Ahmet Tanpinar - A Mind at Peace

On the fifth day he reaped the rewards of his vigilance. İclâl was on the ferry. In the joy of this happenstance, he restrained himself from jumping into the air only with great difficulty. He caught up with her at the landing. İclâl hadn’t imagined she’d ever run into him there. Mümtaz claimed that he’d arranged to meet a friend who hadn’t yet arrived.

Nuran hadn’t assumed that Mümtaz would attempt such intricate gallantry. When she heard İclâl’s story, she laughed as well.

“Why didn’t you bring him along?”

“Honestly, I did think of it, but I didn’t dare without asking you first.”

“I’ve already met him.”

“On the ferry to the island… Apparently you were with Adile. She sends her regards… She said that if it suits us, we should pay her a visit in the afternoon and that she’d entertain us.”

When they came down to the landing, they found Mümtaz paddling lazily to and fro. He greeted them with a chuckle. “I’d hoped you’d come,” he said.

Nuran found his face thinner than before and suntanned. When the women boarded the boat, he went to the stern.

“What’s this, aren’t we going to sail?”

İclâl and Nuran preferred sailing, its thrill, and the slight headiness caused by the waves: the rolling undulations of the Bosphorus shoreline, the off-point moves that recalled dancing with a capable lead, gliding through the sunlight and the sea. But Mümtaz insisted it wasn’t the right time for sailing. It was still much too early in the season for them to savor this delight. Not to mention that their clothing might be ruined. They hadn’t dressed for such an outing.

İclâl, in her navy blue ensemble, was fit for an afternoon tea party. Nuran had lent İclâl a gray overcoat. She wore a red-striped beige outfit, and the lapel of her jacket revealed a yellow sweater lending the exposed portion of her neck a softer and more velvety appearance. Evidently she’d arranged her hair at the last minute with a few randomly placed barrettes.

Her appearance, rather more striking through this hasty primping, revealed the ambivalence that had persisted until the very last. Mümtaz felt his veins ignite with the desire to sink his face into the nocturne of her hair. Throughout his whole being radiated the fatigue of one who hadn’t slept in a dog’s age.

İclâl admired the caïque. “I’m no expert, but it’s nice,” she said.

Nuran completed İclâl’s comment as if she were more closely familiar with seagoing: “It’s a nice boat; it would stand up well in most situations, fishing, touring, or sailing. And it’s quite new.”

From the end of the rowboat, Mehmet the oarsman answered, holding the boat by one hand on the quay, “I could go all the way to İzmit with this.” The presence and demeanor of the young women pleased him. This was the first time he’d seen Mümtaz, whom he called aǧabey , with friends of such variety and he was happy for him. But when they stepped into the boat, he started as if a load of glassware had been entrusted to him. His woman was of a different ilk. To his taste, he preferred women like the girlfriend of the coffeehouse apprentice at Boyacıköy. One could rely on them at life’s every turn. These women here were probably frail; but he had nothing to say against their appearance.

“Do you like to go fishing?”

“Before my father passed away, we’d go out… to be honest, before I got married.”

At this midafternoon hour, the wind had seemingly retreated to certain strategic vantage points. First they headed down toward the district of Beylerbeyi. Then they returned by the same route. They passed the villages of Anadoluhisarı and Kanlıca. At Akıntıburnu the wind and the waves embraced them as if they’d actually emerged out into the open sea.

Only an arm’s length away onshore were parks, a path where children tried to fly kites, fruit boughs in bloom, and fishermen apprenticing in patience with their poles and lines. Beneath them the sea gushed in vast layers of current, spiriting them through the sounds and scents of bewildering invitations.

Mümtaz was conveying the treasure of his life. For this reason he hesitated. “I’m both Caesar as well as his oarsman. So, this is the outer limit of our excursion.”

He’d said this while staring into Nuran’s eyes. But Nuran was preoccupied only with the surrounding views and somewhat with herself. Over the past five days she’d come to an array of decisions; on one hand, she found her house and life tedious and grew impatient for the young man’s invitation; on the other hand, staring at her daughter’s bedstead resting beside her own, she believed that no external force could disturb her own repose. But there it was; after an argument with herself that lasted three hours, she’d gone out. Was she being spineless? Or was it the exercise of one’s inborn rights? She didn’t know. She only knew that she’d plopped like an anchor into the boat with the weight of her entire existence. On the way back they stopped at Emirgân Park. The season of the café had begun. There were habitués of all ages and walks of life. They partook of the approaching evening and spring with the understanding that they’d simply leave early if the temperature dropped suddenly.

Springtime was intense and tremulous, like a tertian fever during convalescence. Over the extent of the outing, they’d sensed this tremor. Everything melded together in the consternation and excitement of fresh, pliant leaves and bright colors, of the discovery of self and shadow in blazing white radiance. From the hilltops where they’d congregated, the heliotrope, the crimson, the burgundy, the pink, and the verdure assaulted one’s casing of skin.

Here, however, at this open-air café, spring was only a small contraction, a yearning for life. They huddled together with hot teas in tulip-shaped glasses, among the crowd, and with that bizarre sensation brought about by observing from the vantage of another shore and in completely new light the places they’d just passed.

“Okay, then, please do tell us why you’ve besieged the shores of Kandilli?”

Mümtaz bowed his head to hide the blush of his cheeks. “I don’t know if you could call it a siege. Access by land is completely open. I only took the ferry landing under my command.” He laughed, making a gesture that seemed to say, “That’s all I could do. What else should I have done?” Yet his expression declared, “I’ve suffered through this week.” A hint in his laugh revealed that his entire face was prepared to accept this torment, which could only be discerned in the rims of his eyes and his lips.

“Why don’t you tell us about the matter of the palace in Kandilli, Mümtaz?”

Mümtaz racked his brain for the information he’d imparted to İclâl that morning. “A vision… up in smoke. We began looking for the context of a line of verse. To be honest, now, it was all rather fanciful.” But he had to say something more. “There was a date given for the restoration of the palace. Of course, neither palace nor its foundation exists today. Not to mention the old gardens. But the line of verse exists:

Yet again Kandilli of yore showers sparks along the shore

“It’s a trick that this line has played on me.” Next he talked of the Kanlıca inlet and the Bosphorus villages of Kandilli, Çengelköy, and Vaniköy. He had an odd erudition. Rather than knowledge per se, he was interested in bygone lives. “Indivduals are of paramount importance. What’s the rest of it to me? In the furnace of time, an individual’s life burns away as quickly as a leaf of paper, perhaps. Maybe life is actually a comic game, as some philosophers maintain; in complete desperation a slew of hesitations and trivial, hopeless defensive stances, even phantasies, under the guise of decisions. Be that as it may, the life of an individual who has actually lived is still of great consequence. Because no matter how comic it might be, we cannot completely reject life. Even through our mental anxieties, we still seek out values in life, whether ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ We make allowances for love and desire. We distinguish between living creatively and losing ourselves in petty squabbles and wastefulness.”