The Peace Machine

by Oezguer Mumcu

  ARIF (Unconvinced) Monsieur Pierre, would you have poor Sahir, who is half-blind and such an odd character, carry out such a command?

  PIERRE God works in mysterious ways and His judgements are inexplicable. Good and evil, compassion and cruelty—they all set up different vibrations in the soul. If we could measure those vibrations, we could create a peace machine capable of blocking those waves spread in the soul by wickedness and cruelty. And I believe that I can build it.

  ARIF But are you sure that is the kind of task we should assign to a machine?

  PIERRE Arif Bey, a machine is perfect for the job. Generation after generation of people have been living near this magnetic mountain, meaning that the vibration of their souls is more prominent than it is in others. And that’s why some places have more saints and madmen than others. I kept thinking about that when you were telling me about Sahir and his village. Let me take Sahir with me to France, where I’ll look after his education, and I’ll also try to find a way to have his eyes treated. While there, I’ll try to detect the vibrations of his soul. I assure you that not an ounce of harm will come to him. If perchance I am right, we will create the machine to establish everlasting peace. And if I’m wrong, that young man will still have a bright future before him. I promise you, I will look after him like my own son. Of course, he’ll always be able to come back to you whenever he so desires.

  5

  The Hubris of Might

  IT WASN’T SLEEPLESSNESS that was tying Celal’s stomach in knots, but the play he’d been reading. As far as he knew, his adoptive father Arif Bey hadn’t had any acquaintances by the name of Monsieur Pierre, nor had Celal ever heard of such a thing as a peace machine. As a child, Celal had gone to that house in Manisa and played in the courtyard described in the play. But he had never heard mention of anyone named Sahir.

  Celal may not have been able to answer the questions swirling in his mind, but he knew it would be easy enough to find the printing house that published his books. He recalled that Jean had mentioned in his letters a photography studio, situated in one of those neighbourhoods that spiral out from the heart of Paris like the pattern on a snail’s shell. Jean had said that they printed the books in the studio’s basement, so Celal thought that if he spent the day wandering the streets of the neighbourhood he’d be able to find the place. When the train pulled into the station, Celal headed straight for the fifth arrondissement.

  In no time at all he found the studio, but it turned out to be closed. In the shop window, which was covered in portraits and landscapes, Celal noticed a small handbill that had seemingly been taped to the glass more recently than the photographs.

  Celal realized that the engraving on the handbill was the work of the woman who did the illustrations for his novels. It depicted a boy bringing his fist down on the head of a bull, and beneath the image was an address written in Arabic script, the same as the handwriting in the notebook he’d been reading. He took a mental note of the address, which consisted of three numbers and the name of a street: 227 rue de Vaugirard.

  As Celal approached the address around noon, the back of his neck was damp with nervous sweat. He paused at the building’s entrance and lit a cigarette, bile rising up in his throat as his heart beat wildly. As he considered resorting to tongue-twisters to pull himself together, an urge to flee bore down on him. Driven on, however, by a desire to see the woman who illustrated his books, he went in. A red carpet rose up a broad flight of stairs, held in place with brass fasteners. After pausing to catch his breath, he made his way up the stairs and then pressed the doorbell next to an oak door.

  Like most men who find themselves standing on one side of a door separating them from a beautiful woman, Celal drew himself up to his full height and quickly brushed his hair with his hands, trying to make sure that his expression betrayed nothing but cool indifference. After a few moments, the heavy door swung open with a squeaky chuckle.

  Celal found himself face to face with a slight, teary-eyed man in his fifties. The man nodded in greeting, and then pulled a cigar from the pocket of his straw-coloured silk jacket and lit it. Celal stood there, watching the man puff at the cigar to get it going. When he was satisfied that the cigar was properly lit, the man smiled and said, “My dear Celal Bey, your arrival has been eagerly anticipated. Please come in.”

