The Time Regulation Institute (21 page)

The character of the place derived from its proprietor, who would eventually go bankrupt. Not once in his life had the man bothered to take life seriously, though he did seem to know half of Istanbul. He needed to meet a man only once to become his lifelong friend. And thanks to him the coffeehouse became a kind of clubhouse.

He was handsome, well built, and devilishly charming. He might well have become a high-flying businessman had he not considered the domain of the eccentric the only place worth living. He had concocted a language all his own, as affected and artificial as his attire, both of which vacillated between old and new, and he wore a little pointed goatee in the French fashion. With his ridiculous attire and his pretentious little beard, he gossiped from morning till night, spinning tales of unimaginable slander with his bogus turns of phrase, while always taking care not to implicate himself. And if he was really at a loss
for something to talk about, he would draw from his personal arsenal, telling tales that would have been best left untold. He was forever falling in love, and since he chose women who seemed incapable of ever loving anyone but him, he was obliged to marry each in due course, and was thus eternally entangled in burdensome divorce suits. The fact of the matter was that he lived in a glass jar, which is to say very much exposed to the public eye.

The coffeehouse was frequented by all sorts: the sons of old money, tradesmen both bankrupt and successful, unsung poets, journalists, painters, high officials, masters of chess and backgammon and other games, former wrestlers, actors and musicians, and the usual gang of university professors and students; all told, there was someone from nearly every walk of life. And though each belonged to a clique, they also gave the impression of living as one. You were on intimate terms with any of them the day after meeting him for the first time. There were no secrets. The laundry—dirty or clean—was hung out for everyone to see. Each garment was openly fingered, examined, and even sniffed, and any elements deemed interesting were promptly paraded about. Here every good deed, every moment of despair, every shocking piece of scandalous news was judged with the same severity, or if need be, compassion, before gaining official acceptance. Pederasty, unwarranted philandering, hoodwinks large and small—all was laid bare to be bandied about by the crowd.

Every coffeehouse regular, even the proprietor, was assigned a nickname, and the moment any given character stepped foot in the establishment, someone in the crowd would tell a story or two about him, polishing each detail as he went.

I'd been around most of these people almost all my life. Some I knew from work, and others I'd met in their homes. Later a good number of them worked with me, and by that I mean they worked at the Time Regulation Institute. All were more or less honorable, or at least they were willing to risk anything to appear that way. And some had already attained important posts. Not one was unhappy with his lot in life; in fact the great majority seemed rather content. But of course there were
a few who encouraged their friends to make jokes at their expense, so afraid were they of being forgotten.

What wasn't discussed in the coffeehouse? History, the philosophy of
Bergson, Aristotelian logic, Greek poetry, psychoanalysis, spiritualism, everyday gossip, lewd adventures, tales of terror and intrigue, the political events of the day—all gathered up into one swollen conversation that burst like a spring deluge, carrying away everything in its path, as surprising as it was senseless, one topic seething forward before the other was finished. But, then, of course, nothing was ever discussed in detail. In the coffeehouse a story would rise up as if from a long slumber, or like a faint memory of the ancient echo of a death. As conversation turned deliriously from one subject to the next, Alexander the Great would join forces with Hannibal or the
Kantian imperative, all to serve as antidotes to daily life. With even the most benign adventure, the pleasure was in the retelling. The patrons had listened to one another for so long that they could guess more or less what would happen in any story. Conversation was merely a platform for the speaker to display his eloquence; it was more like a play, or the recitation of a dearly loved work, for the exchanges were executed according to predetermined conditions—not at all unlike the traditional Turkish mime theater,
ortaoyunu.
The story would be interrupted by the same interjections, and laughter would follow; if certain members of the crowd were directly involved in the tale, they would make their defining pronouncements at just the right moment. If the narrator introduced new details, he would be cut off at once with, “You made that up!” But it was these new twists that people came to enjoy most in later recitations. And no one ever found the endless—and mandatory—repetitions tedious. In fact it was only the out of the ordinary that met with some resistance. New ideas were at first humored out of courtesy and a slight curiosity, but they would remain unaddressed until the crowd's ever-vigilant imagination had recast them as pleasantries, thus assimilating them to their own idiom. This is what happened to any attempt at serious conversation. A new story was accepted into the repertory only once it had been reduced to a base sexual escapade, a tale of
pederasty, a piece of slapstick shadow-puppet humor, or the replica of an
ortaoyunu
. There was a specific name given to those who discussed serious matters: they were known as the “world regulators,” the aristocrats who busied themselves with the regulation of the world. Below them was a larger group called the “Eastern Plebeians.” Armed with only just enough culture to be active members of the coffeehouse commune, they had little to say about life's simple pleasures or even the hardships of making ends meet, preferring instead to indulge in an innocuous flair for the comical by drawing attention to the imperfections of others around them. Finally there were the “irregulars”; devoid of social refinement and utterly ill at ease in the urban environment, they were men still in thrall to their primal urges. An irregular could pick a fight with anyone, but a plebian or a regulator would fight in earnest only if confronted by an irregular. To some degree the irregulars represented the primitive element, and perhaps because they were largest in number, they were the only ones with a subgroup: the “pseudo-irregulars.”

