A Mind at Peace

by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar

  When she’d been introduced to him, Nuran laughed and said, “I know you, we took the same ferry here this morning. You’re İclâl’s friend Mümtaz.”

  She’d stressed “İclâl’s friend.” Mümtaz was pleased by the recognition; yet, he was apprehensive about the light İclâl might have cast upon him. İclâl wasn’t a bad person; the friendship between them would persist throughout life. Nevertheless, she was chatty.

  “I wonder what that charismatic relation of mine imparted to you?” Nuran said.

  “In that case, let me tell you,” he replied. “You’re the illustrious Nuran.” Gesturing to Fatma: “The young lady was, you might say, raised in our very classroom, though she never entered it. Each morning we heard the general bulletin of the current state of affairs from İclâl.” He smiled at the girl from a distance; but Fatma paid no heed to such coyness. She had no intention of countenancing any strange male; all men were a threat to her happiness. Only her mother smiled. Mümtaz now recalled how he’d at first been tempted to sit across from Nuran on the morning ferry, but upon his hesitation, as a vagary of chance he’d let himself be chewed up by Muazzez’s chit-chattering teeth – he regretted that Nuran might have registered his reticence.

  Muazzez and İclâl boasted of quite a delicious friendship, in which their diverse constitutions complemented and completed one another. Muazzez was a daily gazette of insignificant events and a gazetteer of unknown lands. She resembled her grandmother, who had a relative – or friend at least – residing in every district of Istanbul, whom she loved like a sibling and could always call upon.

  The grandmother in question, having attained an age of social respect, roamed from dawn to dusk repeating at each visit the tidbits she’d witnessed or heard on the street or at the previous call, only to return in the evening with an assortment of gossip that had been thoroughly committed to memory. In this enormous city, there remained little to which she wasn’t privy. Acquainted with all of Istanbul, that is to say those who were “above the sieve,” she could discuss how people were during any particular year, month, or even day. She’d been this way for some time. “We all come home with a saddlebag of news and information,” she’d say. “In the evenings at the dinner table we tell each other what’s happened, and in the morning at breakfast we’ll separate the wheat from the chaff, culling what’s of value.” Once, due to this hearsay being doled out, Muazzez’s uncle had been unable to jockey for position to make a vital announcement; after three days he was barely able to interject: “Everybody, excuse the interruption, I’ve been meaning to tell you for days now, but I couldn’t find an opening. I’ve received a telegraph from İkbal; we’ve been blessed with the birth of a baby girl!” They named the girl Nisyan, or “slip of the mind.”

  İclâl spoke quite sparingly in comparison with Muazzez. She was drawn to minutia, cataloging the information gathered by Muazzez, dramatizing aspects and turning them into human interest stories.

  All manner of interpretation, light, and coloring sprang from her. This was why Muazzez, even if among a hundred people, would gaze at her and conclude any statement by saying, “I don’t know, what would you say, İclâl?”

  Mümtaz’s greatest pleasure was to watch the pair leave the university each evening, head to head, arm in arm. He’d nicknamed them “the two shrews of Zeynep’s boardinghouse,” and he’d rib them by saying, “The president of the university doesn’t know what these two know,” or, “Ask Muazzez. If she’s had no news of such and such, it never happened. If İclâl has no recollection of so-and-so, it’s of no importance, don’t worry about it.” But there was a distinction between İclâl and Muazzez: The former learned only by happenstance while the latter actively investigated an event with great curiosity. Since İclâl was well aware of her friend’s disposition, she’d restrained herself from introducing Muazzez – whom she’d known since high school, loved dearly, and considered a close confidante – into her own family circle.

  İclâl’s relatives, from Muazzez’s point of view, were simply companions, frequently mentioned yet forever absent.

