The Cuckoo's Hour

0:00 Leyla Climbs the Stair Before Eight

0:04 Narrator: Istanbul, the summer of nineteen forty-six. I, Captain Haluk Demir, kept rooms with Kemal Arslan above the glass-roofed arcade, and the morning after the hotel fell, Leyla climbed our stair before eight, a stranger's spittle on her sleeve. Come in, come in. You're the switchboard girl. Leyla, isn't it?

0:24 Leyla: Leyla, Captain. A man in the arcade, he— he spat at me. Knew my face from the papers.

0:32 Arslan: You've come straight from your board. The headset is still pressed into your hair. Leyla: Straight from it, Arslan Bey. I sat there all night. If I go home, they'll print that I ran.

0:44 Narrator: Good girl. Arslan: Haluk, read her what they printed. Narrator: It's on every front page. A letter, signed by men who call themselves the Brigade. "We telephoned the hotel switchboard at ten past twelve. The wing fell at twelve thirty-five. Twenty-five minutes were thrown away by those who would not listen."

1:05 Leyla: It was half past. Half past twelve. I looked at my clock. They teach you that first.

1:11 Arslan: And the clock itself? Leyla: Set every morning by the Ankara wireless. I set it myself.

1:18 Narrator: Twenty-five minutes. I've cleared a barracks in ten with one bugle. Leyla: He gave me five, Captain. Five. I rang the south wing, I rang the porter, I was still ringing when the floor —

1:31 Leyla: Ninety-one people... and a woman in the lobby screamed that I killed her husband, and I — I can't — Narrator: All right. All right, girl. Breathe.

1:41 Arslan: The letter needs your twenty-five minutes, Leyla. Without them, it's plain murder. Leyla: Then you believe me?

1:48 Arslan: I believe your clock. It's the only witness in this I can wind. My hat, Haluk.

1:54 Beneath the Broken South Wing

1:59 Narrator: By nine we stood beneath the broken south wing among the sheeted dead, where Komiser Rüstem kept his cordon and a reporter, Muazzez, kept finding holes in it. Rüstem: Arslan Bey. An honour, truly. You're standing on a customs ledger.

2:15 Arslan: So I am, Komiser Rüstem. Burnt to the binding. Rüstem: Two floors of customs men. Ninety-one under these sheets. I counted them myself, so no one else would have to.

2:29 Muazzez: Arslan Bey! Muazzez, from Babıali. Has the switchboard murderess hired you? One line, just one—

2:35 Narrator: She's no murderess, Hanım. Muazzez: Twenty-five minutes, Captain. Ninety-one dead. My readers can divide.

2:43 Arslan: Your headline was in the street by seven. You wrote it here, before the dust settled. Muazzez: I was here before the dust rose. Customs shutting a café. A paragraph, I thought. Then it wasn't.

2:56 Rüstem: Muazzez Hanım, the rope is behind you. Kindly be behind it too. Arslan: Here's your one line, Hanım. Arslan Bey declined to divide.

3:06 Rüstem: This city sat out a war and went hungry anyway. It wants one quiet week. A famous detective picking at a girl's clock, with that woman writing it down, isn't quiet.

3:19 Arslan: And a rebels' letter on every front page is? Rüstem: That letter will die down, Arslan Bey, if nobody keeps stirring it. Narrator: I ran field exchanges in Thrace, Komiser. An operator like her lives by the—

3:32 Rüstem: By the clock, yes, Captain. And they died by it. Arslan: You'll have no peace from me until I've seen her board.

3:40 Rüstem: See the girl's board, Arslan Bey. Then go home.

3:45 Plugs Still in Their Rows

3:49 Narrator: The switchboard lived in a narrow room of the north wing, window cracked, plugs still in their rows, and Leyla took her chair as though she had never risen. Arslan: Do it again, Leyla. Exactly as yesterday. Where were your hands?

4:03 Leyla: Left on the cord, right on the key. Lamp seven lit, an outside line. I said, "Hotel, good afternoon." And he— a man. Turkish, ordinary, in a hurry. "Clear the customs floors. They will go up. You have five minutes."

4:19 Arslan: He knew his target to the wing. Not the hotel, the south— Leyla: No. He never said south. He said customs floors. South was mine, when I rang the porter.

