HHhH Бине Лоран

172

On February 16, Lieutenant Bartos, head of Operation Silver A, sends a message to London. The message is sent via the transmitter Libuse, the machine his group parachuted into the country the same night as Gabk and Kubi. Reading this message gives us a good idea of the difficulties encountered by the parachutists in the fulfillment of their secret mission:

The groups that you send should be given plenty of money and dressed suitably. A small-caliber pistol and a towel—difficult to find here—are very useful. The poison should be carried in a smaller tube. Depending on the circumstances, you should send the groups to areas away from those where they have to report. This makes it more difficult for the German security services to find them. The biggest problem here is finding work. Nobody will hire you unless you have a work permit. Anyone who does have one is given a job by the Work Office. The danger of forced labor increases greatly in the spring, so we can’t commit a greater number of men to secret missions without also increasing the risk that the entire system will be discovered. That’s why I consider it more beneficial to use those already here to the maximum, and to limit the arrival of new men to an absolute minimum. Signed, Ice.

173

Goebbels’s diary, February 26, 1942:

Heydrich sends me a very detailed report on the situation in the Protectorate. It hasn’t really changed. But what stands out very clearly is that his tactics are the right ones. He treats the Czech ministers as his subjects. Hacha puts himself completely at the service of Heydrich’s new politics. As far as the Protectorate is concerned, nothing more needs to be done at the moment.

174

Heydrich does not neglect his cultural life. In March, he organizes the greatest cultural event of his reign: an exhibition enh2d Das Sowjet Paradies, inaugurated by the vile Karl Frank, in the presence of the old president Emil Hcha and the infamous collaborator Emanuel Moravec.

I don’t know what the exhibition is like exactly, but the idea is to show that the USSR is a barbaric, underdeveloped country with disgraceful living conditions, while underlining the intrinsic perversity of Bolshevism. It is also a chance to praise the German victories on the Eastern Front. Tanks and other military hardware taken from the Russians are exhibited like trophies.

The exhibition lasts four weeks and attracts half a million visitors, among them Gabk and Kubi. This is probably the first and only time that our heroes will see a Soviet tank.

175

To begin with, this seemed a simple-enough story to tell. Two men have to kill a third man. They succeed, or not, and that’s the end, or nearly. I thought of all the other people as mere ghosts who would glide elegantly across the tapestry of history. Ghosts have to be looked after, and that requires great care—I knew that. On the other hand, what I didn’t know (but should have guessed) is that a ghost desires only one thing: to live again. Personally, I’d like nothing better, but I am constrained by the needs of my story. I can’t keep leaving space for this ever-growing army of shadows, these ghosts who—perhaps to avenge themselves for the meager care I show them—are haunting me.

But that’s not all.

Pardubice is a town in eastern Bohemia. The Elbe runs through it. The town has a population of about 90,000 and a pretty square in he center with some handsome Renaissance-style buildings. It is also the birthplace of Dominik Haek, the legendary goaltender and one of the greatest ice-hockey players of all time.

There is a fairly chic hotel-restaurant here called Vaselka. This evening, as every other evening, it is full of Germans. The men of the Gestapo sit around a table, making a lot of noise. They’ve had lots to eat and drink. They hail the waiter. He comes over, smart and obsequious. I imagine they want some brandy. The waiter takes their order. One of the Germans puts a cigarette to his lips. The waiter takes a lighter from his pocket and, with a bow, offers the German a light.

The waiter is very handsome. He was hired recently. Young, smiling, clear-eyed, and honest-looking, he has fine features on a large face. Here, in Pardubice, he answers to the name of Mirek olc. At first glance, there is no reason why we should be interested in this waiter. Except that the Gestapo is interested in him.

One fine morning, they summon the hotel boss. They want information on Mirek olc: where he comes from, who he hangs out with, where he goes when he’s not at work. The boss replies that olc comes from Ostrava, where his father runs a hotel. The policemen pick up the phone and call Ostrava. But nobody there has ever heard of a hotelier called olc. So the Gestapo of Pardubice summon the hotel boss again, and olc with him. The boss comes on his own. He explains that he fired the waiter because he broke some dishes. The Gestapo let him go, and have him followed. But Mirek olc has vanished forever.

176

Between them, the parachutists operating in the Protectorate would have used an incalculable number of false identities. Mirek olc was one of them. Now we must turn our attention to the man who used this identity—because he plays an important role in this story. His real name is Josef Valk. And, unlike Mirek olc, this is a name you need to remember. So Valk is the handsome twenty-seven-year-old man who worked as a waiter in Pardubice. Now he’s on the run, attempting to reach Moravia so he can take a break at his parents’ country house. Valk, like Kubi, is Moravian—although that is not the most important thing they have in common. Sergeant Valk was in the same Halifax that carried Gabk and Kubi over their homeland on the night of December 28. He belonged to another group (code name Silver A), whose mission was to be dropped with a transmitter (code name Libuse) in order to reestablish contact between London and A54—the German superspy with his priceless information—through the intermediary of Morvek: the last of the Three Kings, the Resistance chief with the severed finger.

Naturally, nothing went as planned. During the jump, Valk became separated from his colleagues and had terrible difficulties retrieving the transmitter. Having tried to transport it on a sled, he ended up reaching Pardubice in a taxi. There, local agents found him work as a waiter: this provided him with excellent cover, and the fact that the restaurant was so popular with the Gestapo tickled his sense of irony.

Unfortunately, his cover is now blown. But, in a way, this misfortune forces him to go to Prague—where two other parachutists are waiting for him, along with his destiny.

If this were a novel, I would have absolutely no need for Valk. He is more of an encumbrance than anything else—a pointless copy of the two heroes, even if he does prove himself just as cheerful, optimistic, courageous, and likable as Gabk and Kubi. But it’s not up to me to decide what Operation Anthropoid needs. And Operation Anthropoid is definitely going to need a lookout.

177

The two men know each other. They’ve been friends since England, where they underwent the same training with the special forces of the SOE, and perhaps even since France, where they might have met in the Foreign Legion or in one of the divisions of the Czech liberation army. They also share the same Christian name. But, shaking hands with unconcealed joy, they introduce themselves as follows:

“Hello, I’m Zdenek.”

“Hello, I’m Zdenek too.”

They smile at the coincidence. Jozef Gabk and Josef Valk have been given the same false Christian name by London. If I were paranoid or egocentric, I would believe that London did this on purpose just to make my story even more confusing. It doesn’t matter anyway, because they use a different name with practically each person they meet. I’ve already made fun of how lightly Gabk and Kubi spoke of their mission—sometimes openly—but they knew how to be rigorous when they had to be. And they must have been very professional not to get muddled, to forget who they were supposed to be each time they talked to somebody.

Between fellow parachutists it’s different, and if Valk and Gabk introduce themselves as though they’re meeting for the first time, that’s simply so they know what to call each other. Or rather, as this changes so often, which Christian name is on the false ID papers they’re using at that moment.

“Are you staying with the aunt?”

“Yes, but I’m moving soon. Where can I get hold of you?”

“Leave a message with the concierge. He’s safe. Ask to see his collection of keys—he’ll trust you then. The password is ‘Jan.’”

