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 Holešovice 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, Valčík, Kubiš, and Gabčík.
In the narrowing flow of this story, those five are about to reach the waterfall.
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 title 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.”
On the evening of May 26, Libena goes to see Gabčík, her fiancé. 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 Kubiš who lets her in. She’s brought cigarettes. After a brief hesitation, she gives them to Kubiš. “But, Jeniček [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 fiancé again.