The Sick Uncle

0:00 The Police Director's Note at the Window

0:04 Narrator: Istanbul, the autumn of nineteen forty-two. The police director's note came up our stairs in a constable's pocket, and I read it to Arslan at the window above the glass-roofed arcade. No letterhead, Arslan. His own hand. And his constable was gone before I could tip him.

0:22 Arslan: Read it, then. Directors only write to me when they've run out of constables. Narrator: "General Dorn, German commander on Chios, vanished from the island four nights ago." "The German consulate swears he was carried into Turkey. Ankara fears they are building a pretext."

0:39 Arslan: A pretext for what? Narrator: For war in Thrace. I sat two winters on that frontier. Their divisions in Bulgaria are a short march from Edirne.

0:49 Arslan: And if the general simply walked off a cliff? Narrator: Then Berlin says a Turk pushed him. Whichever way he went, the bill comes to us. Last line. "Will you look into it? Quietly. I cannot ask you any other way."

1:06 Arslan: Give it here. The constable didn't wait because he was told to carry no answer back. Nothing written, nothing to deny.

1:16 Narrator: Or the director simply has no manners. Arslan: Bad manners don't make a pen shake. He underlined quietly twice. He's frightened. My coat, Demir.

1:27 Potted Palms and German Voices at the Lalezar

1:31 Narrator: By noon we stood among the potted palms and German voices of the Lalezar Hotel lobby, at the desk where the trunk lines came in. Arslan: One page of your trunk ledger, Galina. The calls from General Dorn's suite.

1:44 Galina: No, Arslan Bey. The ledger is for the management, and you're not the management. Narrator: She's put both hands flat on it, Arslan. Like a card player on the pot.

1:55 Ashby: You'll get nothing there, gentlemen. Two years I've begged Galina for one free call to Izmir. Galina: And two years I say no, Mister Ashby.

2:06 Ashby: Ashby. Tobacco. Izmir leaf, the finest in the Levant, and nobody left to buy it.

2:13 Narrator: Demir, and this is Arslan. Didn't the Germans always buy your leaf? Ashby: Bremen took half my crop before the war. Now the British buy it so the Germans can't, and let it rot.

2:25 Narrator: Good Lord. Ashby: Everybody in this lobby's selling something, Captain. Only now the— well. Only now it's different buyers.

2:37 Ingeborg: General Dorn's trunk, and his hatbox. Where do I sign, Galina? Galina: Here, Fräulein Ingeborg. And here.

2:44 Arslan: The consulate sends its secretary for a trunk, not a porter. Someone wants a German hand on it first. Ingeborg: Someone wants it signed for correctly, sir. That's what a secretary is for.

2:56 Narrator: That paper in your glove, Fräulein. Is it the Chios notice? It's been on every wire since morning.

3:03 Ingeborg: The garrison order. "Twenty hostages are held on Chios. They will be shot unless General Dorn is returned."

3:10 Ashby: Twenty. For one man. Arslan: That's a carbon copy, with the smudge still on the edge. The list came by wire, and you typed it out for the Consul.

3:22 Ingeborg: A schoolmaster. A baker and his two sons. An old priest from the north of the island—

3:28 Narrator: Fräulein. Ingeborg: Twenty names, Herr Arslan. I typed every one. I hardly knew him.

3:37 Forty Minutes on a Bench at Sirkeci

3:40 Narrator: Emniyet headquarters at Sirkeci left us forty minutes on a bench before Inspector Tunç sent for us. Tunç: Tunç. Sit, Arslan Bey. The director says you're to be shown things. Quietly, he says.

3:54 Arslan: He used that word with you too. Tunç: He uses it with everyone this week. Normally a man off the street gets a bench. That's all he gets.

4:03 Narrator: And yet here's the file. Tunç: The German sentry log. Their consulate threw it at us to prove he's in Turkey. Listen. "Twenty to midnight. Staff car, general's pennant, the general in his cap. Passed." Then the next post. Passed. Eleven posts, eleven—

4:21 Arslan: Passed going which way? Tunç: South out of Chios town, down the eastern shore road. Narrator: The eastern shore looks straight across at Çeşme. I crossed that strait once in a sponge boat. Barely five miles at the narrows.

