The Time Regulation Institute (26 page)

Before long, she would find herself yanked out of bed by an overwhelming force, to be dragged to her desk to fill page after page. She often wrote all night long, but by morning neither the authoress nor her friends could make any sense of her scribbling. Sometimes they found no more than a tangled string of meaningless words, names, and numbers—with the numbers
17
and
153
occurring most frequently. She wrote in a smattering of Italian, Greek, French, and Turkish.

Aphrodite's father was Genoese. An event of major significance in his youth having put his life in danger, he had no choice but to flee to Izmir, and from there to Istanbul, where he married a Greek girl and settled down. He was a fine jeweler and an excellent tenor. He opened a very popular little shop near the funicular in Beyoglu and soon enough he became a man of means. But he severed all ties with his family because he didn't feel safe, even after so much time had passed. So it was only when he died in
1915
that people found out he was Genoese and had a mother, father, and sister living in Italy. When Scarrechi died, his brother-in-law (formerly his apprentice) took over the running of the business, implementing changes during the Armistice years that transformed the little shop into an enormous shopping center. But by then the high craftsmanship of Aphrodite's father's time was a thing of the past. Customers to this vast and luxurious new emporium that employed the best goldsmiths in the trade still longed for the quality of his craftsmanship, or so it was said.

In the years following his death, Aphrodite and her mother brooded a great deal on the man's early life and his relatives abroad. It was because she was curious to know about them that Aphrodite first undertook to advance her career as a spiritual medium. In the séances she conducted with friends, she concentrated her efforts on this matter in particular, and though its importance waned over time, she came to see that the force rousing her in the middle of the night (compelling her to roll back her eyes and give it voice in the indecipherable automatic writing she produced) was none other than her paternal aunt,
who had died in
1923
, still waiting for her brother and his family to return to their homeland at long last.

And then the pleas from the other side became clearer and the deceased more direct in applying pressure:

“Why won't you come? Why won't you come live with us in our home? Why won't you come to collect your inheritance?” she scolded them. “I never married. I lived on next to nothing, saving it all for you. Why won't you come?”

Aphrodite's poor mother knew nothing about her husband other than that he had once lived in Genoa, under a certain name, so she was reluctant to accept these ever-more-insistent invitations: it was out of the question, and, anyway, she did not possess a single official document that established her as a member of his family. But soon enough she gave way to her determined daughter and the insistent community to which Aphrodite belonged; when she at last capitulated, she said, “Well, if nothing else, we'll have gone on a journey.” Whereupon, following a string of strange and startling coincidences, the matter of the inheritance was settled with some ease.

As it turned out, there really wasn't much of a fortune. Along with a modest sum of money the woman had saved, she'd left behind two houses on a long and narrow street, numbers
17
and
153
. Yet the costs incurred by Aphrodite and her mother on their journey came to more than the value of both properties combined. Even so, it was a source of great pride to them that they had succeeded in their quest, and under circumstances that knew no precedent: in this they were a great inspiration to others. They could not help but be impressed by the many sacrifices this relative had made to hold on to these two fully furnished homes for so many years. She'd made her living running a boarding house and tatting her own lace—her legacy included vast quantities of the stuff. But, sadly, the woman's obsession with collecting and hoarding meant the houses themselves were in rather poor condition.

Aphrodite and her mother didn't have the heart to sell these properties that had come to them by such a bizarre route, and as neither of them was willing to follow the old auntie's directive to
resettle in Italy—in any event their livelihoods were in Istanbul—they oversaw a little restoration work on the houses and left.

From that day on, the aunt was nowhere to be found. Whenever Aphrodite had a free moment she would sit down at her desk and take hold of her pen with softly furrowed brow and creased forehead, there to wait as her countenance turned as hard as marble, her every contour erased, and thus she would wait for hours on end for her loving aunt to communicate with her once more.

