Ahmet Tanpinar - A Mind at Peace

Trysting with Mümtaz once or twice a week was sufficient for her, as it was for him, but she hadn’t at all considered what this measure of satisfaction exacted from him.

Mümtaz’s days passed in a stupefying state of anticipation. The apartment in Taksim was small and humble. He’d transferred a portion of his books to this second residence. On the nights that he didn’t go down to Istanbul, he stayed there. According to Nuran, Mümtaz was now set up where he could work, in a room of his own. Whenever she went to see him, she did so in the midst of her other business and errands.

By conceiving of the arrangement in this way, Nuran didn’t consider the existence to which she’d condemned him. Even had she, there wasn’t much she could do about it. Her feminine soul, whose momentum faltered in the face of what she deemed too laborious, had long since instilled in her the notion that she maintained the relationship only to avoid hurting Mümtaz.

Consequently Mümtaz’s days passed in solitary anticipation, confined within two rooms and a hallway. More often than not, Nuran didn’t arrive on time, and when she did, the visit was limited to the character of a drop-in. To avoid missing her, he’d wait at times the entire day, and at times three or four days on end, excluding those hours when the chance of her arrival was nil.

His torment was genuine. Working or occupying himself with this or that until the promised time was one option. But as the appointed hour approached, the state of waiting commenced, that fragmented and purely agitated existence by the threshold, the doorbell, or the clock. Mümtaz couldn’t recollect these hours without experiencing something approaching a headache and sensing in his nerves the remorse caused by living confined to four walls. Over a period of weeks and months, he experienced the passing of the day in his frayed nerves through the intermittent cries of street hawkers. Before now, he’d paid them no mind. Amid everyday thoughts, these cries, familiar to all, had a way of appearing and passing without distinction, like an unnecessary comma or period in a text. Later, when the rational mind entered the realm of anticipation, these sounds gradually became augurs of the phases of the day, and finally, when the appointed hour came and Nuran failed to arrive, they’d be reduced to bitter memories. Toward ten o’clock the call of the yogurt seller simply informed housewives of nothing more than a first-order shortcut, but toward noon the same cry would remind Mümtaz to focus his thoughts on Nuran’s arrival, and at two o’clock the same yogurt seller, in the same cadence, would shout, “The hour of Nuran’s arrival is at hand,” and at three or three thirty he’d declare, “Today will be like last week’s cancelation, she won’t be coming!” and when he cried out amid the early twilight toward dusk, within the cadence of the call was an admonishment of sorts: “Didn’t I tell you so?”

On such days when Mümtaz futilely awaited Nuran, the hours became a creature whose aspect transformed gradually from anticipation to remorse. During the morning hours it grinned with smiling intimations of hope; toward noon it worsened to a mood between doubt and excitement; in the midafternoon its face folded; and toward evening it became a pallid, meaningless miasma, an odd and absurd simulation of Mümtaz’s existence.

Meanwhile, within the building, doorbells were rung, conversations transpired before neighbors’ doors, in the adjacent apartment preparations began for an evening meal, and the clink of forks and knives mingled with radio broadcasts; afterward the stairs were hastily climbed and descended before finally the entire building sank into silence. Then, willingly or not, all of Mümtaz’s attention focused onto the street.

At three thirty the wicker basket of the Greek family on the topmost floor descended by rope to the vegetable peddler, and a conversation began in a pidgin tongue from upstairs to the street and from the street back upstairs; the manicurist in the hairdresser’s shop opposite darted out to the street as the hour to make her rounds arrived; as if not wanting to leave the street without absorbing the complete neighborhood news bulletin, she engaged in endless chatter with the laundress — whose Levantine madame, for her part, divulged intimate secrets, while she in turn only expressed her astonishment; and in the next apartment the echoes of a piano lesson would direct the secret ciphers of Cs and Es of every octave toward Mümtaz’s solitude. It amounted to an existence through the ears and somewhat through the eyes. More often than not Nuran’s arrival put an end to such sorrows. On days she didn’t come, however, the night grew terrible under the torment of its passing without having seen her. At such times Mümtaz ran to his beloved’s house, and if he couldn’t find her at home, he’d exchange pleasantries with Tevfik and her mother in an attempt to await her return. Other times, resentful of everything, he remained captive in his apartment.

Monday evening proved to be this way: At six o’clock, on his return from the university to Taksim, he was informed that Adile and her circle, with Suad and Nuran in tow, had spent three days ago in one of Istanbul’s popular nightclubs. Apathetic fool who’d practically collared Mümtaz gave him the news in a fashion he wouldn’t forget, describing the merrymaking to which he’d been privy from a afar, down to the gowns the ladies wore, Suad’s flights of exuberance, his style of toasting, and his boisterous laughter: “I was by myself. Honestly, if you’d been there, I would have gone and joined them. . I even waited for you for a while. The women there, brother! What women!” He wasn’t aware of Mümtaz’s involvement with Nuran, just his friendship with Sabih. For this reason, he said whatever came to mind: “And there was one darling, most likely Suad’s mistress!”

Then, as if unable to forgive Mümtaz for letting his potential amusements wither: “Brother, where have you gone and disappeared to? Or are you writing something? I guess you’re spending time in new places, aren’t you? But this is really too much. Why don’t you at least tell us where you’ll be so we can come find you? Or let’s go out together one night, how’s that? These friends of yours. . Anyway, wherever you go, you won’t find a group more entertaining than they are!”

Mümtaz stopped listening. He stepped back, virtually pushing away the hand of the pathetic gadfly and freeloader who wouldn’t unhand his collar. Had he remained a few minutes longer, he’d have been forced to thrash him then and there. Intense anger toward Nuran overwhelmed him. Mümtaz had spent that very Friday waiting for her. The day before on the telephone, she’d promised with such certainty that she’d be coming. . Then, exhausted from expectation and suffering, he’d retired to bed without going anywhere. Furthermore, on account of her promise, he’d spent the entire night worried that some random misfortune had befallen her. He awoke frequently, smoked cigarettes, paced in his room, and opened the window, cocking an ear to the silence of the street. And now, he’d received word of how she’d spent the night in question, which had been so torturous for him, of the new dress he’d yet to see, and of her latest coiffure.

After Mümtaz had received such news, returning home was nearly impossible. The isolation, deafening silence, sense of despair, and ire and vengeance that drove into him like poisoned daggers. . He was so intimate with them… Quickening his steps, he walked toward Beyoǧlu. He stopped often and repeated the statement he’d just heard: Most likely Suad’s mistress!

Why shouldn’t this be the case? He recalled a trivial detail. Nuran, one day when they were going out, had asked, “Why don’t you wear your blue necktie?” before describing a tie he’d seen around Suad’s neck three days earlier. This commonplace absentmindedness, or confusion, now incensed him. It happened repeatedly this way. Mümtaz, under the influence of outsiders, would recollect from the very beginning every word they’d exchanged, and in each of her words, in every gesture, he’d seek out hard evidence of betrayal.