Static on the Karadin

0:00 A Woman on the Stairs, Hiding Her Hurry

0:04 Narrator: Istanbul, the autumn of nineteen forty-four. We kept rooms above the glass-roofed arcade in Péra, Arslan and I, and late one night a woman climbed our stairs, in a hurry she was trying to hide. Arslan: Sawdust on your shoes, so you came through the beer halls, not by the street. And a headset's groove in your hair. Somebody doesn't know you're out.

0:26 Pell: Pell. Wireless officer, with the British at Pera House. And no, they don't.

0:33 Narrator: Sit, Miss Pell. Tea? The samovar's going. It's stewed, but it's hot.

0:38 Pell: No tea. On the night of the nineteenth of October, I was aboard a British yacht on the Karadin, with the Hungarian envoy, a man called Geza. Arslan: Hungary is Germany's ally. So that was no pleasure cruise.

0:52 Pell: Terms, Arslan Bey. Hungary wants to give up, quietly. I handed Geza two wireless sets and a code sheet, the one sheet that works them.

1:02 Narrator: In Turkish waters. Ankara would have a fit. Pell: Ankara won't hear of it. It's all crated now at his consulate, waiting on a courier to Budapest. I'll listen on their frequency myself.

1:16 Arslan: Still you came. Pell: If one soul copies that sheet, the Germans up at Tarabya read every word from Budapest. Every term, every name. Men hang for it, and I—

1:27 Arslan: You've heard something, Miss Pell. Haven't you. Pell: I have. Tell you now, and you'd go looking for it and find it. Here's a note for Geza. He'll open his door.

1:38 Narrator: And if we need the police, do we— Pell: No. No Turkish police, mind. See that consulate clean, then come hear my log.

1:46 A Narrow House Below the Grande Rue

1:50 Narrator: The Hungarian consulate was a narrow house below the Grande Rue, and next morning Arslan went there as my friend, and I as a captain writing a book. Yusuf: Hawkers to the back, efendim. Yusuf keeps this door, and Yusuf knows a hawker.

2:05 Narrator: Captain Demir, for the Envoy. A book on Hungarians in exile. Rákóczi, Kossuth, all those sad men.

2:13 Yusuf: Madame Ilona! Two for the Envoy, with a book! Ilona: Thank you, Yusuf. This way, gentlemen. I'm Ilona, I keep the Envoy's diary, and he does as it tells him.

2:24 Geza: It is true. I'm Geza, Captain, and you are welcome. Hungarians in exile is a large subject, and growing.

2:34 Narrator: I tried to call last week, Envoy. The nineteenth, I think. Ilona: The nineteenth? Here. Launch from Galata at dusk, out to the Karadin and back past midnight, my booking. The Envoy's chest wants sea air.

2:47 Geza: My wretched chest. Narrator: Would you check my spelling of Rákóczi, Envoy? There, the page behind the notebook.

2:55 Geza: The spelling is excellently vouched for. Madame Ilona, coffee, kérem, if we still have any. Ilona: We've chicory, Envoy. Don't get your hopes up.

3:06 Geza: What does Miss Pell fear, Arslan Bey? The crate is sealed. It's in my strongroom until the courier comes, so I can't see what—

3:13 Arslan: The pins on your wall map stopped at the Don in January, and nobody has moved them. You weren't taking sea air. Geza: You read maps.

3:23 Arslan: Sometimes. Who in this house knows you mean to end it? Geza: Nobody. Nobody must. We sent two hundred thousand men to that river, and in January the ice —

3:35 Arslan: I know, Envoy. Geza: Forgive me. Every family— every family in Budapest has a boy on that river.

3:45 A Wireless Room Under the Roof

3:49 Narrator: Under the roof of Pera House, that same evening, Miss Pell let Arslan and me into her wireless room and shut the embassy out. Arslan: There's my clean look, Miss Pell. Now the log.

4:00 Pell: I monitored Hungarian wires for four years before this post. Here. Sunday the twenty-second, my night watch, two at night. A test call, on the frequency I gave the Envoy.

4:12 Narrator: Which end of Sunday? Saturday's drunks or Monday's bakers? Pell: Monday's bakers, Captain. I came on at ten that Sunday evening, and it's in that watch. The sets had been crated three days.