She never reappeared. It was as if, freed of her heavy burden, this self-sacrificing soul had at last allowed herself to drift off into the pure sleep that she had been promised. And she deserved so much. She had devoted her entire life to her lost brother and his children, though they lived so very far away. In truth, she'd never known how many children he had or if he had any at all, for that matter, but all the same she always set aside for them all that she came to own, with her eyes forever fixed on the horizon so that she might say to them upon their return, “This is your home, and here is everything that I have saved for you.”

Even in death she remained mindful of her sacred mission; lost in the eternal void, and bereft of clues, she continued to search for her brother far and wide, until, after untold years, she found her way to the bedside of the young girl, Aphrodite. This alone should have been cause for thanks.

But it was not enough for Aphrodite. Having bound herself up in her auntie's will—the Spiritualist Society had named her the Will—she longed for her return, and her continuing absence plunged the young woman into misery. She hadn't even been able to thank her properly; not even had she said, “But, dear Auntie, why so much trouble? If only you knew how very touched we were by your sacrifices . . .” With time, a certain sort of sorrow ate into her expressions of gratitude:

“What's it to me, an inheritance? I have my own money. Why did she go to so much trouble? Why didn't she just get married? How could someone do such a thing? She did all this, but why hasn't she come back to me?”

It seemed that all Aphrodite wanted to do was embrace her
aunt, if only just the once, and after thanking her properly, she would have liked to explain how all her sacrifices had been in vain, and perhaps even reprimand her auntie for having abandoned her so abruptly. But try as she might, she couldn't bring herself to understand how a compassionate and determined soul like her aunt could lose faith in her cause so suddenly:

“There's most definitely something wrong. Either she's angry with us or there's been an accident . . .”

She imagined her aunt on the roadside of the wide and heavily trafficked interstellar highways—wounded, paralyzed, and abandoned and more helpless than ever.

“Perhaps she wants us to live in our new homes. But we are from Istanbul. It's the only city we know. Even my father never wanted to leave. And all our friends are here.”

At the time when I became a keen regular at the Spiritualist Society (if only to escape the fractious mood swings of my wife and her sisters), Aphrodite had just come up with a new explanation. Every now and then she'd take the lace adorning the edge of her gown between her fingers and show it to us.

“If she loves me, how can she resent me so much?” she cried. “How can she hold a grudge? She must be tired. Or perhaps she couldn't marry in the material world, at least not before she found us, but perhaps now she's found someone in the world beyond and married
him.”

If she could just about convince herself of this possibility, then she could be sure that her auntie was at peace with the world. She would laugh and sing and hug and kiss the men she fancied. But this free spirit could never forgive herself: she was the reason her aunt had never married, and she blamed herself mercilessly for having kept her aunt from living a full life. She believed that women should marry at all costs. Any other course was utter catastrophe, which is why she was delighted when my aunt made her late marriage.

“But of course!” she exclaimed. “Why wouldn't she? We all must live!”

My aunt had remarried for her own selfish reasons, with no consideration for anyone but herself, but Aphrodite chose not to notice how mean and unjust the woman had been to us and
gave the union her full blessing. And when Nasit Bey died, freeing my aunt to plan her third foray into marriage, Aphrodite measured one aunt against the other, and, finding a greater exuberance of willpower in mine, she judged
her
aunt to have lost the contest, brooding over her fate thereafter in the way a neighborhood boy might mourn the defeat of his rooster in a cock fight.

Aphrodite had been the most sought-after girl in all of Beyoglu since she was eighteen. Almost everyone in high society knew who she was; and in both Turkish and foreign circles. Invited to every event of consequence, she'd find herself surrounded by at least half a dozen suitors. Yet she never could bring herself to marry: perhaps her freedom was too dear. It was like looking at someone lingering in bed after waking, unable to shake free of the mood left by a final dream: she couldn't bring herself to give up the freedom she had savored with such outrageous extravagance right up to her twentieth name day. And despite the many changes in her life over the previous five years, she still hoped to carry on as before.