At first this bizarre crowd and the life that came with it rather bored me; the people seemed like traditional
meddah
, or fugitives from improvisatory performances of
ortaoyunu
or shadow
-
puppet theater. It filled me with terror just to enter such a world, seeing as I suffered from a diagnosed medical condition and from the assorted inscrutable personality quirks that came with it. But by the third day people were asking earnestly after the Blessed One, going almost so far as to ask whether the clock was a bachelor or enjoyed conjugal life. My memories of Abdüsselam Bey, Seyit Lutfullah, and Nuri Efendi were refreshed the moment I walked in—they had all lived in this neighborhood, and almost all the coffeehouse regulars had known the latter two personally.

That Lutfullah had entrusted me with the treasure of the emperor Andronikos—that it was now entirely in my possession—had not escaped their attention. In fact my reputation in the coffeehouse preceded me, although I had never wished for or sought such recognition. Certainly no other community would have welcomed me with the same warmth. The week following
my arrival with Dr. Ramiz, everyone heatedly discussed—in my presence—just which group I should be assigned to. My reserved demeanor, my preoccupation with my personal affairs, and the seriousness with which I approached these deliberations seemed to place me with the world regulators. But following Emine's death, any balance in my life became seriously disrupted, and my standing in this esteemed company suffered. So slowly but surely I was relegated to the Eastern Plebeians. And they were right to place me there!

After assigning me to the appropriate class, they began thinking about a suitable nickname. This wasn't so easy; it was a matter that required not a few discussions. Eventually they decided on the Fatherless Waif, because of my illness—that is to say, my father complex. But there were many other stories swirling around. Nasit Bey's sudden demise revived the story of my aunt who had come back from the dead. And then there was her commitment to a dervish lodge to purge the pain of losing her husband; her subsequent attachment to the sheikh, renowned among the ladies of the day; and her wealth, which made her the prized disciple of the entire lodge—all of which served to enhance the notoriety of her later misadventures. As if refusing to believe she might be overlooked by coffeehouse society, she took to writing rapturous odes to God. And the truth was that every chance encounter in my life only enhanced her notoriety. In the second week after I began frequenting the coffeehouse, a certain honest and warmhearted man who worked in the
bedesten
, an inspector of the covered market's scales, took a keen interest in Aristidi Efendi's quest to make gold. The man never left my side, and, forever clutching a manuscript he'd purchased from the secondhand book market, he pestered me tirelessly with questions about the secrets of the art. Inevitably the Sehzadebası Diamond became the principal topic of discussion on almost any given day. No sooner had the coffeehouse proprietor taken his first sip of strong, unsweetened coffee than he began to recount a dream he'd never actually had, embellishing the tale with elaborate descriptions of the diamond: “Last night in the dream world, may the Great Almighty deem it good fortune, the diamond was yet again
presented to me on a golden platter.” On the second telling the dream was slightly altered, with the diamond being brought to him by a
banu
, which is to say, a lady, and then the third time, the
banu
became a
cadu
, a witch or a ghost—in other words, my aunt.

