HHhH: A Novel полностью

The Mercedes lands heavily on the asphalt. In Berlin, Hitler has not the faintest suspicion that Heydrich won’t report for their meeting that evening. In London, Beneš still believes Anthropoid will succeed. What arrogance, in both cases. When the blown tire of the right rear wheel—the last of those four suspended in the air—touches the ground, time starts up again for good. Instinctively, Heydrich brings his hand around to his back—his right hand, the one that holds his pistol. Kubiš gets to his feet. The passengers on the second tram press their faces to the windows to see what’s happening, while those in the first tram cough, scream, and push each other to get off. Hitler is still sleeping. Beneš leafs nervously through Moravec’s reports. Churchill is already on his second whisky. Valčík, from the top of the hill, watches the confusion unfolding at the crossroads below, cluttered with all these vehicles: one Mercedes, two trams, two bicycles. Opalka is somewhere nearby, but I can’t put my finger on him. Roosevelt is sending American pilots to Britain to help the RAF. Lindbergh does not want to give back the medal that Göring awarded him in 1938. De Gaulle is fighting to convince the Allies to recognize the Free French. Von Manstein’s army is besieging Sebastopol. The day before, the Afrika Korps began its attack on Bir Hakeim. Bousquet is planning the raid on Vél’ d’Hiv. In Belgium, from today, all Jews must wear a yellow star. The first Resistance fighters are appearing in Greece. Two hundred and sixty Luftwaffe planes are en route to intercept a navy convoy headed toward the USSR, attempting to bypass Norway via the Arctic Ocean. After six months of daily bombings, the German invasion of Malta is indefinitely postponed. The SS jacket comes to rest gently on the tram’s electric cables, like an item of washing hung out to dry. Here we are again. But Gabčík still hasn’t moved. More than the explosion, the tragic click of his Sten has been like a slap in his face. As if in a dream, he sees the two Germans get out of the car, covering each other just like in a training exercise. Klein turns toward Kubiš, while Heydrich, reeling, stands in front of him—alone, gun in hand. Heydrich: the most dangerous man in the Third Reich, the Hangman of Prague, the Butcher, the Blond Beast, the Goat, Süss the Jew, the Man with the Iron Heart, the worst creature ever forged in the burning fires of hell, the fiercest man ever to come from a woman’s womb, his target, standing right there in front of him, reeling and armed. Released from a trance, Gabčík suddenly recovers his wits. He grasps the situation immediately. Putting aside all considerations of mythology and grandiloquence, he comes to a quick and correct decision, one that allows him to do exactly what he ought to do: he drops his Sten and runs. The first shots ring out. Heydrich is shooting at him. But despite being a champion in all categories in practically every human discipline, the Reichsprotektor is clearly not at his best. All his shots miss. For now. Gabčík manages to throw himself behind a telegraph pole—and it must have been a seriously thick telegraph pole, because he decides to stay there. He doesn’t know when Heydrich might start shooting straight. Meanwhile, there’s a rumble of thunder. On the other side, Kubiš, wiping away the blood that’s streaming over his face and blurring his vision, discerns the gigantic silhouette of Klein moving toward him. What madness, or what supreme effort of lucidity, reminds him of the existence of his bicycle? He grabs the machine’s frame and jumps on the seat. Now, anyone who’s ever ridden a bike will know that a cyclist racing against a man on foot is going to be vulnerable for the first ten, fifteen, let’s say the first twenty yards after starting up, beyond which he will outdistance his opponent easily. Given the decision he’s just made, Kubiš must have this in mind. Because instead of fleeing in precisely the opposite direction to the one Klein is approaching from—which would seem the natural thing to do for 99 percent of people in a similar situation: that is, a situation where you must very quickly escape from an armed Nazi with at least one very good reason to want you dead—he decides to pedal toward the tram (where the suffocating passengers are starting to stagger out onto the street), meaning that the angle of his escape, with reference to Klein, is less than 90 degrees. I don’t like putting myself inside people’s heads, but I think I can explain Kubiš’s calculation. In fact, he has two reasons for doing what he does. Reason one: in order to counteract the relative slowness of those first few yards, and to gather speed as quickly as possible, he goes downhill. In all likelihood, he has calculated that pedaling uphill pursued by an enraged SS stormtrooper is not a viable option. Reason two: in order to have a chance, even an infinitesimally small chance, of getting out of this alive, he must meet two contradictory demands: Don’t expose yourself, and put yourself out of range of enemy fire. But to put himself out of range, he must first cover a certain distance, though he cannot know the exact length until he has already covered it. The gamble that Kubiš makes is the opposite of Gabčík’s: he tries his luck now. But he is not merely giving himself up to chance. Instead, he considers the unfortunate presence of this tram—a presence the parachutists had always feared—and decides to use it to his advantage. The passengers who have escaped from the tram are not numerous enough to constitute a crowd, but all the same he is going to try to use them as a shield. I don’t suppose he’s counting too heavily on an SS stormtrooper’s scruples about shooting through a group of innocent civilians, but at least the shooter’s vision of his target will be reduced. This seems to me a brilliantly conceived escape plan, particularly if you bear in mind that the man behind it has just been blown up by a bomb, that he has blood in his eyes, and that he’s had about three seconds to come up with it. However, there is a moment when Kubiš will have to abandon himself to pure chance—the moment before he reaches his shield of suffocating passengers. Now, as is often the case, fortune decides to distribute her favors equally. So when Klein, still shocked by the explosion, squeezes the trigger of his gun, something jams. (The firing pin? The breech? The trigger itself? I don’t know.) Does this mean Kubiš’s plan is going to work? No, because the passengers in front of him are standing too close together. Some of them have already regained their senses and—whether because they’re German, or Nazi sympathizers, or because they’re eager for praise or a reward, or because they’re terrified of being accused of complicity, or simply because they’re so shocked that they can’t budge an inch—they don’t seem inclined to get out of his way. I doubt whether any of them showed any intent to actually apprehend Kubiš, but perhaps they looked vaguely menacing. Whatever, we now have a burlesque scene (there seems to be one in every episode) in which Kubiš, on a bicycle, fires into the air to create a passage for himself through the stunned tram passengers. And he makes it. Realizing that his prey has escaped him, the bemused Klein remembers that he has a boss to protect and runs back toward Heydrich, who is still shooting. But suddenly the Reichsprotektor’s body betrays him by collapsing. Klein rushes up. The silence that follows this cease-fire is not lost on Gabčík, who decides that if he wants to try his luck it’s now or never. He leaves the precarious shelter of his telegraph pole and starts running. He is thinking clearly now: in order to maximize Kubiš’s chances of escaping, he needs to choose a different direction. So he runs up the hill. His analysis, however, is not entirely flawless because in doing so he is heading toward Valčík’s observation post. But Valčík has not as yet been identified as a participant in the operation. Heydrich manages to lift himself up on an elbow. As Klein reaches him, he barks: “Catch the Schweinehund !” Klein finally manages to cock his damn pistol, then runs off in pursuit. He fires and Gabčík, equipped with a Colt 9mm (that he had, thankfully, kept in reserve), shoots back. I don’t know how many yards ahead he is. At this point, I don’t think Gabčík is shooting to hit his opponent, just to warn him off getting too close. Running, the two men leave the chaotic crossroads behind them. But up ahead a silhouette stands out ever more clearly: it’s Valčík, who is coming toward them. Gabčík sees him raise his gun, stop to aim, then collapse before he’s had time to fire.