  Celal hesitated for a moment. When the man briskly turned and started walking down the apartment’s long entrance hall, Celal’s curiosity won over his unease and he started to follow him. They arrived at a lavishly decorated living room. The man turned to Celal and said, “Please have a seat and relax. We have so much to talk about.” He then walked over to the liquor cabinet and took out two crystal cognac glasses that gently clinked together. He filled the glasses and handed one of them to Celal, who had settled into the nearest chair.

  “I was quite fond of your father, Celal.”

  Celal twirled the glass. The cognac swirled around the inside of the crystal and then slowly starting dripping back down in streaks. The light that managed to penetrate the heavy green velvet curtains gave the cognac a sickly hue. Celal rubbed his stubbly cheeks, unsettled by the darkness of the room. Smoke from the cigar drifted over his head, mingling with specks of dust floating in the air.

  As Celal sat there silently, his host took a few sips from his glass. Celal took out the notebook and tossed it onto the table between him and the man.

  “Sir, I was quite fond of my father as well. Now, would you mind if we opened the curtains?”

  The man strode over to the window and pulled open the curtain. Riding the cool breeze, the scent of horse chestnuts drifted into the room through the half-open window.

  “If perchance what you wrote is true, Sahir Bey, I would surmise, based on your handwriting and the moistness of your eyes, that Monsieur Pierre convinced my father to let him take you away.”

  Smiling briefly, the man said, “Sudden light. More than one truth… That’s what your father would say when we drank until morning, the break of dawn taking us by surprise. Lightly punching my arm, he’d say, ‘Get going, it’s late.’ He was a man of rituals. A poetic man.”

  After knocking back his drink in a single gulp, Celal took out a cigarette. Placing it in his mouth, he said, “The play you wrote has just one act and three scenes. I suppose you didn’t have me come all the way here so that I could read the last scene, which seems to be missing.”

  Sahir took a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wiped his eyes, which were a deep grey, like the fur of a smoke-coloured cat. Not bothering to hide his irritation, Celal went on: “You’re the first person I’ve ever heard say that my father was a poet. Yes, he was a refined man, as gentlemanly as they come. But Sahir Bey, he wasn’t the kind of man who would drink until morning. Once in a blue moon he would drink a small glass of orange liqueur with his coffee, but aside from that I never saw him touch alcohol.”

  “That’s right, dear boy, he liked orange liqueur. He made it himself, didn’t he? On such mornings he would always drink one glass before sending me off to sleep. Like I said, your father was a man of ritual. If you have the time, I’d like to tell you what I know about him.”

  Celal fixed his eyes on the window. Stirred by a light breeze, a branch of the horse chestnut tapped at the glass as if asking to be allowed in.

  “The play you read isn’t finished yet. I’ll only be able to finish it together with you.”

  Celal lit his cigarette and motioned for him to go on. Sahir picked up his cigar, which had burnt halfway down, and neatly cut off the tip with a pair of silver scissors.

  “Arif Bey was a respected man. That was obvious the first time you laid eyes on him. He had an inquisitiveness that most people were lacking. We were like old, gnarled trees, but little by little Arif stripped away the bark of our ignorance with his questions. Back at his estate in Manisa, there was never a dearth of time. Dining and prayers would end, and then he would read to us. Celal, have you ever seen frozen earth? That’s what our
souls were like. It’s not quite ice, nor is it soil, but there are certain weeds that can take root there. From a distance they appear to be thriving, but down below they are frozen solid, useless for all practical purposes. Sure, there were certain things we took pleasure in, but everything we had was lacking in some way. It was Arif who thawed that frozen earth and brought fertility to the fields of our imagination.”

  Sahir got up and padded over to the window, drawing the right side of the curtain closed so that it left his face in shadow.

  “Forgive me. You’ve come a long way and I’m sure you have questions you’d like to ask. It’s been a long time since I spoke of such things. And here I find myself face to face with Arif’s son… You have changed so many things in our lives. Do you know that? If you’d known, I’m sure you would have come here long ago to find me.”

