Ahmet Tanpinar - A Mind at Peace

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 makam s 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 entice 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.

Meanwhile, Mümtaz and Nuran apparently got along swimmingly without having to rely on her at all. Unforgivable. For quite some time now, she’d accepted being a catalyst of sorts between the sexes. This natural inclination ruled her home life and her days. Men and women were welcome to come, give each other the once-over, and even fall madly in love, but only under the rays of her golden orb, only if they depended on her mediation. After such an introduction, she might make mention of Nuran to Mümtaz, exciting his curiosity with subtle strokes, almost as if needling him, and on the next day, during another visit, she might do the same to Nuran, thus bestirring thoughts in both, before one night inviting them for an evening meal; thereby, she’d make the couple something like fixtures of the house, of dinnertime, and of the evening hours that she could not fill by herself! How she loved when a couple of her design sparked and caught fire. But she was not amused in the least by relationships so intense that they established an insular, independent life — under which circumstances she’d be forgotten whether she liked it or not. She took all necessary precautions to avoid such an outcome. She did, however, love to watch an incipient friendship develop step-by-step toward full-fledged love, to hear all the petite intimacies as confidant to each party, and to resolve any potential misunderstandings. Though if the matter grew and the relationship became truly serious, she would exert all of the efforts within her means to distance the lovers from one another, and because these efforts rested on well nigh ten or twelve years’ experience, more often than not, she succeeded. This much was certain: Adile could douse the flames of love as well as ignite them. Regardless, she held the institution of marriage in high esteem. She’d be much more content, however, if the women she knew married outside of her own milieu. She wanted to keep her friends to herself. They were available for limited dalliances only. Adile wasn’t so unrefined as to speak openly about this. Even if in the end the couple were to marry, Adile’s assistance should be sought in establishing the conjugal nest. Were the hardships of this life something worth enduring without such moments of satisfaction? Meanwhile, Mümtaz and Nuran had begun this flirtation through their own acquaintance. Adile, coincidently, had long felt the urge to initiate something between them. However, when she now saw the way Mümtaz gazed at the young lady, she quickly changed her mind about inviting them to her dinner table three days hence.