As Time Goes By

by Michael Walsh

  “Reinhard,” she ventured,“that was delicious.”

  “My cook is the best in the Protectorate,” said Heydrich, taking her by the arm and guiding her out the dining room's French doors and into a starry, moonlit night.

  “The lights of the city are not visible here,” he said.“Which is as it should be. I do not need to always be reminded of my work.”

  The night air was chilly. Heydrich put his arms protectively around her.

  “I have enemies everywhere,” he said quietly, reflectively, as much to himself as to her. Or was this part of the seduction as well?

  “Surely not,” she demurred.“After all you have wrought here.”

  He laughed bitterly.“It is not enough. It will never be enough until I—until we—have achieved total victory. Until our enemies have been trampled underfoot, their villages razed and salt sown in the earth so that they may never rise again. Enemies like these Czech traitors in London who call themselves patriots while they plot my death like the cowards they really are.”

  Her ears now achieved a kind of preternatural hearing: she fancied she could hear even the movement of his tongue as he formed his words.

  “But we shall be ready for them. They think we do not know what they are planning, but they are wrong. Our spies are everywhere.”

  He lit a cigarette, which he smoked attached to a long ebony filter. He did not offer her one.“If perchance they should succeed in killing me, they should know that behind me are hundreds—no, thousands—more like me. We shall never rest until complete and total victory is ours.”

  He drew her close with his free arm.“I have had my eye on you for some time,” he said softly. Ilsa felt a chill pass over her.

  “A long time,” he repeated, looking at the stars.“Since you first arrived here, and offered your services to the glory of the Reich. Your intelligence, your beauty, your political instincts—so unusual in a woman—all served to bring you immediately to my attention. Despite the reservations of Frau Hentgen, I resolved to elevate you to the position you now hold once you had demonstrated your loyalty to my satisfaction.”

  “Thank you, Reinhard,” she said.“It is an honor.”

  “That has all been a mere prelude,” he told her.“I have always believed that a man does not really know a woman until he has made love with her. I would not, of course, presume to be so importunate as to suggest we do so immediately. With another woman, I might not be so forbearing. You, however, are deserving of respect.”

  “Thank you,” she said softly.

  “Nevertheless, I do hold out the hope and wish that someday soon we might consummate the meeting of souls that we have begun here tonight, that our exquisite music making might foretell a fuller, more complete union to come.” He bowed deeply, like an obscene cavalier.

  “You will find your rooms more than satisfactory, I hope,” he said.“I wish you good night, Fräulein Toumanova,” he said.

  Ilsa said nothing as his arms tightened around her, and he bent to kiss her lightly on the forehead. They stood there together, silent, in the moonlight, until at last he led her back into the house and shut the door, tightly, against the terrors of the night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  They parachuted out of the RAF plane some time after midnight. The drop went as well as drops could go. Nobody shot at them.

  As they stood in the hatchway, Renault patted Laszlo fraternally on the shoulder.

  “Nervous?” he asked.

  “No, why?” replied Laszlo.

  “You ought to be,” said Louis.“A man could get killed doing this.”

  Rick jumped first, not really caring whether Laszlo followed or not.

  His chute opened as planned, and he floated down into the Czechoslovakian night like an ungainly bird of prey searching for an evening's meal. With a war on, very few lights were visible in the countryside. The cities were another matter; there, the Germans were confident of the ability of the Luftwaffe, the English Channel, and the Baltic Sea to protect them from the Royal Air Force. But the Czech peasants seemed to be taking no chances.

  Rick hit the ground hard, his chute billowing down over his head. He got out from underneath it quickly and cut away the cords. As near as he could tell, they were very close to the drop zone, which was a tribute to the skill of their pilot. They had had to take the long way, flying mostly over the Baltic, away from the well-defended German cities of Hamburg, Berlin, and Stettin. Now here he was, on the ground in one piece.

  He heard Victor and the two Czechs moving somewhere nearby; at least he hoped it was them. Were he captured now, he would expect even less mercy than he would have in New York, which was to say none at all.

