A Mind at Peace

by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar

  “I’m not sure. Which İhsan is that?”

  “During the armistice and Allied occupations after the Great War, while my uncle was working for the Defense of Rights resistance, he said that he helped a certain İhsan. Apparently, he was Nadir Pasha’s aide. They tried to frame him with Pasha’s death. Even though İhsan could have fled, he’s alleged to have said, ‘With this shadow of incrimination over me, I won’t go anywhere.’ My uncle was of some help in saving him from the gallows.”

  “Thanks to a letter that Nadir Pasha had written him. Yes, that’s the same İhsan. But why hadn’t İclâl ever mentioned this fact? I’ve seen your uncle a number of times!”

  “İclâl is rather like a writer of realist novels. She doesn’t make mention of anything but everyday events.”

  Mümtaz was dumbfounded.

  “That means Tevfik is your uncle ... and Talât is your great-grandfather?”

  “Yes, Talât is my mother’s grandfather.”

  “I’ve even listened to Tevfik perform once. He recited the ‘Song in Mahur’ to us. Do you like the piece?”

  “Quite ... very much, in fact. But, you know, it’s believed to bring bad luck in our family.”

  Mümtaz stared at her solemnly: “Do you believe in such things?”

  “No, I mean, I never gave it much thought. As with everyone, in many respects I feel an unspecified dread lurking inside me. The effect of the ‘Song in Mahur’ on me was quite extraordinary. The error of my great-grandmother’s ways scared me. Many members of our family have – out of sheer ambition and desire – made those closest to them suffer. Since I was a little girl I’ve been told that I resemble her, and as a result I’ve thought about her frequently. Maybe for this very reason I’ve tried to live rationally rather than through my emotions. But what’s the use when fate dictates otherwise ... My daughter’s unhappy anyway.”

  “And you’re related to Behçet?”

  “No, only by marriage ... He was miserable too. I have a photograph of his poor wife, Atiye! It’s so bizarre. But let’s not talk about such things.”

  “İhsan loves the ‘Song in Mahur.’ He practiced it with Tevfik. You realize your great-grandfather’s composition is something of a masterpiece.”

  “He’d intended to write a Mevlevî ceremonial piece, but this composition emerged instead.” She closed her eyes. Mümtaz gazed at the ashen sea from the window and watched the sky where tullelike clouds of similar hue loomed large. Then he likened Nuran to the delicate rose saplings in his garden that tended to tremble out of their own frailty in such weather. Light emanated toward them from this tulle-shrouded mass like the portent of pleasures foreign to both. The luminance caressed Nuran’s face and hands in an effective state of delight.

  “It seems like you didn’t sleep at all last night.”

  “I didn’t. Fatma complained throughout the night.”

  “How did you leave her behind like that?”

  “My aunt insisted. She told me Fatma would change once I left. So, I agreed. When I’m with her she acts quite spoiled.”

  “But you’re so distraught ... If it were me ...”

  “If it were you ... but you’re not a woman, are you?”

  “True, I suppose, as long as you don’t consider that too great a drawback.” He genuinely wanted to share in Nuran’s fate and he was extremely ashamed and distressed that he couldn’t. This particular affect of his made Nuran laugh. They’d established a friendship of sorts. And this friendship resembled a voyage whose course had been predetermined long beforehand. Their lives were so close to each other.

  “You’re an odd bird. Are you doing it for fun or do you always have such a childlike nature?” If he isn’t actually a fool. Mümtaz didn’t answer, but smiled.

  Later he said, “Would you recite the ‘Song in Mahur’ for me one day? I know you have the voice.” His thoughts were always with the “Song in Mahur,” with this ironic and tragic union of love and death. Nuran quickly responded, “All right ... I’ll sing it for you one day.” Then she added, “You know, I don’t consider you a stranger at all. We have so many acquaintances in common.”

  “I feel the same. If our friendship continues, its course will seem preordained.”

  Then they spoke of completely different things. Mümtaz found her laughter wondrous. He wanted to savor it to the utmost. He recounted an array of stories to her. And he realized, as he spoke, that he was poaching from İhsan’s repertoire. So, I’m still living on the surface ... I haven’t been able to find myself... In fact, he was crossing a vast threshold.

