“Of course I recognized you—I just didn’t want to disregard Sabriye Hanım’s instructions. We must always smile, but never look a customer in the eye for too long. We must be personal so as not to be too impersonal, and talk continuously about watches, as if we know it all by heart, thus providing essential information about the institute in the clearest way possible.”
So I hadn’t been wrong in selecting Sabriye Hanım for the job.
“All right, then, so you know me! Now, what do you think we should do?”
She glanced at the clock on the wall:
“I’m off at seven,” she said. “Then I’ll be able to listen to you.”
Zehra didn’t stay very long at the institute itself. She preferred working at the regulation stations, where she met her future husband. Naturally, just after the wedding we made her husband a specialist and manager in chief of the Minute Hand Department. I couldn’t just leave my son-in-law out in the cold. My younger sister-in-law was appointed to the position left open by Zehra. Then there was a young man who came to us seeking employment but without any references; realizing there was but one way to join our set, he promptly proposed to my sister-in-law. This gave me the idea of establishing a separate management department for conjugal affairs operating within the institute. But Halit Ayarcı rejected this perfectly sensible proposal, fearing that such a department would detract from the seriousness of our mission.
Two days after my discussions with Halit Bey, I went to visit Sabriye Hanım in her home. She was simply thrilled to see me. She spoke of the past with such tenderness and melancholy, showing me she truly had a heart. When I brought up the job proposal, she was thrilled with the idea of a mutual collaboration. And she was pleased that I now had a job with real responsibility, and was wearing proper clothes.
“The Spiritualist Society has disbanded,” she said. “I’ve been terribly bored. You know I was looking for just this sort of job. I am at your disposal.”
I told her that we still hadn’t organized our official personnel list, and were still awaiting official approval, but were hopeful it would come through soon.
“Give it some thought. You would be charged with forming groups of five to ten young girls, whom you would train to carry out what might seem to be a somewhat meaningless task. The entire success of the venture rests on the demeanor of these girls. They alone could be the very reason why the institute takes off. Why are we doing this? I can’t really say. But it must work. First and foremost they should be as pleasing and unobtrusive as possible—by no means should they make people feel uncomfortable. I suppose we’ll add additional duties to these stations later on. But for now the job is to train these girls.”
Sabriye Hanım pursed her lips and listened to me intently.
“If you hadn’t told me you were working with Halit Ayarcı, I would have guessed as much. This is just the sort of thing he’d dream up. He never was one for the ordinary. For him, work must first be an adventure. An expedition to the North Pole, smuggling contraband—anything’s possible. But he won’t settle for just any old thing. To be worthy of his interest, an undertaking must be bizarre and perhaps impossible. It should be startling, even frightening! But then there should be actual work. This is why he never could stay very long in the civil service. He’s friendly with all the powerful people. And there was a time when he was one of them. But he just never warmed to the work—it was never enough of an adventure for him. Even so, there has to be some part of a project in which he truly believes. I imagine you don’t take all this too seriously, but I’m quite sure that Halit Ayarcı starts his projects with firm conviction. And I’m quite sure this goes for the Time Regulation Institute. Once again he’s thought up something wonderful for society, but he’s dreaming an impossible dream. Being useful isn’t enough to make it great. Like I said, he always needs to surprise everyone or rile them up or just make a lot of noise. As a matter of fact, I could tell right away that you were using his own words to explain the institute’s objectives to me. So in a word, comrade, I’m in. You’ll see just how much fun it’ll be!”
I knew I wouldn’t even have to ask Sabriye Hanım a question to get her talking.
“How could I ever turn down such an opportunity?” she said.
As I sat in Sabriye Hanım’s living room, drinking tea, I couldn’t help but think about how much my life had changed. Five years earlier I’d come over to visit her quite often, and I’d sit opposite her, just like this. But though she was kind to me back then, it came in the form of coddling, a righteous and smug caressing of my heart. Later on I was in such a state that I wouldn’t even dare ring her doorbell. So something had changed since then. How was I to cope with this change, to make the best of it? How in the world was I going to keep it all going? It was more than just a new job. It was something else altogether. As if reading my mind, Sabriye Hanım abruptly changed the subject.
“You know, Hayri Bey, you’ve really changed.”
“God forbid. Is that so?” I said.
“Why yes, and very much so! Don’t take this the wrong way. I’m not saying this to offend you or belittle you in any way. You seem more at peace with yourself and your life. Yes, that’s it. You’ve made peace with your life. You know this is Halit Bey’s influence. Halit Bey is comfortable in his own skin.’”
So that was it. Halit Bey was comfortable in his own skin. It wasn’t a question of money. It wasn’t just a surge of self-confidence, which under normal circumstances would occur naturally. This was something else. He played with life as if he were playing with a toy he’d picked up somewhere. And once again I realized that since I’d met the man I had, without realizing, entered his frame of mind. I had even begun to imitate him. Nothing Sabriye Hanım told me about Halit Ayarcı’s secondary characteristics could pale the light of this fundamental truth.
“Almost everyone who works with Halit Bey adopts his manner, insomuch as they are able. Halit Bey isn’t fond of me, perhaps because I know him a little too well. But, myself, I am very fond of him.”
