A Mind at Peace (43 page)

Nuran gazed at Mümtaz; bottle in hand, he filled the glasses including his own but refrained from drinking.
What a perplexing, mutual tie we have, don’t we? My former friend and my beloved, his relative ... but the quantities he consumes . . .
Then she recalled the comparison often made about Suad, back in their college days:
Most horses don’t drink this much . . . Maybe they never drink.
Raising an eyebrow, she rifled through her mind:
No, it’s not that they never drink . . . I read in the paper somewhere that certain racehorses drink beer or wine. But of course they don’t drink this much.
In trepidation she looked at Suad’s glass, which he’d again emptied. When she used to conjure the bit about Suad’s resemblance to a horse, she’d laugh. But not this time; so, it’s an awkward situation. And because Mümtaz also sensed it, he refrained from drinking. In that case, she wouldn’t drink either . . .
But I so need to drink . . . this music has kneaded me for hours. At times I felt like I’d taken on the form of divine clay ...
She wanted the alchemy of alcohol. But she would not drink.

Next, it was Selim’s turn. He’d fled the Caucasus as a boy in the wake of the Mondros Armistice: “Before the Great War, in Russia, students would drink at the kiosks of large train stations. My father used to tell us the story. A chosen leader, bell in hand, would take up the train schedule, reading it at the top of his voice. For instance, he’d announce, ‘We’ve arrived at so-and-so station, our train will remain here for twenty minutes, allowing us three glasses of Bordeaux or one bottle of vodka.’ In such a manner, they’d order their rounds. At each station, the alcohol they drank, along with appetizing local delicacies, made for a touristic excursion of sorts. Those who drank themselves under the table before the bell rang again had in effect ‘disembarked’ at that particular station and the train continued on its route . . .”

He glanced about; nobody was listening. He shrugged his shoulders. As a rule, no one listened to the stories Selim learned from his father. On account of these Russian recollections, his friends had dubbed him “Papa’s nostalgia.” Yet Selim was a fellow who recognized his shortcomings. He took no offense. He sidled up to İhsan. Orhan, seeing Selim in their midst, put an arm around his shoulders with sincere affection. Another of Selim’s fates was to serve as something of a leaning post for Orhan, who was twice his size. For some time now, to avoid this embrace, he’d attempted to keep his distance, but under the dismay of his disregarded story, he’d surrendered himself to this clutch of his own volition.
Destiny
, he repeated a number of times internally, and slouching under the weight bearing down upon him, laughing at his own foolishness, he listened to İhsan:

“I’m not sure if it’s worth crying over the absence of what amounts to a fiction. If you ask me, our lack of a notion of original sin in Islam, our lack of attention to this matter of the fall from paradise, as in Christianity, affects every field of knowledge from theology to aesthetics. We’ve given short shrift to spiritual conservation. We should interpret our context intrinsically, as it is.” He’d lost track of how he’d begun. He spoke hastily to avoid giving Suad an opening. “There isn’t even a foundation for dialogue and debate between these two worldviews. Religion and social constitution diverge. Note that in Western civilization everything is predicated on notions of salvation and liberation. Mankind is delivered in the first instance through Jesus’s descent to earth, his crucifixion, and the acceptance of his sacrifice. Later, sociologically, through class struggles, first city dwellers and then peasants find salvation. In contrast, from the beginning we’re already considered free by Muslim tradition.”

Suad, having finished his third glass, glared at İhsan. “Or forsaken . . .”

“No, first of all free. Free despite even the presence of slaves in the social body.
Fıkh
, Islamic jurisprudence, insists upon human liberty.”

Suad persisted: “The East has never been free. It’s always been mired in anarchic individualism restricted by despotic groups. We’re predisposed to forgo freedom as quickly as possible . . . and by all means.”

“I’m essentially speaking of foundations. In the East, particularly in the Muslim East, society is predicated on notions of liberty.”

“What difference does that make once it’s dismissed out of hand?”

“That’s another matter. That’s the result of an etiquette of altruism and self-sacrifice. The Muslim East has been in a defensive posture for centuries. Take Turkey. For a period of close to two hundred years, we’ve been living through phases of vital self-defense and security. In such a society, a fortress mentality naturally arises. If today we’ve lost the concept of freedom, the reason is that we’re living in a state of siege.”

