The Time Regulation Institute (10 page)

Through these battles, Aristidi Efendi's well-mannered European patience and indulgence were challenged by Seyit Lutfullah's humility, as well as his proud and powerful hold on the spiritual world, and the two opposing powers swirled around each other as if melding in a great cauldron set over an open fire. All I remember of the great debates I myself witnessed are Lutfullah's favorite terms: “purification,” “putrefaction” “thickening,” “marriage,” “birth,” “dissolution,” and “connections”; they shimmered like doors to a greater world, answering only to powerful displays of will.

And yet we have all witnessed, in the most unexpected of circumstances, such doors bursting open before us. Aristidi Efendi (who liked to claim all the glory for these experiments, despite the fact that they were funded mainly by Abdüsselam Bey) was working alone one night when an alembic cracked and his laboratory went up in flames. Only an hour later did the fire department and neighborhood volunteers make it to the scene and find the body of Aristidi Efendi half-consumed by the fire. It was February
1912
, and with Aristidi Efendi's death all effort to make gold in an alembic came to an end. And so the only hope that remained for the small group was the treasure.

VIII

But why have I burdened my chronicle of the Time Regulation Institute with these distant reveries? And why have I allowed myself to be seized by these shadows of the past? People today fail to grasp the importance of such questions. They overlook the truths and absurdities that lie beneath. I myself am now far too old to take pleasure in visits to the past or even, for that matter, from simple reminiscing. But even so, there is no disputing the fact that from the moment Halit Ayarcı came into my life I became a new man. I became more at ease with
reality, more accustomed to confronting it. Indeed the man created a whole new life for me. I now feel distant from all these characters and long-ago events; a part of me has turned away from the past, though I still claim it as my own. But however I might regret it, I cannot explain myself without looking back. I lived among these men for years and with them chased after their dreams. There were times when I even dressed like them, adopting aspects of their personalities. Without my quite knowing, I would on occasion even
become
Nuri Efendi or Abdüsselam Bey or, yes, even Seyit Lutfullah. They were my models, the masks I hardly knew to be masks. I would don one personality or another before heading out to mingle with the crowds. And still today when I look in the mirror I can see these men reflected in my face. First I see Nuri Efendi's indulgent smile, and then Lutfullah's deceitful gaze, and I shudder at the thought of the horrible things I might have done. Or I am devastated to detect the desperate jealousy and impatience of my father. I can see these men's traits in my attire too. The moment I put on a suit sewn for me by one of those celebrated tailors, I can be no other than Abdüsselam. And just the other day I noticed I needed new spectacles: off I went to look for a new pair with gold rims exactly like the ones Aristidi Efendi used to wear, though I knew the style was well out of fashion. Perhaps this is what we mean by “personality”: the rich array of masks we store in the warehouses of our minds and the eccentricities of those who manifest themselves in our person.

But there may be a deeper and more powerful force that intervenes on occasion to obstruct these inherited traits. This is something I've always had in me. I cannot say that the same goes for everyone. Naturally there are those who live differently, those who consider themselves stronger and closer to reality, and unique.

Such matters are distant from the memoir I am writing. I am busy with my own chronicle. But to return to my earlier point, I was never quite able to escape the hold these friends had on me. As my son once told me, I had no experience of what he called “proper, organized employment.” Like my friends, I wandered from whim to whim. Ahmet was never like me;
indeed he made a concerted effort not to be. And for this he deprived himself of numerous opportunities. Nevertheless, as soon as he finished high school he won himself a state scholarship. And although I suggested he continue his studies in America after completing medical school, a choice befitting our wealth and position at the time, he rejected the idea out of hand and instead went to Anatolia. Thereafter he lived without ever consulting me on such matters, forever refusing all I offered.

It would be wrong to say he never loved me. Yet he was vehemently opposed to my mode of thinking, which was not in harmony with his way of seeing the world. Nevertheless I maintain that a part of me lives on in him. I even saw this for myself one day, as I watched him examining a patient at his clinic. I would have examined a watch in exactly the same way. Or rather it was how Nuri Efendi would have examined a watch; I always wished my son would one day resemble this man, for he was always more master of the trade than I.