I told Sabriye Hanım that Halit Ayarcı was also thinking of hiring Nevzat Hanım, Cemal Bey, and Selma Hanım. She smiled when she heard Selma Hanım’s name, as if she had been expecting as much.
“Selma Hanım will agree,” she said. “In fact she’ll be quite tickled that you thought of her. I imagine she needs the work too, but for reasons different from my own. It seems things aren’t going very well for Cemal Bey. His financial affairs are in a terrible state, and he’s burdened with all sorts of other problems too. But I’m not too sure about Nevzat.”
“Why’s that?”
“Nevzat isn’t the old Nevzat anymore. You’ll find Selma Hanım very much changed as well. Nevzat’s become more and more detached of late. She’s cut off all contact with her friends. She lives as if she’s atoning for a sin. She’s become deeply religious. She does nothing but read the Koran, from morning till night, and she prays five times a day. In fact she’s even stopped all communication with the spiritual world.”
“What’s happened to Murat?”
“He’s disappeared. Like I said, she’s no longer the same Nevzat Hanım.”
Then she quickly changed the subject.
“Why, do you know who I recently befriended? Your aunt. What a wonderful woman, so vibrant and alive, and what vigor for her age! To be honest I feel bad you two have drifted apart, for your sake that is. Such an open-minded, clear-sighted human being . . . And do you know she has a keen interest in Sufi mysticism too? In fact she’s even written several ecstatic love poems. Tomorrow I’m invited to her house for tea.”
It was clear that the conversation was going to get boring, and so I left the house, promising Sabriye Hanım I’d telephone her as soon as I could.
I was really quite moved by what Sabriye Hanım had said about Selma Hanım. That’s probably why I called her from the first corner shop I could find. I plann
ed to hang up if Cemal Bey answered. Just to hear Sabriye Hanım say just those few words about Selma Hanım had set me alight, though I hadn’t thought about her for the last five years, and could hardly recall her face, on account of all that I had suffered, and it had to happen now, just as my life was just starting to get on track and I had entered into a sort of second honeymoon with Pakize.
Selma Hanım picked up.
“And where have you been hiding, old friend! I kept asking Cemal Bey about you and he’d say, ‘Oh, who can tell with Hayri Bey. He resigned and never came back.’ I begged him to look for you, and I assume he asked around everywhere he could. But to no avail . . .”
Her smooth, crystalline voice was infused with a childlike exuberance. So that’s what happened, then. Cemal Bey had told her I’d resigned. I was an unreliable character. He’d looked all over for me, did he? But somehow just couldn’t find me.
I told her about my current situation, and I asked her if she would be willing to help. She loved the name:
“The Time Regulation Institute. What does that mean, my dear?” she asked. “This must be a joke. Really, is this some kind of lark? “Well, then, tell what it’s all about.”
I did my very best to explain the institute to her, and then I told her what we were asking her to do. She agreed to come the next morning. This was when Zehra was still new in the office, so I decided to meet her in Halit Bey’s room. Straightaway I noticed that many things about her had indeed changed. She was elegant and beautiful as before, and completely in control of all her movements. But although her smiles lit the room like a fireworks display, there seemed to be something wrong with the launching device. She had lost her usual good cheer. It was clear she had gone through some ordeal. It was as if she were speaking through sorrowful, dark thoughts and perhaps even a fear we couldn’t know. There was something sad or thoughtful in her voice that I had never noticed before, perhaps even fear. I had lived with fear all my life; I knew the viper all too well. Once it’s coiled up inside you, your soul is at its mercy. But what was she afraid of? Why did she seem so ill at ease? I just couldn’t understand.
First she asked me to describe the job. And she kept saying, affecting an air of childlike innocence, “Oh, how could little old me manage such a thing?” And her gestures were so enchanting that I spent the rest of our conversation waiting most impatiently for their return.
“It’s not quite what you may be thinking,” I said. “You’ll just offer suggestions to the institute. There’s nothing to it really. And you can do this better than anyone, as you have such impeccable taste.”
Finally she agreed, figuring that it would be an entertaining job. Fashion was just her thing, after all. All that remained was to consult with Cemal Bey.
“Perhaps he’ll say no,” she said. “So I can’t promise anything right away. I don’t want to create problems.”
“Problems? Of course not. I can’t imagine Cemal Bey objecting to anything you really wanted to do!”
I made a point of saying this, and she nodded.
“Cemal hasn’t been his usual self lately.”
This woman who was usually so self-contained was on the brink of tears. I felt a knot in my stomach.
What shocked me was to see Selma Hanım’s entire life behind these words. So she’d never understood Cemal Bey and never doubted him; she’d been hopelessly blind. All her life she’d seen him as a paragon of maturity and loved him for it. And that wasn’t all—she was attached to him. She was under his command. She loved him, she was jealous of him, and she feared him. I had loved this woman until then, but at one remove from her life. I’d known she was married to Cemal Bey, and I’d accepted that. But I’d never thought very much about their relationship. In my mind I could never link Cemal Bey to Selma Hanım, nor did I feel compelled to do the reverse. She suffered her husband in very much the same way she might suffer a chronic illness.