“Yeah, the aunt told me that, but… ‘Jan’ as in Jan?”

“No. Here, he’s called Ota. It’s just a coincidence.”

“Oh, right.”

This scene is not really useful, and on top of that I practically made it up. I don’t think I’m going to keep it.

178

With Valk’s arrival in Prague, there are now nearly a dozen parachutists roaming around town. Theoretically, each one works on the mission for which his group was sent. The aim is to keep things compartmentalized, so the different groups are meant to communicate as little as possible. That way, if one falls, the others aren’t dragged down with it. In practice, though, this is almost impossible. The number of addresses where the parachutists can find shelter is limited, but at the same time it is prudent to move as often as possible. As soon as one group or parachutist leaves an address, another takes his place—so all the members of the different groups cross one another’s paths on a fairly regular basis.

In the Moravec family apartment especially, there’s a never-ending procession of all Prague’s parachutists. The father asks no questions; the mother—whom they affectionately call “the aunt”—bakes them cakes; the son, Ata, is overcome with admiration for these mysterious men who hide pistols in their sleeves.

The result of this game of musical chairs is that Valk, originally part of Operation Silver A, quickly gets closer to Operation Anthropoid. Soon, he’s helping Gabk and Kubi scout for locations.

The other result is that Karel urda, from the group Out Distance, meets pretty much everybody: the parachutists and their hosts. So many names to drop, so many addresses to let slip.

179

“I adore Kundera, but the novel of his I love the least is the one set in Paris. Because he’s not truly in his element. As if he were wearing a very beautiful jacket that was just a little bit too big or a little bit too small for him [laughs]. But when Milos and Pavel are walking through Prague, I believe it totally.”

This is Marjane Satrapi, in an interview given to Les Inrockuptibles magazine to promote the release of her beautiful film, Persepolis. I feel a vague sense of anxiety as I read this. Flicking through the magazine in the apartment of a young woman, I confide my anxiety to her. “Yes, but you’ve been to Prague,” she reassures me. “You’ve lived there, you love that city.” But the same is true for Kundera and Paris. Anyway, Marjane Satrapi adds: “Even if I’ve lived in France for twenty years, I didn’t grow up here. There will always be little Iranian core to my work. I love Rimbaud, of course, but Omar Khayym will always speak to me more.” Strange, I’ve never thought about the problem in those terms. Does Desnos speak to me more than Nezval? I don’t know. I don’t think that Flaubert, Camus, or Aragon speak to me more than Kafka, Haek, or Holan. Nor, for that matter, more than Garca Mrquez, Hemingway, or Anatoly Rybakov. Will Marjane Satrapi sense that I didn’t grow up in Prague? Won’t she believe it when the Mercedes suddenly appears at the bend in the road? She goes on: “Even if Lubitsch became a Hollywood filmmaker, he always reinvented and reimagined Europe—an eastern, Jewish Europe. Even when his films are set in the United States, for me they take place in Vienna or Budapest. And that’s a good thing.” But does that mean she’ll think my story is happening in Paris, where I was born, and not in Prague, the city my whole being yearns for? Will there be is of Paris in her mind when I drive the Mercedes to Holeovice, near the Troie Bridge?

No, my story begins in a town in northern Germany, followed by Kiel, Munich, and Berlin, then moves to eastern Slovakia. Passing briefly through France, it continues in London and Kiev before returning to Berlin, and it is going to end in Prague, Prague, Prague! Prague, city of a hundred towers, heart of the world, eye of my imagination’s hurricane, Prague with fingers of rain, the emperor’s Baroque dream, the soul’s music flowing under bridges, Emperor Charles IV, Jan Neruda, Mozart and Wenceslaus, Jan Hus, Jan ika, Josef K, Praha s prsty deste, the chem engraved in the Golem’s forehead, the headless horseman in Liliova Street, the iron man waiting to be liberated by a young girl once every hundred years, the sword hidden in a bridge support, and today the sound of boots marching, which will echo for… how much longer? A year. Perhaps two. Three more, in fact. I am in Prague—not in Paris, in Prague. It’s 1942. It’s early spring and I’m not wearing a jacket. “Exoticism is something I hate,” says Marjane. There is nothing exotic about Prague, because it’s the heart of the world, the true center of Europe, and because in this spring of 1942 it is going to be the site of one of the greatest scenes in the great tragedy of the universe.

Unlike Marjane Satrapi, Milan Kundera, Jan Kubi, and Jozef Gabk, I am not a political exile. But that is perhaps why I can talk of where I want to be without always being dragged back to my starting point. I don’t owe my homeland anything, and I don’t have a score to settle with it. For Paris, I feel neither the heartbreaking nostalgia nor the melancholy disenchantment of the great exiles. That is why I am free to dream of Prague.

180

Valk helps his two comrades in their search for the perfect spot. One day, surveying the city, he attracts the attention of a stray dog. What strange or familiar quality does the animal detect that draws it to this man? It follows his footsteps. It doesn’t take Valk long to sense a presence behind him. He turns around. The dog stops. He sets off again. The dog follows him. Together, they cross the city. When Valk gets back to the apartment belonging to the Moravecs’ concierge, where he’s staying, he adopts and names the dog. When the concierge comes home, Valk introduces him to Moula. From now on, the two of them will scout for locations together, and when Valk can’t take him, he begs the good concierge to “look after his dragon” (so it must have been a big dog, or a very small one if Valk was being ironic). When his master goes away, Moula waits quietly for him—curled up under the living-room table, immobile for hours. The dog probably won’t have a decisive role to play in Operation Anthropoid, but I would rather jot down a useless detail than risk missing a crucial one.

181

Speer returns to Prague, but is received with less pomp than on his previous visit. The minister of armaments is here to discuss manpower with the Protector of one of the Reich’s biggest industrial centers. And in the spring of 1942, much more so than in December 1941—with millions of men fighting on the Eastern Front, with Soviet tanks destroying German tanks, and British bombers striking German cities with ever greater frequency—the question of manpower is vital. More workers are needed to produce more tanks, more airplanes, more artillery, more rifles, more grenades, more submarines. Not to mention those new weapons that should help the Reich finally win the war.

This time, Speer dispenses with the tour of the city and the official procession. He’s come alone, without his wife, for a work meeting with Heydrich. Neither has time to waste on small talk. Speer’s efficiency in his domain is considered the equal of Heydrich’s in his, and he is undoubtedly pleased about this. But he can’t help noticing that Heydrich not only travels without an escort but that he calmly cruises the streets of Prague in an unarmored, open-top car, with no bodyguard at all except his chauffeur. He expresses his concerns to Heydrich, who replies: “Why should my Czechs shoot at me?” Heydrich probably hasn’t read the 1937 newspaper article by Joseph Roth—the Jewish writer from Vienna, now exiled in Paris—mocking the vast amounts of money and men dedicated to protecting Nazi dignitaries. In this article, he has them say: “Yes, you see, I’ve become so great that I’m even forced to be afraid; I am so precious that I don’t have the right to die; I believe so utterly in my star that I must beware the risks that can be fatal to many a star. Who dares wins! But who has won three times over no longer needs to dare!” Joseph Roth no longer mocks anybody because he died in 1939, but perhaps Heydrich did read this article after all. It appeared in a newspaper for dissident refugees—subversive elements, no doubt closely watched by the SD. In any case, Heydrich feels duty-bound to explain part of his weltanschauung to this pampered civilian Speer: surrounding yourself with bodyguards is petit-bourgeois behavior, in very poor taste. He leaves this kind of thing to Bormann and other Party higher-ups. In fact, he refutes Joseph Roth: better to die than to let them believe you’re afraid.

