As Time Goes By (27 page)

"I have been meaning to congratulate you," Heydrich continued. "I hope you will allow me the honor to do so very soon."

Ilsa finally dared look up. His manner was stiff and
formal, but he was smiling. With his brushed-back
blond hair, aquiline nose, and gleaming white teeth, he
was at once handsome and repulsive.

"Danke sch
ö
n, Herr Heydrich,"
she said.

"Unfortunately, by the time my men got there, the rebellious scum had fled. How they knew we were
coming is of course a mystery, but these Slavs are mys
terious people. Isn't that right, Frau Hentgen?"

"Jawohl, Herr Heydrich!"
       

He leaned more heavily upon her, his grip tightening, Ilsa felt a chill dance up and down her spine.

"Oh, well," said Heydrich, "that sometimes cannot
be helped. Even the most abject
Untermensch
has an animal's sensory apparatus, and if his nose twitches at
just the right moment . . ." He sighed theatrically. "I
have time," he concluded. "A thousand years, at
least."

He withdrew his hand from her shoulder and stepped
back smartly. "However, we should speak of more
pleasant things!" he exclaimed. "I understand from
Frau Hentgen that you are an accomplished pianist. I
myself have some modest skill on the violin. It would be a great honor to have you accompany me. Tonight,
perhaps?"

Ilsa took a deep breath. "Herr Protector," she began,
"such an honor . . ." She tried to fumble for words. "Surely a poor Russian girl like me is not worthy ..."
She gave up and fluttered her hands.

"Nonsense!" shouted Heydrich, causing all the other women in the office, however briefly, to glance over at
them. They had seen this unfolding tableau before, yet it remained fascinating, like watching a snake hypno
tize its prey before swallowing it docile, uncompre
hending, and whole.

The moment was here at last: Heydrich had made
his approach. Mentally and emotionally she was ready.
Now she had to play for time, had to get word back to London that contact had been made, that the opportunity for her to get close to the target was at hand, that the hunter was now the hunted.

She knew just what to do and what not to do. She
could not plead a prior engagement, for Heydrich
would simply ignore it or, worse, order the man she
was to meet arrested and probably shot. She had to turn
him down without making it look as though she were
turning him down—and leaving the possibility open
for another time. Rejecting him but luring him, onward,
closer, into the trap—and trying not to get caught in it
herself.

She blinked rapidly, then lowered her eyes. As she
hoped, this gesture brought Heydrich's face down
closer to hers.
"Mein Herr,"
she said,
"ich bitte Sie.
Heute abend ist es nicht m
ö
glich wegen
..."

Tonight it is not possible because . . .
Deliberately
ambiguous, she waited to see how he would interpret
her.

"Ach, Frauen,"
he groaned.
Oh, women....

She laughed beguilingly. "Oh no," she said, feigning embarrassment. The look of brief confusion on
Heydrich's face plainly indicated that he was thinking
of sex, not music. "It's just that I would not think of
accompanying a man as distinguished as yourself without being able to practice first. Would a couple of days
hence be all right?"

The Protector quickly regained his composure and
looked at her with new respect. A gambit or a misun
derstanding on his part? Perhaps this one was more
clever than she looked. Good: he liked a challenge. "I
understand completely," he said. "Shall we say the day
after tomorrow?" He gave her a leer that he habitually
mistook for sophistication.

"The day after tomorrow," she repeated loudly, for
everyone in the room to hear. "Two days is all it will take for me to get the complete reports on your desk,
mein Kommandant."

So they had a little conspiracy going. That pleased
Heydrich. "Excellent," he said. "Hail, victory.
Heil
Hitler."

As one, the staff rose.
"Heil Hitler!"
they shouted in
unison as the Protector entered his inner sanctum and
flashed the old Roman salute the Nazis had appro
priated.

That afternoon she stayed late, typing up some re
ports and forwarding them to the appropriate bureaus.
When everyone had left but her, she wrote the number
22 on a small piece of paper and put it in her pocket
Twenty-two was Rick's lucky number; it was also to
day's date, May 22. The coincidence was a good omen.

On the way home, she stopped at Bana
č
ek's bakery
and handed the clerk her number. To the casual ob
server, there was nothing untoward about this action; it
was merely the number of an order made earlier in the
day by telephone. The clerk, a small, inoffensive man
named Helder, nodded as he read it and handed her
half a dozen fresh rolls and a couple of pastries.

Number 22 was much more than that, however; it
was the signal that contact had been made and the tar
get would soon be ripe for the taking. It would be re
layed at once by wireless to London. The plane
carrying Victor, Rick, and the rest of the team would leave within the hour. Ilsa paid the clerk in coins and
thanked him as she departed. Operation Hangman was
under way.