  This woman of experience, elegance, and beauty had a quality that was thoroughly radiant and enchanting, as if she were the garden of the sun itself; a realm that he hadn’t experienced beforehand, one that he’d assumed had been denied him, but had only actually been dormant and was now prepared to be filled and emptied by her presence. Each notion transformed in the awareness of a brisk awakening, and the small and mysterious contractions emanating from the depths of his being sang forgotten songs of life. This music of silence existed in both, rising to their faces from deep within, and Nuran, frantic to suppress it, appeared more crestfallen than she actually was, while in contrast, Mümtaz, yearning to mask the shyness of his character, forced himself to be bolder and more carefree.

  Till now Mümtaz’s experiences in love hadn’t gone beyond a few random escapades and exploits that were attempts at scattering himself to the four winds. Rather than being instances of the advent of a woman’s presence in his life, they amounted to small flings and trivial crushes – various dimensions of his own ennui and passing lust. He hadn’t even yet sensed the urge for anything more in his imagination, which centered on himself alone. To him, a woman meant Macide’s companionship and the compassion of his aunt, things absent from his life and fulfilled by the two of them between the time of his mother’s death and his adjustment to İhsan’s household.

  Now, sitting before Nuran, Mümtaz noted her sublime attributes with a gaze that transcended petty flings, crushes, lusts, and other commonplaces, and he contemplated how spending his life together with a woman of uncommon beauty seemed impossible. His eyes roamed over her face and hands with a forwardness fostered by a kind of indescribable despair. Nuran attempted to evade these bold glances. Each time he allowed her a moment’s peace, she withdrew into her shell embarrassed, as if she’d been suddenly caught stark naked, and to hide herself from the man before her, she frequently opened her purse and powdered her cheeks. Each sensed that a particular fate was being concocted for them and they spoke to each other in intimacies.

  Open seas in the offing near Üsküdar had become the waterborne manse of southerlies at eventide. In places between Leander’s Tower and the open Sea of Marmara, copper sheets covered with the glitter of an array of hammer-wrought gems had been layered into the watery depths. At times these copper sheets floated to the surface as jeweled rafts; at other times they opened up great, bright crimson abysses filled with yearning and the desire to ascend to a truth like the distant vanishing point wherein light merged in representations of divine grace and absolution by painters of the French Primitif school.

  Presently, warm colors attempted every possibility of being, from a spectacle for the eyes to an ascension, a Mi’raj of the Soul.

  “It’s a very beautiful night,” said Mümtaz.

  Nuran, not wanting to appear surprised, said, “It’s the right season!”

  “Its being the right season shouldn’t diminish our awe.” Your beauty issues from your youth, but I’m awed nonetheless. But was she truly beautiful? He wanted to view her at a remove from their present exhilaration. No, he wouldn’t say anything. He couldn’t even see straight anymore. He couldn’t see a thing apart from his own bedazzlement. Not to mention that he’d stumbled upon the mirror of awe within himself. Through this talismanic mirror, he observed what lay inside him, the gradual stirring of desire.

  Nuran understood that this response was directed at her and that
the invitation that had long been secreted in darkness had now emerged into plain sight.

  “That’s not what I meant,” she said. “I meant to say that from now on we’d share evenings as lovely as this one.” She grew frustrated with herself because she’d knowingly uttered this double entendre.

  Time remained before the second ferry that would take them up the Bosphorus. They stopped in front of Kemal the bookseller’s stand. Nuran bought a few newspapers and novels. Mümtaz observed her as she opened her purse and removed cash. These gestures, repeated daily, now seemed exceptional to him. Not to mention that the bridge had transformed as had the bookseller and the act of buying and reading books. He was seemingly living in a fable, a world in which animated lines and bright colors rejuvenated all, giving everything a meaning that approached the most generous state of grace, where every movement shimmied and wriggled to infinity like the play of light in a still expanse of water. The bookseller returned her change.