Nevertheless, Heydrich’s initial reaction must have disturbed Speer: Why would anyone want to kill Heydrich? As if there weren’t already enough reasons to kill Nazi leaders in general, and Heydrich in particular! Speer has no illusions about the popularity of the Germans in the occupied territories, and he assumes that Heydrich is the same. But this man seems so sure of himself. Speer can’t tell if Heydrich’s paternalistic tone, speaking of “his” Czechs, is just an idle boast, or if Heydrich really is as powerful as he claims to be. Call him a petit-bourgeois coward if you must, but in the open-top Mercedes inching its way through the streets of Prague, Speer doesn’t feel entirely at ease.

182

Colonel Morvek—sole survivor of the Three Kings, last remaining chief of the three-headed Czech Resistance organization—knows that he shouldn’t attend the meeting. It has been arranged by his old friend Ren, alias Colonel Paul Thmmel, Abwehr officer; alias A54, the most important spy ever to have worked for Czechoslovakia. A54 has managed to warn him: his cover has been blown, and this meeting is a trap. But Morvek probably believes his own audacity will protect him. Wasn’t it audacity that saved his life so many times before? This man who used to send postcards to the head of the Gestapo to tell him what he’d done isn’t going to let himself get scared now. Arriving in the Prague park where the meeting is due to take place, he sees his contact, but also the men who are watching him. He gets ready to run off, but two men in raincoats call out from behind him. I have never witnessed a shoot-out and I have trouble imagining what it would be like in a city as peaceful as Prague is now. But there are more than fity gunshots during the chase that follows. Morvek runs across one of the bridges that span the Vltava (unfortunately, I don’t know which) and jumps onto a moving tram. But the Gestapo are everywhere—it’s as if they’ve been teleported. They’re even inside the tram carriage. Morvek jumps off the tram, but he’s been shot in the legs. He collapses on the rails and, completely surrounded, he shoots himself. This is obviously the surest means of not telling the enemy anything. But his pockets will talk: on his body, the Germans find a photo of a man who (although they don’t know it yet) is Josef Valk.

This story marks the end of the last chief of the Three Kings. It proves a thorn in the side of Anthropoid, because at this date—March 20, 1942—Valk is still closely involved in the operation. It also represents a double success for Heydrich: as Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, he manages to decapitate one of the most dangerous remaining Resistance organizations, thus fulfilling his mission. And as head of the SD, he unmasks a superspy who is also an officer of the Abwehr—the secret service run by his rival and former mentor Canaris. For the Allies this isn’t the first setback and it won’t be the last, but March 20, 1942, is assuredly not a red-letter day in their secret war against the Germans.

183

In London they are growing impatient. It is five months now since the agents of Operation Anthropoid were parachuted into their homeland, but since then there’s been hardly any news at all. London does know, however, that Gabk and Kubi are alive and operational. Libuse, the only secret transmitter still working, sends information of this kind whenever there is any. So London decides to give the two agents a new mission. As ever, employers are obsessed by their employees’ productivity. This new mission adds to rather than replaces the previous one. But it also delays it. Gabk and Kubi are furious. They have to go to Pilsen to take part in a sabotage operation.

Pilsen is a large industrial town in the west of the country, quite close to the German border. Its famous beer, Pilsner Urquell, is named after it. However, London is not interested in Pilsner for its beer but for its koda factories. In 1942, koda doesn’t make cars—it makes armaments. An air raid is planned for the night of April 25–26. The parachutists have to light fires around the industrial complex to help the British bombers pick out their target.

So at least four parachutists travel to Pilsen. They meet up in town, at a place agreed on in advance (the Tivoli restaurant—I wonder if it still exists?), and, that night, set fire to a stable and a stack of straw near the factory.

When the bombers arrive, all they have to do is drop their bombs between these two bright marks. Unfortunately, all their bombs miss the target. So the mission is a total failure, even though the parachutists did exactly what they were asked.

Then again, Kubi did get to know a young female shop assistant during his brief stay in Pilsen—a member of the Resistance, who helped the group fulfill its mission. With his handsome movie-star face—imagine a hybrid of Cary Grant and Tony Curtis—Kubi was always a hit with the ladies. So, even if the operation was a bitter failure, at least he didn’t waste his time. Two weeks later—two weeks before the assassination attempt—he will write a letter to this young woman, Marie Zilanova. A careless thing to do, but luckily without consequences. I would love to know the contents of that letter. I should have copied it down in Czech when I had the chance.

Returning to Prague, the parachutists are very annoyed. They’ve been forced to risk compromising their principal mission—their historic mission—and for what? Nothing but a few big guns. They send London a sharp message suggesting that next time they send pilots with some knowledge of the region.

To tell the truth, I can’t even be sure that Gabk was present for this mission in Pilsen. All I know is that Kubi, Valk, and urda were.

I’ve just realized that apart from one elliptic allusion in Chapter 178, I haven’t mentioned Karel urda before now. And yet, historically and dramatically, he is going to play an essential role in this story.

184

All good stories need a traitor. The one in mine is called Karel urda. He’s thirty years old, and I can’t tell, judging from the photos I’ve seen, whether his betrayal can be read upon his face. He is a Czech parachutist whose background is so similar that it could be mistaken for those of Gabk, Kubi, or Valk. Demobilized from the army after the German occupation, he leaves the country via Poland and travels to France, where he enlists in the Foreign Legion. He joins the Czechoslovak army-in-exile and, after the defeat of France, crosses to England. Unlike Gabk, Kubi, and Valk, he is not sent to the front during the French retreat—but this is not what makes him fundamentally different to the other parachutists. In England, he volunteers for special missions and follows the same intensive training. He is parachuted over the Protectorate with two other comrades on the night of March 27–28. As for what follows… well, it’s still too early to tell you that.

But it’s in England that the seeds of the drama are sown, because it’s here that it might have been avoided. Here, Karel urda’s dubious character gradually reveals itself. He is a heavy drinker. Not a crime, obviously, but when he drinks too much he says things that alarm his regimental comrades. He says he admires Hitler. He says he regrets having left the Protectorate; that he would have a better life if he’d stayed there. His comrades consider him so unreliable that they write to General Ingr, the minister of defense in the Czech government-in-exile, warning him about urda. They add that he has also attempted to con two English girls who were in love with him. Heydrich, in his day, was kicked out of the navy for less than that. The minister passes on this information to Colonel Moravec, who is in charge of special operations. And this is precisely where the fate of many men is sealed. What does Moravec do? Nothing. He just notes in the files that urda is a good sportsman with impressive physical capacities. He does not remove him from the list of parachutists chosen for special missions. And on the night of March 27–28, urda is dropped over Moravia with two other comrades. Helped by the local Resistance, he manages to reach Prague.

