A Mind at Peace (18 page)

V

Days later Nuran watched İclâl enter the house, giddy and amused. She’d run into Mümtaz at the ferry landing, where they’d sat and had demitasses of coffee together. Afterward Mümtaz accompanied her halfway to the house.

While stepping into the house, she was still laughing at the cock-and-bull story Mümtaz had made up.

Mümtaz, figuring that he was certain to run into one of the two of them there, had practically encamped before Kandilli for five days. Of course, had he wanted to, he could have directly requested a favor of İclâl; or by way of İhsan, they could have arranged to visit Tevfik. However, as he didn’t want to bare his emotions to a third party, he preferred to slyly lay siege to the Kandilli shore. It wasn’t quite sailing season. But taking a caïque out on the Bosphorus didn’t depend on any season. That time-honored means of Bosphorus transport was the solution to any problem at any hour and was sport and entertainment for all. Though a New Yorker born without a Ford or other automobile might seem natural, a child of the Bosphorus born without a rowboat of some sort still seemed an anomaly. For this reason no one was surprised to see Mümtaz in his rowboat drifting around the Kandilli landing. As soon as he woke, he’d jump into the boat, by turns hoist a sail or use the motor to travel to the landing, where he’d try to fish, read a book at the coffeehouse, converse with the elderly gardeners and the neighborhood old-timers, and when he grew bored and couldn’t find anything to do on the water, he’d head up the hill, and with the understanding that he would keep his distance from Nuran’s house, he’d roam among wildflowers and plants, rambling in the austere winds of the Bosphorus spring.

On the fifth day he reaped the rewards of his vigilance. İclâl was on the ferry. In the joy of this happenstance, he restrained himself from jumping into the air only with great difficulty. He caught up with her at the landing. İclâl hadn’t imagined she’d ever run into him there. Mümtaz claimed that he’d arranged to meet a friend who hadn’t yet arrived.

Nuran hadn’t assumed that Mümtaz would attempt such intricate gallantry. When she heard İclâl’s story, she laughed as well.

“Why didn’t you bring him along?”

“Honestly, I
did
think of it, but I didn’t dare without asking you first.”

“I’ve already met him.”

“On the ferry to the island ... Apparently you were with Adile. She sends her regards ... She said that if it suits us, we should pay her a visit in the afternoon and that she’d entertain us.”

When they came down to the landing, they found Mümtaz paddling lazily to and fro. He greeted them with a chuckle. “I’d hoped you’d come,” he said.

Nuran found his face thinner than before and suntanned. When the women boarded the boat, he went to the stern.

“What’s this, aren’t we going to sail?”

İclâl and Nuran preferred sailing, its thrill, and the slight headiness caused by the waves: the rolling undulations of the Bosphorus shoreline, the off-point moves that recalled dancing with a capable lead, gliding through the sunlight and the sea. But Mümtaz insisted it wasn’t the right time for sailing. It was still much too early in the season for them to savor this delight. Not to mention that their clothing might be ruined. They hadn’t dressed for such an outing.

İclâl, in her navy blue ensemble, was fit for an afternoon tea party. Nuran had lent İclâl a gray overcoat. She wore a red-striped beige outfit, and the lapel of her jacket revealed a yellow sweater lending the exposed portion of her neck a softer and more velvety appearance. Evidently she’d arranged her hair at the last minute with a few randomly placed barrettes.

Her appearance, rather more striking through this hasty primping, revealed the ambivalence that had persisted until the very last. Mümtaz felt his veins ignite with the desire to sink his face into the nocturne of her hair. Throughout his whole being radiated the fatigue of one who hadn’t slept in a dog’s age.

İclâl admired the caïque. “I’m no expert, but it’s nice,” she said.

Nuran completed İclâl’s comment as if she were more closely familiar with seagoing: “It’s a nice boat; it would stand up well in most situations, fishing, touring, or sailing. And it’s quite new.”

From the end of the rowboat, Mehmet the oarsman answered, holding the boat by one hand on the quay, “I could go all the way to İzmit with this.” The presence and demeanor of the young women pleased him. This was the first time he’d seen Mümtaz, whom he called
aǧabey
, with friends of such variety and he was happy for him. But when they stepped into the boat, he started as if a load of glassware had been entrusted to him. His woman was of a different ilk. To his taste, he preferred women like the girlfriend of the coffeehouse apprentice at Boyacıköy. One could rely on them at life’s every turn. These women here were probably frail; but he had nothing to say against their appearance.