  Carrying in his arms his own gift and whatever else she’d purchased, they walked toward the Bosphorus ferry landing. They walked in tandem. He’d just come ashore in Istanbul with a woman whom he’d only recognized from afar yesterday on the morning ferry, whose acquaintance he’d made by chance; yet they’d be traveling up the Bosphorus together on another ferry. For him, this was unfathomable. Granted, it was of the variety of everyday events that happened repeatedly; granted, hundreds of thousands of people might experience such feelings once or a hundred times in their lives; it made no difference. He, too, realized that it was a commonplace to fall in love, to achieve happiness, to be acquainted before falling in love, and after having loved, to forget one another, or to even become enemies. But sea bathing was this way, too, as was sleeping. Everything was this way for everybody. That the experience was neither new nor the first of its kind didn’t diminish the fervor in his soul. Because it happened to be a first occurrence for him, because his body and soul had come to act in unison for the first time, they’d achieved the satisfaction of complete synthesis and symbiosis. Thus, it was exceptional. But did she think the same way? Was she content as well? Did she yearn? Or was she only humoring him? This anxiety, this doubt, made Mümtaz feel wretched. Why was she so silent? Like one whose feet get entangled in string drawn across a dark path, such a battery of questions prevented him from walking straight. Ah, if only she’d say something!

  Nuran, for her part, was in no state to utter a word. She wasn’t waiting free and easy at the intersections of life like Mümtaz. She’d already lived out one life and had separated from her husband. She might rightly assume that hundreds of eyes were boring into her from this throng. If he’d only leave. If he’d only leave and go ... His arrival was so sudden. I need to spend time alone. Who does he think I am? One of those chums of his with whom he gads about?

  I’m a woman who’s established her life, only to watch it crumble. I have a daughter. Love, for me, is nothing new. I’ve passed through this experience so much earlier than him ... At a place where Nuran might have found a thousand pleasures, she only met with affliction.

  Am I to once more pass over roads that I’ve already traveled? Is there torment greater than this? Why are men so selfish? Why is it that they think we women are as free as them? And she absolutely had to get new shoes. These heels were so cumbersome that they made her look like the dotty teachers back at the girls’ academy. These shoes were only good for an address on women’s rights at a protest rally. Not the shoes themselves of course ... It was evident that shoes couldn’t speak ... How could he possibly find me attractive and elegant in these?

  The girl yesterday morning on the ferry, her lips were as red as pomegranate blossoms, and she faced Mümtaz perpetually. Even I, from where I sat, could see the invitation on her lips, and I grew anxious for her sake. He, however, from his vantage point, strained to see me. He had such a peculiar way of stretching his neck. It was so unbecoming ... She wanted to say to him, “All right then, move along now, let’s go our separate ways here ... What need is there to insist upon this meaningless affair?” But she couldn’t manage it. She knew full well that he’d be miserably heartbroken. And she didn’t want to make him sad. Rather, she might, if she could console him by taking his head into her hands, if this were possible, she might do so simply to savor this pleasure. Because cruelty also had its pleasures. She sensed this within her now like an urge. Only temporarily, for a fleeting moment only, of course. Because she couldn’t endure too much of it; she wouldn’t want too much. It was part of her. And this being the case, she needed to feel happiness and torment together. Nuran would introduce all of it to him; because she was aware of this fact, she found herself strong and ever so powerful. Thus, her smile was as thin as a knife blade. Yet the anxiety within her continued to speak: Others who see us together, who knows what they’ll say? It’s so obvious that he’s inappropriately younger than me . . . They’ll assume I’ve separated from Fâhir to be with him. I wasn’t even the one who separated from Fâhir . . . He left. If only he’d just go away and let her be.

  IV

  The Bosphorus ferry held crowds of another magnitude. This wasn’t a wealthy, luxurious pleasure ground where every feature was ordered and arranged by money, with wide roads of asphalt and ornamental flower beds like the island, which had emerged abruptly during Istanbul’s decline, in so short a time it might be termed a season. No, this was a venue that had lived shoulder to shoulder with Istanbul from the start, had seen its fortunes rise with the city’s, and had fallen on hard times when the city lost its ways and means, a venue that withdrew into itself when the city changed its predilections, conserving as much as possible the bygone trends in which it had participated; in short, this was a venue that had experienced an entire culture like a single-minded venture.