  That morning as well Muazzez revealed a cache of information to Mümtaz. She reported on the Bosphorus residence in Yeniköy that belonged to an old Ottoman Greek family and was sold off for next to nothing; on the neighboring house that had been painted crimson, causing the bridegroom scarcely wed into the family to bolt upon seeing it, exclaiming that he couldn’t live in such a tasteless home – obviously a pretense for separation; on the tiff between two women of ill repute four days prior in one of the drinking holes of Arnavutköy; on Çakır, the fisherman in Bebek, who’d made purchase of a new rowboat; and on the announcements of three engagements and two weddings. Since İclâl wasn’t present, however, none of the accounts could be analyzed or interpreted to its fullest dramatic potential. That is to say, İclâl’s observations truly contained an important element of synthesis.

  “So, have you finished your dissertation?”

  “Last night,” Mümtaz said, complementing his puerile embarrassment with childish glee: “Last night I drew a long line across the bottom of the last page. Beneath that, I drew another, thicker than the first, then another, and at the very bottom I wrote May 4, 11:05 P.M. I signed my name. Next I rose and went out on the balcony. I took three or four restorative breaths in the Swedish fashion. And now I’m heading to Büyükada.” If it hadn’t embarrassed him, he would have continued by saying, “I’m twenty-six, I live in a comfortable house on a hilltop in Emirgân, I’m not much for dancing, I have no luck with fishing because I’m impatient, but I’m an avid sailor – at least I have a flair for surviving seaborne accidents – for your sake, I could eat two plates of yogurt-and-watercress salad a day, and even limit the cigarettes I smoke to just a single pack.”

  This delirium resulted somewhat from the completion of his dissertation. His pleasure mounted as he mused, because from now on he was free, he could wander and roam about at will, and he could read whatever struck his fancy. Finishing on May 4 meant earning the summer. For the first time in four years, that spectacular winged gryphon known as summer was his. For four months, Istanbul, the abode of felicity, was his. Of course, there were exams to minister, but what of it? He could always find a way out.

  Wearing her mute smile, Nuran continued to listen, maintaining a peculiar attention to detail, as if she effectively existed in her eyes. The sheen of these eyes ruled her person the way the movements of the sun dictated what we knew as the day. As Mümtaz regarded her, he had to give İclâl credence: Nuran was beautiful indeed. She had a certain je ne sais quoi.

  “İclâl spoke of you frequently this past winter. She’d mentioned that you lived by yourself in a house on the Bosphorus ...”

  “Yes, through an unforeseen turn of events. A few summers ago, my cousin İhsan found a wonderful house. That winter he and his family moved out and I stayed behind.”

  “Didn’t you suffer from boredom there?”

  “Not really. I’d come down to the city frequently besides. Not to mention it’s a place that I’ve known since my childhood. Not that it wasn’t difficult at first. But when spring erupted ...”

  Both of them together by separate routes meandered back to a month ago, recollecting the ruby blossoms of the Judas trees and the way they extended their poised branches over every yard. Nuran wanted to think that Mümtaz, like herself, didn’t conjure these beauties through a matrix of pain and agony. But she knew that within a span of a few weeks, not to mention when he was just eleven – as İclâl had related – Mümtaz had lost his mother and father. Life could poison one at any age. Waiting in line on the way onto the ferry, she’d overheard two boys talking about the difficulties of making ends meet. Were these topics to be discussing at such an age?

  “... the old man, he has no money... If he did, it’d be a different story. If it were within his power, he’d sacrifice his life for us. I realized there was no end in sight, so I insisted I didn’t want to go to school. Teachers aren’t awa
re of such things anyway; they just complain, ‘This one will never amount to anything!’ So I put in as an apprentice. A pittance of a lira fifty a week, spend it as you like ... In any case, I was spared paying for fees and the ferryboat. They give me lunch as well. But I can’t take the smell of grease. My stomach turns. I’m like my mother was with her morning sickness ...”

  “Wasn’t there any other work?”

  “Yeah, but the pay wasn’t enough. Because it was a craft trade, they didn’t pay anything to start. Never mind, at the kitchen with tips and all we make up to ten lira. Once my father gets well, I’m going to work as a cobbler’s apprentice ... That is, if he does get well.”