Slowly I grew accustomed to my new life. How carefree and comfortable! The relaxed atmosphere allowed you to leave everything behind, beginning with your own person. No sooner had I left work than I'd dash off to the coffeehouse, and once inside I would become someone else, far from the worries of the day amid the banter and jesting. I would think back on my life of just half an hour earlier, or ponder my future, as if it belonged to someone else. I even had a different name: I was the Fatherless Waif.

The doctor whiled away his hours at one of the tables, amusing himself by opening and closing his briefcase, or trimming his nails, or complaining that the country was falling prey to indolence, or expounding on psychoanalysis, or simply listening to the chatter around him. He was intensely attentive to everything going on in the coffeehouse and was only too delighted if one side of an idea allowed him to generate useful social commentary while the other gave him an opportunity to invoke Jung or Freud. When I asked him if these strange conversations ever frustrated him, he said:

“Are you crazy? Could there be any more interesting case studies than these? In fact it was this very coffeehouse that led me to cherish my profession so dearly. Where else could I find people like these? Even as an organic whole this community is terribly important! There could be no better place for the practice of social psychoanalysis. Look how the past carries on in the present and how the serious and the absurd are held fast. They each live in entirely separate, imaginary worlds. Yet they dream as a collective society.”

On another occasion he said:

“Where else could I find such an enlightened crowd? Each individual has his own specialty. They're all immersed in national affairs and follow new developments closely. There's no newspaper that could cover as many stories as this one coffeehouse.
You'll see when I publish my memoirs—you'll read just what I learned from these people, listening from one day to the next.”

What the doctor meant by “national affairs” and “enlightened” conversation was in reality nothing more than ordinary gossip. But of course the scholar's perspicacious eye transformed its very nature.

Later I brought Dr. Ramiz's ideas to bear on Lazybones Asaf Bey, whom I strongly encouraged to work at the institute with Halit Ayarcı—later you will see how Lazybones was appointed head of our Termination Department—and my good benefactor said:

“To my mind, it must have something to do with an inability to adapt to professional life. This is what happens to a life if it doesn't create a trajectory of its own. When I listen to you talk about this coffeehouse, I imagine all its patrons—most of whom are already known to me—living in some kind of limbo. You might see them as the ones who have been locked out. They lead indolent lives, half the time taking the world seriously, half the time dismissing it as a joke, simply because their failure to adjust to the modern age has so confused them! Surely this has something to do with their ties to some distant past or another!”

“But they all have jobs,” I'd object, to which he'd say:

“Well, there's work and there's work. First of all, work requires a certain mentality and a certain conception of time. I'm astonished that you believe a genuine business life was even possible in our country before the establishment of our institute. Work exists only within a defined order. And you, with all your experience, and who lent such moral support to the institute at its inception, how could you consider this work?”

Was there or was there not a valid work ethic in our country before the establishment of our institute? I couldn't give you a definitive answer. I have changed so much since embarking on these memoirs that I am no longer in a position to claim that I view the institute—currently being dismantled—with the same eyes as I once did. It seems to me now that it was more effective in providing jobs for a number of people in our country who
happened to be unemployed than it was in constructing a valid work ethic. In so saying, I am not denying the substantial benefits it offered society; I am merely noting that the passage of time has slowly allowed us to see our work from a different perspective. Perhaps this is because I am no longer dependent on the institute for money or well-being. Naturally when our personal interests aren't at stake, we begin to see things in a new and more realistic light; indeed we come to see them in a truer light, to judge them in the round. Perhaps this is why I had such a heated argument with my son Ahmet the other day. His scathing criticism of the institute may have put these ideas in my head; when he heard I was composing my memoirs, he changed his family name posthaste, fearing that one day the book might actually be published.