“Do you like to go fishing?”

“Before my father passed away, we’d go out ... to be honest, before I got married.”

At this midafternoon hour, the wind had seemingly retreated to certain strategic vantage points. First they headed down toward the district of Beylerbeyi. Then they returned by the same route. They passed the villages of Anadoluhisarı and Kanlıca. At Akıntıburnu the wind and the waves embraced them as if they’d actually emerged out into the open sea.

Only an arm’s length away onshore were parks, a path where children tried to fly kites, fruit boughs in bloom, and fishermen apprenticing in patience with their poles and lines. Beneath them the sea gushed in vast layers of current, spiriting them through the sounds and scents of bewildering invitations.

Mümtaz was conveying the treasure of his life. For this reason he hesitated. “I’m both Caesar as well as his oarsman. So, this is the outer limit of our excursion.”

He’d said this while staring into Nuran’s eyes. But Nuran was preoccupied only with the surrounding views and somewhat with herself. Over the past five days she’d come to an array of decisions; on one hand, she found her house and life tedious and grew impatient for the young man’s invitation; on the other hand, staring at her daughter’s bedstead resting beside her own, she believed that no external force could disturb her own repose. But there it was; after an argument with herself that lasted three hours, she’d gone out. Was she being spineless? Or was it the exercise of one’s inborn rights? She didn’t know. She only knew that she’d plopped like an anchor into the boat with the weight of her entire existence. On the way back they stopped at Emirgân Park. The season of the café had begun. There were habitués of all ages and walks of life. They partook of the approaching evening and spring with the understanding that they’d simply leave early if the temperature dropped suddenly.

Springtime was intense and tremulous, like a tertian fever during convalescence. Over the extent of the outing, they’d sensed this tremor. Everything melded together in the consternation and excitement of fresh, pliant leaves and bright colors, of the discovery of self and shadow in blazing white radiance. From the hilltops where they’d congregated, the heliotrope, the crimson, the burgundy, the pink, and the verdure assaulted one’s casing of skin.

Here, however, at this open-air café, spring was only a small contraction, a yearning for life. They huddled together with hot teas in tulip-shaped glasses, among the crowd, and with that bizarre sensation brought about by observing from the vantage of another shore and in completely new light the places they’d just passed.

“Okay, then, please do tell us why you’ve besieged the shores of Kandilli?”

Mümtaz bowed his head to hide the blush of his cheeks. “I don’t know if you could call it a siege. Access by land is completely open. I only took the ferry landing under my command.” He laughed, making a gesture that seemed to say, “That’s all I could do. What else should I have done?” Yet his expression declared, “I’ve suffered through this week.” A hint in his laugh revealed that his entire face was prepared to accept this torment, which could only be discerned in the rims of his eyes and his lips.

“Why don’t you tell us about the matter of the palace in Kandilli, Mümtaz?”

Mümtaz racked his brain for the information he’d imparted to İclâl that morning. “A vision ... up in smoke. We began looking for the context of a line of verse. To be honest, now, it was all rather fanciful.” But he had to say something more. “There was a date given for the restoration of the palace. Of course, neither palace nor its foundation exists today. Not to mention the old gardens. But the line of verse exists:

“It’s a trick that this line has played on me.” Next he talked of the Kanlıca inlet and the Bosphorus villages of Kandilli, Çengelköy, and Vaniköy. He had an odd erudition. Rather than knowledge per se, he was interested in bygone lives. “Indivduals are of paramount importance. What’s the rest of it to me? In the furnace of time, an individual’s life burns away as quickly as a leaf of paper, perhaps. Maybe life is actually a comic game, as some philosophers maintain; in complete desperation a slew of hesitations and trivial, hopeless defensive stances, even phantasies, under the guise of decisions. Be that as it may, the life of an individual who has actually lived is still of great consequence. Because no matter how comic it might be, we cannot completely reject life. Even through our mental anxieties, we still seek out values in life, whether ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ We make allowances for love and desire. We distinguish between living creatively and losing ourselves in petty squabbles and wastefulness.”

“Okay, what about action?” Nuran made a gesture with her hand. “I mean in the sense of accomplishment. Challenging oneself on paths of greatness.”