Suad extended his glass to Mümtaz: “Mümtaz, please do me the favor of letting me exercise my free will.” His voice was as timid as a child’s. Or was it hissing? “The very liberty granted to me by Almighty Allah after He’s so effectively bound me hand and arm . . .” He took up the glass and stared within. As if he’d seen an ominous portent there, he reared his head and as if to dispel the vision he’d seen once and for all, he clouded the
rakı
with water: “There you have it, the extent of my liberty . . . but not as foolishly exercised as you might suppose. Don’t mock it!” Suddenly angry with himself, he set the glass back down. “But why did I acknowledge your censure by saying that? Don’t you all do the same?”

Nuran: “No one’s annoyed because you’re drinking. We’ve gathered here for a diversion, of course we’ll drink.” And she raised her glass. Mümtaz turned away to avoid coming eye to eye with her. She felt that they’d all surrounded Suad, in honesty involuntarily, maybe through his own instigation, maybe through their own apprehension, maybe even because they despised him, and had straightaway begun treating him like startled prey in battue or blood sport. This was nothing short of making a bad situation worse.

Not just in this parlor now but perhaps beneath every street lamp in every corner of the world similar scenes were unfolding. Mankind was inept, and for this reason ill-fated. The best laid plans of mice and men
gang aft agley.
An array of meaningless miseries and piddling sorrows . . . Mümtaz sighed.
Suad will make a scene tonight. Simply thinking so is preparing the way for a crisis. Isn’t politics this way also? Fear and the defense mechanism, its counterpoint . . . as in music . . . and at the conclusion the golden tempest of a grand finale.
He, too, was surprised at the sudden passage of his thoughts to Western music from the mood that the
a la turca
had conjured within him:
How peculiar ... I belong to two worlds. Like Nuran, I live between two realms, two beloveds. That means I don’t constitute a whole! Aren’t we all this way . . . ?

Suad pretended not to hear Nuran’s response: “Everybody chastises and criticizes me. Some allude to my illness, some to my marriage. Neither of them is of any consequence.” He grasped his glass tightly. “Everybody brings some malfeasance to my attention. My wife, my friends, my relatives . . . Never once do they consider that I was born without a sense of responsibility. One is either born with or without it. Bereft, I don’t have it. My wife realized this during our first week together, but she still complains and nags. Maybe she’s waiting for a miracle . . . Won’t a miracle happen? Imagine that I experience a sudden transformation and begin to cherish my life! Imagine that at work, I’m pleased with the president, the branch director, the treasurer, and the legal adviser . . . Imagine that I’m happy when my children climb onto my shoulders. Imagine that!”

Macide jeered, “Did you have a little something before coming here?”

“I started last night, Macide. Last night, Yaşar took me along to Sabih’s. There we drank till midnight, then we went down to Arnavutköy, where we stayed till three or four. Then . . .”

Nuran inquired about the rest of the night as if after a fabulous adventure: “Then? What happened next, Suad?”

His face was a shambles.

“Next, naturally... well, Arnavutköy is
the
mecca. They have all types. Even ethnic types, you might say . . . but since we were being entertained
en famille
, we preferred Gypsies. Greeting the dawn to the beats of a hand drum. You know the infamous entertainment spots over on the Hürriyet-i Ebediye hill? We found ourselves there. From within the night, a Gypsy ever so slowly conjured the rose-faced dawn with his hand drum, as if drawing water from a pump. There was a nymphette there as well, a spring bud, a girl practically. Her name was Bâde, ‘wine.’ Just use your imagination ... or Mümtaz should do so, it’s his genre. An improvisation on drums, a Gypsy nymph named Bâde, her companions,
rakı
, dancing . . . Then sleeping it off on a divan at a friend’s house.” His face puckered. He brought his glass to his lips but sufficed with one sip. “It’s difficult in the mornings. I haven’t managed to get used to the fatigue that comes in the wake of a binge.” He deposited his glass on the table. The gathering was in a state of shock.

“Is this enough, Nuran? It’s quite shameless, isn’t it? But if you want to know the truth, nothing of the sort happened. We didn’t go to Sabih’s nor did I hit the bottle. I was together with my wife last night, and I came here directly from Paşabahçe.” He smiled sweetly: “I’m not drunk, you can be certain that I’m not.”