4:29 Arslan: Then I stand corrected. He named the men, not the wing. Narrator: Anything else on the line? A street, a tram?

4:36 Leyla: I listened for that, Captain. Nothing. Then, under his voice, a cuckoo called three times.

4:44 Narrator: A cuckoo? In Istanbul? Leyla: There, you see? That's why I never said it. It was a clock, Captain. No bird keeps time that evenly.

4:55 Arslan: You never told the Komiser? Leyla: He never asked, Arslan Bey. He wanted minutes, not birds.

5:02 Arslan: Then give me the minute. What did your own clock read? Leyla: My clock read half past, Arslan Bey. And a cuckoo— a cuckoo calls once at half past. This one called three.

5:15 Arslan: Did it, now.

5:17 A Smoke on the Front Steps

5:21 Narrator: Out on the front steps, above the little stair to the Sultana café, Rüstem smoked and watched his cordon while we asked him about noon. Arslan: You were on these steps at noon yesterday, Komiser. Rüstem: Closing the Sultana. Customs wanted no café beneath their offices, and I came to see it done politely. Naciye, the manageress, was not polite. She swore they'd pay. "Every one of them up there."

5:47 Narrator: Charming woman. Arslan: Up there. She pointed at the south wing.

5:53 Rüstem: At the customs floors, or at God. From this step, Arslan Bey, they lie in one direction. Arslan: Then you stood here from noon and saw every soul who used that stair.

6:05 Rüstem: I saw her. A man being shouted at by Naciye sees nothing else under heaven. Narrator: For how long?

6:13 Rüstem: She raged till a quarter past, while the customs men pasted their seal across her door. Narrator: A quarter of an hour of that, Komiser? She'd have nothing left.

6:24 Rüstem: You know café women, Captain? Narrator: I've been thrown out of a few. Arslan: You like her for this.

6:31 Rüstem: I like nobody yet, Arslan Bey. But I know what this city can bear. Rebels would frighten the whole city. A café woman, well... nobody's frightened of a café woman.

6:45 Naciye Under the Customs Paper

6:49 Narrator: We found Naciye smoking at the foot of that stair under the customs paper on her door, a lodger in a good grey suit beside her on the step. Naciye: The famous Arslan Bey. Ferit Bey, make room. He's come to see my crime.

7:04 Ferit: Sit, Arslan Bey. We're both locked out of our livings this morning, Madame and I. Mine is an office. Cloth, out of Izmir, down in Galata. And your Komiser won't let a lodger past his rope.

7:19 Ferit: My clerk has stood on the pavement since eight. I keep the only key, and nobody else has ever been inside, not even the charwoman. Naciye: Mon Dieu, listen to him. Ninety-one dead, and he grieves for his clerk's feet.

7:34 Ferit: You're right, Madame. I'm— yes. I'm ashamed. It's only a door. Something to be angry at, that's all.

7:43 Naciye: Look at his hands, Captain. Soft as a bride's, and that fat gold signet. Never lifted a bolt of cloth.

7:51 Ferit: Madame, please. Arslan: You smell of coffee, Madame, and your café has been shut a day. Naciye: Twenty years of coffee, mon cher. It gets in your skin.

8:03 Arslan: When the Komiser stopped listening, where did you go? Naciye: Where does a woman go with her door sealed? Up these steps and off to Tophane. Walking, just— walking it out of my legs.

8:15 Narrator: Not down for your takings? Naciye: Their paper was on the door. I don't burgle my own café.

8:21 Arslan: Paper tears, Madame. Naciye: Not that paper. I never set foot below again. God is my witness.

8:29 Tea in the Komiser's Canvas Tent

8:33 Narrator: Rüstem had pitched a canvas tent against the rubble, and we were drinking his tea there toward midday when Muazzez ducked under the flap, notebook first. Muazzez: Komiser. You wanted me behind the rope. I've brought you something from the other side of it.

8:48 Rüstem: Muazzez Hanım. And what's this going to cost me? Muazzez: Yesterday noon, on those steps, I wrote down every minute. You're in most of them.

8:58 Rüstem: Then read me one I'm not in. Muazzez: Price first. You arrest anybody, my paper has it an hour before the—

9:04 Rüstem: Half an hour. And tonight you take my lodgers' statements in shorthand. My clerks are all at the morgue.

