HHhH: A Novel

by Laurent Binet

  You are sitting comfortably in your Mercedes convertible and the wind is whipping your face. You are going to work; you work in a castle. All the inhabitants of the country where you live are your subjects: you have the power of life and death over them. If you decide to, you could kill them all—every last one. In fact, that might be exactly what ends up happening.

  But you won’t be there to see it, because you are headed for other adventures. You have new challenges to face. Later today, you will fly away and abandon your kingdom. You came to restore order in this country and you have succeeded brilliantly. You have made an entire people submit to you; you have led the Protectorate with an iron fist; you have governed, you have ruled, you have reigned. You leave to your successor the tough task of perpetuating your legacy. They must: prevent any resurgence of the Resistance movement that you crushed; keep the entire machinery of Czech industry at the service of the German war effort; continue the process of Germanization, which you began and whose forms you defined.

  Thinking of your past and your future, you are overwhelmed by an immense feeling of self-satisfaction. You tighten your grip on the leather bag that rests on your knees. You think of Halle, of the navy, of France, which awaits you, of the Jews you will kill, of this immortal Reich whose most solid foundations you have laid. But you forget the present. Is your policeman’s instinct blunted by the daydreams that fill your mind as the Mercedes speeds along? You do not see, in this man carrying a raincoat over his arm on a hot spring day and crossing the road in front of you, you do not see in him the present that is catching up with you.

  What’s he doing, this imbecile?

  He stops in the middle of the road.

  Turns to face the car.

  Looks into your eyes.

  Pushes aside his raincoat.

  Uncovers a machine gun.

  Points the gun at you.

  Aims.

  And fires.

  218

  He fires, and nothing happens. I can’t resist cheap literary effects. Nothing happens. The trigger sticks—or perhaps it gives way too easily and clicks on nothing. Months of preparation only for the Sten—that English piece of shit—to jam. Heydrich is there, at point-blank range, at his mercy, and Gabčík’s weapon fails. He squeezes the trigger and the Sten, instead of spraying bullets, remains silent. Gabčík’s fingers tighten on the useless hunk of metal.

  The car has stopped, and time has stopped too. The world no longer spins, nobody breathes. The two men in the car are paralyzed. Only the tram keeps rolling as if nothing were wrong, except for the faces of a few passengers, frozen in the same expression—because they’ve seen what’s happening: nothing. The screech of wheels on steel rails rips through the petrified moment. Nothing happens, except in Gabčík’s head. In his head, everything whirls, unimaginably fast. If only I could have been inside his head at this precise instant, I am absolutely convinced I would have enough material to fill hundreds of pages. But I wasn’t, and I don’t have the faintest idea what he felt. Examining my own safe little life, I can’t think of a single situation that would allow me to imagine even a watered-down version of what filled Gabčík’s mind. A feeling of surprise, of fear, with a torrent of adrenaline surging through his veins, as if all the floodgates of his body had opened at the same time.

  “We who perhaps one day shall die, proclaim man as immortal at the flaming heart of the instant.” I spit on Saint-John Perse, but I don’t necessarily spit on his poetry. It is this verse that I choose now to pay homage to these men, even if they are, in truth, above all praise.

  There’s a theory that the Sten was concealed in a bag that Gabčík had filled with dry grass. It seems a strange idea. If the police checked him, how would he explain the fact that he was walking around town with a bag full of hay? Well, actually, that’s easy: all he’d have to say is that it’s for the rabbit. In those days, many Czechs bred rabbits at home in order to improve their daily diet, and fed them on grass taken from the city’s parks. Anyway, the theory is that it was this grass that got stuck in the mechanism.

  So the Sten doesn’t fire. And everybody remains rigid with shock for several long tenths of seconds. Gabčík, Heydrich, Klein, Kubiš. It’s so kitsch! It’s like a Western! These four men turned into stone statues, all eyes trained on the Sten, everyone’s brains working at incredible speed, a speed no ordinary man can even comprehend. At the end of this story, there are these four men at a curve in the road. And then, on top of that, there’s a second tram coming up behind the Mercedes.

  219

  In other words, we don’t have all day. It’s now Kubiš’s turn to enter the action—Kubiš, moving unseen behind the two Germans, who are still transfixed by Gabčík’s appearance. Calm and gentle Kubiš, taking a bomb out of his briefcase.