Macide asked: “In that case, why did you lie?”

“To unsettle you. So you’d chastise me. To appear like a man of some import.” He was cackling between short, dry coughs: “It bothers me when my marriage comes up.”

Nuran: “Nobody brought up your marriage.”

“It doesn’t matter . . . I mentioned it, didn’t I? That’s enough, it means I’m under societal pressures!” He wiped his brow and turned to Mümtaz: “Mümtaz, shall I give you material for a story? Think about this, just let me set the scene . . . A man, a man of virtue, a civil servant, a professor, if you like – conjure a saint! Draw him so that he is possessed of every virtue. A man who hasn’t once faltered in decency ... yet he despises commitment. Peculiar, is it not? He’s a narcissist: He wants to live only through himself and for himself. His life is full of random but kindly gestures, and these acts become increasingly more generous. He likes to exercise his freedom of thought and he recognizes no sense of obligation. One day he up and gets married, perhaps to a woman he loves, an experience that completely changes him. He becomes grumpy, fussy, and ill-willed. The thought that he’s been pigeonholed slowly begins to drive him mad. The burden of being labeled, of living paired off like a draft horse, affects him. He begins to act despicably toward almost everybody; he’s cruel to animals and his fellow man, to all things. He becomes petty and he can’t endure anyone else’s happiness. And in the end . . .”

Hastily bringing down the curtain, Mümtaz said: “A textbook scenario . . . he murders his wife.”

“Exactly, but it isn’t that simple. He has protracted debates with himself. He ponders his life like a riddle and concludes that his marriage is the only obstacle resting between himself and humanity.”

“Why not divorce?”

“To what end? D’you suppose that two people who’ve lived together can separate, I mean truly separate from one another?” He said this staring squarely at Mümtaz. “And if he left her, what would come of it? Even if he could break off all ties, those intervening years spent together will haunt him. Will he ever be able to escape it all, a vast, terrifying existence of darkness, every excruciating minute of which he’s lived through? Not to mention habits of mind. At which point he’ll succumb to even greater hesitation. Think about it, this is a man who’s consciously committed every affront and indecency against his circle. Leaving his wife would just be adding insult to injury.”

“Once he murders, will he then forget?”

“No, he won’t forget. Of course he won’t forget. But his spite will diminish. The constricting resentment within him will evaporate.”

Nuri, unable to restrain himself: “Mümtaz, if you ask me, in place of writing about him, if you happen to come across him in the flesh, kill him outright. It’d be the nobler deed.”

Suad shrugged: “What would that solve? We’d only be dodging the issue. Not to mention that Mümtaz wouldn’t be able to. To kill him, he’d have to meet and single him out. Why should he kill somebody who resembles everyone else? More or less, everybody resorts to acts of depravity as a reaction to one person or a handful of people. Rest assured . . . behind each downfall you’ll find a precipitating one. Each of us digs his own grave. The man in question resembles all of us, he’s an Everyman . . . but he refuses to accept this fact. In the end, he seizes upon the only available solution to end this pitiless game. A single act, a bloodletting, a deed that resembles vengeance. And as soon as he takes action, as if having crossed an enchanted threshold, he discovers he’s broken through to the other side, to his old world, rich with the treasures of decency he’s borne all along. His face shines, his soul assumes all of its generosity, he loves his fellow man, he pities the plight of animals, he empathizes with children . . .”

“How, through murder?” İhsan’s mood had soured. Brooding, as if at the edge of an abyss, he recoiled within himself, staring at Mümtaz. Nuran went to Mümtaz and placed a hand on his shoulder: as in an altercation, everybody stood by his most trusted and beloved companion. Only Selim was alone: short of height, his arms crossed, observing the conversation up front with an expression of immense entertainment. Or rather, he resembled an urchin at a neighborhood cockfight.

“There’s no
acknowledgment
of murder.”

Macide: “Are you crazy, Suad? Why are you discussing such things? Take pity on yourself.” And startled by the word “crazy,” which hadn’t been uttered in her presence for years but had now passed her own lips, she withdrew behind İhsan, her body atremble.