As Time Goes By

by Michael Walsh

  “I’m afraid I can't,” said Rick.

  When the waiter produced the duck, she dug into it, tearing it apart, and Rick noticed that her hands were shaking as she wielded her knife. They said very little else for the rest of the meal. Rick decided he hated roast duck.“I hope we may discuss this matter further,” he said as he paid the bill.

  “We would welcome that possibility,” she told him.“Perhaps, if you have time, you could accompany me back to the office?”

  “It would be my pleasure,” said Rick, putting on his hat.

  They walked out into the bright sunlight. Ilsa reached into her handbag and pulled out a pair of sunglasses. She was wearing a broad-brimmed hat as well. Rick pulled his fedora down tight over his brow. Unless someone scrutinized them closely, their faces were well hidden.

  They crossed over the Charles Bridge and headed toward the broad mall of VáclavskÉ NámestÍ. On such a fine day, many folks were out for a stroll. The casual observer would be hard-pressed to tell there was a war on.

  “What the hell is happening?” whispered Rick as they walked.

  “I don't know,” she said, trying not to let her fear show.“The Underground is pleading with London to call off the operation. They seem terribly frightened of what might happen if we succeed.”

  “Maybe they have good reason to be.” He lit a cigarette, thinking about everything Louis had been telling him, about all the doubts the little Frenchman had been harboring since the beginning.

  “Perhaps they suspect something.”

  That was just what he had not wanted to hear her say.“Maybe they suspect you.”

  She took his arm as if for support, but beneath the sleeve of his jacket he could feel her fingers digging into him, hard.“Do you think so?” she whispered. Frau Hentgen; it had to be. Frantically Ilsa raced back over her actions of the past month as Rick spoke again.

  “I’ve just had a chance meeting with Heinze,” he said.“You remember him—he was in the cafÉ with Strasser. Anyway, it was just my luck to run into him.” He patted her arm.“Don't worry,” he said.“Heinze won't be around to trouble us anymore. However, we've got to figure out what we're going to do, and we've got to do it fast.”

  Ilsa didn't bother to ask why Heinze would no longer trouble them.“No matter what,” she began,“we have to go through with it. You don't know this Heydrich as I do. He is a monster—the worst kind of monster, because he is so seductive. Through terror and generosity he has corrupted a nation—my husband's homeland—and by denouncing people they hate, he has made himself popular with the masses.”

  “Such as the Jews,” said Rick. It was the same old story.

  “Yes, especially the Jews,” said Ilsa.“Things are only going to get worse. Heydrich told me himself that at Wannsee they have planned nothing less than the total extermination of the Jewish people. Already they are building more camps, this time in the east, in Poland. And Heydrich is in charge! He boasts, as if it were the crowning accomplishment of his life! He says the fools in the West have not realized their intentions yet, and even if the word gets out, they will not believe it. It's too fantastic to be plausible; that's what he's counting on.”

  That's what people like Heydrich always counted on, thought Rick: the ability of good men to see nothing, hear nothing, do nothing, and believe nothing they didn't want to.

  “I can't ask Victor to stop now,” she went on.“He has been dreaming of this revenge since he escaped from Mauthausen. And this is not just Victor's fight: to kill Reinhard Heydrich would be to save thousands, maybe millions, of people. What the Underground fears about reprisals—well, it's only speculation, isn't it? I mean, we don't really know what will happen, do we?”

  “After Guernica, I think we can make a pretty educated guess,” said Rick. They had stopped walking.

  “Perhaps you're right,” she said, wondering how to broach a more immediate, personal subject.“There's something else you should know.” She looked at him through red-rimmed eyes over lowered sunglasses.“Heydrich wants to make love to me. He tried last night. I didn't let him, but I don't know how long I can refuse him.” She lowered her eyes.“He's not the sort of man one can put off for very long.”