  220

  I, too, am transfixed—because I’m reading Europe Central by William T. Vollmann, which has just appeared in French. Finally, feverishly, I read this book that I would love to have written, and I wonder, reading the endless first chapter, how long he’ll keep it up, this style, this incredible tone. In fact, it lasts only eight pages, but those eight pages are magical, with phrases streaming past as in a dream, and I understand nothing, and understand everything. This is perhaps the first time that the voice of history has resounded so perfectly, and I am struck by this revelation: history is a prophet who says “We.” The first chapter is entitled “Steel in Motion,” and I read: “In a moment steel will begin to move, slowly at first, like troop trains pulling out of their stations, then more quickly and ubiquitously, the square crowds of steel-helmed men moving forward, flanked by rows of shiny planes; then tanks, planes and other projectiles will accelerate beyond recall.” And, further on: “Serving the sleepwalker’s rapture, Göring promises that five hundred more rocket-powered planes will be ready within a lightning-flash. Then he runs out for a tryst with the film star Lida Baarova.” The Czech. When I quote an author, I must be careful to cut my quotations every seven lines. No longer than seven lines. Like spies on the telephone: no more than thirty seconds, so they can’t track you down. “In Moscow, Marshal Tukhachevsky announces that operations in a future war will unfold as broad maneuver undertakings on a massive scale. He’ll be shot right away. And Europe Central’s ministers, who will also be shot, appear on balconies supported by nude marble girls, where they utter dreamy speeches, all the while listening for the ring of the telephone.” In the newspaper, somebody explains to me that this is an account of “slow-burning intensity,” a novel that is “more fantastical than historical,” the reading of which “requires a psychoanalytic listening.” I understand. I will remember.

  So … where was I?

  221

  Here I am, exactly where I wanted to be. A volcano of adrenaline sets ablaze the curve in Holešovice Street. It is the precise instant when the sum of individual microdecisions, transformed solely by the forces of instinct and fear, will allow history to perform one of its most resounding convulsions, or hiccups.

  Each man’s body has its own responsibilities. Klein, the chauffeur, does not restart the engine, and that’s a mistake.

  Heydrich stands up and draws his gun. A second mistake. Had Klein shown Heydrich’s presence of mind, or had Heydrich remained paralyzed in his seat like Klein, then probably everything would have been different, and I might not even be here to tell you about it.

  Kubiš’s arm describes an arc and the bomb flies through the air. But nobody ever does exactly what they’re supposed to do. Kubiš has aimed for the front seat but the bomb lands next to the right rear wheel. Nevertheless, it does explode.

  Part Two

  An alarming rumor comes from Prague.

  —GOEBBELS’S DIARY, May 28, 1942

  222

  The bomb explodes and instantly the windows in the tram opposite are blown out. The Mercedes jumps a few feet in the air. Fragments from the explosion hit Kubiš in the face and hurl him backwards. A cloud of smoke fills the air. Screams burst fro
m the smashed tram. An SS jacket, laid out on the backseat, flies upward. For several seconds, this is all the suffocating witnesses see: a black uniform floating above a cloud of dust. It is, in any case, all I can see: the jacket, twisting and spiraling gracefully like a dead leaf, while the aftershock of the explosion travels calmly outward to echo as far away as Berlin and London. Apart from the spreading sound and the fluttering jacket, nothing moves. There is no sign of life at the curve in Holešovice Street. From now on, I am talking in seconds. A second later, everything will have changed. But here, now—on this clear morning of Wednesday, May 27, 1942—time has stopped. For the second time in two minutes, albeit rather differently.

  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 rea
ches 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.

  “Do pici!” When he falls to the ground, a violent pain in his thigh, all Valčík can say is: “Shit, what an idiot!” Hit by one of the German’s bullets—tough luck. The SS giant is now only a few yards away. Valčík thinks the game is up. There’s no time to pick up his gun, which he dropped. But then a miracle happens: Klein doesn’t slow down. Either the German regards Gabčík as the more important target, or—in concentrating on him—he hasn’t noticed that Valčík was armed and about to shoot at him. Or perhaps he hasn’t seen him period. He runs past without stopping, without even glancing at him. Valčík can think himself lucky, but he’s cursing all the same. If that’s what really happened, he’s been hit by a stray bullet. When he turns around, the two men have vanished.

  Farther down the hill, things are hardly any less confused. A young blond woman, however, has grasped the situation. She is German and has recognized Heydrich, who is lying across the road, clutching his back. With the authority born of believing oneself part of a race of natural leaders, she stops a car and orders the two occupants to take the Reichsprotektor to the nearest hospital. The driver protests: his car is loaded with boxes of candy, which cover the whole backseat. “Get them out! Sofort!” barks the blonde. So now we have another surreal scene, described by the driver himself: the two Czechs, clearly less than thrilled, start unloading the boxes of candy as if in slow motion, while the pretty and elegantly dressed young blond woman babbles away in German to Heydrich, who seems not to hear. But this is the blonde’s lucky day. Another vehicle arrives, which she judges at a glance to be more suitable. It’s a little Tatra van, delivering shoe polish and floor wax. The blonde runs toward it, yelling at its driver to stop.