The Time Regulation Institute (43 page)

Halit Ayarcı had brought prosperity to our home. As I was thinking all this over, the telephone rang. It was Halit Ayarcı, speaking in a calm, collected voice that gave no hint of our tense discussion earlier.

“Tomorrow I'll bring you a few history books—these should help you with your work on Ahmet the Timely. You'll see just how easy it's going to be.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“We'll have it done in a couple of months.”

“I suppose so, sir. You'll help, of course.”

“Wait a little before you invite Sabriye Hanım and Selma Hanım. I'm going now, if there's anything, call me at home.”

“Yes, sir.”

IV

The press had taken an interest in the institute since the day it opened its doors. The closer we came to obtaining official permission to extend our personnel, the more the newspapers
wrote about us. We were literally the talk of the town. The institute's organizational structure, its aims, objectives, and modus operandi—all these were heatedly discussed in the press, and naturally the personal lives of the manager, assistant manager, or other staff members were considered fair game. Some of the dailies were charmed by Halit Ayarcı, while others were shocked that a project this important and ambitious should have been entrusted to a businessman of his ilk. Others posed the question, “Just what does this institute intend to do?” Halit Ayarcı read each and every piece with care, laughing away all criticism with good humor.

“But of course—anyone undertaking a job of this scale and importance should be prepared for criticism!” he bellowed. “The important thing is to get people talking.”

He was particularly pleased with the way one journalist had chosen to interpret the Time Regulation Institute's mission, its mode of operation, and even its name: to him we marked an important new development in the history of bureaucracy.

“Whoever wrote that piece truly understands what we're doing. An intelligent man indeed! Above all else he understands our modern age. It's been given many names, but first and foremost it is the age of bureaucracy. All the philosophers, from
Spengler to Kieserling, are writing about bureaucracy. I would go as far as to say that it is an age in which bureaucracy has reached its zenith, an age of real freedom. Any man who understands is a valuable figure. I am in the process of establishing an absolute institution—a mechanism that defines its own function. What could be closer to perfection than that?”

As the date of our public personnel announcement grew closer, the news coverage gathered force, abruptly setting its focus on individuals; after a fortnight of playing with Halit Bey, they dropped him and set their sights on me.

It might not have been entirely unjustified to see Halit Ayarcı's hand in this, seeing as the change of tack brought all discussion of the institute's legitimacy to a sudden halt. But this much is true, I was much more likely fodder than Halit Bey, as the public could not have failed to have been delighted by the many misfortunes I had suffered. Thus began a brief but
discomfiting interlude. Almost every other day, a journalist would print my picture in the paper, and there would be heated debate about my personal life, as well as questions raised as to my suitability for the post. A swarm of conflicting interpretations whirled around the century-old story of Ahmet Efendi the Signer and his mosque, the Serbetçibası Diamond, my childhood neighborhood and all the people I knew from that time, and my employment record, not to mention my years of unemployment.

For some people, I was the all-in-all favorite. As they saw it, I had devoted my entire life to timepieces and time. They saw everything I did before the establishment of the institute as laying the groundwork for this new endeavor. I had been Nuri Efendi's last student. It followed, then, that I was the heir of all knowledge—progressive and mystical—about Sheikh Ahmet the Timely.

Just around this time, the time setter Nuri Efendi's tomb in Merkezefendi underwent a thorough restoration—surely another one of Halit Ayarcı's discreet manipulations—the result being I was catapulted onto the front page. During my speech at the ceremony unveiling the restored tomb, and on the insistence of Halit Ayarci, I made frequent references to Ahmet the Timely, and in so doing I succeeded in capturing the public's imagination. Not only did the press laud my intelligence and powers of perspicacity, but I was also praised for my unique mode of delivery.

