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.
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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.
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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.