4:25 Narrator: Had they. Arslan: What did it say? Pell: Nothing, that's the sin of it. The call letters off the sheet, a little pause, and it signed off J E. Like this.

4:37 Narrator: Whose initials? Pell: Nobody's. I heard that close a thousand times on the Budapest railway wires, old hands ending a shift. I never learnt what it stood for.

4:49 Arslan: A set shows it's alive on its own needle. So the call was needless. Pell: Needless and careless. Some hand pleased with a new toy.

4:59 Arslan: Those call letters exist only on your sheet. So whoever opened that crate held the sheet, long enough to play. Narrator: The Envoy swears that crate is sealed. Could it not be some German ship chancing the dial —

5:11 Pell: With letters off a sheet there's only one of? No, Captain. A sealed crate doesn't call me in the night.

5:18 Down the Cellar Stairs by Lamplight

5:22 Narrator: Down the cellar stairs of the consulate the Envoy led us the following day, with Madame Ilona carrying the inventory book and Yusuf the lamp. Geza: An inventory, Madame Ilona. Everything, before the courier. The Captain may copy the Rákóczi letters.

5:38 Narrator: That's a serious key, Madame Ilona. Where does it live? Ilona: In my desk, Captain, with the seal beside it. Second drawer. The desk stands on Yusuf's night round, so it's hardly neglected.

5:51 Narrator: Locked? Ilona: That drawer hasn't locked since the old Emperor. Who'd I lock it against, the Envoy?

6:00 Narrator: Fair enough. Ilona: Now. Rákóczi letters, one box. Blank passports, forty. One crate, diplomatic, for Budapest. Seal whole, gentlemen, see for yourselves.

6:13 Arslan: Whole. Good wax. All it tells me is that the last hand to close it held that—

6:18 Ilona: Seal? Mine, Arslan Bey. I can't have the Envoy burning his fingers.

6:24 Geza: Nothing to fret at. Only three of us sleep here, myself, Madame Ilona and Yusuf, and only we three hold street keys. Arslan: You offer that as comfort, Envoy. It's a very small house.

6:38 Geza: I don't follow. Narrator: And when the three of you are abed, who walks it at night? Yusuf: I do, Captain. Every door.

6:47 Yusuf's Lodge, a Cupboard With a Stove

6:51 Narrator: Yusuf's lodge was a cupboard with a stove in it, and he sat us down as if we had come to inspect his tea. Yusuf: Drink, efendim. This could tan a saddle.

7:01 Narrator: That's... strong. Arslan: Boiled to tar, like a Black Sea man. The Envoy heard a shutter banging, Sunday night. You'd know.

7:12 Yusuf: No shutter bangs in my house. I make my round, I bolt the— I bolt the street door, I sit in this chair until the bread boy knocks. I never left this door all Sunday night. On my mother's grave.

7:25 Arslan: And that good brushed coat, for a man who sits in a chair? Yusuf: A man may own a coat. Narrator: Every doorkeeper in Péra has a war put away somewhere, Yusuf. Which one is yours?

7:36 Yusuf: The big one, Captain! I served the Gallipoli telegraph, nineteen fifteen, with the shells walking down the line. Narrator: Among our own lads?

7:46 Yusuf: Among Hungarians! The Emperor sent them down that autumn. Budapest men, every one, cursing that wire in their own tongue.

7:54 Arslan: Those are wire scars across both palms. You were there, at least. Yusuf: Near thirty years I've carried that wire, efendim. Without Yusuf, not one word reached anybody.

8:08 Narrator: Budapest men.

8:10 Dusk on the Garden Terrace

8:14 Narrator: Dusk found us on the garden terrace at Pera House, Miss Pell with her back to every window. Arslan: Their doorkeeper walks the night round, past the key and the seal. And he's an old Gallipoli telegraph man, by his own account, among Budapest men.

8:31 Pell: Is he now. Well, hands learn from the hands beside them. Hungarian-taught, he could sign off that way thirty years on and never think about it.

8:42 Narrator: Scars, a brushed coat and a poor ear for shutters. I've seen men court-martialled on less. Pell: I dare say.

8:50 Arslan: Who else knows of that call, Miss Pell? Pell: Not the Envoy, nor his household, nor any police, nor my own Ambassador. That call sits in my log alone, and now in your two heads.

