The Four Horsemen of Brandenburg

MEHMET ZAMAN SAÇLIOĞLU

 "Old times for sale, lost ways for sale, forgotten achievements for sale. Dirt cheap. Don’t pass up these amazing bargains."
The tall young man was shouting across the square. Only those who heard this intriguing call and drew closer could discern the objects he had heaped in three piles on a long low table beneath the ancient Brandenburg Gate.
The first was a pile of watches. There were hundreds -- of all different makes -- heaped one on top of the other, mostly pocket watches with poor quality chains, some in working order and some not.
The second heap was compasses, large and small, with and without covers, with and without chains, some in leather pouches, and others in wooden cases. In chaos hundreds of compasses awaited buyers.
Customers who looked at the myriad of medals in the third pile mused how once they had been pinned to haughty starched chests and proudly paraded for years. The tall blond young man called out to passers-by, gesturing with his hands and arms.
"Come and look at these old watches. Old watches!.. Be a hero on the cheap. A bargain medal for bravery!.. No need to lose your way any more. By night or day, don’t get lost!"
Before long a group of tourists had gathered in front of the stall. Dozens of people were picking through the compasses, watches, and medals as if choosing fruit; weighing them, trying to open them, holding the watches to their ears and the medals to their chests, picking up a second and a third to scrutinize them without putting down the first.
"Don’t mix them up! Don’t confuse your time with your space, or your space with your heroism. Please put them back where you found them. What are those medals doing with the watches? Please be careful, Madam. That medal is for outstanding service to the country. You won’t find another one very easily."
"If it is so precious, why are you selling it?" retorted the woman.
"I have to make a living, Lady. When they’re hungry, people sell their watches and their compasses and their medals. There’s nothing like hunger. Only people with full stomachs bother with medals. If you’re hungry you exchange your medal for a loaf of bread."
He turned to another man and exclaimed, "Please be careful, Sir, don’t force it. The winding mechanism of that watch is very fragile."
"Why? It looks strong enough to me. If it breaks that easily, what's the use of it?
"Watches mean time, Sir. You shouldn’t force it. Time flows on at its own pace. Every watch has a different speed and a different degree of fragility."
"A different speed? What do you mean? Are these watches all off? Don’t they keep the right time then?"
"Can you find any two watches in the world that turn at the same speed? All clocks and watches are faulty, Sir. Now your watch shows ten past three. Yesterday the sun was one or two minutes behind at this hour. The time changes every day in the same place. Do you know what time it is in China now? What’s more, I bet there is at least a few seconds’ difference between your watch and that of the pretty lady beside you. All watches are wrong, Sir, every one of them."
"Are you a philosopher?" asked a woman.
"No, I am a faulty watch seller," said the man. "I sell faulty compasses and faulty medals, too. I sell a lot of strange things and they’re always out of order."
"I can see that a watch or a compass might be out of order, but how can a medal?" said one young man smiling.
"An out-of-order medal means a blunder. A blunder committed in the past, present or future."
"What do you mean?"
"At one time they used to give medals to the person who slaughtered the most enemies, as well as to the best spy, the best musician, the best poet, the fastest bricklayer, and the person who grew the most wheat. It was impossible to tell which of the bemedalled people walking down the street was a murderer, which was an artist, and which was a common laborer. They were all proud of their medals, and when they died they all left their medals to their children. That’s what I mean by blunders."
"Now to come to what those blunders are today... Each one of these medals symbolizes a skill, endeavor, or accomplishment, yet they fetch hardly anything. Buyers and sellers know that the value of what they symbolize is not inherent in the medals themselves at all. The symbolic value remains on the chests of the people who were awarded them. These small objects have no more value than the metal they’re made of. Even though their owners know that their accomplishments will be buried in oblivion as soon as they cease to carry these medals on their chests, they’re willing to sell them to pay for a few meals. What’s more, it won’t be long before they’re hungry again.
"Ladies and gentlemen, if I were to tell you the blunders that will be made in the future, the list would be endless. Should I tell you about the feeling of unworthiness and the loss of faith that the owners of the medals suffer when their chests are bare, or about the emotions and thoughts of people who will philosophize about the disintegration of an ideology or a state system as they show these medals to their wives and friends -- medals which they think a few dollars have given them possession of?
"Medals are faulty, too, ladies and gentlemen. These faulty medals are of no use to you. Don’t waste your money on them. Their owners sold them for the price of a few meals, so you might as well eat a few meals rather than buy them. Stroll around the city, drink some wine. What intelligent customer would want to buy something which even the seller admitted was worthless?"
"I don’t care. I like this medal," said a young girl. "Even if it isn’t worth anything at all it will go well with my pink dress. And look what a pretty ribbon it’s got."
"In that case give me eighteen dollars for it," said the stallholder. "And what about you? Are you going to buy one too, Sir?"
"Yes, these two. They must have belonged to an army officer. To an officer who served his country bravely in war."
"Oh no, Sir. That big one —look, it writes on it— is a medal given to chefs whose knowledge and skill have displayed the best of our culinary heritage to foreigners at official banquets. The other was given to a doctor for his outstanding deeds in war. Since you have decided to buy these, then spare a few more dollars and buy this one too. This medal used to be given to pilots for exceptional skill. Pilots who hit the target with a record number of bombs used to get this medal. And the doctors who managed to cure the soldiers who were wounded by the bombs got this one. So here you have two medals for one job. If only I had the medals won by the enemy pilots and the enemy doctors! Then you would have four medals for the same job. That would be worth it, wouldn’t it? When we drop the bombs our pilots and their doctors get medals, and when they drop the bombs our doctors and their pilots get medals. That's a fair exchange. A war which ended in a draw." The stallholder laughed heartily.