The following week there appeared the strangest headline I had ever seen: “Hayri Irdal: The Apprentice Years.” According to this article, clocks and time had fascinated me since the age of three. As a small child I was always asking my father about the inner workings of the Blessed One, the great grandfather clock in our home. This article, a true masterpiece, concluded with the following words: “From morning till night, his father would remind him that this rather large grandfather clock—the only genuine piece of furniture in their home, this heirloom passed down to them from their noble and devout ancestors—was the very symbol of the universe. Thus did fortune prepare the scene: even before his birth, it had been ordained that Hayri Irdal would
spend his formative years in the company of this clock.” A week later another writer described me as “our undiscovered Voltaire,” making preposterous comparisons between me and the French philosopher, who had supposedly amassed a small fortune through watchmaking. The author of a third piece cast aside Nuri Efendi, my father, and Voltaire to argue that my life was an experiment, a vehicle for the study of our society and society in general. “Since childhood, Hayri Irdal has been preoccupied with matters of the mind,” he intoned. “So it is only fitting that the day should come when this, his life's work, would bear fruit.”

Naturally Dr. Ramiz could not resist involving himself in the commotion. Not to be outdone, he even presumed to analyze my mind, an article he later expanded into a full-length book. His central claim was that I had a love-hate relationship—a father complex!—with this clock that was to have stood in a mosque that was consecrated but, due to lack of funds, never built. He mentioned Seyit Lutfullah, as well as the dream manuals and fortune-telling guides, and he praised my intuitive understanding. To him I was a kind of Ebu Ali Sinan. “Yes,” said the doctor, “Hayri Bey is nothing less than a modern reincarnation of this Eastern Faust. In much the same way as the latter performed calculations in relative time, Hayri Bey performs calculation in living time. Our dear friend Halit Ayarcı should be praised to the skies for unearthing this precious and momentous truth!”

The most frustrating thing about all this foolishness was the way Halit Ayarcı smiled under his mustache every time I complained about it: never once did he think to ease my troubled mind.

“Of course,” he said. “Of course, my dear friend, when an institute of this importance comes into being, those caught up in its glory should expect a little noise. And what exactly were you suggesting I should do about it? Step out and say, ‘No, these are all lies'? That would destroy our work before we've even begun. Just let it all pass. Think of it as a wave that will soon have crested and dispersed.”

At other times he said:

“Am I to blame because you resemble Faust or Voltaire? Or because others happen to think you do? People say such things because they want to see something special in us too. Do you think it's easy for a civilization carrying so much history on its back to catch up in just fifty years? A little exaggeration along the way is only natural. A novelist will be likened to Zola, and you will be compared with this or that philosopher. Truth is, I am shocked by this attitude of yours! You should be glad that I'm not jealous of you, but instead you're angry with me, even aggressive! If I were you, I'd stay quiet and focus on my work ahead. You need to pull yourself together and write your book, and then come up with new ways to expand our institute! These are all such simple tasks—they'll soon be second nature, as you'll see. What I am saying is that you're there already. You were in a rage last week when you read that article that was so critical of you. But to me it seems there is nothing to get so riled up about. I mean, if what you are telling me now is true, why then, you should have welcomed this article with open arms. For that journalist was describing your life as you yourself have explained it to me. But the piece angered you, and that can only mean you were pleased with the others!”

The critical piece was not, however, so easily forgotten. Beginning with a discussion of “what a mistake it had been to hire a man known by all of Istanbul to be mad,” it ended by dismissing me as a common swindler who had managed to evade the hand of justice: “Yet another hoax? And when the fiasco of the Serbetçibası Diamond is still fresh in our minds?” But it placed the blame on both me and Halit Ayarcı, casting him as a profiteer—a businessman playing games with the public—and me as his puppet!

After the esteemed personage's visit, Halit Ayarcı made me controller of his timber factory, awarding me a wage of one hundred liras—though there was no actual work to be done—and in the wake of that harshly critical article I was given a similar post at his soap factory. To me, this only served to confirm that I had every right to be angry about that cruel article.

“Well, of course that article made me angry. If people speak
against me, why shouldn't I be angry? You know I was innocent in the diamond case!”