  Celal sat up, his mind brimming with questions. “Sahir Bey, what is that play about? Why did you write it? And why did you arrange for me to find it? Who is the Police Commissioner? Who killed Jean? Who is Monsieur Pierre? And for God’s sake, what is the peace machine?”

  Sahir sat down in a chair facing Celal.

  “Patience, dear boy. You’ll get the answers to all your questions. I was born in Kudretköy. Maybe you’ve heard about it. According to legend, Kudretköy can be seen by the eagles that soar over the world’s highest peaks. It is much more than a village. According to the locals, it is a country all its own. Also according to legend, the army of Kudretköy once destroyed the surrounding villages with the hubris of might, which is fitting, since ‘kudret’ itself means ‘might’. When there were no more villages to conquer, the ruling families started going for each other’s throats. Farriers butchered millers and shepherds slaughtered blacksmiths, and in the end the town was left in ruins. The caravans that once transported chests of treasure under the Lighthouse of Alexandria’s guiding light vanished long before the lighthouse itself was destroyed.

  “Why am I telling you all this? Well, Monsieur Pierre used to spend a lot of time around Kudretköy on the slopes of Mount Sipylus. If we are to believe the legends, he wouldn’t have been able to do so in the town’s former glory days, as the watchmen would have hauled him off to a dungeon for snooping around. But that was no longer the case. As you read in the play, I was the last of the watchman family, but I’d already run away and started working as a scribe for Arif Bey. Tahir, whose family was in charge of looking after the town’s roads, occasionally saw Monsieur Pierre but didn’t pay him much heed. When he first saw Monsieur Pierre, Tahir assumed he was a treasure hunter. Without thinking too much about it, he spat on the ground and started plodding in the direction of the village. At one point he came across a lizard on a stone that had recently died, probably baked to death in the heat, and out of sheer curiosity he stuck its tail in his mouth to see what it tasted like. After a few tentative nibbles he spat it out again. Within an hour he had forgotten about Monsieur Pierre and in two hours he forgot all about the lizard. The locals in nearby Manisa had at first also taken Monsieur Pierre for a treasure hunter. Unlike treasure hunters, however, he wandered around alone and was not accompanied by workers from neighbouring villages; nor did he have mules, shovels or other tools for digging. All Monsieur Pierre carried was a bag slung over his shoulder which contained some hardback books, a few changes of clothing and various magnets. He had rented an outbuilding in the yard of a home owned by a rather slovenly barrister. When his money ran out, the barrister and the other locals became firmly convinced that Pierre’s buried treasure would never be found. The barrister introduced Arif Bey, who was interested in science, to Monsieur Pierre, and after that they became fast friends. That’s how I first met him. Monsieur Pierre would spend a few months of the year with Arif Bey. He had a strange device that he would take up into the hills and mountains. For Arif Bey, and for me as well, Pierre was the harbinger of spring. Every year when the weather warmed up, he’d suddenly show up in a horse-drawn carriage.”

  Celal was quite familiar with the house in Manisa that Sahir described, the house where Arif Bey and Monsieur Pierre would spend days in discussion. Sahir also described the Red Brook where he used to go fishing, talking about it with such excitement that the water seemed to be rushing around his ankles at that very moment. Arif learnt from Sahir that there were strangely shaped electric eels that had found their way into the stream from a well in Kudretköy, and that these eels couldn’t be found anywhere else.

  Although the effects of the angel’s trumpet Karachiyano had given him had more or less worn off by then, and Celal no longer suffered from the sudden hallucinations it had brought on, Sahir’s descriptions still materialized in his mind’s eye with uncanny vividness.

  Pierre and Arif, arguing passionately in the courtyard of the house in Manisa…

  Monsieur Pierre walking on the slopes of Mount Sipylus…

  Moist-eyed Sahir as a teenager, Pierre and Arif telling him of their dream of creating a peace machine…

  Monsieur Pierre trying to climb up to a cave near the peak of a mountain in the south of France and falling to his death, his body recovered only forty days later…

  And then there was Céline, whose mother had died when she was giving birth. Céline, the artist, and the daughter of Monsieur Pierre…

  Sahir, who ended up being put in charge of Monsieur Pierre’s immense wealth, looked after Céline following her father’s death.