9:11 Muazzez: Done. Twenty past twelve. Naciye comes up from the café with a sack on her back, bent double, off toward Tophane.

9:20 Rüstem: Well, well. Narrator: Her takings, likely. She'd save what she could carry, wouldn't she?

9:26 Arslan: From behind a door the customs had sealed by a quarter past. So the paper tore after all. Rüstem: And where was I, at twenty past?

9:35 Muazzez: Indoors with your report, Komiser. You'd had enough of her. Rüstem: Nobody has enough of her.

9:43 Arslan: This morning she swore to me she never went below again. God for her witness. Rüstem: God may say so. Muazzez Hanım says different, and she's the one I can put in a witness box.

9:56 Narrator: And the man on the telephone, Komiser? She didn't ring the hotel in her own voice. Rüstem: A nephew. A waiter with a conscience. She'll give him to me after a night in Sirkeci.

10:06 Arslan: You've stopped quarrelling with the girl's clock. Rüstem: I've started using it. Think, Arslan Bey. It's a café woman, not rebels. So their letter's a boast, and its ten past twelve— that goes with it. Give me her, and your girl walks.

10:22 A Cord Between Her Fingers

10:26 Narrator: Back in the north wing, Leyla had never left her chair, and she heard the Komiser's offer out with a cord still between her fingers. Leyla: Another newspaper. They ring every ten minutes to ask what I'll wear to the gallows.

10:39 Arslan: Then hear better news. Rüstem will take Naciye for the bomb. The letter becomes a lie, and you go home.

10:47 Leyla: Naciye from the café? Because she shouted at customs men? Narrator: Because she lied about going below, and climbed out again with a load at twenty past, and—

10:56 Leyla: And that's enough to hang a woman? I won't be washed clean with somebody else's neck, Arslan Bey. If she did it, say so. Not for me.

11:05 Arslan: The Komiser needs you now. Put Naciye in the dock, and your half past is his best witness. Leyla: My half past. Ask me who else saw my clock at half past.

11:16 Narrator: The other girl? Leyla: There's no other girl till two, Captain. Noon to two the board is mine. No one hears the calls but me.

11:24 Arslan: Ah. Narrator: In Thrace we never left one operator alone on a shift. One man dozes, and a battalion goes the wrong way.

11:34 Leyla: This is a hotel, Captain. They won't pay for two. Arslan: Then whoever hangs for this hangs on your word and nothing else.

11:43 Leyla: Then let it be my word. My word, Arslan Bey, against every paper in Babıali.

11:50 A Lobby Turned into a Pen

11:54 Narrator: We came down that afternoon to a lobby turned into a pen: lodgers behind the rope, Naciye on a bench by the lift, Ferit pacing the marble, Muazzez reading to the Komiser. Ferit: Komiser, one hour in Galata. Just one. My clerk is— he's on his second day on that pavement.

12:12 Rüstem: Tomorrow, Ferit Bey. Tonight every lodger stays and signs a statement. Read on, Hanım.

12:18 Muazzez: Noon, the very minute she started on you, Komiser. A dairy porter wheels milk cans down the café stair. Seven. I count everything.

12:27 Rüstem: Evidently. Muazzez: And a gold ring on soft hands. Even the milkmen have done well out of the—

12:35 Rüstem: Tahtakale milk. Every black-market carter wears his profit on a finger. I asked you for bombers, Hanım.

12:42 Naciye: Milk comes every noon, Komiser. I don't stand over the cans. Arslan: Madame. This morning you swore you never set foot below again.

12:52 Naciye: And I swear it now. Arslan: Muazzez Hanım watched you climb that stair at twenty past, bent under a load. Naciye: Whatever sells, that's what Muazzez Hanım sees.

13:03 Arslan: You promised the customs men they'd pay, every one of them up there. Their seal was on your door by a quarter past. You went under it. At twenty past you came up. And then their floors came down.

13:17 Narrator: What was in that sack, Madame? Say it, and this— Naciye: Mine. Whatever was in it's mine.

13:22 Rüstem: Then it's evidence. Madame, my car is at the door. Ferit: Madame, I'm sorry. Truly, I...

13:30 Naciye: Keep it, Ferit Bey. Ninety-one dead, the papers had their girl, and now the famous Arslan Bey comes down the stair— Arslan: Madame—

13:38 Naciye: No! You listen! One woman has to hang for this city, and you've cut her down and put my neck in her rope!

