A Mind at Peace (52 page)

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.

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!

No, Suad had no admiration for Mümtaz. Because he accepted responsibility for his thoughts. But were the porter’s wife and children amenable? His thoughts roamed through the mean and constricting corners of the city, through the mud-brick hovels on streets flowing with filthy water. Why?
So their grandchildren might be content and comfortable . . .
But the porter’s wife wasn’t willing. Wearing the gaudy wedding gown that he’d seen that morning in a flea market shopwindow, she begged of Mümtaz,
Don’t send him off! Don’t send him! If he goes, what will become of me and the children? Who’ll take care of us?
And she wept at his feet in the gown purchased from a discounter. On the way here he’d seen new conscripts at the Sirkeci train station, inductees who hadn’t yet been issued uniforms. Accompanying them were young fiancées and mothers holding the hands of their children, all walking in tears.

I do take responsibility for my ideas.
Had Suad heard this sentence, he would have keeled over in laughter, “Which ideas, my dear Mümtaz?” But Suad was of a different stripe.
He never did like me. He never did take me seriously. Yet I can’t help but like him.

Did he truly like Suad? Had he truly liked anybody, ever? The fact was that Nuran had left him; she didn’t have a single decent thought for him. İhsan was ill while Mümtaz aimlessly wandered the city streets.
Macide forced me, Suad. She said, “Don’t come home before dark! Go out and get some air, otherwise you’ll fall ill as well! I can’t look after you, too!”
He’d been reduced to defending himself before the judgment of a corpse.

He wiped his brow with a hand.
Why am I so obsessed with him anyway?
He tried not to think about Suad. He wanted to remember a time before all this, a period of trivial and blithe concerns.

“Best not to think about anything!” He hastily passed through the Kazanci market. He walked before Istanbul University’s dental school, scattering the covey of pigeons that he’d fed that very morning. Then he crossed the square. He strode apace by café tables beneath the sprawling chestnut to avoid being stopped by an acquaintance and entered the Beyazıt Mosque courtyard. He glanced at the clock out of the corner of his eye: ten to six.
They must have arrived by now!

Two elderly men took ablution at the mosque fountain.
Which of the prayers will they perform?
A disheveled elderly woman wearing a black chador crouched, cooling herself by awkwardly bringing a palmful of water to her face. Her shriveled hands appeared to be roasted by fire. Stray pigeons dawdled atop the marble slabs of the courtyard as if roaming through a garden of abstraction.
“Like the beloveds in old miniatures . . .”
Annoyed with himself, he struck out this comparison uttered in Suad’s voice:
Not even close! If anything, they’re thoughts wandering through a mind in solitude . . .
This wasn’t accurate either;
they’re inklings before the onset of actual thought
. Voilà! Pigeons on the portico traced mysterious shapes through ephemeral flights of lacey design.

By the other courtyard gate, he again observed elderly men performing ablutions and the expanse of the quadrangle. As Yahya Kemal had put it, this space had been an open casement for the soul since the mosque had been founded in 1506. This was what should persist.
I wonder if women in chador would come here in the past?
But this wasn’t the only transformation. As he’d passed through the courtyard he’d noticed a lone electric bulb burning as if to augment the dimness of the mosque from beneath the thick, half-raised entryway drape.
Old men performing the ablution at a classical mosque . . .

Then, thinking of the porter, he again retorted:
Don’t think I’m making wagers on your head! I’m also speaking on behalf of your convictions.

This time the porter wasn’t alone. He’d been joined by Mehmet, who’d been doing his military service in Ereǧli, and the coffeehouse apprentice at Boyacıköy.

Outside the entryway another elderly woman begged for alms in a thick Rumeli accent, though in a gentle voice. She had small hands, as small as a child’s. Her eyes resembled mountain springs on her wizened face. As Mümtaz handed the woman money, he wanted to peer into her eyes. But he could discern nothing there – such had they been occluded by pain and longing. Next he stopped in front of the prayer-bead seller peddling the final and paltry mementos of his boyhood
Thousand and One Nights
Ramadan celebrations, having reduced this realm of his genesis to a few prayer beads and two or three
misvak
toothbrush sticks in a small case. Last August, he and Nuran had purchased two strings of prayer beads and chatted with the man. He again bought two strings; but was scarcely able to keep them out of Suad’s clutch.
I’m dreaming, I’m seeing things while wide awake . . .

II

By viscous light of summer twilight the coffeehouse seethed in sound and fury. A gathering of every ilk and class – including expectant ferry-goers, neighborhood locals soon to return home, and day-trippers chatting with friends after the beach – had braved the evening sun filtering through the acacias like the fourteen children of Princess Niobe and were discussing the current state of affairs:
They display a true heroic resilience in this sun! Virtually Homeric.

Mümtaz walked on as the names of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and Chamberlain flitted through the air. While passing one table, he overheard the vociferous commentary of an acquaintance: “My dear man, today’s France can’t fight. Its inhabitants have become decadent . . . One and all they’re like André Gide . . .”