After the war, someone will note that almost all of the dozens of parachutists chosen to be sent on special missions in the Protectorate gave patriotism as their motive for volunteering. Only two—one of them urda—said they volunteered because they were seeking adventure, and both turned out to be traitors.

But in terms of its impact, the betrayal committed by the other man will bear no comparison at all with that of Karel urda.

185

The train station in Prague is a magnificent dark stone building with two perfectly disturbing towers. Today is the Fhrer’s birthday—April 20, 1942—and President Hcha is going to present him with a gift from the Czech people: a medical train. The ceremony is taking place in the station, naturally enough, with the highlight being a personal inspection of the train by the Protector himself. While Heydrich boards the train, a crowd of gawkers gathers outside. They stand in the vicinity of a white sign planted in the ground, declaring: “Here stood the memorial of Wilson, removed on the orders of Reich-Protector SS-Obergruppenfhrer Heydrich.” I would like to be able to tell you that Gabk and Kubi are in that crowd, but I have no idea if it’s true—and I suspect it isn’t. To see Heydrich in these circumstances is of no practical use to them as it’s a one-off event, unlikely to reoccur. And with the station so heavily guarded, being here would expose them to pointless risk.

186

Lying on his little iron bed, Jozef Gabk listens to the sound of the tramway bell outside as the tram approaches Karlovo nmst—Charles Square. Very close to here is Resslova Street, which leads down to the river: the street still knows nothing of the tragedy whose setting it will soon provide. A few shafts of sunlight force their way through the closed shutters of the apartment where, these days, Gabk lives in hiding. From time to time you can hear the floorboards creak in the corridor, or on the landing, or in a neighbor’s apartment. Gabk is alert but calm, as always. His eyes stare at the ceiling while in his mind he draws maps of Europe. In one map, Czechoslovakia has its old borders back. In another, the brown plague has spread across the Channel, attaching Great Britain to one of the swastika’s arms. But Gabk, like Kubi, tells anyone who’ll listen that the war will be over in less than a year—and he probably believes it too. And not over in the way the Germans want it to be, obviously. Their first fatal error was declaring war on the USSR. Their second was declaring war on the United States in order to honor their alliance with Japan. It’s quite ironic that, if France was defeated in 1940 because she didn’t honor her promises to Czechoslovakia in 1938, Germany should now be about to lose the war because she did honor hers to Japan. But one year! In retrospect, this is touchingly optimistic.

I’m sure these political musings occupy Gabk’s mind, and the minds of his friends; I’m sure they have endless discussions at night, when they can’t sleep, when they’re able to relax a little by chatting. As long as they can forget the possibility of a nocturnal visit from the Gestapo. As long as they can stop themselves jumping at the slightest noise in the street, on the staircase, in the house. As long as they don’t hear imaginary bells ringing in their heads, and yet are still able to listen out for the sound of real bells ringing.

This is another age—one where, each day, people eagerly look forward not to sports results but to news from the Russian front.

The Russian front, however, is not uppermost in Gabk’s mind. The single most important thing in the war today is his mission. How many people believe this? Gabk and Kubi are convinced. Valk too. And Colonel Moravec. And President Bene, for the moment. And me. That’s all, I think. In any case, only a handful of men know about Operation Anthropoid’s objective. But even among this handful, there are some who disapprove.

This is true of certain parachutists working in Prague, and also of certain Resistance leaders—because they fear the reprisals that will be unleashed if the operation succeeds. Gabk had a tedious argument with them the other day. They wanted to persuade him to give up his mission, or at least to change his target—to choose a prominent Czech collaborator, Emanuel Moravec, for instance, instead of Heydrich. This fear of the German! It’s like a man who beats his dog: the dog may sometimes refuse to obey his master, but he will never turn on him.

Lieutenant Bartos wanted to cancel the operation. Sent by London to carry out other Resistance missions, Bartos is the highest-ranking officer among the Prague parachutists. But here, rank means nothing. The Anthropoid team, consisting only of Gabk and Kubi, received its instructions from London—from President Bene himself. There are no more orders to be given now. The mission has to be accomplished, and that’s that. Gabk and Kubi are men, and everyone who rubbed shoulders with them has emphasized their human qualities: their generosity, their good nature, their dedication. But Anthropoid is a machine.

Bartos asked London to stop Anthropoid. In reply he received a coded message, indecipherable to everyone except Gabk and Kubi. Lying on his little iron bed, Gabk holds the text in his hand. Nobody has found this document. But in a few encrypted lines, their destiny is mapped out: the objective remains the same. The mission is confirmed. Heydrich must die. Outside, creaking metallically, a tram moves away.

187

SS-Standartenfhrer Paul Blobel, the leader of Sonderkommando 4a of Einsatzgruppe C—the group that so zealously performed its task at Babi Yar—is going mad. At night, in Kiev, his car passes the scene of his crimes. In the headlights’ glare he contemplates the staggering spectacle of that ravine of the damned, and he is like Macbeth, haunted by his victims’ ghosts. The dead of Babi Yar are not easily forgotten, because the earth in which they’re buried is itself alive. Smoke rises from it. As the decomposing corpses produce gas bubbles that escape upward, clods jump out like popping champagne corks. The stench is foul. Blobel, laughing dementedly, explains to his guests: “Here lie my thirty thousand Jews!” And he makes a sweeping gesture that takes in the whole immense gurgling belly of the ravine.

If it goes on like this, the corpses of Babi Yar will be the death of him. At the end of his tether, Blobel travels all the way to Berlin to plead with Heydrich in person to transfer him elsewhere. He gets a suitable welcome: “So you’re feeling sick, are you? You spineless queer. You’re no good for anything but selling crockery.” But Heydrich quickly calms down. The man in front of him is a drunken wreck, no longer capable of carrying out the work entrusted to him. It would be pointless and dangerous to keep him in that job against his will. “Go and see Gruppenfhrer Mller. Tell him you want to go on vacation. He’ll remove you from your command in Kiev.”

188

The working-class district of ikov in eastern Prague is supposed to have the highest concentration of bars in the whole city. It also has lots of churches, as you’d expect in the “city of a hundred bells.” In one of these churches, a priest recalls that a young couple came to see him “when the tulips were in flower.” The man was short, with thin lips and piercing eyes. The young woman, I know, was charming and full of joie de vivre. They seemed to be in love. They wanted to get married, but not straightaway. The date they wanted to book was precise but uncertain: “two weeks after the war ends.”

189

I wonder how Jonathan Littell, in his novel The Kindly Ones, knows that Blobel had an Opel. If Blobel really drove an Opel, then I bow before his superior research. But if it’s a bluff, that weakens the whole book. Of course it does! It’s true that the Nazis were supplied in bulk by Opel, and so it’s perfectly plausible that Blobel possessed, or used, a vehicle of that make. But plausible is not known. I’m driveling, aren’t I? When I tell people that, they think I’m mental. They don’t see the problem.

