Ahmet Tanpinar - A Mind at Peace

With the dawn come clouds

With the spring bloom flowers

We’ll all be reunited with our beloveds

“You see, this is what we should cherish.” İhsan was content. “All truths are contained here, in this vast ocean of meaning. Our satisfaction is relative to our closeness to the folk and our own lives. We’re the children of these türkü s.” Then he unexpectedly recalled Yahya Kemal’s line of verse:

Savor it though I have, Slavic melancholy brings me no satisfaction. .

“Does He exist or not? I exist and that’s sufficient. And I desire no freedom for myself that exceeds that of anyone else’s.”

“But a sharp strain of suffering exists here as well, doesn’t it?”

“No, here there’s only expression. If the sorrow of this türkü and those like it were real, one’s heart couldn’t endure it for even half an hour. Here we’re face-to-face with the collective. The experience doesn’t belong to one person but to the totality of the culture.”

Orhan and Nuri recited Rumeli and Anatolian türkü s one after another, and at times Cemil accompanied them on the ney . Toward the end, Tevfik said, “Allow me to sing the Rose Devotional Hymn to you! In Trabzon, more often than not it’s women who sing it!”

Mümtaz was cast into a world that recalled Fra Filippo Lippi’s fifteenth-century Renaissance Nativity of the Christ child amid flowers; the roses scattered by the Ferahfezâ’s tempest of desire were gathered up again in this ancient hymn:

A bazaar of roses

Roses bartered, roses sold

A hand-held scale of roses

Patrons, roses, merchants, roses, too

The Hicaz makam had suddenly transformed into spring. The final vision Mümtaz recollected of that night was Nuran’s face fragmented by scattered thoughts yet reflecting resonances from the deluge of roses, a face that coalesced in an exhausted, mollified, but nonetheless composed smile. Each of his suspicions was no more than phantasm coupled with anguish; he was enamored of her.

During periods of strife between them, when Nuran’s social milieu was occupied with her, she trusted in nothing but Mümtaz’s composure. Yet, Mümtaz was far from displaying the presence of mind to respond to her reliance. Instead of regarding the entire matter with calm confidence in his beloved, he was suspicious, accusing her of neglect and carping through a series of letters.

Neither Fatma’s on-going afflictions, nor Yaşar’s insufferable demeanor, nor the gossip of acquaintances bothered Nuran as much as Mümtaz’s unfounded tristesse . The interlopers were a hindrance they’d decided to resist together as a couple. But the very attitude of her lover was another matter entirely.

As long as Nuran complained, Why doesn’t he understand me? and as long as Mümtaz thought, Why is she turning a simple matter into a can of worms? each of them insisted on misunderstanding the other.

In Nuran’s view, Mümtaz’s situation was quite straightforward. Considering that he was the object of her love, he ought to withdraw to a corner and quietly await her final decision. In contrast, Mümtaz believed that if she loved him, she ought to decide as soon as possible for her own contentment as well as his.

The misadventure of moving house, in itself, had given rise to an array of annoyances for Mümtaz. Eventualities like a second rent and furnishing costs prompted him to seek out opportunities beyond his regular means. Granted, they could see each other more easily now because both lived in the vicinity of old Istanbul, where there was no hill to climb in winter and no inconvenience of crossing the Bosphorus, no small ordeal due to the unreliable ferry schedules. Nuran was to visit Mümtaz almost daily. But as chance would have it, a separate slew of hindrances filled her life. By moving to Beyoǧlu, Nuran was cast amidst old school chums, a rather extended family circle, Yaşar’s endless flood of acquaintances, Fâhir’s kith and kin, and not least of all Adile and her cohorts. Nobody understood her dilemma; all of them, knowingly or not, demanded she take up her old lifestyle, and because she didn’t have the wherewithal, at least until wed, to say no, she felt obliged to acknowledge these friendships, and the invitations and parties came thickly in turn, to the degree that toward February, when Mümtaz realized that most of the time she’d set aside for him had been usurped by others, he, too, was astounded.

If not for the gossip flying around Fatma’s malaise at summer’s end, Nuran wouldn’t have been so malleable as to reject her own inner life. Meanwhile, all these visits, invites, and friendships gave rise to a web of intricacies. The couple had mutually decided, at least for a time, not to be seen together in public. In a certain regard this was wise. But living separately wasn’t easy for Mümtaz. Nearly every day, from near or far, an account of Nuran’s appearance at last night’s, or the previous night’s, invitation, gala, or dance reached his ears. Even worse, under the desire to dispel accusations that she’d neglected her child for Mümtaz’s sake, during said soirées Nuran changed and felt obliged to cavort, laugh, and partake of trivial indulgences.

On another front, Yaşar, in his jealousy of Mümtaz, sicced a number of youthful suitors upon Nuran. Yaşar had in effect declared, “Let it be anyone, as long as it isn’t Mümtaz.” He harbored bewildering enmity toward him. In his consideration, there was neither “good” nor “bad” but simply Mümtaz and the rest.

Within this animus, Yaşar had also forgotten his resentment toward Adile. Practically every day he visited her apartment. They cooperated together without making an explicit pact. Both felt that Nuran would incline toward Adile before long. On their first parlor visit, after having mutually agreed — “Yes, this unfortunate girl must be saved… or else she’ll be ruined!” — simply by acknowledging each other’s opinions, they took all manner of safeguard to distance Nuran from Mümtaz. Whenever Yaşar sent word, “Tomorrow evening we’re coming over with a group of friends!” or whenever he said so in person during an impromptu visit, Adile, in response would automatically suggest, “You’ll be sure to invite Nuran, won’t you? Do insist that she come!” and in this way the date that Nuran and Mümtaz had made a week prior would meet with an unforeseen obstacle.

These measures and ploys slowly began to have their effect. Nuran sensed that her thoughts, at least during these fetes, had shifted away from Mümtaz. The more she feigned composure to escape the prying of her circle and the gossip that tattered her life, the more she acclimated to this new milieu and whatever it tossed her way. Besides, foreclosing consideration of Mümtaz and Fatma amounted to liberation from an array of regrets that had encroached upon her over the last six or seven months. This somewhat resembled the external pressure of a siege felt internally. And toward the end, Nuran realized that she was pleased by the things being imposed on her, that she was satisfied by these swarming hordes, by a life filled with adulation and amusement. Albeit, to silence the plea Mümtaz perpetually made, she frequently told herself, “Wherever I might find myself, I belong only to Mümtaz!” But as she said so, she didn’t fail to notice the difference between her surroundings and being with him. “Were I in China even my thoughts would be his!” she insisted. Yet her smiles, conversation, and excitement, that accompanied the thoughts that were always only his, belonged to others; she danced in the arms of other men, she discussed matters that didn’t at all resemble what interested Mümtaz, and she didn’t think or live as she did when they were alone or when she focused on him. So much so that by the middle of winter she found that she’d truly grown accustomed to this frenetic mental state. At least she wasn’t at her family house. At least she didn’t witness her mother’s surreptitious tsking or Fatma’s overt glares of resentment. At least, amid the horde, she didn’t listen to herself. And she’d begun to understand how she’d made a mistake by not nipping the whole matter in the bud and marrying him at summer’s end.