That night she took extra precautions, for Heydrich's
spies were everywhere. She practiced on the parlor
piano for an hour, then complained loudly to her land
lady that she was not feeling well. She requested a
compress and a hot-water bottle and went upstairs to
bed. She turned off all the lights in her room and sat
by the window in the dark, searching for any sign of a watcher below. She could see none.

A soft tap at her door woke her from a doze. She
crept over in her bare feet and opened it a crack. Helena
was there, a new servant girl who had recently been engaged by the house. "Pall Mall," the girl said, which was the day's password. The test was not only to know the password, but to pronounce it properly, which she
did. Ilsa opened the door just widely enough to admit
Helena and then closed it tight.

Helena, she knew, would be bringing a message
from the Underground in Prague. The Resistance used a constantly changing array of tradesmen and servants
to convey messages, so there was nothing unusual
about her sudden appearance. Indeed, Ilsa was expect
ing it.

"What news?" Ilsa whispered.

"Two messages," said Helena, practically inaudibly.
"I don't understand them. They don't tell me what the
words mean. I wrote them down to be sure I didn't forget."

"That's for your own protection," Ilsa explained.
"The less you understand, the safer you are." She
looked at the girl and saw that Helena couldn't be more
than sixteen years old. They were enlisting children to
fight a monster, except this was no Grimm's fairy tale.
"Just repeat exactly the words they told you. Don't
worry about anything else. Do you think you can do
that?"

Perhaps it was her nerves or maybe it was something
in the girl's manner, but Ilsa began to suspect the
worst. Had the operation been compromised? Had
someone cracked or confessed? Had the drop zone
been discovered? Had the Gestapo managed to infil
trate the Underground? Or, God forbid, had British In
telligence been penetrated by the Nazis back in
London? The German spy network appeared to func
tion best in central Europe and at the Russian front, but
it was growing in sophistication each month and now
was quite effective in France, where each week brought new reports of Resistance fighters rounded up and shot.
Had she been discovered? Had something happened to
Victor? To Rick? Were Heydrich's men outside the
door, getting ready to burst in?

"Tell me," she said, trying to stay calm, trying at
least to sound calm, trying to keep the horrible urgency
out of her voice.

Helena unfolded a little scrap of paper. "The first
message is from London. It says, 'The blue parrot is
out of his cage.' "

Ilsa felt her heart leap. There was nothing to worry
about at all! Her message had been received, and this
was the reply. The "blue parrot" was their code name
for the team; "out of his cage" meant they were on
their way to Czechoslovakia. She almost laughed out
loud.

"The second I received only a little while ago from the Underground," continued Helena. She stared at her
note, trying to make sense of the words. "It says, 'Op
eration Hangman. Tell London. Danger.' " Helena
looked up from her reading. "They want to call it off. What does that mean?"

At first Ilsa thought she must have misheard her. Call
off Operation Hangman? "What?" she exclaimed,
shaking Helena in her agitation. "Why?"

"I don't know," said the girl, clearly upset. "I don't
know!"

"Give me that," Ilsa demanded, snatching the note
and trying desperately to glean more. She tried to calm
herself and failed. "It's much too dangerous for you to have something like this in your possession."

Her mind was working furiously. What had happened? Perhaps her fears that they had been betrayed were well founded after all. That damned Frau Hent
gen: did she suspect something? Perhaps the Czechs
really were cowards, afraid to go through with it. It was too late, though. The team was probably already on the
ground. They couldn't stop now. They wouldn't stop
now.

No, no, no,
she told herself.
Not now. Not after what
Victor has suffered. Not after what I have suffered. Not
when we are this close. Not when I can make it happen.

Not in a million years.

Not over my dead body.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-
F
OUR

With Saxon punctuality, Reinhard Heydrich called
for her two days later at the flat on Sko
ř
epka Street,
Ilsa was expecting him. After work she had washed her
dark blonde hair, perfumed herself, and put on a fresh
dress.

"How lovely you look this evening, Fr
ä
ulein Touma
nova," said Heydrich, bowing slightly from the waist. He stood outside the front door; behind him Ilsa could
see his Mercedes, its motor idling, with a uniformed
chauffeur in the front seat. "If you will permit me to
say so, I think we shall make a very handsome couple
tonight."

She had to admit he looked splendid in his impecca
bly tailored black-and-gray SS uniform, which had
been cut to show off his trim fighting physique. As
usual, his high black riding boots were shined to a mir
ror surface. His sandy hair, his well-fitting clothes, the way he stood at polite but rigid attention, even the way
he held his hat in both hands, reminded her of someone. With a start, she suddenly remembered who.

God help her, he reminded her of Victor—except
that Victor was pure and good, while Heydrich was the
personification of evil.

"Good evening, Herr Heydrich," she said noncom-mittally, allowing him to take her arm.