  He felt a rage boiling up inside him, the kind of rage he had not felt for years. He had not felt it as he rained mortar fire down on the Italian positions in East Africa. He had not felt it in Spain, not after Guernica, and not even at the Ebro River. He had not felt it when the Germans marched into Paris, and he had not felt it when, at the train station, he read her letter. He had felt this kind of rage only once before, on October 23, 1935, the day before he fled America forever. The day Solomon and Lois Horowitz had died. It was time for him to face the truth: he was consumed with love for Ilsa Lund.

  “Then we really do have to hurry,” Rick said flatly, moving again. Ilsa's refusal of Heydrich, he knew, would first arouse and then infuriate him; Nazis weren't used to taking no for an answer.

  “Yes,” she agreed.“But not just for me. For Victor and for my father and for all the people of Europe. What are we going to do?”

  “Let me think for a minute,” he said.

  If Heinze had heard something about a plot, and if the Underground was begging London to call a halt, the situation must be fraught indeed. The locals were getting cold feet, and for a very good reason: they wanted to live to fight another day. Far worse, from his perspective, was the danger Ilsa might now be in. He had already seen one woman he loved die because he couldn't protect her. He would be damned before he would let that happen again.

  Mentally he ran over the situation, trying to figure out what to do. Victor Laszlo would never be dissuaded from attempting his mission, no matter what. Too much was at stake to let a little thing like his wife's safety stop him. There had to be a way to make it all come out right: there had to be.

  The Nazis could bluster and threaten to murder the do if he lived against the probability—no, the certainty—of what the Germans would do if he died. Maybe the best thing was for Reinhard Heydrich not to die, that others might live. Maybe the Underground was right: maybe they should call the whole thing off.

  What had he learned in shul a thousand years ago? That even in a case where his life is in danger, a Jew is forbidden to save himself by spilling the blood of an innocent man, forbidden to save one man or even many by turning an innocent man over to a murderer, forbidden to hand over even“one soul from Israel” to murderers. Nothing in there to address his current dilemma: that to save the lives of countless innocent persons, a murderer himself must be spared.

  Which was the higher good? Was it better to let Heydrich go on killing people, many of them Jews, in order to save the lives of some Czechs, most of whom might be anti-Semites anyway? Or would the Hangman's death spare thousands, maybe millions, of people a hideous fate, at the expense of a couple of hundred innocents?

  How do you save somebody who doesn't want to be saved? How do you rescue a nation that doesn't want to be rescued? He had never felt much like a Jew, at least not a religious one, but now seemed like a good time to start.

  Where were the rabbis of his youth when he needed them?

  Then Rick remembered where he was at that moment and why there were no rabbis for him to turn to.

  In a flash, he saw his play. It was so simple, so beautiful, the way all the best plays were. It might even work. With any luck, it would shield Ilsa and spare Heydrich, with no one the wiser.“We'll let him know he's going to be assassinated,” he said.“He'll never see it coming.”

  “What!” exclaimed Ilsa, as softly as she could.

  “We've got to protect you, cover for you,” he said.

  “What about the operation?” she protested.“Victor will never agree to this!”

  Oh yes: Victor. He had to put a plausible face on it, at least as far as she was concerned. As for Victor, he need never know.

  “Don't worry,” he said.“We're still going through with it.” Before she could start to complain, h
e went on.“Don't you see?” he said, excited now, seeing a way out, seeing the way clear.“It's the oldest trick in the book. You set a guy up by telling him exactly what's going to happen to him—and then you do it!” He pounded his hand into his fist.“You've taken him into your confidence and lulled him to sleep: he thinks he's got you covered, and never sees it coming. Works every time.”

  The look in her eyes plainly proclaimed her doubt.“But he'll send his men looking for us,” she objected.

  “If what you say is true, Heydrich's men are already looking for us. Don't you see, Ilsa, it's our only chance.”

  How he hated lying to her! But they had to get the message to Heydrich. Not just to protect Ilsa, although she alone would have been reason enough, but because Renault was right: no one could doubt that the price the Czech people would pay for getting rid of Heydrich would be terrible. Laszlo was willing to pay that price, but he would have to pay it only once. The Czechs would go on paying for the rest of the war.