13:46 Naciye: You sold me for your switchboard girl, mon cher.

13:50 Dusk on the Roof Terrace

13:54 Narrator: Dusk caught Arslan and me up on the roof terrace, the cordon lamps coming on one by one along the ruin below. You did right, Kemal. A grudge, a lie, a load out of a sealed room. I've seen courts-martial hang men on less.

14:09 Arslan: So have I, Haluk. That's what troubles me. Narrator: Then trouble me with it.

14:15 Arslan: The Komiser has her shouting at him until a quarter past. Muazzez has her climbing out at twenty past. Five minutes to slip under a seal, go down in the dark, and set whatever brought that wing down.

14:29 Narrator: A café she's run twenty years. She could do it blind. Arslan: And the wing falls at twelve thirty-five. Fifteen minutes from her hand to the bang.

14:39 Narrator: Our sappers in Thrace never cut it that fine. Nobody likes standing near his own work. Arslan: Fifteen minutes is a short rope to climb out on, with a load on your back.

14:51 Narrator: Give me those times again. A quarter past, on the steps. Twenty past, on the stair. That's...

15:01 Statements at a Table by the Main Stair

15:05 Narrator: After dark the Komiser held court at a table by the main stair, Muazzez taking his shorthand, the lodgers filing past while we stood at his elbow. Rüstem: Thank you. Next. Ferit Bey, sit. You heard me put it to the others.

15:21 Ferit: Where was I at half past twelve, and where at that other figure. Yes. Arslan: Half past. Komiser, you've taken up the girl's—

15:30 Rüstem: I've taken up my bargain, that's all. Someone rang that board for the café woman. I want his alibi or his neck.

15:37 Ferit: Then mine will disappoint you. I was in Galata, at my desk, eating bread and olives under my cuckoo clock. Rüstem: Alone?

15:47 Ferit: Door locked. Clerk's at his dinner till— till one. Nobody comes into that room unless I open it.

15:54 Rüstem: Convenient. Muazzez: And at twelve thirty-five? Ferit: My windows shook, Hanım, all the way over in Galata. I took it for the arsenal at Tophane.

16:04 Narrator: You came straight back? Ferit: Ran, Captain. Like a fool. As if a cloth merchant could lift a wall.

16:12 Muazzez: Sign under the shorthand, Ferit Bey. Ferit: There. Goodnight, Komiser. Hanım. I'll sleep if the building lets me.

16:22 An Army Envelope Under the Lamp

16:27 Narrator: Close on eleven an army envelope reached the tent, and Rüstem opened it under his lamp with Arslan and me at either shoulder. Rüstem: Bomb squad, from the basement under the wing. They've found a timer. Whole.

16:41 Arslan: Read it to me, Komiser. Slowly. I've had one woman's minutes wrong already today.

16:47 Rüstem: Clockwork delay, thirty minutes, fully wound and run out. Detonation at twelve thirty-five. "The mechanism therefore started at five past twelve."

16:59 Narrator: Good Lord. Clockwork doesn't fib about its winding, Komiser. We trusted it with whole bridges in the war.

17:08 Rüstem: Then she went down earlier. Before the row. Before she ever —

17:12 Arslan: Earlier doesn't help you. That clock started at five past, and you had her from noon. You told me yourself she raged till a quarter past.

17:20 Rüstem: Every minute of it. Into my face. Arslan: Then where was she at five past twelve, Komiser?

17:28 Rüstem: Spitting at my collar. Swearing on her mother's grave. Arslan: And I stood in that lobby and handed her to you. Her lie, her load, her— I gave you all of it.

17:42 Rüstem: And I'm the one man in Istanbul who can swear she never left those steps. I'm her alibi, Arslan Bey. You named the wrong woman.

17:53 Wet Stone and Lamp Oil at Sirkeci

17:57 Narrator: Sirkeci smelled of wet stone and lamp oil near midnight, when Rüstem had Naciye brought up from her cell to sit before us, Muazzez's pencil ready at the bench end. Rüstem: Madame, you are— you're free, with the Emniyet's apologies. Muazzez Hanım will take down why. My clerks are still at the morgue.

