HHhH: A Novel полностью

Naujocks stands in Heydrich’s office—he has not been invited to sit down—beneath an enormous chandelier whose point hangs ominously over his head like the sword of Damocles. His fate, he knows, hangs by a thread this morning. Heydrich sits before the vast wall tapestry embroidered with a gigantic eagle clasping a swastika. He bangs his fist on the solid wood table and the impact makes the photo of his wife and children jump.

“How the devil could you decide to record my visit to Kitty’s Salon last night?”

Even if he’d already guessed the reason for this morning’s summons, Naujocks turns pale.

“Record?”

“Yes. Don’t deny it!”

Naujocks makes a quick calculation: Heydrich has no material proof, because he took care to erase the tape. So he adopts what seems to him the most profitable strategy. Knowing his boss as he does, however, he is aware that he’s risking his life.

“But I do deny it! I don’t even know which room you were in! Nobody told me!”

There follows a long, unnerving silence.

“You’re lying! Either that or you’re getting careless.”

Naujocks wonders which of these hypotheses is, in his boss’s eyes, the most unforgivable. In a calmer and thus more disturbing voice, Heydrich begins to speak again:

“You should have known where I was. It’s part of your job. It is also your duty to switch off the microphones and tape recorders when I’m there. You didn’t do that last night. If you think you can make a fool of me, Naujocks, you’d better think again. Leave.”

Naujocks—the jack of all trades who, at Gleiwitz, started the war—is sidelined. It is thanks only to his remarkable survival instinct that he is not simply liquidated. After this regrettable incident, he will spend most of his time trying to keep his head down. In the end, this is not a very high price to pay for fucking with Heydrich: his boss, Himmler’s right-hand man, the SS number two, supreme leader of the RSHA, master of the SD and the Gestapo. Heydrich, the Blond Beast, who, through his ferocity but also through his sexual performances, is doubly deserving of his nickname. Or not, as Naujocks must snigger to himself in those moments of calm between the surges of fear.

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The dialogue in the preceding chapter is the perfect example of the difficulties I’m facing. Certainly Flaubert didn’t have the same problems with Salammbô, because nobody recorded the conversations of Hamilcar, father of Hannibal. But when I make Heydrich say: “If you think you can make a fool of me, Naujocks, you’d better think again,” all I am doing is repeating the words as reported by Naujocks himself. You could hardly hope for a better witness, for reporting a phrase, than the only other person in the room, who heard it and to whom it was addressed. That said, I doubt whether Heydrich really formulated his threat in that way. It’s not his style. What we have here is Naujocks recalling a phrase years after the event, which is rewritten by whoever’s taking down his dictation, and then again by the translator. But Heydrich, the most dangerous man in the Reich, saying, “If you think you can make a fool of me, Naujocks, you’d better think again” … well, it’s a bit lame. It is surely much more likely that Heydrich—a coarse man on a power trip, and angry too—said something along the lines of: “You want to fuck with me? Watch it, I’ll rip your balls off!” But what is my opinion worth compared with an eyewitness account?

If it were up to me, I’d write:

“Tell me, Naujocks, where did I spend the night?”

“I beg your pardon, General?”

“You heard me.”

“Well … I don’t know, General.”

“You don’t know?”

“No, General.”

“You don’t know that I was at Kitty’s?”

“…”

“What have you done with the recording?”

“I don’t understand, General.”

“Stop fucking with me! I want to know if you kept the recording!”

“General … I didn’t know that you were there!… Nobody warned me! Of course, I destroyed the recording as soon as I recognized you … I mean, as soon as I recognized your voice!…”

“Stop bullshitting, Naujocks! You’re paid to know everything, and especially where I am, because I’m the one who pays you! The instant I take a room at Kitty’s, you switch off the microphones! The next time you try to fuck with me, I’ll send you to Dachau, where they’ll hang you up by the balls! Am I making myself clear?”

“Perfectly clear, General.”

“Now fuck off!”

That would, I think, be a bit livelier and more realistic, and probably closer to the truth. But it’s impossible to know for sure. Heydrich could be foulmouthed, but he also knew how to play the icy bureaucrat when the need arose. So, all in all, between Naujocks’s version, however corrupted, and mine, it is undoubtedly better to choose that of Naujocks. But I still think Heydrich would have wanted to rip his balls off.

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