For whatever reason, it is my past, and not my current position in life, that holds the key to my problems; I can neither escape from it nor entirely accept its mandate.

IX

Some four years ago, I discovered a piece of an old balustrade. Having bought it on the spot, I had it mounted over the French door in my office, which looks out onto the Clock Villa's veranda and garden, with its seasonal flowers. I am in no doubt that this balustrade is what has led me to labor over certain points in my memoirs. When I look up at its star-and-tulip motif I have the impression of looking deep into my despairing and poverty-stricken past, but at the same time I can see through to my childhood and its days of fantasy and hope. Whenever, in those days, I went to see Seyit Lutfullah, to give him various items people had abandoned at Nuri Efendi's workshop, and would pass through that ruined
medrese
, I
would stop before this same balustrade and daydream about the share I would receive of the treasure Lutfullah was sure to unearth one day, or the mercury that Aristidi Efendi would one day transmute into gold—though no one had ever actually promised me a share, I was convinced that someday, somewhere, something would come to me—and I would dream, too, of repairing the cemetery and its toppled walls and maybe even the mosque itself.

But fortune and chance ushered in quite the opposite. Although I had vowed to bequeath our grandfather clock to a mosque when I was older and in secure financial circumstances, I eventually, some twelve years ago, sold it; and something similar happened with this balustrade. One day I'd found it dangling from the wall, like the wings of one of the hunter Nasit Bey's birds, and I made off with it in broad daylight and sold it to an antique dealer for just thirty liras.

At the time those liras filled me with the thrill I might once have felt on discovering Andronikos's glorious treasure or turning all the mercury in the world into gold in Aristidi's alembics.

With this money, I bought a few modest little gifts for my wife, Pakize, and once again sent my older sister-in-law's oud for repair (she was a music lover, and at the very least I knew this time the instrument would be returned to us promptly). I was also able, at last, to purchase a particular belt for my younger sister-in-law, who had mustered the courage to enter, for the fourth time, the beauty contest that put such a strain on our budget; Pakize wholeheartedly believed (
99
.
9
percent of the time) that the belt, captivating as it was, would lead her sister to be crowned queen, although it barely managed to cinch the woman's amply flowing gown. As for my remaining two liras, I gave them to my dear old friend Ali Efendi, an itinerant street peddler, who returned to me the watch of our neighbor and local shopkeeper Hulki Efendi, which I had pawned a few nights earlier so I could take the whole family to an open-air cinema.

This balustrade brought me, if only for a time, the comfort and powers of perception that had eluded me for so long. Yet the sadness in me endured. I had betrayed my past and, in particular, a childhood vow. I had always believed in the saintliness
of the man who lay beneath the enormous turbaned tombstone that leaned just behind the balustrade, perhaps because of the mulberry tree right beside it, which had grown to such extraordinary size. When my mother was ill, I would go there every evening to pray and light candles in front of the balustrade.

But who could have imagined that four years ago, while wandering in and out of old antique shops—I'd do this from time to time, not with the aim of selling anything, but in search of objects and artifacts for the Clock Villa—I would stumble upon that piece of balustrade? If I had known its future price would be even more than the handsome figure I've already quoted, I would have seized it instantly and embraced it like a long-lost friend. But who would have known? The sneak caught on right away, despite all my efforts to show reserve. Perhaps he saw the way my hands were trembling despite my attempt to keep them hidden from view. Thus, after pouring most of my energy into haggling over an Indian lectern, I asked in a most offhand way for the price of the balustrade. “Nine hundred liras,” he replied. “A very important piece . . . from Konya . . . worthy of a museum, that one.” From thirty liras to nine hundred! Exactly thirty times more expensive. The square root of the sum, as my son would have said. Dazzled by the elegance of these figures, I nearly cried, “Done! Have it sent to my home,” but I rallied to counter with one hundred fifty. He groaned. I raised it to a hundred sixty. Then he claimed I was merely clowning. It was as if we had found ourselves in the same minaret but on different flights of stairs that passed through the same balconies as they twisted through the tower, and within the tower's thick walls we could catch glimpses of each other trying to calculate just how we could meet exactly in middle, but he was slowly plodding down as I was storming up. I must have miscalculated, for Mandalin Efendi was fixed on a step much higher than my own, at four hundred seventy-five. Perhaps only to avenge myself of my defeat, I gave the man his money and bent over the balustrade to kiss its bottom, which still bore the marks where it had been scorched by candles in my childhood. There was no longer any reason to conceal the joy I felt in recapturing this fragment of my past. But I went one step further:

“Mandalin Efendi,” I said, “you haven't proved yourself a very good salesman today. Indeed this piece is worthy of a museum, but I know better than anyone that it does not originate from Konya, and I also know you could have sold it to me for much more.”