190

Valk and Ata (the Moravecs’ young son) have just had a miraculous escape during a police inspection that ended in the deaths of two parachutists. They are hiding out in the concierge’s apartment and telling him the story of their misadventure. I could tell this story, too, but what would it add, I wonder, to have yet another scene from a spy novel? Modern novels are all about narrative economy, that’s just how it is, and mine can’t keep ignoring this parsimonious logic. So, basically, all you need to know is that it was because of Valk’s cool head and his perfect grasp of the situation that he and Ata were not arrested or killed.

Seeing how stronglythis adventure and he himself have impressed the teenage boy, Valk tells him helpfully:

“You see this wooden box, Ata? The Krauts could beat it till it started to talk. But you, no matter how much they beat you, you must say nothing. Nothing, you understand?”

That line, by contrast, is not at all superfluous to my story.

191

You might have guessed that I was a bit disturbed by the publication of Jonathan Littell’s novel, and by its success. And even if I can comfort myself by saying that our projects are not the same, I am forced to admit that the subject matter is fairly similar. I’m reading it at the moment, and each page gives me the urge to write something about it. I have to suppress this urge. All I will say is that there’s a description of Heydrich at the beginning of the book, from which I will quote only one line: “His hands seemed too long, like nervous algae attached to his arms.” I don’t know why, but I really like that i.

192

This is what I think: inventing a character in order to understand historical facts is like fabricating evidence. Or rather, in the words of my brother-in-law, with whom I’ve discussed all this: It’s like planting false proof at a crime scene where the floor is already strewn with incriminating evidence.

193

Prague in 1942 looks like a black-and-white photo. The passing men wear crumpled hats and dark suits, while the women wear those fitted skirts that make them all look like secretaries. I know this—I have the photos on my desk. All right, no, I admit it. I was exaggerating a bit. They don’t all look like secretaries. Some look like nurses.

The Czech policemen directing the traffic look strangely like London bobbies with their funny helmets. And just when the Czechs had adopted the system of driving on the right…

The trams that come and go to the sound of little bells resemble old red-and-white train carriages. (But how can I know that, when the photos are in black and white? I just know, okay!) They all have round headlights that look like lanterns.

Neon signs decorate the faades of the buildings in Nov Msto, advertising beer, brands of clothing, and Bata, the famous shoe manufacturer. In fact, the whole city seems to be covered in writing—and not only adverts. There are Vs everywhere: originally they were symbols of the Czech Resistance, but the Nazis appropriated them as an exhortation to the Reich’s final victory. There are Vs on tramways, on cars, sometimes carved into the ground; Vs everywhere, battling it out between two opposed ideologies.

Graffiti on a wall: idi ven—Jews out! In shop windows, a sign to reassure the customers: ist rijsk obchod—pure Aryan shop. And in a bar: Zada se zdvorile, by se nehovorilo o politice—Customers are kindly requested not to talk politics.

And then those sinister red posters, written in two languages like all the city’s road signs.

And that’s without even mentioning flags and other banners. Never has any flag signaled its meaning so powerfully as this black cross in a white circle on a red background.

Prague in the 1940s didn’t lack style, even if serenity was harder to come by. Looking at the photos, I keep expecting to see Humphrey Bogart among the passersby, or Lida Baarova, the beautiful and famous Czech actress who was Goebbels’s mistress before the war. Strange times.

I know a restaurant called the Two Cats in the old town, under the arcades: there’s a fresco above it, with two giant cats painted on either side of an arch. But as for the inn the Three Cats, I don’t know where it is or even if it still exists.

Three men are drinking there, and not talking politics. Instead, they’re talking timetables. Gabk and Kubi are sitting at a table opposite a carpenter. But this is no ordinary carpenter. He’s the carpenter at Prague Castle, and in this capacity he sees Heydrich’s Mercedes arrive every day. And every evening, he sees it leave.

Kubi is talking to him because the carpenter is a Moravian, like him, and the familiar accent reassures him. “Don’t worry, you’re going to help us before, not during. You’ll be a long way away when we shoot him.”

Oh, really? So this is Operation Anthropoid’s great secret? Even the carpenter who’s being asked merely to provide the timetable is, without any further ado, told exactly what’s going to happen. I did read somewhere that the parachutists were not always rigorously discreet. Then again, is there any point in trying to conceal everything? The carpenter is hardly going to believe that they’re asking him for Heydrich’s schedule because they’re compiling traffic statistics. But when I reread the carpenter’s testimony I see that Kubi did tell him, in his best Moravian accent: “Don’t breathe a word of this at home!” Well, as long as he told him…

So every day the carpenter has to write down the time of Heydrich’s arrival and departure. He also has to note whether or not he’s escorted by another car.

194

Heydrich is everywhere: in Prague, in Berlin, and—this month of May—in Paris.

In the wood-paneled rooms of the Majestic Hotel, the head of the SD gathers the principal field officers of the occupying SS troops to inform them about the operation he’s leading—and which none of his men, nor the world at large, yet know by the name of “the Final Solution.”

By this time, the mass slaughter perpetrated by the Einsatzgruppen has finally been judged too distressing for the soldiers who must carry it out. The old-style killings are gradually phased out in favor of mobile gas chambers. This new system is both simple and ingenious. The Jews have to climb into a truck with the exhaust pipe connected to a length of hose; the victims are then asphyxiated with carbon monoxide. This has two advantages: first, you can kill more Jews at a time; and second, it is easier on the executioners’ nerves. It also produces a curious side effect that the people in charge find amusing: the corpses turn pink. The only inconvenience is that the suffocating victims tend to defecate, so the floor of the truck, smeared with excrement, has to be cleaned after each gassing.

But these mobile gas chambers, Heydrich explains, are still not sophisticated enough. He says: “Better solutions, more advanced and more productive, are on their way.” Then, his audience hanging on his every word, he adds abruptly: “All the Jews in Europe have been sentenced to death.” Given that the Einsatzgruppen have already executed more than a million Jews, you have to wonder who among his audience hasn’t yet understood this.

This is the second time I’ve caught Heydrich overdramatizing this kind of statement. When he informed Eichmann, just before Wannsee, that the Fhrer had decided upon the physical elimination of all the Jews, his colleague was struck by the dramatic silence that followed this announcement. In both cases, even if nothing was really official beforehand, you can’t say it came as a great surprise. More than the pleasure of delivering a scoop, I think Heydrich enjoyed verbalizing the incredible, the unthinkable, as if to give substance to the unimaginable truth. This is what I’ve got to tell you—you already know it, but it’s up to me to tell you, and it’s up to us to do it. The orator, dizzy from speaking the unspeakable. The monster, drunk on the thought of the monstrosities he heralds.