9:04 Arslan: Then it stays there. I want a file. The Emniyet at Sirkeci keeps one on every doorkeeper in Péra.

9:11 Pell: The police? I told you, no Turkish — Arslan: You told me that about your sets. A Turkish doorkeeper is their daily bread.

9:19 Pell: Not one word of wireless, mind. Not one. Arslan: Then Sirkeci, about a doorkeeper, and we name no signal.

9:28 A Building the City Crossed the Street to Avoid

9:31 Narrator: Inspector Nurettin of the Emniyet received us the next morning in the Sansaryan Han at Sirkeci, a building the city crossed the street to avoid. Nurettin: A doorkeeper of the Hungarians troubles you, Arslan Bey? Arslan: A consular paper has been copied, Inspector. The house wants it quiet.

9:49 Nurettin: Every house does. Here's your Yusuf, sworn before my clerk. He takes no foreign money, enters no foreign mission, has never been to Tarabya.

10:00 Arslan: You name Tarabya in the oath, so you watch the pier. Nurettin: A good brushed coat, your man, on the Tarabya boat every Sunday since January. Narrator: He swore to us on his mother's grave he never left that door Sunday night, he sat there and—

10:14 Nurettin: Men swear. Last boat up leaves at seven. First boat down lands at six on Monday. My watchers go home at dark.

10:22 Arslan: So he sleeps up there, or hires a motor down the shore road. Narrator: A motor has him in his chair by midnight, long before Monday's bakers. Nurettin: Turkish soil, a Turkish subject, a doorkeeper. That arrest offends no embassy. One complaint from the house and he's mine.

10:41 Arslan: Perhaps. But why does an old telegraph man lie about the boat to the Germans?

10:48 The Chancery at Noon, Chicory and Carbon Paper

10:52 Narrator: The chancery at noon smelled of chicory and carbon paper, and Madame Ilona had it to herself. Ilona: The Envoy's complaint, Arslan Bey, signed at your asking, over some paper gone astray. The police may have the lodge, and not one stair further, if the ledger bears you out.

11:11 Arslan: Then the ledger, Madame. Yusuf's wages. Ilona: You'll find nothing, he's a dear old fool. Here. Twenty lira a month, a third— a third stopped since January. A lien, to a moneylender in Galata. For four hundred lira.

11:30 Narrator: On a doorkeeper's wage? He'll be paying at his own funeral. Ilona: He told me it was a roof. One doesn't ask.

11:39 Narrator: That card on your blotter is field post, Madame. From the Don? Ilona: His last, Captain. Nine words, and two of them are the weather...

11:49 Narrator: Your boy. Ilona: He was quick, my son, my only pupil. I never taught another soul, and I shan't begin now.

12:00 Narrator: How old was he, Madame, when— Ilona: Shall I read you the coal account next, Captain, or are we finished? Arslan: We're finished. Your telephone, Madame.

12:10 Arslan: Inspector Nurettin? The Envoy has signed. Come for your doorkeeper.

12:15 The Envoy's Complaint Comes Downstairs

12:19 Narrator: Within the hour the Inspector's men were emptying the lodge onto the hall floor, and Madame Ilona came down with the Envoy's complaint. Nurettin: Now, the good coat. What does a man carry in so fine a pocket? Boat stubs, a fistful, all the Tarabya line.

12:36 Yusuf: A man may own his coat! Narrator: And a mother's grave, it seems. Arslan: Here's the charge, Yusuf. Your night round passes the second drawer, with the key and the seal in it.

12:47 Yusuf: I never touched — Arslan: You opened what you had no business opening, and copied a consular paper. You owe Galata four hundred lira.

12:55 Nurettin: And Sundays, Yusuf? What does an honest man do at Tarabya? Yusuf: Sundays are mine! Ask me anything else, efendim. Not that.

13:05 Nurettin: Oh? Arslan: You sold your copy to the Germans up there, came home by the shore road, and sat down in your chair. Ilona: Arslan Bey, he's opened this door to me for eleven years. Before the whole street! All this for one test call?

13:21 Yusuf: Madame Ilona, tell them who I am! Tell them! Nurettin: Mind the step, Yusuf.