  “Janacek,” he whispered, which was the password.

  “Jenufa,” came the reply. Renault was walking gingerly, brushing debris from his camouflage: Always dapper, thought Rick admiringly.

  “If you ask me, sky-jumping is very much overrated,” said Louis.“I prefer indoor sports.”

  “I’ll bet you do,” said Rick.

  A few moments later, Victor Laszlo stepped out of the shadows. Behind him came KubiŠ and GabcÍk, lugging the equipment with them. So far, so good.

  They huddled together briefly, talking as softly as they could. Since Jan and Josef had been born nearby there was no need for a map.

  “Where are we?” hissed Rick.

  “Not far from Kladno,” said GabcÍk, a young man grown prematurely old from his experiences over the past two years,“near Lidice.”

  The two Czechs led them through Bohemia's woods and fields. To Rick it looked like parts of Pennsylvania, only neater.

  Presently they came to a small village and an even smaller house, snuggled up against its neighbors like cows in a rainstorm. KubiŠ knocked twice softly, counted to seven in Czech, then knocked again. The door opened, to utter darkness.

  Not for long. Someone found a shielded lantern, the dim light from which revealed the presence of an old woman, bent with age but clear of eye. She led them to a table in a back room, whereon a modest repast had been laid out; the men tucked into it as though it were dinner at the Ritz. They washed down the nudeln and the roast pork and the strudel with liter upon liter of cold Budvar beer.

  Ten minutes later one never would have suspected anything had been consumed on the table; instead it was laden with rifles, pistols, and a bomb. Neat as a pin, thought Rick, just like the Germans. No wonder most of the Bohemians aren't putting up much of a fight: they're brothers under the skin.

  Renault bid the company good night and went off to bed. Laszlo spread out a well-worn map of Prague and pored over it. Rick ignored him, preferring the company of his own thoughts. By now he could probably quality as a taxi driver in the city, so many times had they gone over it. He knew every street in both the StarÉ Mesto and the NovÉ Mesto, and across the river to Hradcany. Hell, he could even name the statues of the saints on the Charles Bridge: Nepomuk, who was flung off the bridge and into the river and duly commemorated in 1683; the crucifix erected by a Jew thirteen years later in expiation of some blasphemy or other; and the lovely St. Luitgard, caught in 1710 in the middle of a wondrous vision of the Christ.

  “Everything is clear, then?” Victor was saying.

  Rick assured him that it was and rose from the table.“I think I’ll step outside and have a smoke,” he said.“Jan, you want to join me? They're real Chesterfields.” Sam had given them to him as a present just before he left. Where he'd gotten them Rick had no idea, but Sam could always get things that no other human being could. Laszlo looked at the two of them suspiciously as they went out the door, but he said nothing.

  He offered a cigarette to KubiŠ and struck a match, cupping his hand around it so as not to let the wind blow it out. The young Czech leaned forward and inhaled; Rick followed his lead, then shook out the match and tossed it on the ground.

  “Beautiful night,” he said.

  KubiŠ agreed.“Our May nights,” he said,“are the most beautifu
l on earth.”

  Talk of beauty got Rick's mind around to what was really beautiful.“You got a girl, Jan?” he asked.

  The boy—he was about twenty-one but looked five years younger—nodded.“Martina,” he said. The kid fished in his pocket for a photograph.

  “That's a nice name,” Rick supplied. He supposed it was. Maybe it wasn't. It was all the same to him. He squinted at the picture in the moonlight.“Pretty girl,” he said. He couldn't tell if she was or she wasn't.

  KubiŠ gazed soulfully at the picture.“She was,” he said.“She's dead.”

  That got his attention.“How?”

  “How else?” Jan said softly.“The Germans killed her. Right after Munich, when they marched into the Sudetenland. They were trying to expel her family from their home, she resisted, she died. It is a very short story.” He put the picture back in his jacket.“She was only seventeen. She did not deserve it.”

  Rick blew out a lungful of smoke.“Nobody does,” he said,“but everybody gets it anyway.”