4:36 Arslan: Then he wasn't driving home to bed. He was driving toward us. Tunç: Toward the strait, yes. And here's the part Ankara likes. Not one sentry heard a cry, from the first post to the last.

4:50 Arslan: A man with a pistol in his ribs keeps very— Tunç: For eleven posts? With his own soldiers a shout away? Taken men shout, Arslan Bey. This one went willingly.

5:03 Through the Consulate Gate at Gümüşsuyu

5:01 Arslan: Did he.

5:07 Narrator: Tunç got us through the consulate gate at Gümüşsuyu by holding up Ankara's cable like a passport, and we climbed to the back room where Ingeborg typed. Tunç: Fräulein Ingeborg. Inspector Tunç, Emniyet. I want General Dorn's Istanbul diary.

5:22 Ingeborg: The diary is consulate property. A copy may be supplied against a written request. Tunç: This is the written request. Ankara signed it.

5:31 Ingeborg: ...Very well. Monday, the chrome delegation, ten o'clock. Tuesday, luncheon with the Consul. Wednesday, the dentist in Pera.

5:43 Arslan: All days and no evenings. You kept his days, Fräulein. Who kept his—

5:48 Ingeborg: The general's evenings were his own. The diary records duties. Narrator: No evenings, in Istanbul? He's a saint, or he's very careful.

5:59 Tunç: Or a man waiting for orders. Ankara's cable says Berlin posted him to Chios overnight, three weeks ago. Arslan: And the diary runs on a week past that. A dentist he never saw, a luncheon he never ate. The posting took him by surprise.

6:16 Tunç: Or he knew, and told no one but his secretary. When did you learn of it, Fräulein? And what was the general to you?

6:24 Ingeborg: We learned it after he— after he sailed. The general? A correct man.

6:31 Lamps Out Behind Galina's Switchboard

6:34 Narrator: Near midnight the lamps were out behind her, and Galina sat alone at the Lalezar Hotel switchboard with a cord in either hand. Galina: Lalezar Hotel, good evening. Connecting you. You again, Arslan Bey? No ledger at midnight either.

6:50 Narrator: Not the ledger, Galina. We'd settle for your memory. Arslan: Who rang General Dorn's suite? Not tailors and colonels. The calls he waited for.

7:00 Galina: Oh, that I can tell you. That part's free. Every midnight, Ingeborg rang the general's suite, and he picked up before the second ring.

7:10 Narrator: Did she, now. Arslan: Through the consulate exchange, giving the consulate's name? Galina: No name at all. She never needed one. I know that voice, slow, like honey off a spoon.

7:24 Arslan: Then she rang from a private line, after hours, and often enough for you to know her— Narrator: Lovers. Our correct general, with nothing written in his diary after dark.

7:35 Galina: You learn fast on a switchboard, Captain. First ring means he was sitting there waiting. Arslan: And you, Galina? Who do you ring when the board goes quiet?

7:45 Galina: Me? I'm the board, Arslan Bey. Nobody rings the board. Third floor is buzzing. Excuse me.

7:52 Arslan: Kidnapped, Demir? Or gone to Ingeborg?

7:57 The Case Laid Out Among the Tea Glasses

8:01 Narrator: The next evening the samovar was singing in our rooms, and Arslan had laid the general's case out among the tea glasses by lamplight. Arslan: This glass is the staff car. The spoon is the shore road. Eleven posts, and he rides past like a man going to the opera.

8:18 Narrator: And that glass? Arslan: A telephone at midnight, answered before the second ring. Narrator: You've made a tea service out of a scandal.

8:28 Arslan: Push them together, then. You know soldiers. Narrator: I know a general with his army stuck at Stalingrad and the desert going sour does sums at night. Some of them run.

8:38 Arslan: Run with whom? Narrator: You want me to say it so you needn't. Arslan: Perhaps I do. If she'd run with him, she'd be gone. Instead she's in Istanbul, typing out his hostages.

8:51 Narrator: Waiting her turn. You don't both leave the same night, not if you've any sense. Arslan: Then she's patient. We'll find out how patient.

9:07 Narrator: Arslan Bey's rooms. Madam Rozet, the studio in Beyoğlu? Slowly, madam. On your film?

9:17 Narrator: Rozet, the photographer who did your portrait for the newspaper. There's a German general on her film, Arslan, and she's frightened of it.

