The Time Regulation Institute

by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar

  “These are private homes that we’ll leave to our children! There’s no need for any originality! Just let them be well built, affordable, and safe!”

  Some of them went even further, shouting:

  “We’re not about to experiment with our hard-earned wages. We want a home, not a clever work of art!”

  Even Dr. Ramiz, who knew me so very well, was of the same opinion.

  “Impossible, my dear friend, impossible!” he ejaculated. “Who knows, you might just place the stairs on the wrong side of the house! It’s simply out of the question.”

  As best I could, I explained to Dr. Ramiz that he himself had been more than a bit responsible for a floor inaccessible by stairs, and that my original inspiration for such a design had in fact been his description of the human mind. But my every attempt brought the answer:

  “Don’t confuse such things, my dear friend! A house is one thing—science and the subconscious quite another!”

  Lazybones Asaf was the only one who kept his opinion to himself. With his fly swatter in hand—it was toward the end of summer and our friend had got in the habit of hunting flies—he sat through three meetings without understanding much at all, but during the fourth he came over to me and whispered:

  “My dear friend Hayri, it’s best you just drop it. There’s a house I’ve inherited from my father, if you like I can have it fixed up and then give it to you! You can satisfy your curiosity there!”

  My wife agreed. Though Pakize had posed for thirty-five photographs beside the matchbox model, she nearly lost her head when she heard that I might be designing our home. For the first time ever, my wife, my daughter, and my son-in-law were all of the same mind. My wife kept saying, “God forbid! Could anyone actually live in one of your houses?” while Zehra used all her womanly charms to convince me to give up the idea.

  Truth be told, I really had no desire to design the Clock Houses. My interest—and frankly, my passion—was with the human soul. Were other people like me, or were they just a bit different? I was determined to find the answer. Surely they were like me, or even worse. Clearly they were self-centered. When public funds were involved, they were generous, enthusiastic, proud of my work, and enthralled by its innovation, but when it touched on their personal interests, they flipped sides. Indeed they even stopped listening to Halit Ayarcı.

  “But please, you can only joke around with people up to a certain point.” That was the common refrain. All in all, people showed their true colors. In this aspect at least they all seemed the same. Halit Ayarcı was really quite distraught and didn’t have the slightest idea what to do; every now and then he came to me and complained.

  “How is this possible?” he cried. “Here we have people who work in the world’s most modern institute, steeped in innovations, and in conditions they acknowledge to be the best and most advanced in the world—how could they not understand this? If they do not understand, then for goodness sake, what are they doing at the institute? Why did they applaud the new building? Why did they congratulate us? Nothing but lies!”

  I tried to explain the situation to Halit Ayarcı.

  “No, they weren’t lying,” I said. “They were sincere on both occasions. They adore innovation providing it doesn’t affect them personally. And they continue to adore it but with this one condition. In their personal lives they prefer to be safe and secure.”

  “How can that be? Can a human being think about something in two entirely different ways? Can two different sets of logic coexist in their heads?”

  Halit Ayarcı was truly in despair.

  “Of course. Or, better said, when personal interests shift, logic follows suit.”

  “Truth is, I just cannot comprehend such a thing! All my life’s work has collapsed before me. This institute is no longer mine!”

  Beads of sweat ran down his temples. I’d never seen him in such a state. He had held his own against much stronger and more powerful opposition. But now just a handful of people—people he himself had created—had taken him by surprise. He looked vacantly about the room.

  “Have you ever been to a boxing match?” I asked. “At first we can’t even bear to watch. Then soon enough we get excited and side with one of the boxers. Not long after that we’re angry that he’s not holding up well enough, and we scream at the top of our lungs: ‘Come on! Hit him harder! That’s the way!’ And if he doesn’t, we feel disappointed. But which one of us actually wants to be in that fighter’s shoes? No one, right? These people are no different. They watched us fight and cheered us on and even applauded our efforts. And they meant it. But now that you’ve welcomed them into the ring, it’s all changed. Now it’s a matter of their personal interest and safety!”

  “Then these people don’t believe in me! We’ve banded together here for nothing! We have struggled in vain!”

  “No, they still believe in you, providing their personal needs remain untouched. Besides, why do you need them to believe in you? This I don’t understand . . .”

  “But work is work!”

  And so it was that the long and difficult discussions over the Clock Houses chewed up Halit Ayarcı from the inside out.

  The fourth meeting was the most arduous. Halit Ayarcı went so far as to issue threats. Alas! The magic had worn off. The opposition was just too strong. They didn’t even give him a chance to speak. The Clock Houses would be just like any other houses. That was the majority’s final word.

  He left the meeting early, ceding his seat to me. For the first time, I exercised my right to vote and, having succumbed to the majority, I left.

  When I went into his office, I found myself with an entirely changed Halit Ayarcı. Sitting in the chair he had once pulled out for my aunt, he had his feet up on the table and was deep in thought. When he saw me come in, he said:

  “Somewhere I went wrong . . . But where? Where did I go wrong? If I could just figure this out I’d feel so much better . . .”