  But what interested Celal most was the peace machine.

  Celal’s knowledge of physics was slightly better than average, but Sahir’s explanations of the theory behind the machine seemed to be magical or, more precisely, poetic rather than anything else, especially the notion of “vibrations of the soul”. While he may never have fully grasped Maxwell’s Equations, Celal was familiar with the fact that electricity can be transferred, even to an atom. Electrical currents are indiscriminate and have no qualms about passing between the tiniest of particles. That much made sense.

  Sahir showed Celal some chapters from a medical treatise that dated back to Roman times. Scribonius Largus and Galen, both of whom were leading physicians in their day, had recommended the use of electric eels as a treatment for nervous disorders.

  Sahir said, “I liked touching such eels and getting a shock. I used to lie down in the water with them in my arms. Let me tell you, young man, it certainly wasn’t good for my eyes, but it helped with something else of which it would be improper of me to speak.”

  The knowledge had been lost over the centuries, but eventually people rediscovered that electric currents could stimulate the brain and bring on a feeling of tranquillity. In the nineteenth century, some Italian scientists had placed various metals in saltwater, effectively creating batteries, and it was said that the gentle currents they produced were good for curing fits of depression. However, no one took them very seriously at first, particularly in light of the saying “A melancholy Italian is the equivalent of a happy Frenchman.”

  Sahir had all the records of their experiments, and the readings they had taken of the magnetic forces around Mount Sipylus, not to mention the results of tests made on human subjects… Drawing on all that material, Sahir had constructed a peace machine, and at last Celal had the opportunity to see the device. It consisted of a spool of copper wire, which led from a bank of batteries to numerous magnets, from which they emerged again to wind around bobbins connected to a metal ring.

  “You place the metal ring on the subject’s head,” Sahir explained. “The electric currents suppress certain regions in the brain and stimulate others. And just as a massage for the body loosens up the joints and helps the body relax, this has a soothing effect on the brain. It doesn’t last long, though—just a few days, at best creating a feeling of tranquillity that is barely perceptible. The effect is like how you feel when you drink a small shot of watered-down wine with opium. Still, it’s a good start and it explains a lot. People’s minds are affected by electric currents. Electromagnetic waves create certain
vibrations that influence the human body, making people feel more relaxed and at peace.”

  Celal cut in: “May I point out that people who hang out at opium dens are relaxed and peaceful too?”

  “Celal, it’s not the same at all. It’s possible to set up those vibrations in a way that doesn’t induce lethargy. The aim of peace isn’t to lead people to a life of inactivity, sprawled out on cushions on the floor, but rather to help them truly understand the universe and grasp the connection between human civilization and the essence of the universe. If it’s not going to be like that, I’d even prefer war over peace. Trust me on this. My goal isn’t to create an electronic opium machine. In any case, no one would bother with such a thing when we already have opium and alcohol. If I get the machine up and running, it will have to work on everyone if it is going to bring about world peace. It wouldn’t be feasible to affix a metal ring to the head of every person on the planet, but there might be a way around that. Magnets draw metal towards them by invisible forces. So, by using magnets we might be able to do away with wires altogether and create a peace machine that we could set up in every city around the world. But, Celal, I won’t lie to you—this isn’t something that can be done today or tomorrow, but we must do our best to make great strides forward. And that is why circuses—yes, Celal, circuses—are so important!”

  Just as Celal cocked an eyebrow in confusion, the knob on the living room door turned with a joyous squeak. As the door swung open, the scent of perfume filled the room, a scent like Muscat grapes that made the hair on Celal’s arms rise up in salute.

  Without even turning to look, Celal knew that it was Céline who had walked into the room.

  6

  Wild Cherries