9:25 Two Flights Up a Beyoğlu Passage

9:29 Narrator: Rozet's studio was two flights up a Beyoğlu passage, all painted skies and the smell of developer, and Tunç was on the stairs at our heels. Rozet: Arslan Bey. You sat for me once and complained about my light for an hour.

9:44 Arslan: Your light was excellent, Madam Rozet. My face was the trouble. Tunç: She rang Emniyet first. I want that understood.

9:52 Rozet: First Emniyet, like a good citizen. Then Arslan Bey, like a sensible one. Narrator: Who brought you the roll?

10:00 Rozet: A street boy. This morning. Coins in his fist, no name. Another boy fetched the prints at four. I knew neither.

10:08 Arslan: One boy to bring it, another to fetch it. So nobody stood at your counter twice. Rozet: Clever, yes. Too clever. I printed a spare set. A photographer keeps one for her conscience. Look.

10:24 Rozet: Somebody's holiday first. Six frames of a garden well, blue tiles, E.L. set into them, strings of leaves drying in the sun. Then frame seven. Aman. I nearly dropped the strip.

10:38 Arslan: Show me. Tunç: General Dorn. Uniform, medals, alive.

10:43 Rozet: Alive, holding this morning's Gece Postası, with the same garden behind him. The tiles at his elbow. Narrator: Morning edition. The chrome talks across the top. That was on the street at six.

10:58 Arslan: And Gece Postası isn't sold on Chios. The consulate was right. He was in Turkey this morning.

11:05 Tunç: Ankara will choke. Unless— no, wait. A general holding today's paper is a ticket. The British won't open a door to a German on his word. They want him alive and dated.

11:17 Rozet: Ticket? He doesn't look pleased about any ticket. He looks...

11:22 Tunç: Generals never look willing, madam. It's the training. Your captain told me on the stairs about the midnight calls. The Fräulein is applying for asylum, with a—

11:32 Arslan: A passport photograph, of a kind. I'll grant you that, Inspector. Rozet: Grant him what you like, only take it off my counter. A German general in a small shop— no. No, thank you.

11:52 Tunç: The German consulate? Fräulein Ingeborg. Inspector Tunç. The Lalezar Hotel switchboard, Fräulein, within the hour.

12:01 Gloves Pulled Off in the Lobby

12:05 Narrator: Within the hour Tunç had the trunk register under his elbow and Galina gone pale at her board, and Ingeborg came across the lobby pulling off her gloves. Tunç: A warrant, Galina, not a request. The management has read it.

12:19 Galina: The management reads what it's told, Inspector. Tunç: Is that so. Arslan: Fräulein Ingeborg. Thank you for coming.

12:27 Ingeborg: An inspector telephones and I come. That's how it's now. Arslan: The woman at this board told me, Fräulein, that every midnight, Ingeborg rang the general's suite.

12:38 Ingeborg: Is that why I'm brought here? To be told in a hotel lobby whom I telephone? Arslan: You're here to see this. It was taken this morning.

12:47 Ingeborg: He is... oh, God. He's so thin. Arslan: You looked at his face, Fräulein. Everyone else looked at the newspaper.

12:57 Ingeborg: Yes, I rang him. I rang him every night he was in this city. And he answered as if I were the only... He didn't even tell me he was going. A note to the Consul, and his room empty.

13:11 Tunç: Then tell me who he's with now. Captain, read me the trunk calls. Narrator: Ankara, Izmir, Ankara. And this, over and over. Çeşme, every night, billed to German rooms.

13:24 Galina: Guests ring where they— guests ring where they like, Inspector. I only put the plug in. Tunç: Çeşme sits five miles off Chios. German rooms, a German secretary, a German general. That's her hired man's boat, Arslan Bey.

13:39 Ingeborg: I know no one in Çeşme. I could not find it on a— Galina: The German consulate. For you, Fräulein.

13:48 Ingeborg: Herr Konsul. Yes. I understand. The first train.

13:56 Ingeborg: The Consul recalls me. You've sent me to Berlin, Herr Arslan. Arslan: I...

14:03 Back Across the Emptied Lobby

14:06 Narrator: Long after the consulate car had gone, Arslan walked me back across the emptied lobby to Galina's board, where Ashby was already leaning. Arslan: You pulled that plug as we came round the palms, Galina. Whoever it was, we weren't to hear.