  “I don’t know,” I answered him. “Best to put it out of your mind. After all, they are private homes, and they can have them built whichever way they like. We’ll wish them all the best and that will be that.”

  He looked at my face stubbornly, imploringly.

  “Why don’t you understand me?” he asked. “Somewhere I went wrong!”

  Smiling, I tried to console him.

  “Perhaps it’s the fault of my architectural wizardry!” I said. “But you must admit, I know nothing about such work, and I could never . . .”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “What difference does that make?”

  “We’ve played with everyone a bit too much. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  He looked at my face again and said:

  “No, we didn’t play with them. We did nothing of the sort. They were the ones who deceived us. We placed too much confidence in them.”

  He stood up and began pacing about the room.

  “This institute is no longer mine! Now I’m just like everyone else here,” he said.

  And he left without taking his hat.

  This was the first bout of depression that seized Halit Ayarcı. The whole matter flared up out of nothing really. Yet it didn’t last for long. The old Halit Ayarcı was back when our building was inaugurated at the congress of the International Time Regulation Institute. The congress was in awe of this radiant, kind, noble, and true gentleman. He spoke for two hours at the closing ceremony, receiving one furious wave of applause after another.

  But still, as someone who knew him intimately, I could tell that this wasn’t the same Halit Ayarcı.

  There is no doubt that his decline contributed to the altogether unexpected and sudden liquidation of the institute. Had he been able to maintain the same force and enthusiasm, we never would have come to such a tragic and unexpected end.

  If Halit Ayarcı had been at the institute
on the day of the event that led to liquidation, things would have turned out very differently, for Halit always knew how to behave in just such situations. But he wasn’t there. It had been months since he’d visited the institute. I was the only one present when the foreign delegation arrived. And, sadly, in spite of all my experience, I failed to grasp just how important this particular delegation was. What’s more, by that point I no longer harbored doubts about the institute. I had slowly but surely come to believe what Halit Ayarcı had so long insisted: that the institute was a viable modern organization conducting truly indispensible work. Having been inundated with love and admiration for the new building and our many other achievements, I had lost all my former doubts. It was in this frame of mind that I gave the delegation a full tour of our adored institute, explaining in some detail precisely what we did.

  Sadly this delegation was nothing like its predecessors. The symbolic clock over the front door, the strange floors and extraneous stairs, the synchronized typing of our seventy typists, exerting a startling degree of rhythmic control under the direction of our chief secretary as she waved her baton at the head of our grand typing salon—none of this impressed them. Though affable enough at the start of the visit, they showed nothing but indifference toward our work.

  When we returned to my office, the head of the delegation refused my offer of an alcoholic beverage, heading straight to the phone to dial 0135 before asking me for the time. Glancing at the clock on the wall, he turned to me and asked:

  “When it’s that easy to ascertain the time, where is the need for such an institute?”

  This was more or less the same question I had been asking Halit Ayarcı since the day the institute was established. And every time I did, he gave me the same grave and reasoned reply, which, if not entirely convincing, succeeded in silencing me. But sadly I wasn’t Halit Ayarcı. I had neither his eloquence nor his incisive powers of reason, and the man who had asked me this question had no desire to be persuaded. Thus he didn’t really listen to any of the answers I gave him. Every time I opened my mouth he interrupted me with the same question:

  “Where is the need for such an institute?”

  Finally I told him that such institutes existed all over the world, after which I outlined our system of fixed and relative remuneration. In the end the man got up and left without even saying good-bye.

  I never doubted this strange visit would end the way it did. But to err on the safe side, I called Halit Ayarcı. He wasn’t at home. I asked around as to his whereabouts, but I couldn’t find him. Three days later we received the order to liquidate the institute. In a way this really wasn’t such a terrible shock for me. For some time, I had been preparing myself for our enterprise to come to an end. It was after this American fellow’s visit that I began to think our time had come. The Time Regulation Institute had played out its role.

  All the same, it had become a part of my life. We had put so much into it. And I was quite fond of my office in the new building, which I had designed especially for myself, and the relaxation room just beside it in which I’d sometimes spend the night. My little American bar, my bathroom, my furniture, my pictures on the wall—I was so very fond of it all. I absolutely loved the garden I also had designed to suit my own particular taste. I would no longer be able to follow the growth of the trees I’d planted with my own hands.

  I called Halit Ayarcı the moment I received the order. They were expecting him to be home in half an hour. I sat at my desk, with my hand still on the phone, thinking. Perhaps one day this institute would be of some use. Halit Bey always said, “It will create its own function!” What a shame it never had the chance to do so. On the other hand, there were nearly three hundred staff members whose futures weren’t as bright.

  I was worried about those futures. What would happen to these people? How would they find work? What were we going to do now? No matter how absurd it is, a job is still a job. Well, yes, I could write my memoirs, but what were these other people going to do?

  Half an hour later I had Halit Ayarcı on the telephone. When I explained the situation, he teased me, saying:

  “I imagine you’re quite upset.”

