Ottoman Times; Armenian Timemakers

In previous blogs and published books I have written about my constant struggle in dealing with the concept of time. I am an amateur in understanding time as a dimension where past, present and future events parade in an orderly manner. Yet I have read Kant, understood Newtonian Time where events occur in a sequence, and tried to understand the dimensionality and bending properties of time as Einstein saw them.

I have given time, had time, shared time, lost time, celebrated time, sacrificed time, and let time pass by. But I had not felt time. Till a couple of days ago when I found an old pocket watch in a box where my mother’s few belongings were kept.

It was an absolute feeling—I was holding time and through that tactile action traveling back a century.

… I had seen that watch as a kid. My mother said that it was a watch my grandfather kept with him when he escaped the Ottoman oppression in the early 1900’s. I had seen that pocket watch but had not opened it. Because it was not a watch but a memory of my grandfather.

A couple of days ago, when I found it in the box, I put it in my palm and wondered what was inside. Was there an actual watch between these tarnished silver covers? Could I even open it without everything falling apart? After all, I believe that this watch has not been played with for a century.

But first I looked at it closely. Heavy, and with that old silver patina. A handmade silver chain clamped to its loop, with a winding key at the end. The key itself was anachronistic. No, it was the very form that described the time travel I was about to embark upon. A handmade key to wind a handmade watch. To hand wind time.

But time had stopped a century ago. Can I, by holding this key between my index and thumb rewind time? Will it be Ottoman time? Armenian genocide time? Exodus through the Syrian Desert time? Or will it be just stopped time that should remain untouched?

The case is covered with intricate etchings, so is the rim of the watch. Still, I am not sure if there is a watch in it. Not sure my mother knew either. She was not a mechanically-inclined woman and I doubt it that she tried to open the covers.

But I am, and as the grandson of the man who I was told carried this watch with him from Konya to Aleppo, then to Beirut, I want to open the watch.

So I did.

Without hesitation, the spring under the cover relaxed and the exquisite face of a pocket watch appeared! The dials are delicate and still there; there is a seconds dial as well. The hours are depicted in symbols I had not seen before. And in the upper quadrant, a floral design arches over letters too small to read.

As a photographer used to looking at film strips under a loupe, I unscrewed the lens from my camera, and looked through the front glass. That’s how a lens becomes a loupe.  And I froze. It read:

                                        “Pouldjian Djezvedjian & Arabian, Constantinople”

Three Armenian names, and the Ottoman era name of Istanbul.  I looked again. Yes, the letters were clear, as if written yesterday. Time had stopped. And I was holding it in my hand.

Then I looked, with my makeshift loupe, inside the front cover. Intricate stamped letters read “Bellevue”. There was a lion, numbers and other symbols.

…Should I open the back? Could it have my grandfather’s name engraved? What if it has another person’s name? In such a case the entire history of this watch will be rejected. Or it would open a new chapter of wondering about how my grandfather obtained it. 

Should I open the back?

I did. With a bit of tremor, I looked inside the back cover through my lens. No name, just additional numbers. And the silver, protected for a century from exposure was shiny as silver is.  I was relieved. …

Two openings in the back with tiny rods in them. I knew one was to set the dials, the other to wind. I had to do it.

… I do not know if time is a measure or a feeling. I do not understand the power of that little key and the tension I felt on the spring. What I know is that within one rotation, that stopped time became alive, became vocal, and with the predictability of mechanical watches, started ticking. I turned the watch around to see if the dials were moving. They were, although I was not sure if it was an illusion associated with my trembling hand.

There I was, listening to a century old watch just as my grandfather had. His times were immeasurably harder than mine; he challenged destiny and walked through the Syrian Desert. He survived the journey and started a new life. And today, his grandson, at the autumn of his life, was holding that stopped time, gave it new life and in a small way, rejected letting his grandfather's, Karnig Kazandjian born in Konya, story go silent.

… Once my nerves calmed down, I opened the third “coquille” (pocket watch cover in French) to see the mechanism. All was there and ticking beautifully. Under my loupe I could again read “Bellevue” and then all around the casing engravings in Arabic letter. I know it is Turkish, as in that era they used the Arabic alphabet.

My curiosity could not be satisfied without some search on the Internet. I found that these three Armenians were famous watchmakers around 1900. They used known watchmakers’ mechanisms (such as Longines) to build their own watches. And these watches were exquisite jewelry as well since they were jewelers and watchmakers. I found some of their watches auctioned on Christie’s site in London; others displayed in museums.

But most importantly, I found a historic document about Djezvedjian, one of the watchmakers, written in Armenian, French and Turkish. Now the loop was closed.

July 28, 2014

©Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014

PS/ The watch is working like a charm and keeping time with less than a minute/day delay. And it is in the space of that slow minute that I find my daily moment of history, identity, and evasion from the present.