  Once they had warned Heydrich he would have to change his route. Nobody was that stupid, not even a Nazi.

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “Trust me,” he said.“Tough guys like him never believe it can happen to them.”

  “How do you know?” she asked him.

  “I know,” he said quietly,“because it happened to me once.”

  He reached for her hand, but he dared not grasp it. This was strictly business now.“The most important thing is to protect you,” he said.“Somehow, we'll get word to him. I’ll think of a way, we'll …”

  He was nearly babbling, his words pouring forth, when Ilsa calmly laid a hand on his arm.“Richard,” she said,“I know just what to do.”

  He stopped and looked at her. She was no longer the shy, vulnerable girl he had known in Paris, but a more confident, more assured, more deadly woman.“You do?” he said.

  She did. She had been worrying all afternoon about how to bring up the subject of the Cechuv Most, about how she was going to maneuver Heydrich back to the original site. Now she didn't have to. She didn't have to confuse the issue, didn't have to alarm Victor and Rick, didn't have to tell them anything. On her information, Heydrich would be looking for assassins on the Cechuv Most; his security forces would be watching for trouble there. He, meanwhile, would be motoring blithely toward the Charles Bridge, and death. How fitting: the man for whom death was the solution for everything would find it the solution for him, too.

  Her heart leaped as she replied,“Yes. I’ll tell him myself. Tomorrow night. At the castle. He's giving a party, and I’m to be the hostess.”

  “You can't! It's crazy.” Now it was Rick's turn to grab, to dig. The hell with propriety: he took her arm and held it tightly.

  Ilsa shook him off.“I’m going to tell him everything. Tell him I’ve learned of a plot to bomb his car when he rides to work the next day. Beg him to be careful. Plead with him to take another route. That's what we need to do, isn't it? To get him where we want him?”

  “Yes,” Rick said.“That's exactly what we need to do. But why do you have to do it?”

  “Because I am the one closest to him,” she explained.“Isn't that why you and Victor sent me here in the first place? To get close to him, any way I could? Heydrich trusts me.

  “You can't do it,” he muttered.“It's too dangerous.”

  “If what you've just told me is true, it may be our only chance, the only way I can deflect suspicion from myself and make sure our plan succeeds.”

  Rick was worried. He knew they were improvising now, which was bad. Improvisation made things messy. Improvisation made things dangerous. Improvisation made things go wrong, and when things went wrong, they went wrong for everybody. What choice did he have, though?

  Ilsa was ecstatic. What had moments ago seemed a tangled and perilous path had now been made smooth. She would tell Heydrich that for his own safety he must cross the Charles, not the Cechuv, and he would drive right into the trap. Rick was right: he would never see it coming; she would make sure of that. She hated keeping information from Rick and her husband. What choice did she have, though?

  They were standing in front of her apartment building on Skorepka, facing each other as if they were practically strangers.“Back in Casablanca,” she said,“I asked you to do the thinking for both of us. I was a different person then. I didn't know what I wanted; I didn't know my own mind. I do now. When we parted the last time, it was on your terms, Richard. Now, we part on mine.”

  They said good-bye with a formal handshake and a stiff bow. Then she was past the front door and inside, gone.

  Rick walked down the cobblestone streets, thinking of Paris. Ilsa thought only of Prague.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  New York, August 1935

  As suddenly as she had left it, Lois Meredith came back into his life. Three years was a long time to carry a torch, but he had been managing nicely.

  Business was good. The newly legal Tootsie-Wootsie Club had surpassed every other former New York speakeasy in total volume and turnover. It had the best booze and the best music, and everybody knew it. Rick Baline's place was the talk of the town. Even Damon Runyon was keeping a regular table there, having moved over from the Boll Weevil, which had closed. Privately Rick thought Runyon was a lush and a jerk, but he cultivated him just the same, for a mention in Runyon's column for any of his ventures meant a doubling of business almost overnight.

