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.
Gabčík is back. Neither he nor Kubiš 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. Kubiš, 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?” Gabčík is the one who replies: “Nothing, Mrs. Ogounova.”
The morning of May 27, Gabčík and Kubiš 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. Kubiš tells him: “Be calm, Luboš. You’ll pass it. You have to pass it. And tonight, we’ll all celebrate your success together…”
As usual, Heydrich eats his breakfast while reading the day’s newspapers, delivered to him from Prague every morning at dawn. At nine o’clock his black (or dark green) Mercedes arrives, driven by his chauffeur—a giant SS guard, about six feet five inches tall, called Klein. But this morning, Heydrich makes him wait. He plays with his children (I have trouble imagining Heydrich playing with his children) and goes for a walk with his wife in the immense gardens that surround their house. Lina probably has to keep him up-to-date on the work that’s being done. The plan is to cut down the ash trees and replace them with fruit trees. At least, that’s what Ivanov says in his historical account of the assassination. I wonder if he made it up? According to him, the Heydrichs’ youngest child, Silke, told her father that someone called Herbert had taught her how to load a revolver. Silke is three years old. But I suppose nothing, in such troubled times, should surprise me.