Ahmet Tanpinar - A Mind at Peace

Nuran’s uncle Tevfik had quite a different disposition from her mother’s. As a young lieutenant colonel, he’d marched into Istanbul along with the Army of Action to put down the 1909 Islamic counterrevolution against the Union and Progress government. During the Union and Progress era, he was able to capitalize on some opportunity or other that had arisen and entered into business; he’d faced bankruptcy numerous times; finally, he managed to extricate himself with enough capital so as not to be beholden to anyone. When he’d lost his wife twelve years ago, he moved into his sister’s house, together with his son, who hadn’t succeeded in arranging a marriage. In particular, the last dozen years of Tevfik’s life under his father’s roof were truly bizarre in light of the notorious name he’d made for himself as a gambler, a carouse, and a philanderer during the armistice years after 1918 in the bustling Beyoǧlu district. Indeed, he’d dedicated these last dozen years to the memory of his father, whose name he couldn’t have recalled previously without stopping to think. He’d collected all his father’s calligraphy, imperial insignias, the books he’d had bound, the plates he’d embellished at the Yıldız ceramics factory, and the glassware he’d helped decorate. Tevfik confided various personal details about his father and brother-in-law Rasim to Mümtaz. He showed him ornamental plates, explained the stories behind candelabra and confectionary bowls, and, surprisingly, had managed to collect these objects in just a decade. Tevfik, meanwhile, found it quite natural. “The whole of Istanbul is on sale at the bazaar, my dear boy,” he said. Thereafter, passing through the Bedesten or perusing antique shops with İhsan, Mümtaz better understood how he’d often blindly passed before many exquisite pieces, thanks to the objects Tevfik had shown him that day, like calligraphy panels, tapestries, and “menageries of glass” — a phrase Nuran had uttered unexpectedly and that Mümtaz couldn’t recall without a chuckle.

As Tevfik sought out his father’s objets d’art embellished with the aid of his gilding jar, hair-tipped pen, fine brush, and his search for a palette of colors that resembled a kind of anxiety and escape, he’d become a small-scale collector. Mümtaz was astounded that this final and intricate renaissance of Turkish sensibility had remained so obscure. Neither the poets nor novelists of the fin de siècle Edebiyat-ı Cedid movement of modern literature, nor the newspaper collections that he’d combed at one time while doing research for İhsan, could convey the era of Sultan Abdülhamit II as much as these “menageries of glass” — where had Nuran found this phrase that was yet another facet of her girlish imagination? Whenever he recalled the phrase, he’d conjure his beloved among subtle and pastel-hued glassware: antique, spiral-patterned “nightingale’s nest” vessels of indigo, terra-cotta red, and robin’s egg blue; rococo, hull-shaped fruit bowls or plates covered with the ornamental designs of leather-bound tomes; and Nuran would appropriate the refractions and timbre of all these delicate and fragile pieces requiring an infinitude of care. Doubtless, they contained hints of a la franga modernity. But they still represented a distinct aesthetic.

The gentleman Tevfik most admired after his father was his sister’s husband. He’d kept almost everything belonging to Rasim, conserving in a state of timeless preservation pictures, notes made in his own hand, Ottomanscript penmanship workbooks, and all variety of full-size ney -flutes and half-length nısfiye flutes. Opposite a calligraphy panel of his father’s, hung a photograph of Rasim taken with his uniform of distinguished rank and his decorations. Mümtaz read the calligraphy first:

Through the favor and munificence of the exalted Lord we were delivered.

“In the year of the Hegira 1313, or A.D. 1895, a lengthy secret police file on my father was submitted to Sultan Abdülhamit II. He was detained at the Yıldız Palace for ten nights. When he was freed he made a calligraphy panel of this verse by Nâilî. Look closely, among the ornamental arabesques is an image of the divan upon which he’d slept for ten nights.” The depiction of a broad divan appeared repeatedly among the roses and vines that bordered the couplet like a garden wall. The arabesque designs and geometric shapes, the ordered roses and flowers against the gilded and pale red background, had been calculated and arranged with such skill and precision that without being told so, the divan motif wasn’t at all obvious.

Mümtaz later dwelled upon this element of realism that amounted to the marring, in a respect, of late Ottoman calligraphic art.

Tevfik had attained a profundity of sorts in this passion to which he’d succumbed. The objects among which he’d lived unawares for fifty years had suddenly come to life and taken on meaning for him. This was no anomaly for Tevfik; he was made to persevere. Despite his seventy-four years, he was possessed of quite a mellifluous baritone; he still took his drink each evening, enjoyed the friendship of young and becoming ladies, and on some autumn nights even went out to catch swordfish with the neighborhood fishermen. “The traditional Zeybek dance that I dance, any old efe militiaman couldn’t do. Especially your top-hat-and-tails efe s, never.” He’d made this quip as he recollected the Zeybek dance that two MPs had done together in 1926 at a ball: “I immediately signaled the orchestra and stood up. Everyone was stunned. The Zeybek is an altogether dramatic performance; if it doesn’t clear the dance floor, it hasn’t been successful.”

“I’ve seen it once. In Antalya, but I was little. Two efe s from Demirci had made a wager. Lamb and baklava was prepared. People feasted on the street, then under the light of torches…”

Tevfik, gesturing to Nuran, said, “This one has a knack for it.”

“You don’t say? I had no idea.”

Nuran, her expression belying annoyance: “Hadn’t I mentioned it to you, Mümtaz? I know most Anatolian folk dances.”

But Tevfik wasn’t only the faithful warden of things past or the best Zeybek dancer of his circle. One of his greatest qualities or pleasures was preparing an assortment of delicacies to accompany rakı.

As Mümtaz regarded Tevfik, his admiration grew.

“Isn’t it astounding how my uncle resembles my father in many aspects?”

Toward evening, Tevfik disappeared. But when he reappeared an hour later, the spread on the rakı table constituted a spectacle of indulgence.

“Above all, rakı must be drunk slowly… over a considerable duration of time, only then will the bouquet of its essence emerge.”

The everyday comfort and joie de vivre of this old Istanbul effedi were quite rarely seen today. For the sacrament of food alone, he had a special calendar. No one knew better than him which fish was best caught in which season and locale, and what dishes could be prepared with an early seasonal offering or with seafood during such and such a month.

“Ebuzziya, may his soul rest in peace, used to put out a calendar when we were young. You couldn’t imagine a more intricate undertaking. It was full of recipes translated from the French and procured from small Beyoǧlu restaurants. When I saw two or three copies, I was mad with envy. Later my interest was sparked.”

On gastronomic subjects Tevfik was methodological. For him the essence of gastronomy lay in the ingredients. For this reason, sine qua non was a calendar for each season and month, even a daily almanac that indicated the Bosphorus southerlies and northerlies, lodos and poyraz .