and downtrodden. But there’s a side to you that…”

And his laugh was like crystal.

“Have you ever in your life laughed like that?” he asked. “Your soul has never been as pure as mine because I have always remained above and beyond all these matters.”

Then suddenly he embraced me.

“But you have taught me to love life!” he cried. “The state you were in when you whiled away your time in that coffeehouse in Sehzadebası: that ridiculous despair, your hopeless grief, those burdens you could never shake off… Your astonishment at the restaurant at Büyükdere, your timidity, your flights of happiness… That world in which you lived, small as an olive pit, all of this taught me to love life again. Had I done no more than pass a discreet five-lira note into the palm of your hand that night — how happy you would have been! Yes, you made me love life again. You are a most wonderful foil!”