Ahmet Tanpinar - A Mind at Peace

“What’s going on with you? Is there something else?”

“What d’you expect? I’m being imposed upon by everybody. Here, read.”

She handed him the two letters. Fâhir’s letter was brief and filled with a slew of meaningless whining. He conveyed a tone ready to overlook all indiscretions through a single longed-for amnesty. But Suad’s letter was bizarre. This married man, fully aware that Mümtaz and Nuran were involved and soon to be wed, expressed his feelings of love and extended an invitation, writing, “Come visit!” Along with his deteriorating liver, it was as if this decade-old or older love had erupted like a volcano, and in place of Koch bacilli spewed a magma of fiery words, gripes, and entreaties. He revealed the intimate details of his married life, explained the banality of his life outside of Istanbul, and repeatedly stated that he couldn’t be content with anyone but Nuran. Neither his wife nor his children were of any concern. “I’m at your mercy… Without you I’ll be destroyed… I’ve made a number of ventures in life, but because you weren’t by my side, today, you see, I’m nothing but a zero, a cipher, sıfır .”

To Mümtaz, this letter was more threatening than the former because he knew Suad well. He’d periodically accosted Mümtaz since childhood. The entire household knew how Suad couldn’t stand Mümtaz, who nonetheless displayed some affection toward him; He’s jealous of me on account of Ihsan… Clearly Suad displayed certain virtues. He was well-read and a bold thinker. Mümtaz also knew that Suad wasn’t quite content in his marriage. Despite his continuous mockery of, and his delight in shocking, Mümtaz, at times displaying open enmity through his quizzical temperament, and despite his attempts to devastate him psychologically, Mümtaz still liked him. He admired and feared Suad. But he never expected such audacity. When Nuran and Fâhir became involved, Suad immediately married and moved far away. Mümtaz realized that the renewal of this love also bore a desire to contaminate others that had been brought on by the disease itself. The letter, full of impatience, pessimism, and protest seen only in that variety of affliction, filled him with greater dread. Yet another factor alarmed Mümtaz: Nuran’s vulnerability to those in her circle. No other conclusion could to be drawn from her excessive reaction to these letters. Mümtaz was certain that one locus of Nuran’s thoughts rested with Fâhir while the other dwelled beside Suad’s sickbed. Within this oppressive anxiety, Mümtaz couldn’t even look at his beloved’s face out of the fear of reading her every thought.

And perhaps as a result, for the sake of doing something, anything, he slowly shredded the letters.

From where she sat, Nuran watched, as if from a vast distance, the destruction of pages pleading for her intercession.

“What I do know is that Suad was sick at the start of summer; he must have regained his health by now.”

She looked at the painted flowerpot upon which she sat, at the plants wet from the night’s rain, and at the chestnut’s wizened leaves. A viscous sunshine of well-blended tincture, rich with mystery, filled the garden. The season had changed. Aspects of their existence constituted solely by love and diversion or simply by daydream and joy had been depleted. The remainder would be shouldered like a burden. Yet so many loads were being extended that she didn’t know which to bear. The best option was to surrender herself to the nearest, most endearing beloved. With Mümtaz’s arm about her shoulders, Nuran walked through the garden where she’d once been so satisfied, over whose every hand span of earth she’d cultivated a separate vision, and entered the house.

For Mümtaz, that day was more unbearable than the previous one. They weren’t going to give Nuran any peace. He knew this. She had a side that was vulnerable to others. They ought to marry at all costs. However…

Will I be able to find the strength to compel her? He absolutely had no conviction. He couldn’t venture a single move for his own sake. He’d become conscious of the extent of his own feebleness.

The day was miserable. They spoke as if amid great crowds, over distances, or through a shroud. It seemed to Mümtaz that Nuran’s voice was reaching him from afar, as though large amplifiers positioned between them perpetually broadcasted the mind-sets of Fatma, Yaşar, Fâhir, and Suad.

He found himself in an odd, disconcerted state. Till yesterday he’d lived only among those he loved; whereas today, like mushrooms sprouting overnight, a horde of enemies surrounded him. Fâhir, whose accounts he’d thought had been settled and canceled, had reappeared. Suad, father of two in Konya, from a hospital corner, amid coughs, phlegm, and dried blood, had begun penning epic letters to poison his life. Fatma, whom he’d wanted to adopt, to whom he’d been so attached, had orchestrated a full-fledged drama to antagonize him, to publicly announce that she didn’t care for him, and to cast him as scapegoat and orphan. Not to mention she’d collapsed at the mouth of the well after making three trial runs. And then that gray-haired buffon Yaşar, that demented fool, had declared his hostility for no apparent reason whatsoever. Who else and what else would emerge? Worse was the slow and gradual birth of opposition in Mümtaz toward these expressions of enmity. Before then he hadn’t even felt anger toward the Greek palikaria who’d murdered his father. Now vengeance took root within him, as well.

A rising fury told him so. Mümtaz, too, would become the sworn enemy of select individuals all due to the fact that he loved and was loved in return.

All this was due to an emotion as lofty and noble as love, which ought to be one’s sole savior, from which one might expect all types of salvation in this fallen world. These afreets were born of love. Maybe tomorrow his own heart would turn into a crucible of lethal poisons like that of Fatma, Yaşar, and Fâhir, and he’d wander in their midsts hissing like a snake. Reading Suad’s letter, he could imagine his fingers, yellowed by fever, crawling over the pages. It was daemonic, an act of evil. From a hospital corner, a man struggling against tuberculosis was attempting to afflict others on the outside. This letter wouldn’t be the only attempt, of course. What other acts would arise from a desire to contaminate? Was this the way the disease targeted health, joy, and decency, or simply an act of hostility?

Fate had directed Suad’s afflicted mind to believe that Nuran represented everything he pined for while recuperating in the sanatorium; consequently Mümtaz, now spiteful of an ailing and needy man, wanted nothing more than to pummel his face and protruding bones. This was one nexus of mankind’s fate.

Fate is what confronts us, he thought. What we wrestle against without being able to overcome it.

Oh, how mankind, enemy of the sublime, unknowingly desired the destruction of its own happiness as well as that of others; humankind, enemy of peace and decency, enemy of its own self.

And perhaps Suad, during his days of illness, in a letter received from Istanbul, had learned of Nuran’s separation from her husband and recognized the opportunity for one last conquest. The desire to settle an old account. Seeing that I’ll be going to Istanbul, I’ll take care of this business as well. A lonely woman, an old friend, and so many memories between us.

A day of rain followed; Mümtaz descended to the old city. He had to attend to a number of small errands. Afterward he stopped at İhsans’ house in Şehzadebaşı to inquire about Suad. Despite having spent a distressing night thanks to him, he also wondered about his present state of health. One by one, the topics they’d discussed together at the start of summer at the island restaurant came to mind, along with Suad’s gestures, his derisive and mordant laughter, and his bizarre glances that made one forgive his every affront.