Even so, I am comforted by the idea that Flaubert, long before me, writing his masterpiece, felt this same anguish and asked himself these same questions. I am also reassured when he writes: “Our worth should be measured by our aspirations more than our works.” That means I’m allowed to make a mess of my book. Everything should come together more quickly now.
155
Unbelievable—I’ve just found another novel about the assassination! It’s called Like a Man, and it’s by a certain David Chacko. The title is supposed to be a rough translation of the Greek word anthropoid. The book is extremely well researched. I get the impression the author has utilized everything currently known about Heydrich and the attack—even some fairly obscure (and sometimes questionable) theories such as the hypothesis that the bomb contained poison. I was greatly impressed by the mass of details he’s gathered and I’m inclined to think they’re authentic, as I haven’t found a single one that I know to be false. This has forced me to qualify my opinion of Seven Men at Daybreak, the Alan Burgess novel I had previously thought rather fanciful. I had been particularly skeptical about the swastika branded on Kubiš’s ass. I also condescendingly picked up on a glaring error regarding the color of Heydrich’s Mercedes, which the author claimed was green. But David Chacko’s novel agrees with Burgess’s on both points. And since I haven’t otherwise been able to spot a single mistake in his book—even with very specific details that I had imagined, in a fit of slightly delirious pride, were perhaps known only to me—I am bound to trust what he writes. Suddenly I start questioning myself. But this Mercedes—it was black, I’m sure. Not only in the army museum at Prague, where the car was exhibited, but also in the numerous photos that I checked. Obviously, in a black-and-white photo, it would be easy to confuse black with dark green. And admittedly there is some controversy over the exhibited Mercedes: the museum claims it’s the original, but certain people dispute this, saying that it’s been re-created (with the blown tire and the smashed rear right door) as an exact replica. But even if it is a replica, surely they would have made sure they got the color right! Anyway, I’m probably attaching too much importance to what is, at the end of the day, just a background detail. I know that. In fact it’s a classic symptom of neurosis. I must be anal-retentive. Let’s move on …
When Chacko writes: “The castle could be entered in several ways, but Heydrich, the showman, always came and went by the main gate, where the guard was,” I am fascinated by his certainty. I wonder: “How does he know? How can he be so sure?”
Another example. This is a dialogue between Gabčík and Heydrich’s Czech chef. The chef is telling Gabčík about the security surrounding Heydrich in his own house. “Heydrich scorns protection, but the SS take their job seriously. He’s their leader, you know. They treat him like a god. He looks like they say they all want to look. The Blond Beast. They actually call him that in the service. You won’t be able to truly understand Germans until you realize they mean it as a compliment.”
Chacko’s art resides in his skill at integrating historical fact—Heydrich really was nicknamed the Blond Beast—into psychologically acute dialogue. It is through dialogue that he turns history into fiction. And I must say, loath as I am to use this method, that he does it very successfully: I was really gripped by several passages. When Gabčík replies to the chef, who has just given him a terrifying description of Heydrich, “Don’t worry. He’s human. There’s one way to prove that,” I cheered as if I were watching a Western.
Obviously, the scenes in which he describes Gabčík being given a blow job in the middle of the living room, or Kubiš jerking off in the bathroom, are probably invented. I know that Chacko doesn’t know if Gabčík was given a blow job, nor (if he was) in what circumstances, and he certainly doesn’t know where or when Kubiš jerked off: this kind of scene, by its very nature, has no witnesses—well, with a few rare exceptions—and Kubiš had no reason to tell anyone about his little jerk-off sessions, and he didn’t keep a diary. But the author deals perfectly with the psychological dimension of his novel, which is full of interior monologues, and makes no claims to exact historical accuracy. Indeed, the book opens with the formula: “Any similarity of characters or events to real persons or actual events is coincidental.” In other words, Chacko wanted to write a novel—well researched, admittedly, but without being a slave to the facts. So he bases his tale on a true story, fully exploiting its novelistic elements, blithely inventing when that helps the narration, but without being answerable to history. He’s a skillful cheat. A trickster. Well … a novelist, basically.
Now that I look at the photos more carefully, I’m unsure about the color. The exhibition was several years ago, so perhaps my memory is betraying me. But I really see it black, that Mercedes! Maybe my imagination is playing games with me? When the time comes, I’ll just have to decide. Or verify the truth. One way or the other.
156
I asked Natacha about the Mercedes. She remembers it being black as well.
157
The more powerful Heydrich grows, the more he behaves like Hitler. Now, like the Führer, he tortures his colleagues with long, impassioned speeches on the destiny of the world. Frank, Eichmann, Böhme, Müller, and Schellenberg listen quietly to their boss’s delirious commentaries as he bends over a map of the world:
“The Scandinavians, the Dutch, and the Flemish belong to the Germanic race … the Middle East and Africa will be shared with the Italians … the Russians will be driven back beyond the Urals and their country will be colonized by peasant soldiers … the Urals will be our eastern border. Our new recruits will do their national service there and they’ll be trained in guerrilla warfare as border guards. If anyone’s not willing to fight tooth and nail, I’ll let them go, I won’t do anything to them…”
Intoxicated by his own power, Heydrich—like his master—already imagines himself master of the world. But there’s still a war to be won, Russia to be conquered, and a long list of heirs to supplant. Heydrich’s star may still be rising through the black night of the Reich, but even looking at it optimistically, all of this is very premature.
The battle between Hitler’s potential successors has always been ferocious. Where does Heydrich fit in, stuck out here in this backwater? Many people, fascinated by his evil aura and using his meteoric rise as evidence, argue that he would have ended up succeeding (or deposing) the Führer.
But in 1942, the road to the highest peak is still long. More than ever, Heydrich is being wooed by the first rank of pretenders. Göring, Bormann, Goebbels—all try to lure him away from Himmler, who jealously watches over his right-hand man. Even if his new role in Prague and his responsibility for the Final Solution have given him an added dimension, Heydrich is not yet quite at their level. Göring is still officially the regime’s number two and Hitler’s designated successor, even if he’s fallen well behind in the race to succeed Hitler. Bormann has replaced Rudolf Hess at the head of the Party and by Hitler’s side. The propaganda machine controlled by Goebbels is, more than ever, propping up the regime. Himmler is in charge of the Waffen SS, whose combat divisions are covering themselves in glory on every front, and he is also in total control of the system of concentration camps—two areas where Heydrich has no power.