“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.
“What’s going on?”
“An attack!”
“So?”
“You must drive Herr Obergruppenführer to the hospital.”
“But … why me?”
“Your car is empty.”
“But it’s not going to be very comfortable. There are boxes of polish, it smells bad. You can’t transport the Protector in conditions like that…”
“Schnell!”
Tough luck for the worker in the Tatra—he’s stuck with the job now. Meanwhile, a policeman has arrived, and he helps Heydrich toward the van. The Reichsprotektor tries to walk on his own, but he can’t. Blood seeps from his torn uniform. He maneuvers his too-tall body with difficulty into the front passenger seat, holding his revolver tightly in one hand and his briefcase in the other. The van starts up and takes off down the hill. But the driver realizes that the hospital is in the other direction, so he makes a U-turn. Heydrich notices this and shouts: “Wohin fahren wir?” Even I, with my poor German, understand that this means “Where are we going?” The driver understands, too, but he can’t remember the German word for “hospital” (Krankenhaus), so he doesn’t say anything. Heydrich threatens him with the gun. Luckily, the van is now back at its starting point. The young blond woman sees them arrive and rushes toward them. The driver begins to explain, but Heydrich murmurs something to the blonde. He can’t stay in front—it’s too cramped. So they help him out, then put him in the back of the van, lying facedown, surrounded by boxes of polish and wax. Heydrich orders them to give him his briefcase. They throw it in next to him. The Tatra starts up again. With one hand Heydrich holds his back, and with the other he hides his face.
While this is going on, Gabčík keeps running. Tie flapping in the wind, hair messed up, he looks like Cary Grant in North by Northwest or Jean-Paul Belmondo in That Man from Rio. But obviously Gabčík, though very fit, does not have the supernatural endurance that the French actor would later display in his spoof role as a hero. Unlike Belmondo, Gabčík cannot keep running forever. By zigzagging through the neighboring residential streets he has managed to put a bit of distance between himself and his pursuer, but he still hasn’t shaken him off completely. Each time he turns into a new street, though, there is a period of a few seconds when he disappears from the other man’s field of vision. He has to use this to his advantage. Breathless, he spots an open shop doorway and throws himself inside, precisely during this brief window of opportunity. Unfortunately, Gabčík didn’t have time to read the name of the establishment: Brauner the butcher. So when, panting, he asks the shopkeeper to help him hide, the butcher rushes outside, sees Klein belting toward him, and—without a word—points at his shop. Not only is Brauner a German Czech, but on top of that his brother is in the Gestapo. This is bad news for Gabčík, who now finds himself cornered in a Nazi butcher’s back room. But Klein has had time during the pursuit to notice that the fugitive is armed, so instead of entering the shop he takes shelter behind a little garden post and starts shooting like crazy through the doorway. Thus Gabčík’s position has not really improved much since he was hiding behind the telegraph pole being shot at by Heydrich. But whether because he remembers his abilities as a marksman, or because an ordinary SS stormtrooper standing six feet away impresses him less than the Hangman of Prague in person, he reacts very differently. Moving into the open for a second and seeing part of a silhouette sticking out from behind the post, Gabčík aims and fires—and Klein collapses, hit in the leg. Without any hesitation Gabčík springs out, runs past the felled German and back up the street. But he’s lost in this maze of residential alleys. At the next crossroads, he freezes. At the end of the street he’s about to enter, he can see the beginning of the curve in Holešovice Street. In his frantic flight, he has gone around in a circle, and now he’s back to where he started. It’s like a Kafkaesque nightmare stuck on fast-forward. Hurrying to the other side of the crossroads, he runs down toward the river. And I, limping through the streets of Prague, dragging my leg as I climb back up Na Poříčí, watch him run into the distance.
The Tatra reaches the hospital. Heydrich is yellow; he can barely stand up. He is taken immediately to the operating room, where they remove his jacket. Bare-chested, he scornfully eyes the female nurse, who runs out without asking him to take off the rest of his clothes. He sits alone on the operating table. I’d love to know how long this solitary wait lasts. Eventually a man in a black raincoat arrives. He sees Heydrich and his eyes widen. After looking quickly around the room, he leaves to make an urgent telephone calclass="underline" “No, it’s not a false alarm! Send an SS squadron over here immediately. Yes, Heydrich! I repeat: the Reichsprotektor is here, and he’s injured. No, I don’t know. Schnell!” Then the first doctor arrives—a Czech. He is as white as a sheet but immediately begins to examine the wound, using swabs and a pair of tweezers. The wound is three inches long and contains many fragments and bits of dirt. Heydrich doesn’t flinch while it’s cleaned. A second doctor, a German, bursts in. He asks what’s happening, then he sees Heydrich. Instantly he clicks his heels and shouts: “Heil!” They return to examining the wound. There is no damage to the kidney, nor to the spinal column, and the preliminary diagnosis is encouraging. They put Heydrich in a wheelchair and take him to the X-ray department. The corridors are full of SS guards. Security measures are being taken: all exterior windows are painted white to protect them from snipers, and machine gunners are posted on the roof. And, of course, they get rid of any patients who are in the way. Making a visible effort to retain his dignity, Heydrich gets out of the wheelchair and stands in front of the X-ray machine. The X-rays reveal further injuries: one rib is broken, the diaphragm is perforated, and the thoracic cage is damaged. They discover something lodged in the spleen—a fragment of shrapnel or a piece of the car’s bodywork. The German doctor leans close to his patient: