A Mind at Peace

by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar

  I’m feeble, a feeble man simply created out of weakness. Which of us isn’t? As he uttered this last part, he realized that he had Suad in mind. In the little coffeehouse that he’d ducked into, he removed Suad’s letter from his pocket and began to read it for the umpteenth time.

  It was a long, cynical letter that mocked almost everything, full of the quiet torments suffered by the inner self. As Mümtaz read, he sensed that Suad had seized him at a profound level. He didn’t ascribe to any of his ideas. But he did share in his anguish. Mümtaz realized that Suad would no longer let him be himself, that he’d become part of the realities of his everyday life. Then he remembered what they’d discussed the day Mümtaz first saw Nuran, as Mümtaz accompanied Suad to the ferry that would take him to the sanatorium.

  As usual, when they were parting, Suad teased him. “Don’t look at my face with such remorse as if I’m actually dead,” he’d said. “I have absolutely no intention of surrendering this world to you alone.”

  Suad had indeed kept his word. However his jest had unsettled Mümtaz then, now that it had become a reality, albeit differently and more poignantly, it continued to gnaw at him.

  The notion of Suad, like the notion of Nuran, like all the rest, wouldn’t let him be, and insomuch as Mümtaz would bear these notions for the duration of his days, he’d be rent asunder by countless maelstroms.

  Part IV

  Mümtaz

  I

  It was twenty past five by the time Mümtaz returned to Eminönü after taking leave of İclâl and Muazzez. He watched trolley-borne crowds rejecting each effort made to board. Short of another option, he could hail a taxi. But then he’d arrive at Beyazıt early. He’d run into Orhan that morning and had said, “Expect me at six o’clock at the Küllük coffeehouse!” There was time yet. He didn’t want to sit in the coffeehouse by himself before they arrived. He knew so many people . . . For the first time in a fortnight he was to meet up with friends, and he worried that hangers-on would disturb their gathering. I’m a defenseless man!

  His own thought stunned him; indeed, he was a defenseless man. At will others could impose themselves and their desires on him. And was that all? His thoughts perpetually orbitted Nuran. But he hadn’t been as battered and bruised as he’d feared. He trudged absently in the quiet reserve of one accustomed to the betrayals of fate. Beneath the archway of the Yeni Cami, so pleasing to him on a breezy summer day, he once again repeated, I’m a defenseless man ... Anyone could just walk away with everything I have.

  He stopped temporarily amid the throngs of Sultanhamam and looked around. This must certainly be the busiest place in the city: a seething array of people, automobiles, and trucks. A modern painter could represent this jumble framed by caravanserai windows without it being a facile statement! But the cacophony of it all.

  Fine, but why am I not thinking about Nuran? Or rather, why can’t I? It was as if İclâl and Muazzez had absolved him of all of his troubles, the torment that rent his heart, and even the opulent love he’d shared with Nuran. I’m close to saying that I’m relieved this matter is finally over! He traced this change in himself with curiosity and trepidation. Not that he’d completely forgotten about Nuran; indeed, he was walking alongside a phantasy of her, as though they were separated by great distances, vast currents of water, or unknown obstacles. This must be an effect of death’s etiquette! The old saw about water under the bridge came to mind. It resembled that.

  He slowly climbed the hill. Death gives rise to the human capacity for accepting the inevitable! Maybe this was a natural effect of such situations. War was imminent. He’d witnessed with his own eyes how the black market had come to life. But he wasn’t too distraught over that, either; at least he didn’t harbor any feelings of revolt. Seeing as it’s a forgone conclusion. Seeing as there’s no recourse! Why should he be so agitated? Through the lens of war he again looked around. Would the market be able to sustain this level of commerce in six months? Of course, the abundance in these shops wouldn’t last. He skeptically scrutinized the display windows full of fabrics, ladies’ apparel, faience earthenware, and everyday bric-a-brac. Automobiles plied the crowds, parting person from person and pushing them out of the way.

  A street porter approached in slow motion, bearing a massive load on his back, his neck and torso weighted down under the burden. Walking toward Mümtaz from the crest of the hill, the porter’s two arms dangled at either side, and in a rather bold economy of line, his forehead and cheeks appeared to meld as his chin remained tucked away and out of sight. For Mümtaz, this anatomical geometry recalled Pierre Puget’s caryatids in Toulon. But he immediately doubted his own description. Did such an economy of line truly exist? The porter, more exactly, in order to see his way, trudged forward with his entire face exposed upright. It’s rather that his head isn’t situated upon his shoulders but appears to emerge from his torso. Voilà, this was a head that had been adjoined to the torso. But that wasn’t quite accurate either. We’re unable to see! We pay scant attention to detail! We simply speak from rote! Large beads of sweat poured from the man’s forehead; as he passed Mümtaz, he wiped his forehead with his hand so the droplets wouldn’t obscure his line of sight. Mümtaz intricately recalled the gesture of the thick, dark hand : It alone constituted a nightmare.

  The measure of the porter’s entire corpus served to gauge his every step. He saw with his eyes, though he surveyed, weighed, and considered with each step. No, maybe he didn’t consider, but only surveyed. Mümtaz stopped again to look back. The porter was only seven or eight strides beyond him. Where the edge of the weighty wooden crate ended began the full, formless, patchwork drape of white muslin pantaloons. He doesn’t resemble Puget’s giants at all. They display an expression of taut muscle and might emanating from the entire body. Meanwhile, this poor man has been swallowed whole by the load on his back! In his mind’s eye, Mümtaz once again conjured the man’s face in all its vividness. It bore neither any expression of strength nor any trace of thought. The porter signified stride only, stride and one more stride. He lived diminished, fragmented by the steps of his own feet. Only his hands exhibited astounding fortitude.

  Mümtaz shook his head, remembering the well-intentioned law that had gone into effect a few years ago prohibiting the transport of cargo on the backs of men. For a few days the heart of Istanbul had been a picture of utter confusion. Newly instituted handcarts and wagons had congested the roads and the business of transport had actually grown more laborious. Then, slowly, the law was forgotten and everything returned to the status quo; this porter and his like had been reunited with their work, and the natural order had returned. Just like the League of Nations, like peace conferences, like the desire for vast cooperative ventures, antiwar propaganda and protest art. The individuals of our age and the fate of this porter melded in Mümtaz’s thoughts, both were manifestations of lack and impossibility.

  Who was he? How did he live and what did he think about? Was he married and did he have children? The wares he’d seen a few hours ago at the flea market, the multitude of those cheap overalls and faded dresses were meant for the likes of him. People whose lives he’d never be able to fully fathom. On occasion in newspapers, amid big, serious debates, photographs of stars mollycoddled like life’s rare flowers, and the faits accomplis of world events, a two- or three-line anecdote, report of a murder or an unexpected death might appear – momentarily illuminating the lives of such riffraff, who remained in shadow though living in plain sight – solely because the passing glint of a gun, a dagger, or a Bursa-forged knife shone above them or a collapsing building had crushed them – before they were forgotten yet again. Mümtaz thought of the poor living in houses of mud brick and tin below Taksim Square, on one side of the hill that descended down to Fındıklı, around Unkapanı. Streets in which dirty water and sewage flowed openly, where children of blind chance grew and matured till they transferred their primary haunts to dry fountain basins, sidewalks, or underpasses.

  How many
wars did it take to put us into these circumstances? Since A.H. 1293, the Russo-Ottoman War of 1878, an array of disasters caused the influx of the downtrodden into Istanbul, and it was unclear whether these refugees were peasants or city folk, as they didn’t fit into any evident category besides “destitute” or “needy.” Now it’s Europe’s turn! Of course it wouldn’t happen through a single war. But who says the matter will be confined to one war?

  If war breaks out, that porter will be conscripted! I will too! But there’s a difference between us. I’m familiar with Hitler’s madness and he infuriates me. I’d fight him with pleasure. But this poor man is ignorant of Germany and these ideas. He’ll be fighting a cause that he doesn’t know about or recognize, and he’ll likely die in the process!

  He stopped and asked himself solemnly: Okay then, what’s the upshot?

  He couldn’t conceive of any upshot. Someone among the street crowd deliberately brushed up against his body, walking briskly away before turning down an alley a short distance ahead. Mümtaz glanced in his direction. “Peculiar,” he repeated. The man resembled Suad. But Suad is dead. To confirm the resemblance, he glanced in that direction again. Someone who actually did resemble Suad gazed at him from afar, smirking. The man wore a leaden sharkskin suit and held his fedora in his hand. “Impossible,” he said. Or are the dead no longer buried properly?

  This thought bothered him. It’s inappropriate for me to make a mockery of a tragedy. Not to mention that I’m more or less responsible for his suicide. Or rather Nuran and I. If only he hadn’t found that key and come to the apartment; if only we hadn’t made such an ordeal in plain sight. But it wasn’t just the couple. There was a third person. On his last night, Suad was accompanied by a waif or stray girl that he’d met on the Bosphorus ferry dock. She’d forced him to reassess his life. His letter stated, “It was then that I suddenly saw my life in all clarity, and in short, I was disgusted.” A tinge of responsibility for the suicide fell to this unfortunate girl who had no fault besides being young and untrammeled by life. “I immediately sought Allah. Ah, were I a believer, everything would have been so easy and natural . . .” But why had Suad sought Allah by such circuitous means? Why hadn’t he sought Him out directly?

  As a matter of course, the girl would have read of Suad’s death in the papers. How distraught she must have been. How she must have writhed. Why? Because she’d entered a man’s life, for only one night, from the peripheries, because she had no place to stay and couldn’t afford a room in a hotel. The ways that people exploited one another.

  His thoughts lurched. He saw Suad in the entrée of the house in Emirgân, on the night he’d spoken so convolutedly before the rakı table. Emin Dede had only just left! His surroundings suddenly transformed. A voice, a voice from within him, repeated Rumi’s initial couplet from the Ferahfezâ ceremonial suite. As if he were weeping in the wake of a sun he’d no longer see, yearning stirred within him. Never again would he be able to see Nuran. Or Suad.

  Suad, yet again? He’d been obsessed with Suad for three days now. And last night in my dreams. Of course, an omen of news to come.

  He realized that he’d been under sway of the rüya since morning. But he hadn’t been able to pinpoint the dream itself. He only knew that he’d struggled with Suad the entire night. I was in an enormous house. Yes, an enormous house. An array of corridors, halls, and rooms. I was searching for Nuran, opening each and every room and looking inside. But in each I discovered only Suad. I’d quickly apologize to him for disturbing him unnecessarily. He’d cackle and nod his head . . .

  How bizarre: The man who’d brushed past him had cackled like Suad in his dream. Yes, exactly so! But did such a man really exist? It was obvious. Suad was here with him. And perhaps the stray girl and Nuran now recollected Suad the way Mümtaz did. He repeated the first couplet of the Ferahfezâ again. Oddly, amid the melody’s roses of lust, rather than a vision of Nuran, he saw Suad: In my haste to be married, I treated his demise as nothing but a small setback . . .

  He stopped and wiped his forehead with his hand, just like the porter had done in the middle of the road only one stride from him. But his hands didn’t resemble the porter’s. Mümtaz’s hands didn’t directly engage in life. They hadn’t been cured in life’s forge. The porter’s hands were black, rough, and thick with distended veins. Mine are white, refined, soft ... And he studied his hands with rapt attention. Suddenly he again recalled the night in Emirgân and the moment he’d parted from Suad at the crest of the hill. He’d extricated his hands from Suad’s grasp with difficulty. And I couldn’t look him in the eye. Allah, will this slope never end? Or is this my Via Crucis and is Suad my crucifix?

  Mümtaz looked around, wiping his brow once more. But what right did he have to intrude into my life, into our lives? Forget about us. What about that wayward girl? “One can’t live without trusting others!” She’d said this to Suad. Poor lamb! He continued to walk. But Suad wouldn’t quit his thoughts. What kind of letter was that? Why had he written it? He began to recite inwardly the sentences that remained in his memory:Do you know, Mümtaz, what constitutes the most pathetic aspect of our fate? It’s that mankind is preoccupied solely with itself. The entire structure is built upon this foundation, both subjectively and objectively. Whether mindful of it or not, mankind expends its fellow man like material fodder. Our spite, our malice, our desire for greatness, our love, our despair, and our hopes are all bound to others. If you did away with beggars and the poor, no mercy or divine grace would remain and we’d fast become wretched. There are no two ways about it, humans are preoccupied with humanity. People exist by imposing on others. Even artists are this way. Even those you say have “saintly souls.” That night, how Dede Efendi impinged upon us. In the violin concerto that I’ve listened to for one last time, how Beethoven imposed upon me. And the musicians, more so than others. Even you, Mümtaz, the things you say without considering your own position, not to mention in that awkward manner of yours. If you weren’t so tedious, or . . .

  He shook his head remorsefully. He always despised me. But to what end did he die? Why did he burden us this way? Seeing that he knew all this. Everything İhsan said was true. Only he’s quite tiresome, even more so than you. One can at least tease you. İhsan, moreover, has a rational mind.

  He hurried on his way. I’ve memorized the entire letter! If only he’d heeded İhsan’s advice and taken a trip. He would have forgotten everything by now. But which of İhsan’s ideas had Suad found to be truthful? “Mankind is responsible for all Creation.” Yes, it was this one. Suad said, “Truthful, but foolish. I mean, it gives the impression of truth on first glance.” And a short while later he began objecting to it; this was his nature. He was certain to attack whatever he’d admired a moment before. “Unfortunate humanity! Which notion of responsibility? Like Joyce’s Leopold Bloom, perched atop our own anxieties, we’re spouting philosophy and poetry.”

  He recalled the expressions contorting Nuran’s face when she first read this letter. But he wasn’t able to conjure the scene the way it had happened; frequently Nuran’s head, along with Suad’s head, bowed over the page. Mümtaz made a hand gesture as if to shoo him away. But his subsequent thought was a response to Suad: I accept responsibility for my ideas. You think how you want to think! And without a pause, he returned to thoughts of the porter. I can certainly send him off to war with people he doesn’t know. Seeing as I have conviction. There’s a litany of things that I believe need protection. If need be, I can expend people like cannon fodder as well! The porter would perish. Absolutely. And even worse. He’d end up killing somebody. One or a number of others. For what else but the sake of humanity!

  No, Suad had no admiration for Mümtaz. Because he accepted responsibility for his thoughts. But were the porter’s wife and children amenable? His thoughts roamed through the mean and constricting corners of the city, through the mud-brick hovels on streets flowing with filthy water. Why? So their grandchildren might be content and comfortable
. . . But the porter’s wife wasn’t willing. Wearing the gaudy wedding gown that he’d seen that morning in a flea market shopwindow, she begged of Mümtaz, Don’t send him off! Don’t send him! If he goes, what will become of me and the children? Who’ll take care of us? And she wept at his feet in the gown purchased from a discounter. On the way here he’d seen new conscripts at the Sirkeci train station, inductees who hadn’t yet been issued uniforms. Accompanying them were young fiancées and mothers holding the hands of their children, all walking in tears.

  I do take responsibility for my ideas. Had Suad heard this sentence, he would have keeled over in laughter, “Which ideas, my dear Mümtaz?” But Suad was of a different stripe. He never did like me. He never did take me seriously. Yet I can’t help but like him.

  Did he truly like Suad? Had he truly liked anybody, ever? The fact was that Nuran had left him; she didn’t have a single decent thought for him. İhsan was ill while Mümtaz aimlessly wandered the city streets. Macide forced me, Suad. She said, “Don’t come home before dark! Go out and get some air, otherwise you’ll fall ill as well! I can’t look after you, too!” He’d been reduced to defending himself before the judgment of a corpse.

  He wiped his brow with a hand. Why am I so obsessed with him anyway? He tried not to think about Suad. He wanted to remember a time before all this, a period of trivial and blithe concerns.

  “Best not to think about anything!” He hastily passed through the Kazanci market. He walked before Istanbul University’s dental school, scattering the covey of pigeons that he’d fed that very morning. Then he crossed the square. He strode apace by café tables beneath the sprawling chestnut to avoid being stopped by an acquaintance and entered the Beyazıt Mosque courtyard. He glanced at the clock out of the corner of his eye: ten to six. They must have arrived by now!