Ahmet Tanpinar - A Mind at Peace

If only it would take me along…

Had it been another time, within this night constituted by immaculate gems, by veins of ore not yet roused from pristine hibernation, by granite and black marble, Mümtaz would have found the purest facet of his pleasurable and poetic realms. But now he was rather miserable and closed off to his entire aesthetic world. Great intimations of dread had colonized him.

“It’s as if a part of me has collapsed,” he said to himself.

Within the house at the top of the street, a lamp burned, transfiguring every receding intimacy on such nights into a sweet reverie; and a window, out of the pure and profound silence into which it had sunk, as if afflicted by the infirmity of existence, approached him together with the glimmering silhouette of the tree before it, like bloody excisions from the vast and opulent silence. Mümtaz remembered that he was neglecting his houseguests. Nuran would worry. He quickened his pace. But this minor snag had only spun him around to face his own dimension of time; it hadn’t done away with his inner sense of isolation or the agonizing constriction that afflicted him.

Apart of him was still walking through a void. Why is there such an expanse between my head and my body?

He stopped and thought. Is this what I really meant to say? Maybe what he felt was more exacerbating, more ineffable. He wasn’t angry, though he knew what Suad had done was wrong. But he withheld from passing judgment. He’d stopped passing judgment on others. Suad, by exposing his misery, had spoiled their pleasure. The depth of Suad’s abjection, or rather, the disarray of his existence, which caused such depravity, astonished Mümtaz. He was obviously in torment. Throughout the evening, as Mümtaz listened to him, he recollected exhausting and semi-nightmarish conversations, phantasms of clenched teeth during fitful nights of sleep. Suad resembled nothing more than a man in the midst of a nightmare.

The table talk among the houseguests centered on Suad. When Mümtaz entered, Nuran glanced at him as if to say, “Where have you been?” To conceal his misery, he smiled with a furtive pucker, pleased that Nuran wasn’t offended by this offhand public display.

“Might I request a glass as well?”

Nuran: “As much as you’d like, Mümtaz dear! We’re starting the evening over anyway.”

She was pleased to be rid of Suad too. Eager to continue from where he’d been interrupted, İhsan paused in annoyance, waiting for Mümtaz’s glass to be filled. That’s how he was; he detested being interrupted and he expected the interference to stop immediately.

Looking at Nuran through his glass, Mümtaz said, “In that case, health to one and all…”

“Regrettably, the world has already lived through and dispensed with this variety of angst a century ago. Hegel, Nietzsche, and Marx have come and gone. Dostoyevsky suffered this anguish eighty years prior. Do you know what’s new in our case? It’s neither Éluard’s surrealist poetry nor the torments of Nikolai Stavrogin. What’s new for us today is the murder, land dispute, or divorce scandal unfolding in the smallest Turkish village in the most desolate corner of Anatolia. I’m not sure if you catch my drift, fully. I’m not accusing Suad. I’m just saying that his concerns can’t be taken within the framework of our present circumstances.”

Mümtaz emptied his glass. “But you’re overlooking one point! Suad is genuinely in torment. .”

With a flick of his hand, İhsan distanced something unseen from his person. “He might be. . but what’s it to me? I don’t have time to chase idiosyncrasies. I’m occupied with social concerns. Let the mother of the sheep who strays from the flock weep in its absence! Did I mention that one day at an auction I discovered a number of old menus, the table d’hôte menus of I’m not sure which restaurant. Probably from the midst of the Hamidian reign. Near the top were written the names of that night’s singers. Suad’s problems have the same effect on me. Bygone relics. . Anyone can turn an idea into an exacerbating problem. But to what end? It does nothing but make us dizzy. We’re people who have responsibilities and work to accomplish.”

“Yet Allah is our eternal question.”

“Humanity and its fate are also eternal questions. And they’re all tied to each other. Furthermore they’re matters whose resolution is impossible. Of course, if one has no faith…” İhsan paused to think for a moment. “I know I have no right to speak this way. Of course, our morality and inner lives are tied to a notion of Allah. This game of chess can’t be played without Him. Maybe I’m annoyed at Suad for this very reason. .”

He didn’t finish what he had to say. Suad’s manner of speaking had dis- 343 turbed him more than it had Macide. Suad had uprooted all potential for coming to peaceful terms with society. He was a heartbeat away from deeds of madness and excess. İhsan had to discuss this eventuality, particularly with Mümtaz and Nuran. Regardless, Suad’s approach didn’t please İhsan.

Tevfik, in an infinitely blasé manner, placed an eggplant dolma on his plate. “I’m not sure what Nuran will have to say about it, for Mümtaz hasn’t yet begun to meddle in my affairs, but I believe I’m eating the last aubergine of the season. And I have my doubts as to whether I’ll be able to enjoy them next year. What I mean to say is that the matters with which our boy Suad is grappling, I’ll learn about firsthand before the rest of you do. .” With an extremely cruel and hangdog face he’d made a mockery of himself, Suad, life and the palpable immanence of death. “Do you know what truly astounds me? Our youngsters have lost the ability to enjoy themselves. Was this how it used to be? That so many people, and at this age, gathered together in one place should talk of such things. .”

Nuran said, “My uncle doesn’t much care for Suad. . He doesn’t even want Yaşar to socialize with him. But say what you will, I wasn’t at all surprised tonight. Suad has been this way from the beginning. I remember one day, a group of us were out along the Bosphorus, and he’d tossed a puppy into the sea because it was too happy for its station in life. We had quite a time rescuing the poor thing. It was so adorable…”

“For what possible reason?”

“Simply because a dog shouldn’t be that happy. We’re talking about Suad here! In those days he’d say, ‘All living things are my adversaries!’”

İhsan made a suggestion: “Friends, if we want to free ourselves from this conversation, let’s have Orhan and Nuri recite some folk songs.”

Orhan and Nuri were like a folklore duo. Oh, the türkü s they knew!

The night, through İhsan’s instigation, took a new tack. Orhan and Nuri first recited that beautiful Rumeli türkü made popular by Tanburaci Osman Pehlivan. Their voices were stark and majestic:

Clouds roll in one by one

Four are white, four are black

You’ve gone and lanced my heart

Rains, don’t fall, O wild winds, don’t blow

For my beloved is on the road

Mümtaz listened to the searing, palpable pain of the folk songs as if he’d discovered a panacea. They’d all seemingly stepped out into a bracing, invigorating wind or faced problems which must be overcome; that is, they confronted life itself.

Clouds roll by and the ground does weep

Soaking up wine and growing heady

The scent of my beloved makes me giddy

Mümtaz realized that this deep and maddening desire constituted a world separate from his pain. This wasn’t the projection of a bout of nerves, but rather, like warm bread, something full of life, comprising existence.