Ahmet Tanpinar - A Mind at Peace

Mümtaz had no intention of denying the present hour.

He experienced it distinctly through Nuran’s face and imagination, and through the nocturnal Bosphorus that had become her earthly peer. Presently, her sweet state of intoxication merged with the benighted Bosphorus. Nuran’s face gradually assumed intensity by internal surges and radiated inner light just like this blue nocturne.

“It’s not that I’m not living in the moment. But, you came to me at such an unexpected time, when my experience of women and life was so slight; I’m at a loss as to what to do. Intellect, aesthetics, and lust for life all intersected in you. All of it merged through your person. I’m afflicted by the disease of being unable to think beyond you.”

Nuran indicated the rising moon with a smile.

The ridge of one of the opposite hilltops reddened. A fine shimmer of radiance appeared, resembling half of a fabled fruit, and at once the deep cerulean clarity of the nocturne transformed.

“Whereas you’d once maintained that one had to separate existence from other notions. You said it was the inaccessible section of the house. Neither love nor other realms of life could intrude upon it.”

Mümtaz abandoned the fabled fruit sliver: “That’s what I’d once said. But with you it changed. I no longer think through my head but through your body. Your body is the abode of my intellect now.”

Then Mümtaz explained the game he’d once made up as a boy: “One of my greatest pleasures is the refraction of light, and its variations. When I was at Galatasaray, I’d peer through my curled hand like a telescope and watch the light refracting from the ceiling fixture. It happens on its own, of course, all over the place, all the time. But making it happen pleased me to no end. Rare are the jewelers who could make ornaments of this kind. Certainly many hierograms and religious symbols have their origins in light and its refraction. To me, it was a poetics of illumination, like gemstones or even certain glances. You know the way a light source changes from brilliance to the glimmer of polished steel, to violet, pink, and pale purple flashes, and to sparks that needle and mesmerize us through the faculty of sight? An essential secret of art rests here: it’s a dream conjured in the simplest way, almost mechanically. Now, for me, all Creation refracts prismatically through your body, which I madly crave.” He thought momentarily, adding: “Nevertheless it doesn’t constitute art per se, it constitutes something approximating art; that is, they’re analogous.”

By the time they’d stepped back outside, the moon, encircled by a faint halo of mist opening out in spectral shades, had risen considerably.

The equivalent of this night could only be found in Ottoman music; a nocturne attained through musical arrangement and orchestration. Here, everything was a repetition of all else in measures of the infinite. Yet these successive refrains, when one paid careful attention, mingled with each other to such a degree that separating or culling them was impossible. Mümtaz and Nuran floated in the rowboat. The entire panoply was in a state of perpetual becoming with golden seaweed, lucid undulations of waves, aggregate shadows in the peripheries like truths of unfathomable mystery, streams of radiance, and abysses deepened by darkness. In effect, creation, as Shelley wrote, had become a flowing power. Or rather at the threshold of reason, like a very bold idea, and hence not yet come to final fruition, Creation loomed in a state of ambiguity, that made its every feature more alluring.

A peşrev overture of the moon. A prelude breathed through innumerable lips into metaphysical ney flutes. Fragile chalices of light shattered, elixirs of bejeweled essences were quaffed in doses, quick and bedazzling, and archetypal gems were hurled to sea as if the rites of sacrifice were being performed.

As if chasing the moon, a group of dolphins passed, sewing their paths into the sea. Farther ahead, a ferryboat searchlight illuminated to yet another degree of lucidity locales where lights had already gathered. As if elucidating an ancient and exquisite manuscript, all ambiguous glimmers attained vivid clarity. Wherever the currents pooled, swans by the hundreds experienced a lifetime of momentary dread. This fragile translucent world of glass fell into its own music, into the strange state of expectant listening wherein principal instruments played perhaps in a nethermost region of unlikeness.

As Mümtaz placed his jacket over Nuran’s shoulders, he said, “Behold the Ferahfezâ Peşrev of the Moon.”

Truly, as with Dede’s Ferahfezâ Peşrev, they’d entered a world that issued leaf by leaf from invisible ney s. Like the melody of a ney , their surroundings constituted a mirror reflection of gentle, profound, and unattainable mysteries. They rambled as if through the consecutive ripples of a numinous idea or of a love that had vanquished every defect, and they passed through a proliferation of unadulterated springs.

“We’re on the verge of entering the universe of Neşâtî’s couplet:

O Neşâtî, we’ve been burnished to such extent That we’re secreted in mirrors purely radiant

Nuran laughed, “Fine, but the material world of eşya exists, and we, too. Our bodies are material, aren’t they? I mean, as is true for everybody.”

“Praise be to God a thousand times over… but in my opinion, yours isn’t like the rest.”

“Blasphemy.”

“Call it blasphemy or the shortest route to Allah. Don’t forget that tonight we’re in the divine body of the godhead: Vahdet-i Vücut .”

A fish leaped from the sea beside them, tracing an arch of brilliants in the air. Later, a little farther onward, within the steamy blue illumination of the sea, a whiteness of sorts frayed open.

Their satisfactions were beyond doubt. Despite their minds working furtively in contrary directions, they were happy to abandon themselves to the present. Mümtaz seriously doubted whether their love constituted the shortest possible route to Allah, or to any other destination for that matter. Despite acknowledging the lofty and central place love held in life, he also recognized it as a single emotion that didn’t minister to one completely. Also, he no longer worried about his naïveté being a source of annoyance to her. Besides, Nuran had accepted his manner of expression and thought. She’d forgotten her spite from the prior evening at Çamlıca. She’d only become irate with him because he’d shattered life’s serenity. She’d confessed this to Mümtaz that morning: “Any woman is a little lazy when it comes to such matters. But I prefer being with you to my own comfort. I’m happy to accept you as you are.”

With Mümtaz by her side, she found herself to be a submissive, naïve woman who went wherever her man took her. She trusted him. Despite his youth, he had stature, strength, and a distinct character, one that challenged others. In the face of life, he exercised the fortitude of one forged by a singular idea. She told herself, Let him give my life some direction, and that should suffice… The rest was her business. She could follow her man to the end. A warm surge of twofold trust emanated from her entire person, because sharing the thoughts of the man she loved and accompanying him was another variation of love itself. And, like the other variety, it involved being reborn from a state of depletion without potential, being pregnant to a world in womb and body. In her affection for Mümtaz there existed a maternal feeling, love, adoration, and a modicum of gratitude. He’s discovered aspects of me … she mused.

They fell silent. Mehmet turned the bow of the rowboat away from Sarıyer. House lamps and streetlights, within shadows inaccessible to the moonlight, appeared tragically more crimson. The lights burned independently like selfish and envious souls that weren’t part of the talismanic totality of Creation.