A las Gide, alas France! If France can’t fight, of course it isn’t Gide’s fault. There must be other reasons!
That this man could today still recollect a France without Gide was truly bizarre. Mümtaz immediately thought of a book comprised of comments and predictions made at each café table. What a testimonial.
To simply convey opinions on the verge of war – if it comes to that!
Read after the fact, it’d be an accurate and fascinating record of the vagaries of human thought.
But documented in the thick of things . . . it ought to be written tonight!
Should these same citizens later try to write down what they’d honestly thought now, intervening events would distort their state of mind and perspective.
Because we change along with events; and as we change, we reconstruct our histories anew.
The human mind functioned like this. Humanity would continually reformulate time. The knife’s edge of the present carried the weight of history while also transforming it, word by word.

Prophecies of other voices rose from other tables: “My good man, England isn’t as weak as you might suppose” or, “You’ll see, the actual victor will be Mussolini! The man could be in Paris in twenty-four hours!”

Mümtaz was transported to the era described by Cabî İsmet Bey in his history of the reign of Sultan Selim III:
“The general known to the world as Bonaparte sent word, ‘whoever be my sultan, I shall come to his aid with an army that could fill the Seven Seas . . .’”
Of course, it wasn’t quite the same, but reminiscent of what he heard. The commentaries continued: “At the turn of the nineteenth century, we were experiencing a crisis with Europe similar to today’s. But back then we weren’t familiar with Europe or ourselves”; “How much this country has sacrficed in blood”; “In place of supporting France, if only we hadn’t left England’s side”; “But, my good man, history is done and over with.” At what lengths he’d discussed such matters with İhsan. İhsan, who lay ailing.

His friends sat in the rear of the coffeehouse, their backs against the garden wall. A garçon who’d known Mümtaz for some time said, “They’re waiting for you.” Should war break out, he, too, would be sent to the front.

The lot of them were gloomy. Selim fiddled with an envelope. When they saw Mümtaz coming they called out, “How’s İhsan?”

“I haven’t seen him since about three. But he doesn’t seem to be in any real danger. Only, I worry about the night. They say that odd numbered dates are always more difficult.”

He took a chair. He sank his trembling hands into his pockets.

“You look quite pale. What’s bothering you?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Troubles.” And with a hand in his pocket, he fondled the prayer beads he’d snatched from Suad’s clutch.
I’m nothing but a child! I’m driving myself crazy!
“Have them bring me something, would you?”

“What would you like?”

Wiping the table, the garçon recited, “Coffee, tea,
ayran
, lemonade, soda . . .”

Mümtaz gazed at the man’s face and perspiring mustache through the lens of his student years. He’d once lambasted him when he’d lost the satchel Mümtaz had entrusted to him. Later they’d become friends.

“A tea!” Then he turned to his friends.

“What’s going on with you all?”

“What d’you expect? We’re talking about the march to war . . . or not.”

Mümtaz glanced at Orhan’s athletic shoulders. “Likely so,” he said. He, too, was surprised that he’d pronounced this verdict. “If not today, tomorrow. There’s no other way out. Now that matters have reached this impasse . . .”

“Then what about us? What’ll happen to us?”

Selim extended the envelope in his hand. “They’ve called me up to the district military office. I’m going tomorrow.”

“You haven’t answered to my question.”

Mümtaz looked at Orhan stretched out bodily over four chairs. His swarthy face, trained on the tree branches drooping from the mosque yard, awaited an answer in its usual state of composure.

“We’re tied to agreements: If France and England enter the war, we’ll enter.”

Nuri was the most distraught of the lot. “I was going to get married this week.” In Mümtaz’s eyes the wedding gown that he’d seen that morning could change a woman. But no, Nuri was well-off and his bride wouldn’t be caught dead in such a tacky dress. She’d wear a prettier, fancier, and more fashionable dress accented with jewelry – perhaps the jewelry he’d seen on display at the Bedesten. But if Nuri were indeed drafted, she wouldn’t be that different from the porter’s wife. In the midst of a more ordered, more comfortable life, she’d weep for him, yearn for him on quiet nights with stirrings of complete physical longing, and when his absence was reaffirmed, she’d become the enemy of all humanity.

Mümtaz had been friends with petite Leyla since university. He’d given her the nickname “Pocket Lady.” She’d once darned his loose jacket seam, lowering her small head to her chest while, in a moment of intimacy, he’d observed the softness of her nape between curly locks and the line of her dress. Leyla truly was delightful. Now she’d lower her head again, but this time to weep.

“You can still get married before you go . . . Or else you’ll take leave. Besides, it’s not clear what will happen!” Then, as if wanting to deliver himself of these troubles, Mümtaz took refuge in loose speculation: “Maybe war won’t break out and some means of reconciliation will be found.”

Fâhir: “You just said there was no recourse!”

“Everything hangs on and is held together by a thread. Do you want to know what’s truly horrible?” He paused, recalling the phrase of a poet of his esteem: “
Pire . . . Pire destin . . .
” he repeated. “The worst fate.”

“Yes, what’s truly horrible?”

“This insecurity. Life can’t seem to decide on its path. And it won’t, either. We know nothing of the era before the last war. We were only children then. But when one reads about it, it’s absolutely shocking. The sense of security and stability then! Finance, labor, ideology, social struggle, all of it developed on roads that had been paved beforehand. Now, everything is a shambles. Even borders change from day to day and hour to hour. International crises, and our nervous tension, can skyrocket in an instant. Maybe they’ll come to a resolution. But that won’t solve the matter. Because this state of insecurity and fear has befuddled the politicians.”