195

The carpenter shows them the place where Heydrich gets out of his car each day. Gabk and Kubi look around. They pick a spot behind a house where they could wait for him, and from where they could shoot him. But the area is heavily guarded, of course. The carpenter makes it clear they wouldn’t have time to flee, that they would never get out of the castle alive. Gabk and Kub are ready to die—they have been since the beginning, no question about it. But all the same they do want to try to stay alive. They need a plan that gives them a chance of getting away—a small chance but a chance nonetheless—because they both have hopes and dreams for after the war. In the Resistance, among all the Czechs who are risking their lives to help them, there are some brave and pretty young women. I know very few details of my heroes’ love lives, but I do know that after these few months operating secretly in Prague, Gabk wants to marry Libena, the Fafek family’s daughter, and Kubi the beautiful Anna Malinova, with her raspberry lips. After the war… They’re not deluding themselves. They know they have only one chance in a thousand of surviving the war. But they want to take that chance. They must, above all, accomplish their mission—absolutely. But that doesn’t mean they want to commit suicide. What a terrible thought.

The two men walk back down Nerudova, the long street with its alchemists’ shop signs, connecting the castle to Mal Strana. Farther down, the Mercedes will have to go around a nice curve. Could be a spot worth looking at…

196

Heydrich is wrong about the Czech Resistance—it’s not dead yet. In order to collect the carpenter’s daily bulletin on Heydrich’s movements, they find a ground-floor apartment just below the castle. Whenever necessary (every day, I suppose), the carpenter comes and knocks at the window. A young girl opens it. Two of them take turns; the carpenter thinks they are not only sisters but also the two parachutists’ girlfriends—which they might well be. The carpenter and the girls never exchange a word. The carpenter hands over his piece of paper and leaves. Today, he has written: “9–5 (without).” In other words: 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Without an escort.

Gabk and Kubi are confronted by an insoluble problem. They have no way of knowing in advance whether Heydrich will be escorted by a second car, filled with bodyguards. The statistics based on the carpenter’s reports do not show any fixed pattern. Sometimes without, sometimes with. Without: they’ll have a small chance of getting out alive. With: no chance at all.

So, to carry out their mission, the two parachutists must surrender themselves to this horrifying lottery. They must choose a date with no idea whether Heydrich will be escorted. Whether their mission is extremely risky, or whether it’s actually a suicide mission.

197

Riding bicycles, the two men keep making the same journey—from Heydrich’s home to the castle, from curve to curve. Heydrich lives in Panensk Beany, a little spot in the suburbs a quarter of an hour by car from the city center. One part of the journey is particularly isolated: a long straight line with no houses nearby. If they managed to immobilize the car they could shoot Heydrich here without anyone seeing. They consider stopping the car with a steel cable strung tightly across the road. But afterward, how would they get away? They’d need their own car or motorbike. And the Czech Resistance has neither. No, it has to be done in the middle of town, in the middle of the day, in the middle of a crowd. They need a curve in the road. Gabk’s and Kubi’s thoughts are curved and twisting. They dream of the ideal curve.

And they end up finding it.

Well, “ideal” is perhaps not the right word.

198

The curve in Holeovice Street (ulice v Holeovikch in Czech), in the Libe district, has several advantages. First of all, it is almost a hairpin, so the Mercedes will be forced to slow right down. Next, it’s at the foot of a hill where they can post a lookout to warn them of the Mercedes’s arrival. Finally, it’s in the suburbs, midway between Panensk Beany and Hradany: neither in the city center nor in the countryside. So it offers the possibility of escape.

The Holeovice curve also has some disadvantages. It’s at a crossroads intersected by tram tracks. If a tram goes by at the same time as the Mercedes, there’s a danger the operation will be compromised—because the car might be hidden or civilians put at risk.

I have never assassinated anyone, but I suppose there is no such thing as ideal conditions: a moment comes when you have to decide. And anyway, there isn’t time to find anything better. So Holeovice it is: this curve that no longer exists, swallowed up by a highway ramp and by modernity, which couldn’t care less about my memories.

Because I do remember now. Each day, each hour, the memory grows clearer. On this bend of Holeovice Street, I feel I’ve been waiting forever.

199

I’m spending a few days on vacation in a beautiful house in Toulon, and I’m doing a bit of writing. This is no ordinary house: it’s the former residence of an Alsatian printer who, in the course of his job, rubbed shoulders with Paul Eluard and Elsa Triolet.[5] During the war he was in Lyon, where he printed false papers for Jews and stocked books by the underground publisher ditions de Minuit. At the same time, the land surrounding his house in Toulon was occupied by German army camps, but apparently no one lived in the house, which remained in good condition. The furniture and the books were not touched, and they’re still here.

This man’s great-niece, knowing of my interest in the period, shows me a slim volume taken from the family library. It’s the original edition of The Silence of the Sea by Vercors, published on July 25, 1943, “the day the Roman tyrant fell,” as it says in the back of the book. It is signed by the author and dedicated to the great-uncle:

To Madame and Pierre Braun, with feelings that link all those engulfed in dark days by

The Silence of the Sea

Sincerely yours, Vercors

I am on vacation and I hold a bit of history in my hands. It is a very sweet and pleasant feeling.

200

There are alarming rumors about Heydrich. He will leave Prague. For good. Tomorrow, he must take the plane to Berlin. No one knows if he will return. This would obviously be a relief to the Czech people, but it would be a disaster for Operation Anthropoid. Alarming news for the parachutists, and also—although they know nothing about it—for the French. It is whispered among historians that perhaps Heydrich, having accomplished his mission in the Protectorate, now has his eye on what today we would call “a new challenge.” Having dealt so ruthlessly and brutally with Bohemia and Moravia, Heydrich would now sort out France.

He has to go to Berlin to discuss this with Hitler. France is in turmoil; Ptain and Laval are worms; if Heydrich could deal with the French Resistance the way he dealt with the Czech Resistance, that would be perfect.

This is only a theory, although it is backed up by Heydrich’s trip to Paris two weeks earlier.

201

That’s right—in May 1942, Heydrich spent a week in Paris. I have found the film of his visit in the archives of the National Audiovisual Institute. A clip from the day’s French news: fifty-nine seconds of filmed reportage. Speaking in that nasal voice so typical of the 1940s, the newsreader announces:

“Paris. Arrival of Mr. Heydrich, the SS general, chief of police, Reich representative in Prague, asked by the head of the SS and the German police, Mr. Himmler, to officially appoint Mr. Oberg, major general of the SS and of the police in the occupied territories. Mr. Heydrich is the head of the International Commission of the Criminal Police, and France has always been represented at this commission. The general took advantage of his stay in Paris to receive Mr. Bousquet, secretary-general of the police, and Mr. Hilaire, secetary-general of the administration. Mr. Heydrich also made contact with Mr. Darquier de Pellepoix, who, along with Mr. de Brinon, has just been named commissioner for Jewish affairs.”

I have always been intrigued by this meeting between Heydrich and Bousquet. I would really like to have the minutes of their conversation. After the war, Bousquet let it be known for a long time that he stood up to Heydrich. And it’s true that he categorically refused to give in on one point: that the powers of the French police should not be reduced; these powers consisting essentially of the right to arrest people. Jews in particular. Heydrich is happy to let the local police deal with this: it’s less work for the Germans, after all. As he tells Oberg, his experience in the Protectorate has shown him that an autonomous police and administration will produce better results. Provided, of course, that Bousquet leads his police “in the same spirit as the German police.” But Heydrich has no doubt that Bousquet is the right man for the job. At the end of his stay, he says: “The only person who has youth, intelligence, and authority is Bousquet. With men like him, we will be able to build the Europe of tomorrow—a Europe very different from that of today.”