14:22 Galina: Forty-one, wanting his shoes. You want to hear about shoes, Arslan Bey? Arslan: About Çeşme. Who in this hotel talks to Çeşme at—

14:32 Galina: Germans. Business. Figs, mohair, who knows what Germans buy?

14:37 Narrator: At midnight, Galina? Nobody buys figs at midnight. Ashby: May a tobacco man still lean on this board, or is it evidence now?

14:47 Galina: Mister Ashby. Lean. You always do. All month this one leaned just there and asked me, like an old aunt, "Has the consulate rung the general tonight?"

14:59 Ashby: What else does a man with no buyers do? Watches other men's luck. And the general had plenty.

15:07 Arslan: Did she ring, every night? Ashby: Every night, by Galina's account. Nobody ever rang me like that.

15:15 Narrator: Lucky man. Ashby: Come up to the terrace, gentlemen. The raki goes on my ruined account.

15:22 Arslan: Presently. Galina, those calls to Çeşme went through your hands. I'd like to know why—

15:28 Galina: Me? I have never rung Çeşme in my life.

15:33 The Bosphorus Black Beneath the Terrace Rail

15:37 Narrator: Ashby took us up to the terrace bar, where the Bosphorus ran black beneath the rail, and poured raki for three without asking. Ashby: Water in it, Captain? No? A man after my heart.

15:49 Arslan: You watched the general a month, Ashby. What sort of man? Ashby: Mineral water, one cigar, never a card. Upstairs by a quarter to twelve, like a schoolboy called in.

16:01 Arslan: A quarter to. So he was sitting by the telephone before it rang. Ashby: Two days in this hotel and you know as much as the barman.

16:11 Narrator: The cigar. Whose leaf? Ashby: Dutch, Captain, out of a tin. I'd have sold him better, back when anybody bought. There's no trade left. This summer I'd so little to do I took— well, snapshots. The fig tree, the cat, Mother's well at Moda, like a tourist in my own house.

16:32 Narrator: My mother kept hens round hers. Give me a war and no work, I'd have photographed them too. Arslan: Moda's a long ferry from here. Yet you drink in this bar every night.

16:43 Ashby: Moda's quiet, Arslan Bey. Too quiet for a man who sells— for a man in my line. Here, someone always wants something.

16:57 Narrator: The barman's holding up the receiver, Arslan. For you. Arslan: Tunç, at this hour. He's either found something or lost his temper.

17:06 Ashby: If the general has run off with his Fräulein, he's the only sane man in the Reich. Narrator: Steady on. Ashby: To love, gentlemen.

17:17 A Typed Report and a Space Under a Name

17:20 Narrator: A typed report waited on Tunç's blotter at Sirkeci in the morning, with a space left under his own name. Tunç: One line, Arslan Bey. Your name under mine and Ankara sleeps tonight. A German love affair, no Turk anywhere in it.

17:36 Arslan: You rang me at the bar last night about Çeşme, not love. Tunç: The Çeşme police ran those trunk calls down. Dead ends. But they walked the quay while they were at it, and a skipper talked.

17:48 Narrator: Skippers talk when the other choice is losing the boat. Tunç: His statement. "The night the searchlights came on all along Chios, my refugee run brought two across. A nephew and his sick uncle, the old one wrapped to the eyes." Passage booked five weeks ago, he says, and half paid in advance.

18:09 Arslan: Did he. Narrator: A German general in island rags, wrapped in a blanket. He'd have minded that more than the sea.

18:17 Arslan: A sick man doesn't walk up a quay, Inspector. He's carried. Tunç: Or he plays sick because his face is on every wire. Lovers plan. That's what five weeks—

18:27 Arslan: Five weeks. Have you still got Ankara's cable? Tunç: In my drawer. Why?

18:34 Arslan: Bring it to Gümüşsuyu. I'll read it in front of the Fräulein, not behind her back. Last night I sent her home to Berlin on a guess. I won't sign a second one.

18:46 Tunç: A caique is a caique, Arslan Bey.

18:50 Two Strapped Trunks Beside a Typewriter

18:54 Narrator: Two strapped trunks stood beside Ingeborg's typewriter when we came back to the consulate, and Tunç had Ankara's cable buttoned into his breast pocket. Ingeborg: Herr Arslan. You've come to see me onto the train?