18:17 Naciye: Free. Because a famous man changed his mind over supper. Arslan: Because a clock in your basement was wound at five past twelve, Madame. And the Komiser was shouting with you at five past.

18:30 Naciye: So now you'll want the sack. Narrator: We'd like it, Madame. It's cost you half a night in here.

18:36 Naciye: Coffee. Thirty kilos of Brazilian, out of Tahtakale, behind the ice in my cold room. Narrator: Well, I'll be.

18:46 Naciye: I wasn't leaving it for customs men to drink. So yes, I went under their seal at twenty past. I lied to you, mon cher.

18:54 Muazzez: My notes said a sack on her back. My editor printed it as dynamite. Rüstem: Black-market coffee is a fine, Madame. Not a rope.

19:04 Naciye: It was a café, Komiser. Mine. It was—

19:07 Arslan: Madame. The cold room. You were in it at twenty past. What else was in there?

19:12 Naciye: Ice. My butter. And milk, seven cans of it, in a row against the back wall. The noon boy's, I thought. Left in the cold to keep. Only milk...

19:24 Narrator: And he never came back for his cans? A milkman counts his churns home like a miser. Arslan: Seven went down your stair at noon. Muazzez Hanım counted them. Twenty minutes later, seven stood waiting. What lay above that wall, Madame?

19:42 Naciye: The south— everything down there. Everything down there's under the south wing. I moved one, Captain. To get at my sack. I put my arms round it...

19:53 Arslan: And it never went off. Whoever packed it knew his work. Muazzez: My readers will—

19:58 Rüstem: Not one word of that in your paper, Hanım. Not tonight. So. My café woman smuggles coffee, my milkman builds bombs, and the Brigade's letter is still on every breakfast table. Then find me another, Arslan Bey. Quietly.

20:17 Past Midnight, Back on the Roof

20:21 Narrator: Past midnight the hotel roof was ours again, the lamps below burning low over the diggers, and Arslan would not come down to bed. Kemal, it's one in the morning. The milkman will keep till daylight.

20:34 Arslan: The milkman isn't keeping me up, Haluk. A bird is. Narrator: The girl's cuckoo.

20:40 Arslan: Behind her caller at half past, three calls where any honest cuckoo gives one. Narrator: Then it's broken. Half the offices in Galata bought one off a German peddler. A spring slips, and it never counts right again.

20:53 Arslan: Galata. Who said Galata to us tonight? Narrator: Ferit Bey. Ferit Bey, bread and olives at his desk at half past, and a cuckoo of his own over his head.

21:04 Arslan: Door locked. Clerk at dinner. Not a soul to hear what his—

21:09 Narrator: Kemal. We handed the Komiser one wrong name today. Not two.

21:14 Arslan: Then tell me why he'd hand the Komiser his clock at all. Narrator: I can't. Unless... unless a man stops hearing his own. Arslan: Like your signallers with the generator?

21:25 Narrator: After a week, you'd swear it was silence. Arslan: One clock, or two? And who sat beside it?

21:34 The Next Day, Climbing Behind the Komiser

21:38 Narrator: Next day, a little before half past twelve, we climbed to Ferit's landing in Galata behind the Komiser, Leyla between us, while Ferit fished in his waistcoat. Ferit: There. I keep the only key, Komiser, so forgive me for playing my own doorman.

21:55 Rüstem: Most kind, Ferit Bey. You wished to see your office, and I wished to see it with you. Arslan: The day the wing fell, Ferit Bey. Was there another key that day? A landlord's? A locksmith's?

22:07 Ferit: Not that day, not any day. Not even the charwoman. Come in, all of you.

22:14 Narrator: And Galata's gone. Not a cart, not a hawker. Ferit: Double windows, Captain. Cloth men hate dust. And the young lady?

22:23 Leyla: Leyla, from the hotel board. Ferit: Leyla Hanım. Two years you've put my noon calls through, and I never once saw your face. Leyla: Most people never do, Ferit Bey. To the board you're a room number.

22:38 Arslan: No street in this room. And you heard no street behind your caller, Leyla. Leyla: None, Arslan Bey. Only what I told you.

22:46 Rüstem: Twenty-nine minutes past, by my watch. What exactly are we waiting for? Arslan: On the girl's line, a cuckoo called three times at half past. I'd like to hear one call.

