The Time Regulation Institute by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar Page B

marriage, and I too have suffered my share of this misfortune.
    So, yes, like anyone else, my father had his shortcomings, and our neighbors were right to take advantage of them. But to accuse him of stealing—and from a mosque!—the property of a pious institution that had been ravaged by fire! No, sir, this is not the sort of thing my father would ever do.
    In any case, the story of this grandfather clock is really quite unique. My father’s grandfather, Ahmet Efendi the Signer, was a civil servant at the Sublime Porte; having suffered the shame and frustration of slander during theEgyptian Affair—indeed there was even a period when his life was in danger—vowed that if he ever disentangled himself from the debacle, he would fund the construction of a mosque. The affair was finally settled, and after taking a moment to catch his breath, he took to the task; but fearing he might not have sufficient funds tocomplete the project, he did not proceed with construction beyond buying the plot. In any event, it was only after this mosque of his dreams was granted the status of a charitable foundation that he purchased, in addition to several other buildings, the large villa in Edirnekapı whose stable and servant quarters housed our entire family for many years.
    He went on to use any remaining funds to procure furnishings that were eventually to be destined for the mosque: large wool carpets and kilims, a grandfather clock to stand by the door, and lamps and calligraphic panels to be hung on the walls. However, after taking care of these finer details, and before he could begin construction, he lost his job once again, and as such troubles were to plague him for the rest of his life, he was forced to pass on the fulfillment of his good deed to the next generation, although it shouldn’t be forgotten that the foundations for the mosque already had been prepared.
    If anyone asked when he thought his charitable endeavor would be complete, he would always reply, “God willing, it will come to pass sometime in the next year!” And so toward the end of his life, he, his wife, and close friends knew him as Ahmet Efendi the Some Timer, not the Signer.
    After Ahmet Efendi’s death it came out that his son Numan Bey, my grandfather, had been mentioned in his will in connection with the mosque: “My responsibility remains, as I was unable to realize my goal. God never granted me the chance. So it now rests in your hands. Finish the job as quickly as you can!” The imperative was Numan Bey’s ruination, for he inherited hardly a kurus apart from the house, which he was all but forced to sell, along with just about everything else, in order to meet his father’s obligation; but still he was never able to begin construction, and so it was that our family lived in that little house, surrounded by furnishings destined for a mosque.
    As it was with my grandfather, so it was with my father: the inheritance virtually destroyed his life. Though he’d once enjoyed a respectable position as a civil servant at a pious foundation, he was, after a series of bungled affairs, demoted to the modest post of caretaker of a small mosque.
    My father saw the clock as a kind of creditor and held it responsible for his misfortune; it irked him terribly to have to walk past it every day. And he suffered the neighborhood gossip in silence, not wishing to dredge up the story of the abandoned project, a story he himself would never tell. In time that clock would become his single most secret obsession—and his downfall.
    It might have been the gossip that turned me against the clock, or it might have been the gloom it cast over the room. But still it was a beautiful piece. With a rhythm all its own, it was like a packhorse that had strayed from its caravan. Following whose calendar? In which year? What was it waiting for when it stopped running for days before suddenly heralding some mysterious event with a