13:27 Arslan: Madame. Tell Geza he can sleep. The leak is in custody.

13:33 A Great Book Under the Envoy's Arm

13:32 Ilona: Will he.

13:37 Narrator: The Envoy came to our samovar that night, a great book under his arm. Geza: Yusuf's dismissal, Arslan Bey, and the register that must lose his name. Madame Ilona tells me I may sleep.

13:53 Arslan: You carried that book across Péra yourself. You want to be talked out of it. Geza: I want to read the man before I strike him. This house made every soul declare a former trade. A vintner who cooked for us. A chaplain who lost his faith. One who worked a railway telegraph, two who —

14:11 Arslan: Yusuf's line, Envoy. Geza: Here. Door. Former trade, soldier. One word, in a clerk's hand...

14:21 Arslan: Beside that I set his own boast, a boat he swore away, and a lien no wage could pay. Geza: My courier sits at Sirkeci, on your word alone. Each day he waits, some brave man in Budapest loses his nerve.

14:37 Narrator: Courage keeps badly, Envoy. A copied sheet hangs those same brave men. Geza: You tell me my crate was opened, and will not tell me how you know.

14:48 Arslan: No. Geza: Struck from the books, then, Arslan Bey. Let it be remembered that it was on your word.

14:57 Below the Inspector's High Room

15:01 Narrator: Below the Inspector's high room were other rooms, and in one of them, after a night without his good coat, we found Yusuf. Arslan: The Envoy has struck you from his books, Yusuf. The watchers have you on the Tarabya boat every Sunday. Who waits at the pier?

15:18 Yusuf: Struck... Nineteen years, and struck. Nobody waits, efendim. I go to her door, and I knock like a stranger.

15:28 Nurettin: Her door? Your file says no family. Yusuf: My daughter. She— she married a Greek, a grocer at Tarabya, and I told the whole Black Sea she was dead.

15:41 Nurettin: Well, well. Narrator: And the moneylender? Yusuf: The Wealth Tax came down on him last winter. A Greek who can't pay goes to Aşkale to break stones. She came to my lodge, in the snow, and I — I shut the door.

15:56 Arslan: And then you found four hundred lira. Yusuf: For his tax. I took it up to her in the good coat, so she wouldn't be ashamed of me, and she... she gave me soup, efendim.

16:08 Arslan: A Greek grocer beneath the Germans' windows. I never heard a better cover. Here's your statement. Read it aloud, and hear how it sounds now.

16:18 Yusuf: I take no foreign money, I enter no foreign mission, I've never been to Tarabya. Nurettin: Very nice. Narrator: The seal goes at the foot of a page, Yusuf, and yours has it at the top. You're holding it upside down.

16:32 Yusuf: I was only— Arslan: Word for word. He had it read to him once and has carried it ever since. Yusuf, the line under my finger.

16:40 Yusuf: Nineteen years at a door with letters in my hand, efendim. I cannot read, I hauled wire.

16:48 Two Answers Reach the Inspector by Evening

16:52 Narrator: By evening two answers had reached the Inspector's desk, from the Defence Ministry and from his man at Tarabya, and Yusuf was given a chair. Nurettin: His army paper. Gallipoli, labour company, lent to the Hungarian telegraph section. Carried wire. Unlettered. Never set to any instrument.

17:13 Arslan: "I served the Gallipoli telegraph," you told me. Yusuf: I did, efendim! On my back! Without Yusuf, not one word —

17:21 Arslan: And now "I cannot read, I hauled wire" stands in the Ministry's own ink. He copied nothing. He never sent a letter down any wire.

17:31 Narrator: And his Sundays? Nurettin: The daughter, the grocer, the neighbours: at her table till midnight, on her floor till the first boat down. No motor hired.

17:43 Narrator: Is that so. Arslan: So all Sunday night he was up the Bosphorus. The boat I charged him with clears him.

17:52 Nurettin: The tax office agrees: the grocer paid in January, with that Galata lien. There's a cost. A charged man's lien falls in, the tax stands unpaid, and my clerk entered the husband yesterday for Aşkale.

18:06 Yusuf: Aşkale? Please, sir, she's done nothing, she— Arslan: Your pen, Inspector.

18:11 Nurettin: Your charge, my seal. Strike them both. The lien stands, the receipt stands, and the grocer breaks no stones.

18:20 Yusuf: I... efendim, I... Arslan: Three street keys, then, and one was at Tarabya. Who else held that key?

18:28 Narrator: The Envoy. And the lady who keeps it in her desk. Nurettin: A secretary's arrest offends an embassy, Arslan Bey, and Ankara reads of it by dinner. Bring me her own word.

18:40 Narrator: Oh, is that all.

18:43 Lamps Along the Sirkeci Landing

18:47 Narrator: Lamps were coming on along the Sirkeci landing when we came down from the Han, with the ferry late and my notebook already out. Arslan: "Bring me her own word," says the Inspector. We may own it already, Captain. Read me your notebook.

19:01 Narrator: Standing up, in this light? Where from? Arslan: The terrace. Who knew of that call.

19:08 Narrator: Miss Pell. Not the Envoy, not his household, no police, not her Ambassador. Herself, and our two heads.

19:18 Arslan: And at Sirkeci I named no signal. Now my charge, in the hall. Narrator: Night round, key and seal. A copied paper. A sale at Tarabya. Four hundred lira to Galata. A plain charge, for the wrong man.

19:33 Arslan: And nothing else in it. Now the voice at my elbow. Narrator: Madame Ilona. Eleven years he's opened that door to her. Before the whole street, she says. All this for...

19:46 Arslan: Yes. Of all those words, Captain, which was never told to anyone?

19:52 Three Chairs Stood Ready by Ten

19:56 Narrator: Three chairs stood ready in our rooms by ten next morning, when the Envoy brought Madame Ilona up the stairs with a small leather case. Geza: You ask me to undo my own signature, Arslan Bey. I come gladly. Madame Ilona has brought the seal.

20:12 Ilona: And the key. Since your charge read my second drawer out to the street, I don't leave them behind me. Poor Yusuf. Where's this release?

20:21 Arslan: Here, Madame. The Germans count who calls at your door. Nobody counts a beer hall.

20:27 Ilona: I told you he was a dear old fool. Now, the seal. Where do I—

20:31 Arslan: Presently. Someone has earned a chair first. Ilona: Oh?

20:36 Geza: That door — Miss Pell! Here? Arslan Bey, my secretary is in this room —

20:41 Ilona: Shall I step out, Envoy? Arslan: Stay, Madame. Miss Pell, whom have you told of what you heard?

20:48 Pell: Not a soul at Pera House, nor out of it. I'll swear on any book you've got. It still sits in my log alone, bar you two gentlemen.

20:57 Geza: Heard? What has been heard? You say my crate was opened, and still you keep your reasons from—

21:03 Arslan: Then I'll ask you plainly, Envoy. Sunday night, a call on Miss Pell's frequency. Has anyone in your house spoken of it?

21:12 Geza: What call? Arslan Bey, what call? Narrator: The Inspector's never heard of it either. And I have your charge here. A key, a paper, a sale, a debt. Not one word of wireless.

21:26 Arslan: Yet you stood at my elbow, Madame, grieving for him. With all the neighbours looking on, you said, and all of it for one test call. Ilona: Did I? One says things in a hallway.

21:39 Arslan: One does. Who told you of a test call?

21:44 Nobody Reached for the Tea

21:48 Narrator: Nobody reached for the tea, and Miss Pell laid her log open on our table, between the Envoy and his secretary. Ilona: A word, Arslan Bey. It's only— in an office everything gets tested. Typewriters, couriers, envoys.

22:05 Arslan: Then let's hear what that word was doing at two at night. Miss Pell. Pell: Sunday the twenty-second, on watch from ten. Two at night, with Monday's bakers stirring, and the crate sealed three days. Call letters off the sheet. Whoever sent them signed off J E, in the old Budapest railway style.

22:26 Geza: From my house. From my own cellar. Arslan: A hand that held the sheet and learned on a Budapest wire. You brought the register again, Envoy, as I asked. Who holds street keys?

22:39 Geza: Three. Myself, asleep upstairs. Madame Ilona. Yusuf.

22:45 Arslan: At two that night Yusuf lay on his daughter's floor at Tarabya. The first boat down gets him home at six, and no motor was hired. And the man cannot read a call letter.