"How much does this watch cost?" asked another man.
"Five dollars," said the stallholder. "If you buy three of the same kind,  you can have them for ten dollars."
"In that case I’ll choose the ones which work."
"Go ahead. If you can find any, you’re welcome."
"Are the watches cheaper than the medals?" asked a woman.
"Of course, Madam. It’s a matter of demand and supply. Time flows for everyone. Everyone has a watch, but medals are difficult to find. Medals aren’t made to sell in shops, are they?"
"Are the watches that work the same price as the ones which don’t?"
"You mean the faulty ones which have stopped and the faulty ones which go? Yes, they’re all the same price."
"But why? You can’t use broken watches, you can only use the ones that work."
"The ones that go are no use either, Madam. At least this one won’t be of any use to you. It was of no use to its previous owner."
"Why?"
"Come here. Come closer please." He turned the watch towards the woman. "What do you see?"
"A watch. It’s working."
"What makes you think that?"
"The second hand is moving."
"And how would you say the second hand is moving?"
"It seems to be turning correctly. At the correct speed I mean."
"Can you count it?"
"Of course. One, two, three, four... you see."
"You mean it stops then it goes, then it stops, then it goes. Is that what time does? Does time stop and go like that?"
"Of course it doesn’t. Time flows constantly."
"That’s what I mean. When the owner of this watch realized that time flowed without stopping, he sold it. For years he had believed that his watch told him the correct time. Come now, let me explain further. If we can count the seconds one by one, that means that we add another second to each second. In that case joining two things together makes a third and joining three things together makes a fourth. But time doesn’t stop at all. Do not assume that there is an infinite number of instants between each second. How do I know? If you abolish seconds you get minutes, if you abolish minutes you get hours, if you abolish the hours you get days, and then you are left with weeks, then months and then years. Abolish the years too. What is left then except lifetimes?
"But don’t think that was why the former owner sold this watch. They cheated him. He sold this watch in order to buy one that could show even smaller fragments of time than seconds, poor fellow. He wanted to see those minute fragments of time."
"Tell us something about these compasses then. You’ve got some interesting ideas," said another man.
"Salesmen have to be interesting. It isn’t what you sell, it’s the way you sell it that matters. If a salesman’s job is to sell, he has to try to do it well. But I’m not a good salesman because if I sell you these I will spoil your peace of mind. If you think about what I told you when you wear your medals, if you think about time as you watch the second hands of your watches, then you’ll be sorry you bought them. So it would be better if you didn’t buy them at all. It’s not in my interest to upset you. You must be satisfied so that you send me new customers. They have to be satisfied and send me new customers too. You see, so long as I don’t sell anything, I’ll have plenty of customers."
The man laughed. "Now tell us something about these compasses. Aren't these any good either?"
"No, they’re all broken. They’re no use to you." As he spoke he thought to himself, "Or it might be just what you need."
"This isn’t," said another man. "Look, it shows the same direction as the compass I’ve got in my pocket. North is in that direction."
"Yours is wrong too, Sir," said the salesman. "Yours is wrong too."
"That’s impossible. Quite impossible. Mine is the most famous make in the world."
"Well in that case, Sir, tell me which way Leningrad is according to your compass," smiled the stallholder.
The man took a map out of his pocket. "This is a map of Europe. It goes all the way to Moscow. Now look, if we draw a line from here, it is just about northeast of us. In that direction."
"You’ve got it wrong, Sir. That line doesn’t lead to Leningrad, it leads to St. Petersburg. Your compass is wrong."
"Now you’re being really absurd," exclaimed another man. "Everyone knows that they’re both the same city; only the name has changed. Leningrad is now called St. Petersburg. But the streets, the houses, the people, the historic buildings are all the same. Only the name has changed. You can’t fool us this time."
"Sir," replied the stallholder. "The name is the last thing about a place that changes. Once you’ve got to the point of changing a name, that means everything has changed. Why should the name of something which has remained exactly the same change for nothing? If the name has changed then the place doesn’t exist any more. Instead there’s a different name and something new to go with the name. That’s why your compass is no good, and neither are the ones I’m selling. But never mind, why don’t you buy it? It’s worth three dollars. You never know, perhaps it might work correctly somewhere else. At least you’ll be able to compare one to the other, and another with that one. So long as you make sure they both show the same direction it doesn’t matter. But if one shows one direction and the other another then you’ll need a third. That’s when you’ll get hopelessly lost."
As the coach horn sounded in the distance the stallholder climbed up on his stool and pointed to the coach.
"There you are. They’re calling you. You’ve wasted your time with me. There are lots more places to see in the city, don’t miss those. Oh, and before I forget. Your guide is sure to tell you the story of the four-horse chariot over this great gate behind me. But I’ll tell you something that no one else knows.
"Remember the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse? These four horses belonged to them at one time. Now the white horses of this victory chariot have brought doom to Brandenburg.
"Now don’t be late. Good luck, good luck."

 Translated by Mary Işın

“Brandenburg’un Dört Atlısı”, Yaz Evi (2002). Istanbul: İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları