A Mind at Peace (48 page)

His thoughts snapped. Nuran’s face appeared before him in the ambience of the tavern filled with cigarette smoke, the stench of alcohol, and tacky voices, as if she were unwilling to leave his mind in such a state of
hüzün
– not for an instant.

Once again he yearned to be on the street, to ramble aimlessly over roads, to bump up against passersby, to scarcely be saved from a fate beneath automobile tires, and to let his thoughts cavort wildly and aimlessly. The renewed thought of Nuran was so strong that he momentarily felt suffocated. Then he reached for his glass. Alcohol, alcohol should provide some relief.
Humanist experiences devoid of humans indeed . . .
All decent, absolute, blissful, and lofty things like this were devoid of humanity. Profound and reasonable ideas were predicated on a single point: Death! Or else unrestrained chaos, that is, life itself!

Mümtaz stared at the door, wondering which of the two would enter: astounding and illogical Eros or the master of inevitability, Thanatos. The door opened. A young woman and three men entered and sat down at the neighboring table. Mümtaz couldn’t recall when this table had emptied out. Then he realized how his attention was skittering over surfaces. Perhaps none of what he thought he’d seen actually existed. His imaginative faculties could have conjured the waif who resembled a muddied corncob, the garçon and his plague-of-torment smile, and the middle-aged, painted lady with bracelets jangling like the bells of an old-world camel. With this thought, he looked about with trepidation. The waiter with the unctuous grin was yet preoccupied with the newcomers. Through hand gestures, which he tried to make polite and agile, he recommended haricots in olive oil, mixed pickles, salt bonito, and shish kebab to the young woman. He never varied his mimes such that these delicacies, whose procurement elsewhere was impossible, emerged from horizontal circles traced by a pair of coupled fingers beneath her nose. The waif continued to croon her song, though now tears welled in her eyes. The middle-aged harlot, from where she rested on her lover’s arm, requested a
türkü
from the one-eyed mandolin player.

What’s a young man like me doing in a place like this?
Alcohol offered no consolation. He wasn’t one to attain the paradise of oblivion through drink.
As for this lot . . .
Anyway, should he one day lose Nuran, by dint of circumstance, he’d sup in places like this, he’d adopt habits resembling those of the regulars in this crowd, and he’d desire the companionship of these women. Solely due to this eventuality, half delirious, he darted from his chair.

XI

By the time he’d arrived home, the hour was approaching eleven o’clock. As he patted his pockets for keys in the entryway while contemplating the unseemliness of the night, the door opened by itself. Before him stood Nuran. At first he was alarmed, assuming that he was to receive bad news about Tevfik, her mother, or Fatma. But when he saw Nuran wearing the traditional folk dress that he’d purchased for her a week ago from a Kütahya native, he understood that this was simply an evening delight.

Evidently Nuran had set out on her way Friday to come to Mümtaz’s apartment at the appointed hour, but as she’d happened upon Suad just before the door, she couldn’t bring herself to make an entrance. For two weeks now she’d been running into Suad on this street. But this time Mümtaz’s relative had tightened the blockade and was having his shoes shined by a street urchin before the entrance. Reluctantly she’d turned back, and together they’d headed to Sabih’s, from where they’d decided to press on to Arnavutköy. The night described with such embellishment by Mümtaz’s friend had amounted to nothing more than this.

“It was completely awkward . . . completely! I was a hair’s breadth from having it out with him. And he was being sheepish in an odd way. I dreaded having to openly discuss the situation. But it worked out well.” Then Nuran laughed mysteriously. Mümtaz looked at her blankly. “It worked out well because I’ve made up my mind. I’m fed up with this vagrancy of spirit. My mother has softened her stance besides. As for Tevfik, he’s been pressuring me day and night. Today they went to Bursa. They’ll be staying for a week. We can finalize this whole business in the meantime. İhsan’s acquaintances can make arrangements for us in a snap. Those were Tevfik’s own words. He said, ‘İhsan could handle the matter in a snap!’”

Nuran had actually succumbed to strange anxieties over recent days. Being cast in the midst of so many men prevented her from managing her life. For the sake of doing something, anything, for the sake of a direction, she might have entertained another beau. But only for frivolous flirtation . . .

“There’s a soirée at Sabih’s tonight. She’s arranging a party for a dignitary who’s helping him in the faience tile business. They insisted on my presence. And this time the invitation came from Sabih himself . . . To avoid going there, I came here.”

Mümtaz could only guess at what other ordeals would confront them. Regardless, they had the coming week to share together.

“I arrived at six so we might go out someplace or eat here tête-à-tête . . . You weren’t home, so I awaited your return with no other alternative. Then I saw the dresses, realized they were for me, and tried them on. Take a look ...”

She made a girlish hand gesture.

“Have you eaten?”

“Of course, Sümbül offered me something, but I waited for you. Where were you?”

Mümtaz briefly described his evening but avoided dwelling on his emotional state and thoughts. Nuran listened, nodding. Finally she said, “These are passing worries. But you do make a point.”

“What if I’d actually gone into Sabih’s house?” Mümtaz said regretfully.

“Seeing as we’re getting married, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Oh, and you should know that I think I’ve lost the apartment keys . . . I’m afraid Suad might have them. Suad knows the address. He’s always wandering in the vicinity.”

“‘Seeing as we’re getting married’?”

“Yes, my uncle insists on it. My mother does as well. D’you know, I’m afraid now, too . . .”

Nuran sparkled like a jewel in the tight-fitting, ginger-colored, waistlength jacket over a purple velvet vest and matching baggy
şalvars
, all embellished with ornate silver thread and embroidery. She herself was quite taken with the costume, frequently looking into the mirror.

“How did you manage to braid your hair and put it up like that?”

“It’s not like there aren’t combs and mirrors in the house. Sümbül helped as well.” Sümbül smiled sweetly, revealing poor teeth. She existed in such a different world than Suad’s delirium or Yaşar’s afflictions.

“Nuran, you realize that anyone who sets eyes upon you will assume they’re living in a fable?”

Nuran longed to sing the
türkü
s that she’d learned from her mother and grandmother, from lands she’d seen and traveled.

Mümtaz felt he was living in a newly discovered dimension.

“What name shall we give you now, Nuran?”

“My real name is adequate.” Then she added, “It seems that the lives of our grandmothers weren’t so bad after all. For one, they dolled up quite nicely! Just have a look at this broadcloth.”

Before the looking glass, from which she couldn’t pull herself away, Nuran gazed at the vision of herself.

“Purely the early Renaissance of Pisanello! Or one of our own miniatures.”

“How much do you suppose a new one would be?”

Mümtaz guessed it would cost no less than a few hundred liras.

“But I doubt whether another like it could be made. The looms and weavers used to make this material . . .” Then he remembered: A school friend from the south had a traditional woolen cloak woven to celebrate the liberation of cities in that region. That alone had cost him fifty gold coins.

“Amazing!” Nuran nevertheless refused to relinquish her phantasy of time past: “Furthermore, their lifestyles were comfortable . . . They lived within a protective cocoon.”

Mümtaz stared at Nuran’s face remorsefully and said, “It’s true. Despite all the liberties we’ve given to women, we’re tinkering with their minds, and not even women, with the minds of young girls . . . Each day we cast a slew of victims out into society!”

Nuran nodded her head. “There’s nothing to be done. People aren’t interested in lives of ease now; they want to forge ahead on their own . . .”

But tonight wasn’t the night to delve into such matters. Sümbül was summoning them to the table. After the evening meal Nuran sang
türküs
that matched the outfits she wore. Both of them greatly admired songs from Kozanoǧlu, though Nuran was saddened at not knowing any
türküs
from Kütahya.

Early the next morning they went to see İhsan. Wearing his robe de chambre, he was conversing with two friends in his study. Mümtaz drew him aside and explained the situation. “Fine,” İhsan said. “It’ll be done within a week’s time . . . The district official in Fatih will handle it for me. I’ll inform him shortly. Give me your papers immediately, or have them delivered to me . . .”

“In the afternoon, then . . .”

İhsan, gazing at both of them, chuckled. “Nothing could have made me happier.” Nonetheless, he was preoccupied.