Mümtaz was overcome with self-doubt: “There’s no path great or small. We only have our pace and stride. Sultan Mehmet II conquered Istanbul when he was twenty-one. Descartes presented his philosophy when he was twenty-four. Istanbul was conquered just once. As is customary, a lecture is written only once. But there are millions of twenty-one- and twenty-fouryear-olds in the world. Should they perish because they aren’t a Mehmet the Conqueror or a Descartes? It’s enough that they live their lives to the utmost. I mean, the magnitude of what you call a path of greatness resides within.”

Nuran stared intently at the young man. “But action, you’re not discussing action.”

“I did so discuss it ... Everyone’s obligated to act. Everyone has his fate. I don’t know, I like to live this fate by appropriating aspects of it and its inner world. That is to say, I like art. Maybe art presents us with the most benign faces of death, those that we can acknowledge most easily. Certainly one’s life can sometimes be as beautiful as a work of art. When I encounter that ...”

“For example?”

“Take the poet Shaykh Galip in the eighteenth century ... He died very young, during his most prolific age. He underwent training and etiquette that constituted a cache of wisdom all its own. From the start, this education forestalled a number of mishaps and detrimental influences. He neither developed through a dawn nor an afternoon. Like a serene evening, he’d already been constituted beforehand by movement, by the play of light, by fealty to what we admire; for example, İsmail Dede Efendi around the same time. He composed close to a thousand pieces of music. Look at his life: like any ordinary life. But it was all his own.”

“Doesn’t the era itself contribute something?”

“Of course. But the exception transcends the era. One might be tempted to assume that they lived lives of privilege. For example, neither of them attempted to reform the world. Meanwhile, your neighbor of fame, the seventeenth-century preacher Vanî Efendi, did just that, and in the process spoiled everybody’s peace of mind and contentment. He was defeated by despair ... My first two examples are artists who discovered the secret of living in a manner faithful to their inner selves. It seems to me that the others are but deluding themselves.”

Mümtaz gazed about as if wanting to escape the convoluted diatribe into which he’d fallen. Dusk began a vast suite of traditional Ottoman music. Every instrument of light prepared to play the swan song of the sun. And every single entity was one such luculent instrument. Even Nuran’s face, even her hand fiddling with its coffee spoon ...

“Do you think we should go somewhere from here?”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Büyükdere or İstinye ...”

The day was coming to a close now. But he didn’t want it to end. Maybe there, farther on, the sunlight would continue.

“Why don’t you explain what you mean by despair, Mümtaz?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Despair is the consciousness of death, or rather the way death affects us ... the array of snares it sets in our lives ... the teeth of a vise that constricts our every move. Every act, regardless of type, is a result of despair. Particularly in this period of open fear that won’t scab over ... One by one, our continual rejection of cherished things. The fear of turning into one’s father. And, finally, the realization that whatever one does, death is inescapable. At least, they say, let death catch me at an extreme, while hurtling toward one of the poles: either while singing ‘the Internationale’ en masse or while goose-stepping ...”

He himself, at this moment, was somewhat in the throes of this dread. A golden light shone in the house windows of the opposite shore and embellished the Bosphorus waves. He felt that this light alone saved them. Without it, they’d suffocate, they’d be interred at the base of this chinar. He was honestly content and wanted to act within this happiness. Though his old dilemma was afflicting him as well.

Nuran no longer asked any questions. She’d become lost in her own thoughts, resigning herself to the will of the twilight. The fresh air had fatigued her. The following question confronted her ad nauseam:
What will the end result of this ordeal be?
The best thing to do was to forget, to not think about anything. She was experiencing the serene pleasure of surrendering herself to the moment. İclâl, however, ruminated. İclâl wasn’t affected by the will of the twilight. She hadn’t even once brought to mind the etiquette cultivated by death. The petite, innocent youth, dedicated to everything around her, simply lived. Countless days stretched before her, and she dressed them in her hopes like little puppets. She dressed all of them in the fabric and accoutrements of love, longing, a stable household, of work hours, expectations, and even, if necessary, of toil and of friendship. She knew just how they should be appointed. But she couldn’t see their faces; their faces were turned toward the wall known as the future. At the appropriate time, these faces turned backward one by one, faced İclâl and curtsied before her, then slowly and without remonstration removed those exquisite glittering garments, and said, pointing into the distance, “Apparently I’m not the one, it’s most certainly another in line,” before passing beside her and lining up next to all the rest that had gone beforehand. This very spring was also that way. Spring, the spring she’d so anticipated and longed for in the midst of winter ...