When Heydrich tells Ren Bousquet about the next deportation of stateless (that is, non-French) Jews interned at Drancy, Bousquet spontaneously suggests that stateless Jews interned in the free zone should be deported as well. How very obliging of him.

202

Ren Bousquet was a lifelong friend of Franois Mitterand. But that is far from his worst offense.

Bousquet is not a cop like Barbie, or a militiaman like Touvier; nor is he a prefect like Papon[6] in Bordeaux. He is a high-level politician destined for a brilliant career, but who chooses the path of collaboration and gets mixed up in the deportation of Jews. He is the one who ensures that the raid on Vl’ d’Hiv[7] (code name: Spring Wind) is carried out by the French police rather than the Germans. He is thus responsible for what is probably the most infamous deed in the history of the French nation. That it was committed in the name of the French state obviously changes nothing. How many World Cups will we have to win in order to erase such a stain?

After the war, Bousquet survives the purge of Nazi collaborators that took place in France, but his participation in the Vichy government nevertheless deprives him of the political career that had appeared his destiny. He doesn’t live on the streets, though, and gets positions on various boards of directors, including that of the newspaper La Dpche du Midi; he is the main force behind its hard-line anti-Gaullist stance between 1959 and 1971. So, basically, he benefits from the usual tolerance of the ruling class for its most compromised members. He also enjoys the company—not without malice, I imagine—of Simone Weil, an Auschwitz survivor who knows nothing of Bousquet’s collaborationist activities.

His past finally catches up with him in the 1980s, however, and in 1991 he is charged with crimes against humanity.

The investigation ends two years later when he is shot in his own house by a madman. I vividly remember seeing that guy give a press conference just after killing Bousquet and just before the cops arrested him. I remember how pleased with himself he looked as he calmly explained that he’d done it to make people talk about him. I found that utterly idiotic.

This ridiculous moron deprived us of a trial that would have been ten times more interesting than those of Papon and Barbie put together, more interesting than those of Ptain and Laval… the trial of the century. As punishment for this outrageous attack on history, this unimaginably cretinous man was given ten years; he served seven, and is now free. I feel a great repulsion and mistrust for someone like Bousquet, but when I think of his assassin, of the immense historical loss that his act represents, of the revelations the trial would have produced and which he has forever denied us, I feel overwhelmed by hate. He didn’t kill any innocents, that’s true, but he is a destroyer of truth. And all so he could appear on TV for three minutes! What a monstrous, stupid, Warholian piece of shit! The only ones who ought to have a moral right to judge whether this man should live or die are his victims—the living and the dead who fell into the Nazis’ claws because of men like him—but I am sure they wanted him alive. How disappointed they must have been when they heard about this absurd murder! I can feel only disgust for a society that produces such behavior, such lunatics. Pasternak wrote: “I don’t like people who are indifferent to truth.” And worse still are those bastards who are not only indifferent to it but work actively against it. All the secrets that Bousquet took with him to his grave… I have to stop thinking about this because it’s making me ill.

Bousquet’s trial: that would have been the French equivalent of Eichmann in Jerusalem.

203

Anyway, let’s talk about something else. I have just discovered the testimony of Helmut Knochen, appointed chief of the German police in France by Heydrich. He claims to reveal something that Heydrich told him in confidence and which he never repeated to anyone until now. His testimony dates from June 2000. Fifty-eight years later!

Heydrich supposedly told him: “The war can no longer be won. We must reach a negotiated peace and I am afraid that Hitler can’t accept that. We must think about this.” We are meant to believe that Heydrich reached this conclusion in May 1942—before Stalingrad, at a time when the Reich had never looked stronger.

Knochen sees in that an extraordinary clairvoyancy on Heydrich’s part. He considers the Blond Beast much more intelligent than all the other Nazi dignitaries. He also believes that Heydrich was thinking of overthrowing Hitler. And based on this he proposes the following theory: that the assassination of Heydrich would have been a high priority for Churchill, who absolutely refused to be deprived of total victory over Hitler. In other words, the British would have supported the Czechs because they were afraid that a wise Nazi like Heydrich might remove Hitler and save the regime through a negotiated peace.

I suspect it’s in Knochen’s interests to associate himself with the theory of a plot against Hitler, in order to minimize his own (very real) role in the police machine of the Third Reich. It is even perfectly conceivable that, sixty years later, he actually believes what he’s saying. Personally, I think it’s bullshit. But I report it anyway.

204

A poster on an Internet forum expresses the opinion that Max Aue, Jonathan Littell’s protagonist in The Kindly Ones, “rings true because he is the mirror of his age.” What? No! He rings true (for certain, easily duped readers) because he is the mirror of our age: a postmodern nihilist, essentially. At no moment in the novel is it suggested that this character believes in Nazism. On the contrary, he displays an often critical detachment toward National Socialist doctrine—and in that sense, he can hardly be said to reflect the delirious fanaticism prevalent in his time. On the other hand, this detachment, this blas attitude toward everything, this permanent malaise, this taste for philosophizing, this unspoken amorality, this morose sadism, and this terrible sexual frustration that constantly twists his guts… but of course! How did I not see it before? Suddenly, everything is clear. The Kindly Ones is simply “Houellebecq does Nazism.”

205

I think I’m beginning to understand. What I’m writing is an infranovel.

The moment is getting closer, I can feel it. The Mercedes is on its way. It’s coming. Something floating in the Prague air pierces me to my bones. The twists of the road are spelling out the destiny of a man, and of another, and another, and another. I see pigeons take off from the bronze head of Jan Hus and, in the background, the most beautiful view in the world: Tn Church with its sharp black turrets, whose gray and evil-looking faade is so majestic that it makes me want to fall to my knees every time I see it. The heart of Prague beats in my chest. I hear the bells of the tramway. I see men in gray-green uniforms, hear their boots clicking on the cobbles. I’m nearly there. I have to go. Yes, I must travel to Prague. I have to be there when this happens.

I have to write it there.

I hear the engine of the Mercedes as it glides along the road. I hear Gabk breathing, wrapped up in his raincoat, waiting on the pavement. I see Kubi standing opposite, and Valk posted at the top of the hill. I feel the smooth cold mirror at the bottom of his coat pocket. Not yet, not yet, uz nie, noch nicht.

Not yet.

I feel the wind that whips the faces of the two Germans in the car. Yes, the chauffeur is driving that fast—I know this: a thousand witnesses have attested to it, I have no doubts at all on that score. The Mercedes speeds past, and the most precious part of my imagining follows silently in its slipstream. The air rushes past, the engine drones, the passenger keeps telling his giant chauffeur, “Schneller! Schneller!” Faster, faster, he shouts, but he doesn’t know that time has already started to slow down. Soon, the course of the world will freeze at a bend in the road. The earth will stop moving at exactly the same time as the Mercedes.

But not yet. It is still too early. Not everything is in place yet. Not everything has been said. I would like to be able to delay this moment forever, I think, even as my whole being stretches out longingly toward it.