“No,” Halit assured me, “you were upset about the word ‘puppet.'”

“But I wasn't, for that I can't deny!”

With the same cool and collected manner, he said:

“You really are a very strange man. You have no idea what it means to collaborate. It's so very clear that you have always lived in your own world. You have never managed to adjust to public life. Only people unaccustomed to the company of others would think to question personal freedom. First you say they shouldn't criticize you, and then you say their praise should be kept in check. What sort of thing is that?! It's too good to be true . . . No, my good friend, everyone is free in their own particular way!”

He wasn't entirely wrong. I did appreciate my favorable reviews. What angered me were the exaggerations that even I could not believe. Not long after Dr. Ramiz published his article, a journalist interviewed my wife. And so in the end everything came out. As if to make up for ten years of indifference, as if to compensate for her condescension and neglect and in effect the sum total of all the mistakes she made during our marriage, she spent the entire twenty minutes singing my praises. But Pakize was not the sort to take an interest in watches, clocks, psychoanalysis, or higher knowledge of any sort. She was a modern woman who adored the cinema, who saw the world through the silver screen. So whether I liked it or not, she was going to recast me as her new matinee idol.

In this, the film version of our lives, my wife truly loved me. We'd loved each other since childhood. Following a series of misadventures, I had been obliged to marry Emine, and so Pakize had married her first husband. But she'd never forgotten me, nor I her. I was given to understand that I had spoken to her on the day before my wedding and told her that I'd had no choice. My first wife had been a good woman, though she'd lacked in sophistication and so had not really understood me, which was why, with her at my side, I'd never achieved success, let alone come to understand my true nature. After Emine's
death, Pakize had left her husband and sought me out, knowing that like all great men I was reserved, proud, and a little absentminded where women are concerned. It was only then—thanks to Pakize—that I had set off on my professional career. “He even left his post as a civil servant so he could follow his vocation. For seven or eight years, we survived on the trifles my family had left me. But in the end we spent all we had.” During the interview, Pakize never once complained. As the wife of a great man, she'd known she would have to make significant sacrifices. And my private life? Naturally I was a little eccentric. But when I wasn't lost in my work, I was cheerful enough. I was not a poor equestrian, a magnificent swimmer, and I dabbled in tennis. “He had penchant for gambling but he gave it up for me!” I knew all about women's fashion and the meaning of true elegance. My younger sister-in-law followed my counsel in her attire. And what were my favorite things, apart from watches and clocks? Music of course: both
alafranga
and
alaturca
. I played the piano and the banjo too. My older sister-in-law owed her success to me. “Oh, don't you know? My sister sings every night at the Crystal Waterfall Music Club. If you happen to be there at half past eleven . . .” I enjoyed chatting with my family at home. I drank juice every morning with breakfast. One particular quirk of mine—I was always falling in love, but my wife had turned a blind eye to this. “As they're women worthy of his status. And you know what women are like—they just never leave men alone.” As for my wife, she had once wanted to be a dancer, but, “When you marry someone like Hayri, you get used to making sacrifices with good grace. Before the inauguration of the Time Regulation Institute, or, rather, before its foundation, I'd received two offers: One from Hollywood . . . Yes, that's right, from Hollywood . . . a film about the East . . . ,” while the other had come from a large Swiss watchmaking firm. She couldn't furnish the name. She'd been so busy with her housework that she couldn't remember all the details. “In fact his early career was in acting. We're a family of artists. He was a thespian in his youth. And recently he had a role in a film!” Indeed in my years of unemployment, I'd been an extra in two different films. My favorite food?
“Boiled vegetables, grilled meat, and so on.” According to my wife, I loved to eat but was careful with my diet. My greatest shortcoming was that I worked so hard I forgot to take care of myself. Clearly I was not one for nightlife, and so we rarely went out, but we did sometimes go to the cinema. From here the interview moved on to discuss my favorite movie stars.