  Nuran turned around to discover that he was an adolescent of twelve or thirteen, skinny and olive-eyed. As he walked, he leaned on a freshly cut branch that he used as a crutch. In his bearing mingled remorse, sarcasm, and inborn grace.

  Sabih asked Mümtaz, “Did you find the seventy-eights?”

  “I did. They’re a bit scuffed. But they contain songs and pieces we’ve never heard before! İhsan, who’s a savant in these matters, says in that case we don’t know one percent of what’s really out there. If only somebody would come around and promote these songs, have sheet music published, make recordings; that is, if we could just save ourselves a little from today’s popular music! Just think for a minute, you’re a country that’s given rise to a musician like İsmail Dede Efendi; composers like Seyid Nuh, Ebubekir Aǧa, and Hafız Post have come along and composed extraordinary works. Part of our identity has been formed by their artistry. We’re not even aware that we’re living in a state of spiritual hunger ... This is the catastrophe: Assume that today’s generation vanished. These works, many of which are only known by heart, will simply vanish. Just think about what Münir Nurettin Selçuk alone knows.”

  Sabih turned to Nuran. “Did you know that Mümtaz cultivated such interest in our traditional music?”

  Nuran cast him a cordial glance. With a grin that made her face resemble ripened fruit, she said, “No, İclâl must have kept that detail to herself ...”

  Adile’s voice twitched with the trepidation of having been abandoned, and like a cat arching its back and padding out of the cupboard where it had been napping, she said, “Honestly, I get annoyed at such types. As if they can see into others. ...”

  Adile hadn’t made İclâl’s acquaintance. And as for matters of music, she had no opinion whatsoever. She nourished a taste for the a la turca, for navigating familiar waters, and also for the pandemonium it sometimes sparked in a crowd. In her opinion, music and all else was meant to fill the void we called time. A parade, the account of a boxing match, exquisitely appointed gossip presented with the greatest of ease might evince in her the same warmth as that of an extraordinary work of art. She’d missed the ten o’clock ferry due to the details related by the doorman’s wife about the second-floor tenants. In fact, Huriye the maid hadn’t informed her of anything new. Adile was able to confirm only what she’d already surmised. Yes, the man in question had coyly found a way out of the mess without his wife being any the wiser by receiving court permission for a second marriage under the pretense of her infertility. In this way, the swarthy lass he’d met three years ago on the Kadıköy ferry, and who’d also provided him with a child, had now become his second wife. The twist was that at the same time, his first wife announced that she was also in the family way. Suddenly, the poor scoundrel had become the father of two infants. Now, then, this is the way God bestows His justice!

  One couldn’t say anything against Adile’s deep insight into this affair. Six months before the scandal erupted, she suspected something and thoroughly interrogated her Kadıköy contacts. The man’s first wife believed that she was actually barren. When this proved false – Adile believed only doctors in such matters – there remained the possibility that the man wasn’t the father of either baby. Adile resembled a judge poring over the complicated report of an expert in the field. If the woman weren’t in any way culpable, could she have actually stood for this disgrace? Adile imagined her neighbor – like most unmannered women and working girls, who unduly suspected that they had the power of ancient fertility gods, and thus roamed about with the pride of an Asurian bull, forever sunk within the infinite possibilities resting in this delusion, considering their bellies a vessel that must be filled at all costs – head bowed and pitiful, all of her haughty conviction gone like a flaccid balloon, and she thought, Will I be able to look her in the eyes without laughing? That would be something like letting them off the hook ... A slight grin and a glance that said “May it bode well!” wouldn’t be a bad response either. This wasn’t cruelty, simply vengeance.

  For Adile, these very thoughts abruptly tainted Nuran’s gleeful laughter, Mümtaz’s blind admiration, and the way they gazed at each other. These two fools had gotten to this point by having known about each other beforehand. They’d fall in love. What was it to her whether this or that was public knowledge? She’d known from the scandal on the second floor and from the anguish of Sabih’s repeatedly squandering his money how ignorant they all were of the scuttlebutt.

