Ahmet Tanpinar - A Mind at Peace

How many wars did it take to put us into these circumstances? Since A.H. 1293, the Russo-Ottoman War of 1878, an array of disasters caused the influx of the downtrodden into Istanbul, and it was unclear whether these refugees were peasants or city folk, as they didn’t fit into any evident category besides “destitute” or “needy.” Now it’s Europe’s turn! Of course it wouldn’t happen through a single war. But who says the matter will be confined to one war?

If war breaks out, that porter will be conscripted! I will too! But there’s a difference between us. I’m familiar with Hitler’s madness and he infuriates me. I’d fight him with pleasure. But this poor man is ignorant of Germany and these ideas. He’ll be fighting a cause that he doesn’t know about or recognize, and he’ll likely die in the process!

He stopped and asked himself solemnly: Okay then, what’s the upshot?

He couldn’t conceive of any upshot. Someone among the street crowd deliberately brushed up against his body, walking briskly away before turning down an alley a short distance ahead. Mümtaz glanced in his direction. “Peculiar,” he repeated. The man resembled Suad. But Suad is dead. To confirm the resemblance, he glanced in that direction again. Someone who actually did resemble Suad gazed at him from afar, smirking. The man wore a leaden sharkskin suit and held his fedora in his hand. “Impossible,” he said. Or are the dead no longer buried properly?

This thought bothered him. It’s inappropriate for me to make a mockery of a tragedy. Not to mention that I’m more or less responsible for his suicide. Or rather Nuran and I. If only he hadn’t found that key and come to the apartment; if only we hadn’t made such an ordeal in plain sight. But it wasn’t just the couple. There was a third person. On his last night, Suad was accompanied by a waif or stray girl that he’d met on the Bosphorus ferry dock. She’d forced him to reassess his life. His letter stated, “It was then that I suddenly saw my life in all clarity, and in short, I was disgusted.” A tinge of responsibility for the suicide fell to this unfortunate girl who had no fault besides being young and untrammeled by life. “I immediately sought Allah. Ah, were I a believer, everything would have been so easy and natural. .” But why had Suad sought Allah by such circuitous means? Why hadn’t he sought Him out directly?

As a matter of course, the girl would have read of Suad’s death in the papers. How distraught she must have been. How she must have writhed. Why? Because she’d entered a man’s life, for only one night, from the peripheries, because she had no place to stay and couldn’t afford a room in a hotel. The ways that people exploited one another.

His thoughts lurched. He saw Suad in the entrée of the house in Emirgân, on the night he’d spoken so convolutedly before the rakı table. Emin Dede had only just left! His surroundings suddenly transformed. A voice, a voice from within him, repeated Rumi’s initial couplet from the Ferahfezâ ceremonial suite. As if he were weeping in the wake of a sun he’d no longer see, yearning stirred within him. Never again would he be able to see Nuran. Or Suad.

Suad, yet again? He’d been obsessed with Suad for three days now. And last night in my dreams. Of course, an omen of news to come.

He realized that he’d been under sway of the rüya since morning. But he hadn’t been able to pinpoint the dream itself. He only knew that he’d struggled with Suad the entire night. I was in an enormous house. Yes, an enormous house. An array of corridors, halls, and rooms. I was searching for Nuran, opening each and every room and looking inside. But in each I discovered only Suad. I’d quickly apologize to him for disturbing him unnecessarily. He’d cackle and nod his head. .

How bizarre: The man who’d brushed past him had cackled like Suad in his dream. Yes, exactly so! But did such a man really exist? It was obvious. Suad was here with him. And perhaps the stray girl and Nuran now recollected Suad the way Mümtaz did. He repeated the first couplet of the Ferahfezâ again. Oddly, amid the melody’s roses of lust, rather than a vision of Nuran, he saw Suad: In my haste to be married, I treated his demise as nothing but a small setback. .

He stopped and wiped his forehead with his hand, just like the porter had done in the middle of the road only one stride from him. But his hands didn’t resemble the porter’s. Mümtaz’s hands didn’t directly engage in life. They hadn’t been cured in life’s forge. The porter’s hands were black, rough, and thick with distended veins. Mine are white, refined, soft… And he studied his hands with rapt attention. Suddenly he again recalled the night in Emirgân and the moment he’d parted from Suad at the crest of the hill. He’d extricated his hands from Suad’s grasp with difficulty. And I couldn’t look him in the eye. Allah, will this slope never end? Or is this my Via Crucis and is Suad my crucifix?

Mümtaz looked around, wiping his brow once more. But what right did he have to intrude into my life, into our lives? Forget about us. What about that wayward girl? “One can’t live without trusting others!” She’d said this to Suad. Poor lamb! He continued to walk. But Suad wouldn’t quit his thoughts. What kind of letter was that? Why had he written it? He began to recite inwardly the sentences that remained in his memory:

Do you know, Mümtaz, what constitutes the most pathetic aspect of our fate? It’s that mankind is preoccupied solely with itself. The entire structure is built upon this foundation, both subjectively and objectively. Whether mindful of it or not, mankind expends its fellow man like material fodder. Our spite, our malice, our desire for greatness, our love, our despair, and our hopes are all bound to others. If you did away with beggars and the poor, no mercy or divine grace would remain and we’d fast become wretched. There are no two ways about it, humans are preoccupied with humanity. People exist by imposing on others. Even artists are this way. Even those you say have “saintly souls.” That night, how Dede Efendi impinged upon us. In the violin concerto that I’ve listened to for one last time, how Beethoven imposed upon me. And the musicians, more so than others. Even you, Mümtaz, the things you say without considering your own position, not to mention in that awkward manner of yours. If you weren’t so tedious, or. .

He shook his head remorsefully. He always despised me. But to what end did he die? Why did he burden us this way? Seeing that he knew all this.

Everything İhsan said was true. Only he’s quite tiresome, even more so than you. One can at least tease you. İhsan, moreover, has a rational mind.

He hurried on his way. I’ve memorized the entire letter! If only he’d heeded İhsan’s advice and taken a trip. He would have forgotten everything by now. But which of İhsan’s ideas had Suad found to be truthful? “Mankind is responsible for all Creation.” Yes, it was this one. Suad said, “Truthful, but foolish. I mean, it gives the impression of truth on first glance.” And a short while later he began objecting to it; this was his nature. He was certain to attack whatever he’d admired a moment before. “Unfortunate humanity! Which notion of responsibility? Like Joyce’s Leopold Bloom, perched atop our own anxieties, we’re spouting philosophy and poetry.”

He recalled the expressions contorting Nuran’s face when she first read this letter. But he wasn’t able to conjure the scene the way it had happened; frequently Nuran’s head, along with Suad’s head, bowed over the page. Mümtaz made a hand gesture as if to shoo him away. But his subsequent thought was a response to Suad: I accept responsibility for my ideas. You think how you want to think! And without a pause, he returned to thoughts of the porter. I can certainly send him off to war with people he doesn’t know. Seeing as I have conviction. There’s a litany of things that I believe need protection. If need be, I can expend people like cannon fodder as well! The porter would perish. Absolutely. And even worse. He’d end up killing somebody. One or a number of others. For what else but the sake of humanity!