  They finished their cigarettes, then ground them underfoot in the green Czech grass.

  “Very soon,” said Jan,“she shall be avenged.”

  Rick looked at him,“ ‘Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.’“

  “But He has abandoned us,” retorted Jan.“It is up to us, by our actions, to bring Him back again.”

  “Whatever you say,” said Rick.“Tell me, though, have you thought about anyone else?”

  By the look on his face, Jan plainly didn't know what Rick meant.

  “I mean”—Rick lit another of his precious but dwindling supply of Chesterfields—”have you given any thought at all to what might happen if we actually succeed?”

  “Of course we will succeed,” said KubiŠ. He seemed surprised there could be any question, any alternative to triumph.

  “Let's suppose we do,” Rick argued.“Let's suppose we blow Heydrich to hell and gone. Then what?” He tried to blow a smoke ring and failed; must be losing his touch.

  “Then we will have succeeded and Martina will have been avenged. After that, I don't care.”

  That was the way he used to talk. He found himself liking Jan. He hoped the boy wouldn't have to die.

  “Maybe you should,” said Rick.“Maybe you ought to give some thought to what might happen. Do you think the Germans are going to take this lying down? You've seen the way they are. Take out one of theirs and they kill a hundred, maybe a thousand of yours. Has Laszlo thought of that?”

  “I doubt it.” Jan scuffed his shoe on the grass.“Victor Laszlo is a hero to every true son of Czechoslovakia. There is not one of us who would not follow him to hell if he asked us to. Whatever happens after we kill Hangman Heydrich happens. There is nothing we can do about it.”

  “Isn't there?” Rick wondered softly.“Well, there's no sense standing out here debating it. Come on, let's go back inside.”

  GabcÍk had already retired for the night, if retired was the right word. The young soldier had fallen asleep in his clothes, his backpack slung over his shoulders and his loaded pistol on his lap. KubiŠ bade both Rick and Laszlo a good night and departed to sleep in the barn.

  “You still have your doubts, don't you?” said Laszlo.

  “It's not kosher to have doubts about something after you've given your word,” said Rick. He wasn't in the mood for any of Victor's speeches.“I’m just holding up my end of the bargain.”

  Laszlo shook his head in disbelief.“That is not what you said to me back in Casablanca. There you made a choice. A number of them, in fact. You chose to give us the letters of transit—excuse me, you chose to give me a letter of transit; my wife was going to obtain one no matter what. You chose to make your bargain with me after I was arrested. You chose to dupe Captain Renault, you chose to put us on that plane, and you chose to shoot Major Strasser when all you had to do was stand by and do nothing.”

  “You weren't there,” Rick demurred.“Major Strasser chose to draw on me first.”

  Laszlo smiled.“And like a good American cowboy you beat him to the draw and, as you say, gunned him down in cold blood.”

  Rick let his hands rest on the tabletop.“It was him or me.”

  Laszlo trumped him.“When it didn't have to be either. You could have walked away and let him try to stop our plane. You could have walked away in London as well. You might still be able to walk away now. You don't trust me, I know that. You think I am a fanatic.”

  “That's where you're wrong,” Rick interrupted.“I know you're a fanatic.”

  “Very well, perhaps I am.” Laszlo poured himself a small glass of beer from one of the last remaining bottles. He didn't offer one to Rick.“Sometimes one has to be. My question to you, though, remains: Why don't you just leave?”

  “It's a little late for that now, don't you think?”

  “Because of Ilsa?”

  “Because of a lot of things,” Rick shot back.“Look, Laszlo, we're both grown men. We don't need to beat around the bush here. I fell in love with your wife in Paris, before I knew she was your wife, and I’m still in love with her even though now I know she is your wife. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be here. But I am, and so are you, and we have to make the best of it.”

  Laszlo took a deep breath.“Monsieur Blaine,” he began,“I told you in London that I would kill you myself if I suspected the slightest disloyalty to our cause. Let me reiterate that promise to you now. Like you, I am a man of my word; it is the only thing the Nazis have permitted me to keep. It is my stock in trade. I do not expend it lightly or frivolously.”