19:07 Arslan: To read you two dates first, Fräulein. Inspector, the skipper. Tunç: A Çeşme skipper ferried a nephew and an invalid uncle off Chios the night the general went.

19:18 Arslan: Hold on to this, Fräulein: Passage booked five weeks ago, and half paid. Now Ankara's date, Inspector. Tunç: Three weeks. Berlin posted him to Chios overnight— three weeks, and your Consul read of it after he sailed.

19:36 Ingeborg: Five weeks ago... nobody had sent him anywhere. Arslan: Nobody. You can't plan a lover's escape from an island he hasn't been posted to yet.

19:47 Narrator: Then who on earth was the boat booked for? Arslan: Whoever held Chios. The man before Dorn, I'd guess. The trap was laid for the post, and Dorn stepped into it.

19:58 Tunç: Lovers. Ankara wanted lovers, and I— I handed them over. I signed it alone, Arslan Bey. I'll explain it to Ankara alone.

20:11 Arslan: And I signed nothing, and still sent her to Berlin. I'll write to your Consul tonight, Fräulein, and— Ingeborg: Letters. Berlin doesn't read letters from Turkish detectives, Herr Arslan. Berlin will read the sentry log.

20:24 Ingeborg: A general who rode away calm as a man going home... and a secretary who rang him every night. Tunç: If there were no lovers, then that calm ride means— Arslan: One thing, Inspector. It meant her. To you, to me, and to Berlin.

20:40 Ingeborg: So it was made... it was made to point at... Then someone— someone wanted Berlin to blame me.

20:49 Grey Light Over the Arcade Roof

20:53 Narrator: Grey light was creeping over the arcade roof when I found Arslan still dressed by our window, his tea gone cold beside him. You never went to bed. That tea died around midnight.

21:06 Arslan: Rozet's six frames, before the general. A tiled well, two letters in the tiles, leaves hung on strings. Narrator: Strings of leaves. Every village in Thrace hangs its tobacco that way, rows of it under the eaves.

21:21 Arslan: Tobacco? I took them for vine leaves, some housewife's dolma. Narrator: Vine leaves go in brine, not on strings. That's tobacco, Arslan. And who sells tobacco to nobody?

21:33 Arslan: Ashby. His summer snapshots, his mother's well. I heard it on the terrace too.

21:39 Narrator: Then why sit there drinking his raki? Arslan: Every garden in Moda has a well and a cat. While Tunç's lovers stood, a garden was only a garden.

21:49 Narrator: And the letters? E.L. The man is called Ashby. Arslan: So yesterday afternoon I tried the land registry at Kadıköy. The Moda house stands in his mother's name. Her initials are E.L.

22:04 Narrator: But he told us about those snapshots himself. A man who'd just sent that roll to be printed— Arslan: Told us of a fig tree and a cat. Not one word about letters in the tiles. Ring Tunç. He'll want a judge's warrant for the house at Moda, and Rozet's spare prints in his pocket.

22:29 Narrator: While it rings. He might have lent the camera. Anyone can borrow a roll.

22:34 Arslan: Then whose garden was the general standing in?

22:38 Tunç Waiting on the Pier

22:42 Narrator: Tunç met our boat at the Kadıköy pier, his warrant already signed, and we walked up through Moda's shuttered villas to Ashby's gate. Ashby: Arslan Bey, the Captain, and— and the police. Moda hasn't had such company since before the war.

22:57 Tunç: Inspector Tunç, Emniyet. A warrant, Ashby, signed in Kadıköy at seven on Arslan Bey's word. Narrator: There's the well, Inspector. And the leaf still on its strings.

23:09 Ashby: The last of my own crop. Nobody would buy it, so I hung it where I could look at it. Tunç: Madam Rozet's print. E.L. in the tiles, the chip off the corner tile, the same garden behind your general.

23:23 Arslan: On the terrace you called it Mother's well at Moda. You left out her initials, Ashby. Ashby: Anyone may snap a garden, Arslan Bey. Half Pera crosses on a Sunday to photograph the sea. Some fellow leans over my wall with a camera, and I'm to answer for his—

23:41 Arslan: Not his film. Yours. Six frames of this well, taken this summer when you'd no trade, as you told us. Your summer snapshots open the general's roll. A tobacco man with no buyers doesn't waste the end of a film.