The Slovak, the Moravian, and the Bohemian Czech are also waiting, and I would pay dearly to feel what they felt then. But I am too corrupted by literature. “Yet have I something in me dangerous,” says Hamlet, at a similar moment. I hope I can be forgiven. I hope they can forgive me. I am doing all of this for them. I had to start up the black Mercedes—that wasn’t easy. I had to put everything in place, take care of the preparations. I had to spin the web of this adventure, erect the gallows of the Resistance, cover death’s hideous iron fist in the sumptuous velvet glove of the struggle. Scorning modesty, I had to join forces with men so great that I am a mere insect in comparison.

I had to cheat sometimes, to betray my literary principles—because what I believe is insignificant next to what is being played out now. What will be played out in a few minutes. Here. Now. On this curve in Holeovice Street in Prague, where—later, much later—they will build some kind of access road. Because cities change faster, alas, than men’s memories.

But that doesn’t really matter. A black Mercedes is sliding along the road like a snake—from now on, that’s the only thing that matters. I have never felt so close to my story.

Prague.

I feel metal rubbing against leather. And that anxiety rising inside the three men, and the calmness they display. This is not the manly self-confidence of those who know they are going to die. Even though our heroes are prepared for death, the possibility of escaping alive has never been dismissed. And this makes their psychological tension even more unbearable. I don’t know what incredible power over their nerves they must possess in order to remain in control. I make a quick inventory of all the times in my life when I’ve had to show sangfroid. What a joke! On each occasion, the stakes were tiny: a broken leg, a night at work, a rejection. There you go, that’s pretty much all I’ve ever risked in the course of my pathetic existence. How could I convey even the tiniest idea of what those three men lived through?

But it’s too late for this kind of mood. After all, I, too, have responsibilities and I must face up to them. I have to stay in the slipstream of the Mercedes. Listen to the sounds of life on this May morning. Feel the wind of history as it begins, gently, to blow. Watch as all the actors in this drama—from the dawn of time in the twelfth century, up until the present and Natacha—file past in my mind. And then retain only five names: Heydrich, Klein, Valk, Kubi, and Gabk.

In the narrowing flow of this story, those five are about to reach the waterfall.

207

It’s the afternoon of May 26, 1942. Heydrich is about to attend the opening concert of Prague’s weeklong music festival, featuring music composed by his father. A few hours before the first notes are played, he holds a press conference for the Protectorate’s journalists:

“I am obliged to observe that incivilities, or what one might call indelicacies, if not examples of outright rudeness, particularly toward Germans, are once again on the rise. You are well aware, gentlemen, that I am generous and that I encourage all plans for reform. But you also know that, however patient I may be, I will not hesitate to strike with the most extreme harshness if I get the feeling that people consider the Reich to be weak, and if they mistake the goodness of my heart for weakness.”

I am a child. This speech is interesting on more than one level. It shows Heydrich at the height of his powers, utterly self-assured, expressing himself like the enlightened despot he imagines himself to be—the viceroy proud of his governance, the master firm but fair, as if the h2 of Protector were printed upon his conscience; as if Heydrich really considered himself a “protector.” Proud of his sharp political sense, Heydrich wields the carrot and the stick in all his speeches. It is typical of totalitarian rhetoric that Heydrich the Hangman, Heydrich the Butcher, should ingenuously tell us how generous and progressive he is, wielding his irony as knowingly and insolently as the wiliest of tyrants. But it is none of this that stands out for me in this speech. What stands out is his use of the term “incivilities.”

208

On the evening of May 26, Libena goes to see Gabk, her fianc. But he has gone out to calm his nerves because he can no longer stand the prevarications of those Resistance members who fear the consequences of the assassination attempt. So it’s Kubi who lets her in. She’s brought cigarettes. After a brief hesitation, she gives them to Kubi. “But, Jeniek [this is the affectionate diminutive of Jan, which means that she knows his real name], you mustn’t smoke them all!” And the young girl leaves, not knowing whether she will ever see her fianc again.

209

I think all men for whom life is not an endless series of misfortunes are bound to experience, at least once, a moment they consider, rightly or wrongly, to be the apotheosis of their existence. For Heydrich, this moment has arrived. And by one of those delicious ironies that forge our destinies, it occurs the day before his assassination.

When Heydrich enters the chapel of Wallenstein Palace, all the guests rise. Ceremonious but smiling, his eyes lifted, he walks on the red carpet that leads him to his place in the front row. His wife, Lina, accompanies him. She is pregnant and radiant, wearing a dark dress. Everyone’s eyes turn their way and all the men in uniform make the Nazi salute as they pass. Heydrich is overcome by the majesty of the place—I can read it in his eyes. He proudly contemplates the altar, surmounted by sumptuous bas-reliefs, and the space below it where the musicians will soon take their seats.

This evening he remembers (if he’d ever forgotten) that music is his life. Music has been with him since his birth. It has never left him.Within Heydrich, the artist has always fought against the man of action. His career has been decided by the course of the world. But music always lives inside him—it will be there until his death.

Each guest holds the evening’s program. Here, he can read the bad prose that the interim Protector has seen fit to compose as an introduction:

Music is the creative language of those who are artists and music lovers, the means of expressing their interior life. In difficult times, it brings relief to he who listens, and in times of greatness and fighting, it encourages him. But music is, above all, the great expression of the German race’s cultural productivity. In this sense, the festival of music in Prague is a contribution to the excellence of the present, conceived as the foundation of a vigorous musical life in this region at the heart of the Reich for years to come.

Heydrich does not write as well as he plays the violin, but he doesn’t care about that—because music is the true language of artistic souls.

The program is exceptional. He has brought over the greatest musicians to play the greatest Germanic music. Beethoven, Handel, even Mozart… and probably, for once, no Wagner. (I can’t be certain, because I haven’t been able to get hold of the complete program.) But it is when he hears the first notes of Bruno Heydrich’s Concerto for Piano in C Minor—played by former pupils of the Halle Conservatory, accompanied by a famous virtuoso pianist flown in expressly—that Heydrich, letting the music flow through him like a stream of well-being, experiences his feeling of apotheosis. I would be curious to hear this work. When Heydrich applauds at the end, I can read on his face the arrogant daydream of all great, self-centered megalomaniacs. Heydrich tastes his personal triumph through the posthumous triumph of his father. But triumph and apotheosis are not exactly the same thing.

210

Gabk is back. Neither he nor Kubi smokes in the apartment, because they don’t want to put out the family they’re staying with—and also because they don’t want to arouse the neighbors’ suspicions.

Through the window, the silhouette of the castle stands out against the night. Kubi, lost in contemplation of its imposing mass, thinks aloud: “I wonder what it will be like there, this time tomorrow…” His hostess, Mrs. Ogounova, asks: “What is supposed to happen?” Gabk is the one who replies: “Nothing, Mrs. Ogounova.”

211

The morning of May 27, Gabk and Kubi get ready to leave earlier than usual. The Ogoun family’s young son is doing last-minute revision because today is the day of his final exam and he’s nervous. Kubi tells him: “Be calm, Lubo. You’ll pass it. You have to pass it. And tonight, we’ll all celebrate your success together…”