Accompanied by Mümtaz, he returned to the company of his friends. Nuran went to help Macide bathe Sabiha. Sabiha’s bath recalled the protocol of an eighteenth-century queen. The little scamp loved the water madly, as well as the soap bubbles and ducklike fluttering in the tub. She had to fully savor each of these cherished things. Everything was done only with her consent. She might say, “Mother, I’m freezing to death,” or she might shout and feign annoyance, “Gracious, you’ve scalded me! You’ve startled me breathless!” From where he sat upstairs, Mümtaz heard cackling from the ground floor.
Perhaps the last remnant of animal instinct in the species could be traced to the way little girls lived to be adored.

İhsan continued from where he’d left off a short while before: “Aren’t we putting too much stock solely in the idea? Evidently we are. Meanwhile it’s forced to transform so drastically . . . Just like elements that lose their properties or transform completely when exposed to air. Just for the sake of an idea, social life won’t forgo its own order or lack thereof, or its continual state of becoming. And that’s the reason leaders everywhere don’t pursue only one idea, even if it’s their own. The idea, at times, paves the way for their coming to power. But it cannot reign in and of itself. What actually reigns and endures are episodes in history and, along with them, realities whose resilience doesn’t diminish unless the era is disregarded. This is why, whoever they might be, great men of action only represent one passing moment, or else a limited period. Every age has its golden hour. You see, the man of greatness represents that golden hour.

“What should a ruler do with ideas that serve no purpose but to bind him hand and arm in the face of real events? And just let him try to concentrate on a very bold and exclusive issue and to move beyond current events! Just let him give up trying to contain those small, incessant revolts! Then he’ll glimpse the fundamental matter. But do you think life, that is, the social context, would allow this to happen? How long do you think he could endure? Had I been a dramaturge, I’d have rewritten Wagner’s
Rienzi
, the hero who emerged from the masses only to be burned by them. Or else a character resembling him . . .”

İhsan’s old schoolmate, a civil servant in his mid-fifties, staid and experienced, had been a member of parliament for three years now. “The entire catastrophe has to do with one’s repeated encounters with others, such that one’s ultimately unrecognizable to even his own self . . .”

“Ideas suffer the same fate: after repeated encounters with society, they become unrecognizable. New concepts are bold, but they’re susceptible to the disaster of not meeting a countervaling force capable of resisting them. What might serve to restrain an idea? Nothing. But put it into practice and see what form it takes. It’ll change from moment to moment, no longer resembling its original shape at all. Here rests the history of great revolutions. There are few epics as grandiose and sublime as the French Revolution. Within a span of twenty or thirty years, mankind had discovered all the principles that might guide it for another two thousand years. However, in the beginning, who would have guessed that the end result would have been bourgeois rule?

“Nothing simply accepts another entity the way it is: Agency resides within us. Outside us there are nothing but tools and means.”

“Despite this, for the sake of an idea we witness revolts, revolutions, cruelties, massacres . . .”

İhsan collected the hems of his robe de chambre. He was truly one beloved of oration. He glanced at Mümtaz as if to say, “Do pardon me!” before continuing. “Yes, it happens. But the outcome always changes. The arrow continually veers from its trajectory. As for our current times, it’s total horror. All our values and virtues are for sale at the bazaar. The carts have been upturned. On one hand there are engineers of revolution, the most grisly, most destructive legacy of the nineteenth century. Rest assured, as we speak there are ‘visionaries’ in Spain or Mexico preparing revolutions in random corners of the world based on nothing more than a city map, as if remotely planning any old public works project that intends to bring electricity to its citizens . . . Insurgents are identifying localities prone to provocation or susceptible to gangrene and instigating or inciting them.”

The middle-aged parliamentarian interrupted, “İhsan, you appear to be of a rather modern cast. It seems to me that you’re not so fond of your generation, are you?”

“I am not. Or rather, let my put it this way: I’m no advocate of revolution. But am I modern, truly? To be modern, I must be a man of the times in which I live. Meanwhile, I yearn for different things! To be modern, I should accept perpetual transformation along with the revolution. Whereas I’m one who admires consistency in certain ideas and contexts.”