A Mind at Peace

by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar

  “Let’s go then . . . the season hasn’t yet come to a close.”

  Instead of answering, Nuran made a doleful gesture with her chin as if to say, “Under these circumstances it’s not possible. We’ve locked lips within mirrors of the past ... None of our desires will manifest with any facility or felicity.” İhsan paid no attention to them as he chased his thoughts.

  “In the fifteenth century, had Cem Sultan succeeded to the Ottoman throne or had Mehmet the Conqueror lived twenty years longer, what do you think would have happened? His untimely death amounted to the greatest of tragedies. History dictates that lengthy reigns are always beneficial. For example, consider the rule of Queen Elizabeth or Victoria. Of course, if the conditions are right! Had Sultan Mehmet reigned for twenty more years, perhaps today we’d be a nation that had lived the Renaissance in its time. A bizarre wish, isn’t it? Time doesn’t flow backward. Even so, one succumbs to visions moving from the known to the desired.”

  “Even stranger is how we’re unable to transform our lives despite all this accumulated experience.”

  “Had Mehmet lived ... but he did not, and Cem Sultan was unable to triumph in his struggle for the throne. All the frenzied commotion, even betrayal, the desire, hope, and agony reduced to nothing but a small mausoleum. He rests beneath an ordinary dome together with his mother amid an array of tiles. But their remains, along with hundreds and thousands of others, made Bursa what it is. I visited during its most sublime season. Granted there was still considerable heat. But in the evenings the air cooled. I was mad for the flowers. Everywhere, they made the music of silence or a musical idyll.”

  Macide temporarily quit her blue voyage: “İhsan, do you remember the solitude of the evening lightning, you know, when we looked out from the Green Mosque . . . and later, the morning star?”

  “Macide adores the firmament,” İhsan said.

  “As long as the skies aren’t cloudy... I can’t tolerate cloudy skies. At such times I always turn inward.” She’d uttered this softly, as if for her own sake. Her disposition revealed the distinct bow of cut flowers wilting toward vase water. But the autumn light in this garden, transfiguring it into a lute and filling it with music, wouldn’t allow Macide to indulge in melancholy. Resisting this required an emotion quite different than melancholy or misery, one of those despotic desires that occluded and erased everything. She turned her face back again toward the skies, to the sole and elegant, metaphysical and grand leaf of the firmament, losing herself in a venture of the infinite.

  Such escapes constituted moments of great bliss in her life. One day in the hospital, a day she’d wept frequently, passing through numerous pincers of death, she’d discovered a window open to this azure invitation, from where her thoughts had taken wing toward the infinite. From that day onward, a part of her always passed from one deep blue stratum to another. Like a tired desert traveler, at times she’d come to rest at the base of a cluster of light. No one knew as did Macide how the light and its lucidity surpassed the confines of any reality. Presently more than half her being existed in this illuminated sky. She and İhsan sat at the base of a tree of radiance, conversing.

  Tevfik made a hand gesture. “Hold on, now, I’m going to test my voice!” He smiled at İhsan as if to say, “Turn back the clock.” And he began the Farsi melismata of the Nevâkâr song:Whilst the rose sapling of the gathering does flourish, where is the rosy-cheeked cupbearer?

  This was Itrî, an alchemist of genius. Nuran kept tempo with her hand on her knee, her gaze intent upon the peculiar sparkle in her uncle’s eyes.

  İhsan harmonized in a low voice, as he’d done during the armistice years after World War I in the penitentiary where Tevfik had visited him.

  Tevfik fell silent after reciting the first lines that set the crystal of the Nevâ alight then, upon completing the variations of the makam progression, said: “That’s it ... it’s been years since I’ve sung that. I practically followed the memory of my voice. I’ve completely forgotten the rest.”

  Mümtaz and Nuran stood stunned as if they’d returned from great distances.

  Tevfik’s voice assumed a force through the Nevâkâr that they’d rarely witnessed, as if somewhere a Simurgh had erected a grand palace from a river or a flood of luminance. But more phenomenal was the way material objects in their surroundings suddenly transfigured through Itrî’s alchemy!