  On this particular evening, Rick was looking out over the dance floor and counting the house. Life was about as good as it could possibly be. He had moved to an apartment in the San Remo on Central Park West. To ease his conscience about never seeing her, he had ensconced his mother in an elegant apartment building on 68th Street between Madison and Park. He had made peace with Salucci and Weinberg, although the Italian was still trying, from time to time, to lean a little on their policy rackets. Why anybody would care about the policy rackets was beyond Rick. The nickels and dimes collected from the people of Harlem, which was almost entirely black now, were negligible when set aside the money to be made in the legitimate nightclub business. Practically alone among the darktown clubs, the Tootsie-Wootsie had survived the end of Prohibition and flourished. The only problem now was to keep the white people coming north of 125th Street.

  As for Solly, he had pretty much retired. He still lived above Mr. Grunwald's violin shop, although Mr. Grunwald had died several years back and the violin shop was now a colored grocery store. Rick had often asked him why he didn't leave the neighborhood, but Solomon always waved away the question.

  “I should maybe move to Grand Concourse?” he would ask.“As well you should ask me to move to the Champs-ÉlysÉes, which isn't as nice and is almost as far away. It's okay for Mrs. Horowitz, but me—I’m too damn old to change now.”

  Rick didn't know Irma had moved to the Bronx.

  “Pfui,” said Solly.“Long time since. She loves baseball, she can walk to Yankee games. But me, not on your life. You should only shoot me first, I start talking about the Grand Concourse. Day Solomon Horowitz leaves Manhattan is day he grows tail and sticks it between legs!”

  That put an end to that discussion.

  Still, all the talk about Mrs. Horowitz got Rick to thinking about Lois, something he had trained himself not to do. He had also trained himself to stop reading the Times, except for the entertainment reviews, and all the other New York papers. Even Winchell's column was censored for him; any references to Robert Meredith or his wife were carefully blackened out by Abie Cohen's kid Ernie, whom Rick was training as a restaurateur. Ernie was dark haired and bright eyed, the way he used to be, and he seemed to think the world was his oyster, the way he used to. Well, let the kid think that; he would learn otherwise soon enough.

  From time to time, Ernie goofed and Rick got to read about the rise and rise of Robert Meredith. From lawyer to state senator to (it was widely speculated) the next Republican candidate for governor of New York, Meredith had soared. His wife
, Lois, had ascended along with him, her wardrobe ever more spectacular, the accounts of her charitable work ever more fulsome. If the press had any idea she was really the daughter of a gangster, it never let on, just as it never let on about the backgrounds of other prominent wives, such as the one married to the senator from Louisiana, who had been a high-class call girl, or the wife of the governor of Ohio, who was addicted to cocaine, or the …

  Then he saw her. Even from a distance, the minute she walked in, he knew. He knew it by the way she moved, by the cut of her clothes, by the supreme self-confidence of her manner, well before he could see her face. The face that was more beautiful now than even he had remembered it.

  She moved through the crowd, laughing the way he had remembered her, easily, as though she were dancing with Fred Astaire. Her hair was pulled back tight into a bun, and at her gorgeous throat she wore a dazzling diamond brooch that was not quite as big as the Ritz, but close enough. Otherwise she was the same: his Lois, before Meredith and O'Hanlon had taken her away from him.

  She was alone. No photographer's flash popped. A few people gawked at the famous Lois Meredith, the future governor's wife, but in Rick's place they had long since learned to keep their heads down and their mouths shut. Preferred customers were always the quietest customers, and if you wanted to get a ringside seat for Lunceford's band or Elena Hornblower's dancers or, best of all, Sam Waters's piano, you'd best observe the rules.

  “Karl, table four,” he commanded his maître d’.

  “Right away, Rick,” replied Karl. Karl was a recent arrival in New York, having several months earlier fled his home in Bad Ischl in Austria, where he had been the Ober-kellner of the famous White Horse Tavern. At table four, a couple of aides to Mayor LaGuardia and their girlfriends (Rick knew both their wives) were mollified by a bottle of free champagne and switched to table eight, which wasn't Siberia.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Meredith,” he said.