  “Well, aren’t you?”

  “No,” he said. “As you know I no longer have the same relationship with the institute. It rejected me.”

  “If you’d been here, perhaps you could have stopped this.”

  “But I wasn’t there,” he said. “And doesn’t the fact that I was absent show that the old ties have been severed?”

  “But this doesn’t concern just us! All our friends, the staff . . . We are nearly three hundred people.”

  For a moment it seemed he was thinking.

  “Yes, all of them!” he said.

  “Can I see you tonight?”

  “I don’t think so,” he replied and hung up the phone.

  This wasn’t an answer. The old rage welled up inside me. I hoped he would come see me in the evening. But there was no sign of him. The following day I stopped by his place. They told me he had left on a trip early that morning. I spent nearly all that week dealing with the liquidation.

  That weekend there was a social event that had been scheduled many months earlier. Given the bitter circumstances, I wanted to cancel it, but I just couldn’t convince my wife.

  This final gathering at the Clock Villa did not get off to a brilliant start. For the last six months, our employees (who were either already relatives or had by now married each other) had been living together, day and night, in the same neighborhood, and various hostilities had emerged. It had become so bad that they tolerated social gatherings and even everyday neighborly visits only because it offered them an opportunity to insult and criticize one another or wage war by innuendo. Though their suppressed anger and bad manners made such shows of decorum rare, our gatherings would, even if peaceful, provide the fodder for future gossip and backstabbing.

  So I avoided these functions as best I could, and if I attended, I never invited extra guests. But over the last three years, we had made a tradition of celebrating my youngest daughter Halide’s birthday with a party. And Pakize was not about to give up on this tradition, just because we had moved into a new home.

  Here I should add that, in sharp contrast to myself, Pakize was a regular at our neighborhood functions. She paid no heed whatsoever to the hostile ring around her: in fact she even took it head on. What woman cannot help but retaliate with a giggle and a wan smile? I really don’t understand it, but women are stronger and more courageous than men in this regard. We had purchased a new set of china, and Pakize had a new evening gown to display, and so canceling the soiree was out of the question. Those people who had criticized us for days on end—she would crush them with her beauty, youth, and affluence.

  But Pakize had failed to consider how much the mood had soured since the dissolution of the institute. She was expecting nothing more than the odd innuendo slipped into an otherwise pleasant conversation. That was not how it happened. When the guests arrived, they were already in a rage. One look at their faces told me exactly the direction the evening would take. And indeed it did not take long for matters to come to a head. The strange thing was that we were not the sole targets of all their all-too-human ire. They targeted everyone else too. Husbands and wives and betrothed all seemed equally angry at one another. No flaw or imperfection was immune. And everyone knew the score. We were all to blame for the institute’s liquidation. We were all guilty of a crime. But as Halit Bey and I bore the most responsibility, we were naturally the chief culprits. The more people drank, the more things got out of hand. These people who had been plucked out of nowhere by Halit Ayarcı—they joined forces to ask us to account for ourselves, and they were openly berating us.

  Pakize was the first to be attacked. Oblivious to her new gown, they dropped all pretense of common courtesy. Even our younger employees, who knew it was only proper
to pay her a compliment, went out of their way to avoid her. The wives of our closest friends discussed her age as they stood right beside her, and then they asked her what kind of hair dye she used.

  It wasn’t long before they were discussing the size of our home and our tasteless furniture and the money we had squandered for it. When approaching one group, I realized, when I heard the word “weasel,” that these three people were talking about me.

  Yet—as I’ve mentioned—this anger was not leveled against us alone. With the liquidation of the institute, the need for pretense had also disappeared, and without pretense, friendships foundered. So then everyone was in the same cold, sour, hostile mood.

  By ten I had given up all hope of stemming the arguments, though I’d been waiting in front of the dining room, whose doors had been flung open for half an hour. Pakize, who just a little earlier had been challenging the crowd around her, had now taken refuge between her sisters. Only my aunt was holding her own, countering all attacks with apoplectic tirades.

  And it was just then that Halit Ayarcı appeared, holding his valise, with his hat still on his head. Without paying anyone else any notice, he marched directly over to me. A growl rose from the crowd, which in the space of a moment flared up like a furnace that had just been fed new fuel. But Halit Ayarcı paid no heed. Shaking my hand, he apologized:

  “Please forgive me. I could only make it back just now. I have had the decision amended. That’s to say, the decision to abrogate had been suspended, but in order for the institute to remain in a permanent state of liquidation we need to form a committee for continuous liquidation. All our friends will have positions in this new entity.”

  After he uttered these words, my wife took his hand and kissed it. He strode into the dining room.

  The crowd heaved around us. And suddenly everyone was just as they had been before; in fact they were even friendlier. A couple who had been on the brink of a divorce just two days before, and had been mingling about separately for the last two hours, made peace and kissed each other right in front of me. A couple whose engagement had turned sour suddenly sprang back to life right then and there. The groups of three reformed. No, these men were now as open and pure in their newfound joy as they had been hostile and embittered just a moment earlier.