  “What’s done is done. Might you honor us with a recital of the ‘Song in Mahur’ as well?”

  Tevfik grumbled, “The Mahur song?” He looked at Mümtaz with ridicule! “Very well then, but in a slow voice.” And he actually searched for the makam in slow meter before his voice took wing:And you left even my soul full of yearning . . .

  No, this was something else; none of the glory of Itrî existed here; just now they’d all had the same thought. Each had been incarcerated separately in a stone cell carved from igneous rock. İhsan said, “Itrî is quite communal! But this is nice as well.” He fell silent for a while; he felt that they’d each again been imprisoned in the same manner. “It’s difficult to escape the mood of certain things,” he said.

  Mümtaz: “Yes, it’s difficult ... so difficult that at times I ask myself, ‘What are we?’”

  “We are this... this very Nevâkâr. This very ‘Song in Mahur’ and countless other expressions that resemble them! We are their semblances as they manifest within us; we are the ways of being they evoke within us.”

  “Yahya Kemal used to say, ‘Our novel is our song,’ and he had a point there.”

  “Vagary . . . each day I turn to music a number of times. And each time I return empty-handed.”

  İhsan: “Patience.”

  Mümtaz, thoughtfully nodding his head: “Yes, patience . . . patience dans l’azur!”

  “That’s exactly it, Valéry’s ‘patience dans l’azur’! Don’t forget that you’re only at the beginning. This time in Bursa I made close observation of this phenomenon. There music, poetry, and mysticism are expressed together! The stones pray, the trees intone divine mantras.”

  Tevfik stared at Mümtaz affectionately. He was pleased by his naïve excitement and enthusiasm. Will he be able to accomplish anything, I wonder? He would, of course, should life deign to grace him with the opportunity.

  II

  A commotion ensued at the door.

  Selim, Orhan, Nuri, and Fahri entered in the unchanging pecking order and ceremony that held sway among them. Orhan nudged forward the short Selim, whose company he always kept, and followed behind him as if to say, “What would become of you if it weren’t for me?” Nuri wiped his glasses at the threshold to better see the setting. Last of all, Fahri closed the door behind them.

  İhsan offered a mild “Welcome!” to the group. Then he continued, “Don’t dare misunderstand me!” he said. “I’m not being mystical; rather I’m seizing upon brilliance, upon a concept that is reality itself. I want us to know and appreciate ourselves. Only in this manner, by being ourselves, can we hope to discover what’s human.”

  Orhan asked, “What astonishes me is how on one hand you insist on a context of humanism and spiritual values while on the other hand on social development, demanding the regulation of labor from the get-go. Aren’t you being slavish to the material side of things?”

  “But it’s quite simple” – and his eyes registered Nuran gliding through the back door with a tray of glasses and an ice bucket. She was genuinely beautiful, and she exhibited style and appeal through her stride, her figure, her laugh. If Mümtaz knew his own strengths, life could be quite decent. But, strangely, from the very beginning he’d become mired in a web of tribulations. And what am I to do? He should just go on and overcome these hurdles! İhsan couldn’t be of any help to his nephew. If I advise patience, he’ll waste time. If I say, “Have conviction, act without giving too much thought to others or your surroundings, act quickly and with abandon even,” he’ll falter. In ten days’ time the legal waiting period after a divorce ended and Nuran would b
e free to remarry. Mümtaz went to help her. It pleased İhsan to see them working together.

  “Yes, you were saying it’s simple.”

  İhsan waved his glass about. “It’s simple because it exists in reality... and this need comes paired with the other. In fact, they’re not even separate, but two sides of the same coin. On one hand we’re experiencing a crisis of civilization and culture; on the other we’re in need of economic reform. We must enter into the world of business and trade.

  “We’re in no position to choose one over the other. We wouldn’t be justified in doing so, either. Mankind is universal. It discovers itself through work and productivity; the notion of a work ethic gives birth to modern society.”

  Mümtaz, contemplating: “In that case, work both fosters its own civilization and culture as well as gives rise to society. It falls to us to simply organize our material lives.”