  In Mümtaz’s estimation, one did become somewhat anonymous on the island. That was a place for rather conventional people; one longed for what was actually inessential there, at least for what alienated one from oneself and in the process prevented one from standing on terra firma. On the Bosphorus, in contrast, everything summoned one inward, and plummeted one into one’s own depths. Here everything belonged to us, those facets that governed the grand synthesis, including the panorama and the architecture, as temporal as it was ... those facets that we founded and subsequently came into being along with us. This was a realm of squat-minareted and smallmosqued villages whose lime-washed walls defined Istanbul neighborhoods; a realm of sprawling cemeteries that at times dominated a panorama from edge to edge; a realm of fountains with broken ornamental fascia whose long-dry spouts nevertheless provided a cooling tonic; a realm of large Bosphorus residences, of wooden dervish houses in whose courtyards goats now grazed, of quayside coffeehouses, the shouts of whose apprentice waiters mingled into the otherworld of Istanbul ramadans like a salutation from the mortal world, of public squares filled with the memories of bygone wrestling matches with drums and shrill pipes and contenders bedecked in outfits like national holiday costumes, of enormous chinar trees, of overcast evenings, of eerie and emotive echoes and of daybreaks during which nymphs of dawn bore torches aloft, hovering in mother-of-pearl visions reflected in mirrors of the metaphysical.

  Besides, everything on the Bosphorus was a reflection. Light was reflection, sound was reflection; sporadically, here, one might become the echo of an array of things unbeknownst to oneself.

  Whenever Mümtaz lent an ear to his early childhood memories and listened to the echoes of the ferry horns that reached him after ricocheting from the surrounding hilltops, he might discern from which wellsprings the incurable hüzün within him sometimes rose and flowed forth and made him so opulent amid everyday routine.

  The ferry gathered civil servants returning from their city jobs, sightseers, beachgoers, young students, military officers, elderly women, and congregants on deck, the remorse of whose lives, and the day’s fatigue, dripping from their faces, intentionally or not, seemed to surrender to this waning evening hour. Like
the potter described by Omar Khayyám, the evening took up all those heads and worked them from the inside and outside, transfigured their lines, painted them, varnished and shellacked them, made their eyes dreamier, softened their lips, and filled their stares with renewed glimmers of yearning and hope. They came to the center of this radiance as themselves, but, as if fallen into the midst of sorcery, they changed with the transformations of light. Intermittently, a guffaw verging on the obnoxious rose from the center of a group; in the distance, all the way at the bow, well-to-do children raised along the Bosphorus played harmonicas and sang songs in callow voices; and passengers who’d grown accustomed to commuting together called out to one another. These were passing interruptions, however. Quiescence, rather resembling expectation, expanded again – its arboreal growth and boundless leaves beshrouding all.

  The roots of this tree that traced a bright crimson arc amid the gilded design of a finely wrought Herat bookbinding on the horizon lay in the sun, illuminating golden arabesques in increasing prominence, melding them anew each moment and recasting them in accordance with their own phantasies. From there, the tree flourished branch by branch. Through its radiance, Nuran had become a fruit of arboreal silence, with her stony expression, her small, protruding chin ready to reject him, her narrowed eyes, and her hands clenching her purse.

  “So much so that you seem like you’re drooping from the boughs of the evening ... As soon as the light has faded fully, I fear you might fall to the ground.”

  “In that case, the night will gather all of us at once ... Because you’re in the same state.” And that’s just what happened. Even before reaching Üsküdar, the roses dusk had cast hither and yond faded and the sea grew winedark. The large bound tome with Herat gilding was now a deep magenta cloud fragment. On the tips of distant minarets stirred one or two flights of whiteness like belated birds. The wave of illumination that had engulfed the opposite shore sprawled like the last reverberations of a score of Ottoman music.