  Nuran’s beatific smile turned toward Adile. But it no longer carried the same sparkle. She only wanted to convince her of the sincerity of what she’d said. “İclâl’s different. She studied piano for fourteen years. She continued at the conservatory. She truly understands and loves music.”

  Nuran wasn’t exaggerating for her relative’s sake. İclâl could even at this young age be considered a musique savant. She’d forgotten about everything down to her college education; all that remained was music. Her world was made of melody.

  “Truth be told, I know little about either. I never studied it. But I do like it. Everything I listen to overwhelms me. I have my favorites, some I find are trivial, some I don’t like at all.”

  Mümtaz eyed Nuran as if to say, Can one like a piece of music without understanding it? Somebody say something.

  “Were you able to find a lot?”

  “More so at the Bedesten and mostly older works ... But I do find them. Just three days ago I bought two Hafız Osman records.” Why is it that she laughs when I speak? I’m not just an innocent boy ... But your laughter’s so sublime that instead of being annoyed, I’m simply pleased. Something within him pivoted toward the golden fruit suspended in the offing by Nuran’s astounding laughter. Involuntarily, one responded to it; the laughter grew within him like a tree that verged on bursting into bloom.

  From then on, at home, without being able to help himself, he’d hear Ferahfezâ, Acemaşiran, and Nühüft makams amid, and accompanied by, laughter that gilded his records and everything he happened upon, subsuming them in the redolence of springtime and transferring the heat of his own arousal to them.

  Amid such thoughts, he raised his head and came eye to eye with Nuran, looking at her serenely, with a glance that emanated from depths and withheld nothing.

  It was a glance, as a poet he admired had written, that dressed one in garments shorn of sunlight and yearning. Like those fortress keys of yore that were given to a conqueror on a gold platter or velvet pillow, Nuran presented her entirety through grin and gaze.

  Adile fell silent. She quite fully knew the meaning of such smiles and furtive glances that fluttered about only to alight upon lover and beloved again. She was no longer contemplating the dolt from the second floor with two wives and two children who weren’t his own. That affair suddenly lost all its meaning. I won’t even make a greeting. Why should I greet such a fool? In the end, he’s a man who gads about with the neighborhood help ... He’s the type that would involve himself in all manner of disgrace. And he was now the spouse of the laundress in the basement of the neighboring apartment building. Why should she concern herself with them? And through this decree, Adile shut her personal file on her neighbor, Sabit. In fact, Mümtaz and Nuran’s impropriety bothered her. Mümtaz had been a frequent guest to the apartment for years. Granted, she hadn’t been able to en
tice him to spend the night on the divan in the parlor, but he was still a family friend. She would have wanted a better future for him, rather than one with this veritable “widow.” But Adile had just such luck. Because of her admiration for others, she also suffered their betrayals. Her entire life had passed this way. Her own relatives had a penchant for marrying away members of her inner circle. Now it was Mümtaz’s turn. She wanted to shrug it off as if to say, “Let them do as they please.” But she couldn’t bring herself to do so.

  One tends, more often than not, to bear one’s thoughts on one’s shoulders. Thus, the difficulty of moving our shoulders grows in proportion to the burden of these thoughts. Adile’s shoulders were laden with Mümtaz and the full weight of his future. But this was her own foolishness; what was Mümtaz to her? Who was she to enter another’s affairs, anyway? Her face recoiled before this last betrayal of fate. Stupid fool of a man. Besides, which of them wasn’t a fool? All men were buffoons. A little flattery, an aloof smile, a few words of inscrutable intent, and then the gaze of an egg-laying hen . . . time to harness the yoke. Adile wasn’t one to meddle in the lives of others. Anyway, she had no plans for anyone. She was afraid of loneliness, and because she feared being abandoned, she grew frantic when her acquaintances were no longer bound to her.