  He took a deep, satisfying breath of the smoke and exhaled elegantly.“Perhaps I am naive, but I expect the same kind of behavior—the same ethics, as it were—from you. You have given me your word, and I have accepted it. Whatever occurred in the past between you and Mrs. Laszlo when I was hors de combat is of absolutely no import to me. However, what occurs in the days to come is very much my concern.”

  Laszlo stopped talking for a moment and collected his thoughts. What he was about to say he had told no one.

  “The reason goes beyond my personal feelings about Herr Heydrich,” he began.“No, perhaps it doesn't.” Suddenly the smooth, self-confident Victor Laszlo seemed lost, vulnerable, confused.

  “Monsieur Blaine,” he said at last,“would it help explain my hatred for Reinhard Heydrich if I told you that he killed my father?”

  Rick's head snapped up.“What?”

  “My father grew up in Vienna in the last days of the Dual Monarchy, and even after we moved to Prague, his work took him there often. He was a socialist and an architect. When, after Heydrich is destroyed and then Himmler is smashed and finally Hitler himself is annihilated, we ride in triumph through the streets of Vienna together, I will be proud to point out to you the buildings he designed.

  “But after February 1934, when Dollfuss crushed the socialists, there was no more room in Austria for a man of my father's political persuasion. There was no more room for socialists in Vienna, period.” Laszlo lowered his head.“With regret, he confined his practice to Prague. You know what happened: four years later came the Munich Pact, only this time instead of Dollfuss and his Fatherland Front there was Hitler and the Nazis. I was lucky: I got out of Prague alive. My father did not. Despite his experiences, he was one of those people who never sees the light, even when it is shining right in their eyes. Can you imagine?”

  “Yes,” said Rick under his breath.

  Laszlo's voice was rising now.“Now I have this fiend Heydrich, another kind of architect, in my grasp. The man who more than any other except for Hitler himself has brought me misery. He must and will be stopped. Therefore I ask you once again, for the last time: Are you with us or are you against us? I ask you this time not in my name, but in the name of the woman we both love. In Ilsa's.”

  Some choice. Rick looked at Victor.“You talked me into it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The plan was for Rick to make immediate contact with
Ilsa in Prague, with Renault following him into town a few hours later, by another route. Laszlo was to stay hidden at the house in Lidice, where he would be safe and where, more important, the operation would remain secure. His face was too well known in Prague for him to be able to walk the streets with impunity. All it would take was one phone call from one informer, and that would be the end.

  Richard Blaine, however, was known to no man. The last place the Nazis would be looking for the murderer of Major Heinrich Strasser was right under the nose of the most powerful and feared secret policeman of the Reich. Armed with false papers proclaiming him to be a citizen of the neutral country of Sweden, Rick would be able to move about the city with relative freedom. The fact that he didn't look very Swedish didn't mean much, because a lot of Swedes didn't look very Swedish, either.

  He made his way into the city that morning and registered at the U TrÍ PŠtrosu, right beside the Charles Bridge. It was one of the few decent hotels that hadn't been entirelycommandeered by the Nazis. His room was small but pleasant, with a prospect of the Charles Bridge. He had insisted on a view, even though registration had assured him that the rooms on the other side were bigger and quieter.

  He had Ilsa's address: Number 12 Skorepka, a short little street located about halfway between Bethlehem Chapel and St. Wenceslas Square. Before he went up to his room he slipped a bellhop some dough.“I want flowers sent to this address, right away,” he said.“No card. She'll know who they're from.” He ruffled the kid's hair. The kid happily accepted both Rick's money and his bad German and ran off to do his bidding.

  He washed up, soaking his head under the hot shower and reflecting on how smoothly everything had gone thus far. Aside from his inelegant introduction to the country by the Royal Air Force, the safe house appeared to be really safe, his papers were very much in order, and—so far, at least—his presence in Prague had not attracted any undue attention. The next test, he knew, would come tomorrow, when the registry records of every hotel in the city would be examined by police, as required by law.