Now that I realized I was indeed jealous of him, the situation suddenly changed. Till now I had simply despised Cemal Bey. I’d harbored untold rancor toward the man, but I had never been jealous of him. Now suddenly I was jealous. Blood racing through my veins, I said, “Well then, ask him. I hope he doesn’t refuse.”
The true catastrophe that day was the harsh reality I had to face: this woman I had loved so dearly now seemed just like any woman moaning about her life. But there was something even stranger, even absurd in all this: Once I’d freed myself from my troubles I’d simply gone and replaced them. Just after finding myself in a new job, I’d gone right back to my obsession with Selma Hanım; I was like a swimmer who loses focus after lifting his head above the wave to look at the opposite shore. “Why should I be surprised?” I thought to myself. “I’m just slowly reverting to my old self.”
After we’d discussed her employment, Selma Hanım was curious to know about the last five years of my life. First she asked me why I had resigned from Cemal’s service.
“You know, in those days Cemal Bey was always saying he planned to raise your salary.”
For a moment, I stared blankly into her face. I was about to tell her everything. But why should I rush into such things? Perhaps she wouldn’t even believe me. Or I’d just be adding yet another sorrow to her life. Best would be to wiggle out with a white lie:
“I was out of Istanbul,” I said.
“But people saw you here . . .”
“Well, that’s not to say I didn’t come back from time to time while I was staying in Izmir.”
Selma Hanım raised her head and looked into my eyes.
“Why won’t you tell me the truth?” she said. “I know that Cemal was lying to me.”
Another silence.
Slowly she said, “Or rather I suspected so much. But now I’m sure. Your tone just now said it all . . .”
I did everything I could to soothe her, but she carried on.
“No,” she said. “This whole thing isn’t as simple as you might think. It’s really rather complicated. I don’t care what he hides from me. But finally he understood that I was fond of you. You always went out of your way to help me. We were such good friends! Perhaps he kept it from me, thinking that I would be upset, which is perhaps kind but still unforgiveable, because there were just too many lies. But why did he go and fire you when he was the one who brought you there in the first place?”
“Perhaps the others insisted that I go . . .”
“Impossible! If that were the case, then he wouldn’t have lied to me. But even so, how could he have let such a thing happen? No, there was definitely something else.”
Then she fixed her eyes on mine.
“Who knows how much pain and trouble it has caused you.”
“Don’t worry yourself about that,” I said. “Everything’s fine now. Don’t worry about me. There’s no need to make an issue out of it. In fact forget about our offer. Perhaps he would be displeased to see us together. I would hate to inconvenience you!”
Selma Hanım rummaged about in her purse for a tissue.
“I’m already inconvenienced!” she whimpered.
Such is fate. No one can remain a star forever. It is sure to descend from its place in our imagination and find a new one among the masses.
“All the same, I’m very pleased we were able to meet again. As for the job, let’s think it over. I’ll call you.”
We walked down the stairs together.
Outside she said: “It’s just so surprising. How can anyone tell so many lies?” And she left.
Surprising indeed.
III
Two months after the mayor’s visit to our office, a far more important and powerful figure—I might go so far as to say an absolute power—paid us a visit. But we were no longer in the old office: we had relocated to larger and more comfortable premises. And our staff had expanded. Nermin Hanım, Zehra, and Ekrem Bey, and I made up the core staf
f, and we had more work than ever. Halit Ayarcı came every morning and dictated all sorts of things to Nermin Hanım or Zehra. My daughter’s poor typing didn’t seem to bother him at all, and he was slowly getting Ekrem Bey used to the idea of the institute having a business plan.
The unexpected visit didn’t fluster Halit Ayarcı in the least. On arriving, he spent a few minutes at the entrance, detailing the institute’s fundamental aims for the mayor and the esteemed personage who accompanied him. But there was a clear difference between this visitor and the mayor: At first the esteemed personage did not speak but only listened with his eyes fixed firmly on your own, and if necessary, he approved what you had said by lowering his lashes. After the briefing he asked to have a look around. He was charmed by the maxims posted on the wall, declaring that they should be distributed, not just across the city, but throughout the country. In response to his suggestion, Halit Ayarcı only said, “We are planning to do just that, sir.”
But the mayor gave a different answer:
“Above all else there’s the matter of funding. Such a thing is just not feasible, considering the institute’s present financial state, even if we were to consider the entire budget for this fiscal year. But Halit Bey is doing all he can.”
Strangely enough, our roles had changed. I was now Halit Bey, while the mayor had become Halit Bey. I was the fourth man down the ladder. Yet Halit Ayarcı wasn’t going to leave me in the shadows. His questions to me were crystal clear, and clearly shaped to indicate the expected answer, which he fielded with his own particular style.
The esteemed personage turned to the mayor.
“Naturally,” he concurred, “but not everything depends on money alone. Human willpower can overcome material limitations.”
Oh, how much I prayed for him to carry on speaking just then. If I could only learn the secret behind this matter of willpower, everything would fall into place. But he stopped there. Clearly he expected us to solve this knotty problem on our own.
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