  “Do you suppose it’s that easy? First off, for us to do this, economic life must start and flourish, and society must regain its creative impulses. Not to mention that one can’t just let life develop on its own. It’s too dangerous. The past is always nipping at our heels. A surplus of half-dead worldviews and modes of being lie in wait to interfere in modern life. Furthermore our present engagement with the modern and the West amounts to emptying into a gushing river as an afterthought. We’re not simply water, we’re human society, and we’re not a tributary joining a river; we’re a society appropriating a civilization along with its culture, within which we possess a particular identity. Presently, we’re doing nothing more than adopting the accoutrements of Europe while neglecting the social contingencies. We’re conditioned to regard the modern with suspicion because it’s foreign to us, and we look upon tradition as of no consequence because it’s outdated. Our existence hasn’t even attained the level of meeting our own basic needs ... It hasn’t achieved the prosperity and creativity necessary to present us with intrinsic values and ways of being! This duplicity, this paradox, continues to confound us in our aesthetics, entertainment, morality, etiquette, and conceptions of the future. We’re content to simply exist on surfaces. As soon as we delve into the depths, indifference and pessimism overwhelm us. No tribe exists without gods, and we must forge our own gods or rediscover them. We must be more conscientious and willful than any other nation.”

  Orhan broke from his observation of Nuran: “In that case, you’re of the opinion that a crisis is inevitable and unavoidable.”

  “Not simply inevitable. I believe we’re experiencing it now.” İhsan took a long sip from his glass. “Wherever I look, my ideas don’t encounter anything that can hold out against them. Like an animal trying to make a nest on pliant ground, I can focus my concentration wherever I want to. But this ease is detrimental. It might seem that we can go wherever we want, but we always end up in the same void, amid decayed roots or among a host of possibilities that amount to nothing but impossibility itself. Of course, this stupefies us. Today one could say that a country like Turkey might become anything. Meanwhile, Turkey should become only one thing, and that’s Turkey. This is only possible if it develops through its own contingencies. As for us, we possess nothing besides habits and a name, we hold nothing definite in hand. We know what our society is called as well as its population and territorial extent. Of course, I’m not referring to everyone and I’m not talking about vague intimations. I’m referring to culture in the shape of pure knowledge and ethics. But what of context and potential? We were born out of the collapse of an old agrarian empire. And we’re still floundering in its economic mode of production. More than half of our population isn’t engaged in any form of production. And those who produce don’t do so effectively. They just work and expend their energy. But he who toils in vain tires quickly. Take a look, we’re all exhausted! Neither factors of human labor nor land reform have been taken into close consideration with respect to our economy or existence. We can’t seem to get beyond the isolated efforts of individuals. Today’s labor should increase tomorrow’s pace of progress. We’re living in a dynamic geography full of predicaments; the world is increasingly moving toward unity; crises are erupting one after another. Granted, at present we’re in relative calm. We’ve bound ourselves economically to Central Europe, and through clearing accounts we get by one way or another. But this delicate agreement might be upset, and what’ll we do then? Anyway, this isn’t the real matter at hand; the real issue rests in not being able to incorporate land and human labor into our lives. We have forty-three thousand villages and a few hundred towns. Venture out beyond İzmit to Anatolia, or beyond Hadımköy to Thrace. Except for a few combines, you’ll find the persistence of traditional farming. The terrain sits idle in places. We have to embark upon a rigorous politics of population management and production. And we’re faced with similar exigencies in matters of education and training. We have a certain number of schools and we teach various subjects. But we’re striving only to fill a deficient civil service administration, nothing more. What will we do the day that administration is complete? We’ve made it customary to educate children to set ages. Wonderful! One day, however, these schools will only graduate a cadre of unemployed, and a class of quasiintellectuals will permeate society. Then what? Another crisis. Meanwhile, we could put the education system into the service of economic production, thereby increasing domestic trade. This is the crux of the issue. Developing the domestic market. We could create a semi-agricultural, semi-industrial workforce. We have such exceptional resources in need of manufacturing. Take Istanbul. Only recently it was a city of elite consumers. All the goods of the Near East flowed here. To such a degree that once every thirty years the city burned to the ground, and yet the estates, manor houses, Bosphorus yalis, markets, and bazaars were practically rebuilt from scratch. The farm animals of old Yanya, the tobacco of Yenice, Egyptian cotton, in short, the products of half the Islamic world were consumed in this city. Now eighty percent of the population consists of small-scale traders. At every step there’s a small workshop, a tobacco works, or this or that type of factory, and guess how they all get by? Most often by gathering what’s produced in the ground. Meanwhile, in Istanbul, a coordinated effort could transform the face of society in twenty years’ time. Take Eastern Anatolia. There you’ll find a treasury of immense possibilities in agriculture and animal husbandry. Begin from the Tortum waterfall in the north and phase by phase bring electricity southward to the Mediterranean. Not to mention that the Sea of Marmara is slumbering within its own riches.”