Mandalin Efendi looked at me for a moment and then threw his arms up into the air as if about to fly away:

“Well, my good sir, what's done is done, a sealed deal,” the Jewish merchant cried. “The better for you and the better for all of us . . . There are always other customers.”

Some might find it shameful that I took home, as private property, a piece of the
Kahvecıbası Cemetery. This saddens me a little, I admit. There is something rather disquieting about the whole thing. But this is not to say that I can find no consolation in the affair. First, both the
medrese
and the mosque are no longer there. Thus there is no incontestable owner of the balustrade to whom I might be compelled to return it. It is true that by pinching the balustrade I might have had something to do with the demolition of the building itself. But as I've already explained, the structure was derelict beyond repair. And of course you already know of the circumstances that compelled me to remove the piece in the first place. My fellow citizens should find some consolation when they see the new apartment buildings that now stand on those grounds. The neighborhood has sprung to life. The way things are developing we can expect an entirely modern neighborhood within a few years. I applaud the modern man, and I too enjoy modern comforts and modern architecture.

It doesn't weigh too heavily upon me to see cemeteries disappear or to see priceless, exquisitely carved and inscribed tombstones used as basins, ornaments over public fountains, or makeshift shelves on radiators. As for this coffeehouse proprietor Salih Aga, after whom the cemetery was named, I've known for some time that the man was not a saint. Despite my vows and all the candles I lit in that mosque, my mother still passed away; and so, saint or no saint, I'd never been able to forgive him. At this point in my life, I am not about to bemoan the fact that one can no longer find a single cemetery in the city center!

Modern life commands us to stay far from the notion of death.

And why not, good sir? Are we to live or are we to await death sitting down?

Returning to the balustrade, I was the first to discover this sublime work of art and to grant it the admiration it deserved. I was the one who marveled at its beauty. I was the one who later spotted it, there in the antique shop, and prevented it from falling into the wrong hands and being taken away by people with no understanding of its value. You might say I was even its savior. What could be more just than rescuing this objet d'art and taking it to the safety of my home, never again to be drawn into a wild adventure? And who would receive more pleasure from such a thing than I? Who else could descry his own past in its arabesque motifs or recognize the strange souls who once gave it life?

As I write these lines, I lift my head from time to time to let my eyes linger on the piece. Just a few steps beyond, under the cedar tree and the poplar beside it—this too I uprooted, from an old garden on the Bosphorus, and planted here—I can see my grandchildren playing with my youngest daughter, Halide, granted to me by the Almighty in my sixtieth year. They're holding colorful little pails and shovels; no sooner have they filled the pails with sand from the garden than they empty them out. Though their nannies are watching over them—that moronic Swedish governess my daughter should never have hired to look after her children, and that sweet, ever-smiling, plump, wheat-skinned Asiye Hanım, whom I hired to take care of my dear Halide—I am well aware that they are nurtured and protected by altogether loftier beings. Yes, why would I lie, for I sincerely believe that Nuri Efendi and Abdüsselam and even Seyit Lutfullah in his disheveled robes—a gift to him from Aselban—are keeping the children company at this very moment. Who knows? The spirit who beckoned to Halide, who led her to the sundial at the center of one of the flower beds, her blue bloomers hanging so daintily from her short dress, who allowed her to fall where the rock gave way under her hands, must be none other than Nuri Efendi. I was not at all mistaken in naming her after the late Halit Ayarcı, at the behest of Pakize. As the days go by, she resembles him more and more. His lines appear on her little
rose-petal face, in fact her temperament becomes more and more like his. Like him, she can bend anyone to her will; she can have anything she wants without asking.