Ahmet Tanpinar - A Mind at Peace

“You speak of faith, but you’re on the path of reason.”

“I’m on the path of reason. Naturally I’m going to take the path of reason. Socrates says that the intelligent lover surpasses the impassioned lover. Intellect is the defining attribute of humanity.”

“But doesn’t the murderer himself die with the victim in the act of murder?”

“To a certain degree that’s true… but, you see, this death doesn’t ensure the rebirth that you seek. At least in every instance. Because such transgression removes us from the category in question. You aren’t properly situating humanity within the social world. That’s the crux of the matter. I’m not one to deny humanity its divine attributes! The soul of mankind is master of the world.”

Suad laughed: “Apparently I’ve come up against İhsan’s effusive side. But, Mümtaz, you go ahead and write this story anyway!”

Mümtaz entered the conversation: “That’s all fine and well, but why should I write it and not you yourself?”

“Quite simply because you’re the writer. You enjoy writing. Our roles are different. I simply live life!”

“Aren’t I living?” Mümtaz asked, in a soft voice, as if to say, “Or have I died?”

“No, you aren’t, that is, not the way I live. You’ve withdrawn to a particular vantage where you reside. You have vast and brilliant visions. You have the sense that you’ll vanquish time. You strive to seize anything that might be of use. You categorize things: ‘This is useful, this is not.’ You see what you want and turn away from what you don’t.” He was all but talking to himself. Often he coughed, and afterward he shook his head as if to say, “Pay no mind, it’ll pass.” “You sense a world that you want to possess at all costs. Even though it might be an illusion, you stick with it. Do you think I’m like you? I’m a wretched, materialist sot, who shirks his responsibilities. My existence is a shameless waste. I wander aimlessly like water. I’m ill, I drink, I’ve fathered children whose faces I don’t want to see. I disregard my own life to perpetually live in the hides of others. Whether a thief, a murderer, or a cripple who drags a lame leg behind him, each living creature I see becomes yet another invitation. They call to me and I run. Either they open their shells to me, or I open my body to them, and they settle within me furtively and seize my hands, arms, and thoughts. Their fears and anxieties become mine. At night I dream their dreams. I awake with their torments. But that’s not all. I feel the anguish of the rejected. I want to feel each and every downfall. Do you know how many times I’ve stolen from our bank, from the safe entrusted to me?”

Macide cried, “Suad, what are you saying? Don’t listen to him, for Allah’s sake. Take a look for yourselves, he’s covered in sweat.”

Mümtaz looked at Macide, her face stark white, her eyes wide. She’d succumbed to a bout of nerves. But Suad didn’t heed her anguish: “Don’t worry, Macide. It’s not what you think. I didn’t actually steal. But I’ve thought of doing so a hundred times. I didn’t just think it, I imagined stealing. Maybe a hundred times, I was the last person to leave the bank. I imagined I was being pursued by men who would soon arrest me as I left, receding as I went. I walked over roads I’d never traveled before.”

İhsan asked, “Okay, but why?”

Suad only ever responded to Mümtaz: “For the very same reason I lived my life in the most absurd way, for the same reason I gallivanted, caroused, and finally married. To kill time. To live. To avoid rotting away!” He shrugged. “How should I know? I wanted to feel the extent of myself, that’s why! To fulfill the need to declare ‘I am’ to the void at each instant. Now do you understand why I want you to write this story? So that a shudder of alarm might travel up your spine! Your minds house a slew of words like ‘love’ and ‘suffering.’ You live through words. Whereas I want to fathom the meanings of those words. That’s why I did it. You should write to discover that you don’t love someone to the degree that you would kill. But you’re not acquainted with death, either, are you?” He laughed and chortled. “I’m quite certain that for you death means waiting eternally in a more pristine and essential state, like objects conserved in a museum after being fired in a kiln. Is that not true? And you’re not disgusted by death, but rather you see it as sister to beauty and love. Did you ever consider how disgusting death is? A revolting decay and stench! Maybe some of you believe in Allah. I’m certain you’ve embalmed this topic in silence and uncertainty. Because you exist only in words! Haven’t you just once wanted to talk to Allah? Had I been a believer, I would have liked to speak with Him, to experience Him.”

Nuran protested. “Is all this necessary, Suad?” But he wasn’t listening. He was spewing as much as he possibly could. What Mümtaz had feared had come to pass. The crisis had begun.

Mümtaz asked in the same childish voice, “Do you believe?”

“No, dearest, I’m not a believer. I’m bereft of this joy. Had I been a man of faith, the issue would have been different. Had I known of the existence of Allah, I’d have no more claim against or quarrel with humanity. I’d then only struggle against Him. At every turn, I’d collar him somewhere and call Him to account. And I’d have assumed that He was obligated to provide a reckoning. I’d say, ‘Come. Come, and for a moment enter into the skin of one of your creations. Do what I do every day. Live twenty-four hours of one of our lives! There’s no need to select a particularly unfortunate specimen. You are the Creator; it’s impossible for you not to know or understand. Descend into the carcass of any one of them. Live your own lie for a moment along with us. Live as we do. Become a frog of small thirsts in this swamp for twenty-four hours!”

İhsan laughed. “Fine, but only a devotee could say these things. You’re a believer all right! And more than any of us!”

“No, I don’t believe. But, I am thinking through the thoughts of a genuine follower.” He shook his head. “And I’ll never believe, either. I’d rather die writhing on the ground from rheumatism.”

They laughed awkwardly together. Mümtaz’s face was in a state of rigid attention. Suad noticed neither the laughter nor Mümtaz.

“Yes,” he said. “I’d prefer to die writhing on the ground from rheumatism! If you like, let me tell the story. Among my relatives was a very naïve but decent man. A devout, earnest, saintly man. We loved him dearly. One couldn’t help being awestricken by his perseverance in life. He used to live around Topkapı. He’d come and go into the city by donkey. This donkey became one of the joys of my childhood. One day when we went to their house, we noticed that the donkey wasn’t in the yard as usual. ‘What happened?’ we asked. ‘The poor beast has rheumatism,’ they told us, and opened the barn door. They’d put the donkey’s saddle on upside down, suspending the animal from the ceiling by stirrups. In this way its fetlocks were eased from the humidity in the barn, and it no longer had to stand on all fours. You couldn’t imagine how comical the beast looked, its four legs hanging limply, its docile head lolling toward the floor. Pathetic and comic, the animal had effectively become humanized. At first I laughed considerably. But not afterward. Today every metaphysical system of thought reminds me of that animal’s pathetic and stupefied gaze from above.”

Nuran: “I’ve never heard of such a thing. Did it get well, at least?”

“Ah, if only. . It died within a few days, essentially by committing suicide. That is, it managed to get back down to the ground so as to die in contact with the earth. If it hadn’t been strung up like that, it would have died from rheumatism.”