  “Fine, but what’s the relationship between this and the concept of humanity or spiritual man that you just mentioned? You’re talking about nothing more than transforming life’s material means.”

  “People are also a material part of life. Haven’t you read Charles Péguy? What a turn of phrase. Searing. Poverty makes man more decent and noble. But destitution makes him primitive and impoverished of soul. It destroys the human in humanity. Human honor is only possible with a given level of welfare. A level of welfare that enables employment! I’m not referring to the welfare along the Thames or to American enterprise, of course. My point is that a society that has reached the meager welfare we’ve been able to foster is certain to resort to the very gods that it appears to have cast aside. Social life discovers the values around which it orbits, and a guiding principle anticipates a community that has turned to face contentment. In place of certain haphazard individual efforts, the collective fosters a sense of responsibility.”

  As he spoke, his expression changed. Mümtaz was pleased that they were conversing like old times.

  “One of our poets claims that it would have been great had Sultan Selim III learned a little political history in place of studying geometry. We might add that it would have been great had the men of the Tanzimat known something of political economy. Not to mention that there was quite an interest in learning about it. But by whom? Sultan Abdülhamit learned from Münif Pasha. It’s unclear what the latter knew, and the former was an
unfortunate man embalmed in his own paranoia, a sultan mad for power who incarcerated himself in a palace for thirty years until 1908. He was Turkey’s public enemy number one. You know those unfortunates sentenced to a hundred and one years. He was one of them! What came afterward is well known. Suddenly we pass on to the dictates of historical events. We remained under such influences until the national victory in the early twenties.”

  Orhan stretched lethargically. The sunshine was quite exquisite and comforting!

  “Okay then, won’t all of this come about on its own over time? Or rather, aren’t these developments that will happen in time?”

  “Impossible, because time changes according to context. The time of the growing child is different than that of the ill. We’re outside universal time. What I mean to say is that we must change our pace of time. We must catch up to the world. My perspective promotes our participation and progress as part of the procession even if we’re at the end of the line, so that from one particular path we might reach the promenade. Time is, doubtless, a factor, but one that’s different for the world and different for nations that have joined in the global workforce, and completely different for us in our present-day circumstances. If we just leave it alone, it won’t serve our interests but will pull everything down into the depths, as with others in our predicament. Instead of giving us wings, it’ll shackle our feet. No, as Shakespeare said, we have to sprint toward time. We have to grapple with it. We must persevere through our willpower. First we must acknowledge our circumstances. Then we must prioritize our tasks. Slowly and surely we must emerge into the global market. We must open our own markets to our own production. We must remake the family, houses, cities, and the village . . . As a consequence, we shall also remake humanity. Till now we haven’t been able to focus on the human factor in a constructive way; rather, we’ve pursued numerous social and cultural reforms. We’ve been trying to achieve the freedom of establishing political opposition within our society. From this necessity we now need to awaken to greater and more essential challenges. One can’t just keep on leveling the field. We need to erect an edifice on that field. What will this edifice be? Who knows the capacity of the new men and women of Turkey? We only know one thing: the necessity of relying on established roots. If we fail to do so, we won’t be able to move beyond a state of duplicity. Treaties and agreements are always risky. Tomorrow we might have to pay for the ease that they provide today through the obstacles they cause. We must be very explicit.”