22:57 Ferit: That old thing? It's been sick since Izmir. I stopped hearing it years ago.

23:03 Narrator: Three. At half past. Ferit: That's— it's an old clock, it—

23:10 Leyla: The same gap between them. The same crack on the last... That is the clock I heard, Arslan Bey.

23:17 A Bare Table at the Emniyet

23:21 Narrator: That afternoon Ferit sat at a bare table in the Emniyet, Muazzez in the corner with her shorthand under the Komiser's bargain, Arslan and I against the wall. Rüstem: Muazzez Hanım writes because my clerks are burying the dead, Ferit Bey. Nothing leaves this room until I say.

23:40 Ferit: Then let her write that a clock is no crime. Half the clocks in Galata are— Arslan: And one was on Leyla's line. Last night you gave the Komiser your half past.

23:49 Ferit: So? Arslan: Locked door, the clerk off at his dinner, alone under my cuckoo clock. Your words, Ferit Bey. Your signature.

23:59 Ferit: And true. So somebody rang her from somewhere else — Arslan: Carrying your clock? Nobody else holds a key. Nobody else was in that room. The warning went out on your telephone, in your voice.

24:11 Ferit: A warning, Arslan Bey. A man who warns them is trying to save — Narrator: Five minutes' worth. For two floors of men.

24:19 Ferit: I— I never— Arslan: Your hands on the table, Ferit Bey. Both.

24:25 Muazzez: That one. On a can handle at noon, while the Komiser was being shouted at. Last night I watched my pencil, not his hand. I wrote gold ring on soft hands, and you made him a Tahtakale milkman, Komiser.

24:40 Rüstem: So I did, Hanım. Arslan: Seven cans under the customs floors, Ferit Bey. Burnt ledgers across the forecourt. What did they have of yours?

24:49 Ferit: Books. My books. In a cipher their clerks would have broken by spring — Two million lira of gold, twenty years of it, on a customs shelf. Imrali for the rest of my—

25:02 Arslan: So you rang at half past. Late enough that nobody carried a ledger down those stairs. Ferit: Five minutes. Enough to run. I gave them enough to run!

25:13 Ferit: And they didn't... nobody ran, nobody listened, and — ninety-one — I wheeled every can in myself.

25:23 Down the Corridor, a Pace Behind

25:27 Narrator: By evening Ferit was charged with ninety-one murders and locked below the Emniyet, and Rüstem brought Leyla down the corridor to his bars, Arslan and I a pace behind. Rüstem: He's signed it all, Arslan Bey. The porter's cap, the cold room, the timers, and the Brigade's letter in his own hand.

25:47 Ferit: They started at five past twelve. I wound all seven with Madame screaming over my head. Nobody looks at a milkman during a row.

25:56 Leyla: Ferit Bey. Look at me. You've seen my face now.

26:01 Ferit: Leyla Hanım. Leyla: Your letter said ten past. Half the city spits at me for it. Nobody on my board— nobody hears the calls but me till two. You knew.

26:12 Ferit: I knew. Two years of noon calls. Always your voice, never a second girl. Ten past or half past, it was your word alone. Whoever stood alone would carry the twenty-five minutes. I chose you for that.

26:31 Leyla: For being alone. Narrator: Kemal, why give the papers a time at all? A rebels' letter could simply have boasted.

26:39 Arslan: A bomb is a crime, Haluk. A warning thrown away is a scandal, and a scandal needs a face. His ten past needed her alone at that board. She told us so herself. She gave us the cuckoo that first morning. And that night, at the Komiser's table, he hung it on his own wall.

26:59 Narrator: And Naciye? Rüstem: Fined for her coffee. Her café stays shut. Customs has nobody left to open it.

27:08 Arslan: Leyla's clock was right, Haluk. Now the papers can set theirs by it. Rüstem: Ferit Bey goes to trial, and the ledgers he killed for are ash on my forecourt. Go home, Leyla Hanım.

27:21 Leyla: Home. Yes. I... thank you, Arslan Bey.

27:26 Rüstem: Hear the ferries, Arslan Bey? Istanbul has its quiet week, and she walks home through it. Narrator: Ferit Bey went from that cell to the courts, to answer for ninety-one dead. His ledgers were never read. And Istanbul, as Rüstem wished, went quiet, the ferries crossing as if nothing had fallen.