Ahmet Tanpinar - A Mind at Peace

Nuran: “No one’s annoyed because you’re drinking. We’ve gathered here for a diversion, of course we’ll drink.” And she raised her glass. Mümtaz turned away to avoid coming eye to eye with her. She felt that they’d all surrounded Suad, in honesty involuntarily, maybe through his own instigation, maybe through their own apprehension, maybe even because they despised him, and had straightaway begun treating him like startled prey in battue or blood sport. This was nothing short of making a bad situation worse.

Not just in this parlor now but perhaps beneath every street lamp in every corner of the world similar scenes were unfolding. Mankind was inept, and for this reason ill-fated. The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley. An array of meaningless miseries and piddling sorrows. . Mümtaz sighed. Suad will make a scene tonight. Simply thinking so is preparing the way for a crisis. Isn’t politics this way also? Fear and the defense mechanism, its counterpoint. . as in music. . and at the conclusion the golden tempest of a grand finale. He, too, was surprised at the sudden passage of his thoughts to Western music from the mood that the a la turca had conjured within him: How peculiar… I belong to two worlds. Like Nuran, I live between two realms, two beloveds. That means I don’t constitute a whole! Aren’t we all this way. .?

Suad pretended not to hear Nuran’s response: “Everybody chastises and criticizes me. Some allude to my illness, some to my marriage. Neither of them is of any consequence.” He grasped his glass tightly. “Everybody brings some malfeasance to my attention. My wife, my friends, my relatives. . Never once do they consider that I was born without a sense of responsibility. One is either born with or without it. Bereft, I don’t have it. My wife realized this during our first week together, but she still complains and nags. Maybe she’s waiting for a miracle. . Won’t a miracle happen? Imagine that I experience a sudden transformation and begin to cherish my life! Imagine that at work, I’m pleased with the president, the branch director, the treasurer, and the legal adviser. . Imagine that I’m happy when my children climb onto my shoulders. Imagine that!”

Macide jeered, “Did you have a little something before coming here?”

“I started last night, Macide. Last night, Yaşar took me along to Sabih’s. There we drank till midnight, then we went down to Arnavutköy, where we stayed till three or four. Then. .”

Nuran inquired about the rest of the night as if after a fabulous adventure: “Then? What happened next, Suad?”

His face was a shambles.

“Next, naturally… well, Arnavutköy is the mecca. They have all types. Even ethnic types, you might say. . but since we were being entertained en famille , we preferred Gypsies. Greeting the dawn to the beats of a hand drum. You know the infamous entertainment spots over on the Hürriyet-i Ebediye hill? We found ourselves there. From within the night, a Gypsy ever so slowly conjured the rose-faced dawn with his hand drum, as if drawing water from a pump. There was a nymphette there as well, a spring bud, a girl practically. Her name was Bâde, ‘wine.’ Just use your imagination… or Mümtaz should do so, it’s his genre. An improvisation on drums, a Gypsy nymph named Bâde, her companions, rakı , dancing. . Then sleeping it off on a divan at a friend’s house.” His face puckered. He brought his glass to his lips but sufficed with one sip. “It’s difficult in the mornings. I haven’t managed to get used to the fatigue that comes in the wake of a binge.” He deposited his glass on the table. The gathering was in a state of shock.

“Is this enough, Nuran? It’s quite shameless, isn’t it? But if you want to know the truth, nothing of the sort happened. We didn’t go to Sabih’s nor did I hit the bottle. I was together with my wife last night, and I came here directly from Paşabahçe.” He smiled sweetly: “I’m not drunk, you can be certain that I’m not.”

Macide asked: “In that case, why did you lie?”

“To unsettle you. So you’d chastise me. To appear like a man of some import.” He was cackling between short, dry coughs: “It bothers me when my marriage comes up.”

Nuran: “Nobody brought up your marriage.”

“It doesn’t matter. . I mentioned it, didn’t I? That’s enough, it means I’m under societal pressures!” He wiped his brow and turned to Mümtaz: “Mümtaz, shall I give you material for a story? Think about this, just let me set the scene. . A man, a man of virtue, a civil servant, a professor, if you like — conjure a saint! Draw him so that he is possessed of every virtue. A man who hasn’t once faltered in decency… yet he despises commitment. Peculiar, is it not? He’s a narcissist: He wants to live only through himself and for himself. His life is full of random but kindly gestures, and these acts become increasingly more generous. He likes to exercise his freedom of thought and he recognizes no sense of obligation. One day he up and gets married, perhaps to a woman he loves, an experience that completely changes him. He becomes grumpy, fussy, and ill-willed. The thought that he’s been pigeonholed slowly begins to drive him mad. The burden of being labeled, of living paired off like a draft horse, affects him. He begins to act despicably toward almost everybody; he’s cruel to animals and his fellow man, to all things. He becomes petty and he can’t endure anyone else’s happiness. And in the end. .”

Hastily bringing down the curtain, Mümtaz said: “A textbook scenario. . he murders his wife.”

“Exactly, but it isn’t that simple. He has protracted debates with himself. He ponders his life like a riddle and concludes that his marriage is the only obstacle resting between himself and humanity.”

“Why not divorce?”

“To what end? D’you suppose that two people who’ve lived together can separate, I mean truly separate from one another?” He said this staring squarely at Mümtaz. “And if he left her, what would come of it? Even if he could break off all ties, those intervening years spent together will haunt him. Will he ever be able to escape it all, a vast, terrifying existence of darkness, every excruciating minute of which he’s lived through? Not to mention habits of mind. At which point he’ll succumb to even greater hesitation. Think about it, this is a man who’s consciously committed every affront and indecency against his circle. Leaving his wife would just be adding insult to injury.”

“Once he murders, will he then forget?”

“No, he won’t forget. Of course he won’t forget. But his spite will diminish. The constricting resentment within him will evaporate.”

Nuri, unable to restrain himself: “Mümtaz, if you ask me, in place of writing about him, if you happen to come across him in the flesh, kill him outright. It’d be the nobler deed.”

Suad shrugged: “What would that solve? We’d only be dodging the issue. Not to mention that Mümtaz wouldn’t be able to. To kill him, he’d have to meet and single him out. Why should he kill somebody who resembles everyone else? More or less, everybody resorts to acts of depravity as a reaction to one person or a handful of people. Rest assured. . behind each downfall you’ll find a precipitating one. Each of us digs his own grave. The man in question resembles all of us, he’s an Everyman. . but he refuses to accept this fact. In the end, he seizes upon the only available solution to end this pitiless game. A single act, a bloodletting, a deed that resembles vengeance. And as soon as he takes action, as if having crossed an enchanted threshold, he discovers he’s broken through to the other side, to his old world, rich with the treasures of decency he’s borne all along. His face shines, his soul assumes all of its generosity, he loves his fellow man, he pities the plight of animals, he empathizes with children. .”