22:56 Narrator: Which leaves the Envoy, asleep, on his own word. Forgive me, I'd want more than that. Geza: You'd be right, Captain. I have no other witness, and I—

23:06 Pell: You have me. I showed you those sets on the yacht, Envoy, and you held the sending key like a man handed a live eel. No Morse in that hand. And it's your own neck on the sheet.

23:17 Geza: Thank you, I think. Arslan: Then read me the list I cut off, Envoy, in this room, that night. Geza: The vintner who cooked. The chaplain who lost his faith. And here— here. Budapest, before she came to us. Of our three keys, Madame Ilona alone worked a railway telegraph.

23:40 Ilona: Eleven years, Envoy, and you never once asked me about that line. Geza: Eleven years you kept my diary. Madame, say it was some other hand. Say it, and I will—

23:53 Ilona: Key and seal, by the samovar. You needn't burn your fingers now, Envoy. I copied it, and I put the copy into German hands at Tarabya.

24:02 Geza: No. You couldn't have...

24:05 A Chair Turned to Face Miss Pell

24:09 Narrator: She never looked at the Envoy again; she turned her chair until it faced Miss Pell. Ilona: You wrote it down a test, Miss Pell. So did I, going down those cellar stairs. A set must be tried, one tells oneself.

24:25 Pell: Any set proves itself on its own needle, and you knew that. Men hang off that sheet, and you stopped to play? Ilona: You read out two letters like a train number. You know the style, Miss Pell, and you never learnt what they—

24:40 Pell: Old hands ending a shift. That's all I know. Ilona: Jó éjt. Goodnight, Miss Pell. That's all it says. The night men sent it down the line at Keleti, and I carried it home.

24:53 Narrator: Home. The card on your blotter. Ilona: A spoon on the bedrail, Captain. That was the whole school, my son, my only pupil, tapping it back through the wall until I answered. Jó éjt. Jó éjt.

25:09 Geza: Madame Ilona, in eleven years you never told me he — Ilona: The army asked, Envoy. Can he send? Yes, he can send, his mother — his mother saw to that. So they gave him a key and the Don, and I — I made him that, at my own table —

25:25 Geza: Every family, Madame. Every family in Budapest — Ilona: And you'd sign them off! Sea air! I booked that launch, I wrote it in your diary, and I knew. If Hungary gives up, then he froze for... for nothing. Nine words... and the weather...

25:43 Pell: So others hang, to keep him worth it. Ilona: Yes. The sheet was copied. The set lay open, the first key under my hand in twenty years, and nobody left to send it to. So I sent it.

25:58 Ilona: One thing, Miss Pell, and then they may have me. Did it carry? Pell: It carried to me.

26:06 The Arcade Swept, the Shutters Closed

26:10 Narrator: Istanbul, the end of that week: the arcade swept, the shutters closed, and Arslan asking across the samovar for my last page. Arslan: The last page, Captain. Read it as if it were somebody else's fault.

26:24 Narrator: The Envoy waived her papers, in his own hand. Nurettin took her, charged with passing consular papers to the Germans. No word of wireless, so Ankara dines in peace.

26:35 Arslan: And the others? Narrator: Miss Pell cut a new sheet, the courier left Sirkeci with it, and Tarabya holds a copy of nothing. Yusuf is back on his door, written in again. He had the line read to him.

26:47 Arslan: He would. Narrator: Now tell me what I never wrote down. She said it at your elbow, and you still sent him down the step. When did you hear it?

26:57 Arslan: On the landing, when you read it back. The terrace said nobody had that call. My charge never named it. So the word could only come from the hand that made it.

27:07 Narrator: And her trade? Arslan: The Envoy read it to me, in this room, and I cut him off to ask for Yusuf's. Narrator: A night in a cell, nineteen years struck out, a grocer nearly breaking stones. All on your word, as the Envoy asked us to remember.

27:23 Arslan: I know. Put it in the book. And I owe Yusuf a call. His tea could still tan a saddle, and I shall drink it.

27:31 Narrator: I wrote it as he said it, every cost in the order it was paid, and left the page open at the bottom. One goodnight, in a cellar, to a dead boy. She thought nobody was listening.

27:45 Narrator: Nobody. In Istanbul even a goodnight is overheard.