23:55 Ashby: A roll can be lifted from any drawer by— Tunç: Then you won't mind me trying your upstairs. Your keys, Ashby.

24:01 Ashby: Now, see here— Narrator: Up here, Arslan. That door's locked and bolted from the landing, and a tray of bread left outside it.

24:10 Arslan: Someone is fed in there who can't open his own door. Tunç: General Dorn. Drugged half asleep, blinking at the light... and alive.

24:22 Water Dripping Below Tunç's Office

24:26 Narrator: They put Ashby in a whitewashed cell under Tunç's office, cuffed at the wrists, and the three of us stood while he sat. Ashby: Cuffs on a tobacco man. Bremen would laugh itself sick.

24:39 Tunç: Talk to me, Ashby, not to Bremen. Arslan: You booked that boat for whoever held Chios. You'd have taken the man before Dorn.

24:48 Ashby: Tried to. An old Prussian who never left his villa. Then Berlin sent me a man I already knew.

24:56 Narrator: Knew him from the terrace, over his mineral— Ashby: From Galina's board. Every night I leaned there and asked, "Has the consulate rung the general tonight?" Every night she said yes.

25:07 Arslan: So you knew he had a woman who could be blamed. Ashby: Naturally. Tunç: And the eleven posts? How?

25:16 Ashby: I stopped his car in a military policeman's coat. Then it was his cap on my head, and him asleep under a rug behind me. Tunç: Not one sentry heard a cry, and I read it to Arslan Bey like gospel.

25:30 Ashby: Nobody awake to cry, Inspector. A general who rides out calm has gone to his Fräulein. Berlin hunts her, not me.

25:40 Narrator: And twenty men on Chios under the rifles while you sat waiting for your— Ashby: They'd have gone home the day he turned up in British hands. I'm no butcher, Captain. I'm a seller.

25:50 Arslan: And your buyer wanted him alive and dated before he paid. Ashby: Five thousand gold sovereigns on delivery. Enough to start again where nobody grows tobacco.

26:01 Tunç: Delivered where? Ashby: A platform at Haydarpaşa, Inspector. The British pay in gold, Arslan Bey. Thursday's Taurus Express.

26:12 A Yellow Morning in the Hotel Lobby

26:16 Narrator: Istanbul, the morning after Moda, came yellow through the hotel's tall windows, and Galina was plugging in calls when Tunç brought us across the lobby. Galina: Lalezar Hotel, hold please. Three of you, Arslan Bey. The ledger again, or me?

26:31 Tunç: You, Galina. I still have Çeşme, every night, billed to German rooms, and a Consul asking me why. Galina: Oh.

26:40 Arslan: Your calls sent the Çeşme police down the quay, and a skipper talked. Tell us who's at the other end. Galina: A conscript at the battery above Çeşme. Twenty-two, with ears like a teapot.

26:53 Narrator: Ah. Galina: At midnight he waits by the post office telephone, and I ring, and for three minutes nobody is at war. I lied to you, Arslan Bey. I— the Germans pay, and I'm ashamed. But let them pay for one thing that's not a gun.

27:10 Galina: I know nothing of boats. Tunç: In my report it's a fault on the trunk line. Galina: Oh. Thank you, I...

27:18 Narrator: What put you on Ashby, Arslan? The well, or the leaf? Arslan: The well put me on him. The leaf made it sure: Rozet saw leaves drying round a well, and you named them tobacco at dawn. A tobacco man with no buyer hangs his last crop at home.

27:36 Narrator: And his question at this board, every night? Arslan: A man doesn't count another man's midnight calls for gossip, Demir. He counts them to learn who can be blamed.

27:46 Tunç: The consulate took Dorn back last night. This morning Chios sent its twenty home, the old priest first. Narrator: And the Fräulein?

27:55 Tunç: Gone on yesterday's first train, with Arslan Bey's letter in the Consul's bag. Arslan: I sent her on a guess. A letter is a poor ticket back.

28:06 Narrator: Ashby was charged at Sirkeci that afternoon, and he waits for his judges there still. Outside, the Horn took the morning without a word.