She had suitors of all ages and showed each and every one the same kindness and generosity. They courted her as if possessed, and, suffice it to say, they were all fairly miserable. But after a time they either drifted away from the beautiful young girl, who seemed to have no notion of her gorgeous femininity (never mind its dangers), or they remained at her side, resigned to a life of spellbound intimacy and restless despair.

Aphrodite's adventures were closely followed by every member of the association, male or female. She was as talked about as Nevzat Hanım's Murat. When I first joined the association, hoping only to earn a little extra cash, I was under the impression that it had been founded for no other reason than to discuss the questions of Murat and the old woman, with members either doubting or accepting their existence.

Our official psychic, Sabriye Hanımefendi (who claimed to have been Aphrodite's classmate and intimate at the French lycée Notre Dame de Sion, despite a ten-year age difference and an evident mutual distaste), maintained that the young lady was in no way a spiritual medium and never had been. The truth, according
to Sabriye Hanim, was that she had had a passionate affair with a young Italian diplomat who had served two years at the embassy in Istanbul. The romance had captured the imagination of Istanbul's upper echelons. Everyone—the entire foreign community as well as the Turkish elite that moved in the same circles—thought the Italian diplomat devastatingly handsome and rather sophisticated, and they followed each new development with rapture. But the romance took a fascinating turn after the young diplomat abruptly departed for his native land. That was when Aphrodite dreamed up the whole adventure, convincing her mother to travel with her to Italy so she could meet with her lover one last time and perhaps win his hand in marriage. This was why the matter of the inheritance was so quickly resolved. All had been orchestrated in advance. Was it possible that a matter as convoluted as an inheritance could have been resolved so easily, without divine intervention of this order?

Was there any truth in the story that Sabriye Hanım re-counted a little differently to each and every member of the association? No one could really say. But this much is certain: had there been so much as a hint of truth in her tale, it would not have found much favor with the association. For, like Nevzat Hanım's Murat, Aphrodite's aunt was one of the little group's life buoys. The association needed its myths, imaginary or real: it was through these myths that its members communed with the mysteries of death resurrected.

The myth of Aphrodite was more than an extravagant and alluring adventure; with its promises and warnings, stern words and enticements, it gave life its meaning and its order. The spirit's proclamations never once contradicted our beliefs, speaking a fluid truth that left its true form unknown. Aphrodite's aunt and Nevzat Hanım's Murat were our eternal companions; their essence seeping into ours. They lived out their lives as we lived out ours; they were real even though they were lies.

Our spiritual leader was not seeking the truth in such matters. She was interested only in facts. Well, for us Aphrodite's aunt was a fact. And that was satisfactory enough! One could be sitting at home on a dark and snowy night when one of these amiable spirits suddenly tapped on the door and shuffled
in like a guest, hanging his coat and scarf onto the stove for the icicles to snap and crackle over the heat, guiding us to a world that was so different from our own, unfurling before our very eyes, flaunting its aura for those with eyes to see.

The novelist Atiye Hanım understood all this perfectly, which is why she had no time for Sabriye Hanım and her logic and good sense. With such wild speculation whirling around about, it was useless for Aphrodite to try to deny anything. Deprived of her aunt, the poor girl drifted hopelessly among us, like a forlorn and banished queen fed only by the glory of her past. But perhaps this portrait was itself a product of Atiye Hanım's imagination—for the real Aphrodite wasn't in the least hopeless or despairing. It was simply that Atiye Hanım the novelist chose to see the matter in this light.

Whenever it came up in conversation, Atiye Hanım would change the subject, leaving no opportunity for objections before turning the conversation—I never really understood why—to
Queen Christina
, a film that had created quite a sensation in her youth
.
Then she would sink into confusion. Atiye Hanım dearly loved the film, representing as it did a turning point in her life as an artist. It had long been her dream to write the story of Kösem Sultan
along the lines of this film. For her, Aphrodite became a living example of Kösem Sultan
.