He held the door for her as she entered the car, a big,
roomy sedan with walnut paneling and plush leather seats. She sank back and let her head rest as the driver put the car into first gear and stepped on the accelera
tor. Heydrich was sitting facing her, attentive and very close.

"For this evening, you may address me as Rein
hard," he said, taking her hand. "But only in private.
It would not do for others to think the Protector admits
of familiarity so quickly."

Ilsa glanced up quickly at the rearview mirror, but
the chauffeur's eyes were on the road, professionally
impassive.

With a purr the Mercedes moved away, the German
driver expertly negotiating the narrow Czech streets.
From a console on the back of the driver's seat, Hey
drich produced a bottle of champagne and two glasses.
He popped the cork and poured. Some of the froth spilled onto his immaculately manicured hands. He
licked it off.

"You drink champagne, of course?" He handed Ilsa
a glass.

"With pleasure," she replied, accepting it.

As they glided through the streets of the city, Hey
drich pointed out sight after sight, keeping up a running
lecture on Prague, its history and important buildings.
There wasn't much he didn't seem to know.

"Are you aware that Mozart's
Don Giovanni
was
first performed here?" he asked her. "This was his fa
vorite city, and the good Germans of Prague made him
feel especially welcome whenever he was here." He
poured more champagne for both of them. "Prague has
always been more German than Czech, and what we
Germans are doing here today is simply restoring the
city to its former glory as a member of the Greater German Reich. One of the ways we do it is by calling
it by its proper German name,
Prag,
instead of
Praha.
In fact, we insist upon it."

Ilsa had to admit Prague was beautiful—as beautiful
in its own way as Paris was, but cold and remote where
Paris was warm and welcoming. As if constructed by a bright, impudent child, the city was a medieval fantasy
of steep spires and peaked red roofs. The many public
squares were cobblestone, and the great Moldau River,
called by the Czechs the Vltava, flowed majestically
through the heart of the city. Prague was far more at
tractive than lumpen Vienna or bleak, windswept Berlin. No wonder the Nazis had occupied it, thought Ilsa;
they would do anything to get out of their own ugly
burgs.

They were in an unfamiliar quarter of the city now, ancient and crabbed. "This is Josefov," said Heydrich.
Unlike most of the top Nazis, who were little more than
peasants, he spoke elegant, very fashionable German.
His speech possessed none of the ruralisms that still
dotted the discourse of the F
ü
hrer, and his crisp Saxon
accent was far from Hitler's buffoonish Austrian into
nation. "Stop the car."

They had been driving down a street called Pa
ř
i
ž
sk
á
,
a broad boulevard that led from the Old Town Hall
northward until it crossed the river. Now they were
stopped in front of a large, spare, imposing edifice. The driver opened the car doors, first for Heydrich and then
for her. "Look around," said the Protector.

To Ilsa's astonishment, they were standing in front
of a synagogue. On the streets, a few black-coated and
bearded Orthodox Jews scurried away from the Mer
cedes as fast as they could. Heydrich let out a contemp
tuous laugh.

"Behold," he said, "the Jewish Quarter!"

Ilsa could hardly believe her eyes. Right here, under
the Hangman's nose, was a settlement of Jews, appar
ently going about their business unmolested. She
turned to Heydrich with obvious questions in her eyes.

"This is the
Alt-Neu
Synagogue," he said, "the oldest in Europe. It shall also be the last. Hebrew legend says that the foundation stones were flown over from
the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, with the stipulation that
they should be returned on the Last Day, the Day of
Judgment That day is coming much faster for the Jews
than they ever could have imagined."

"Why is it called the Old-New Synagogue?" Ilsa in
quired.

Heydrich rubbed his hands together like a predator
as he surveyed the building. "The word for 'stipula
tion' in Hebrew is
altnay,"
he said, "but it sounds like
the Yiddish pronunciation of
Alt-Neu.
I suppose it is a
Jewish idea of a joke. Well, we are not laughing anymore, and neither are they."

She shuddered in the light, fitful breeze. Since their arrival, Pa
ř
i
ž
sk
á
Street had become entirely deserted,
but she could feel frightened eyes peering down at her from behind closed curtains.

Heydrich paid her no attention. He made a sweeping
gesture that took in the surrounding blocks. "Our F
ü
h
rer wishes Josefov preserved forever," he said, "as a
kind of museum of Jewry, so that after our ultimate
and inevitable victory, the Christian world may come
and see the fate from which the great German people
have so graciously spared it."

"A noble service to mankind indeed," said Ilsa. She
shuddered once more. The operation could not be
called off! It could not be! This monster and every other like him must be destroyed. Didn't the Czechs
understand that? What could she do to make them un
derstand?

Heydrich finally noticed her condition. "You are
shivering, child," he said, taking her by the arm. "I am
sorry to subject you to such unpleasant sights, but both
the Germans and the White Russians must know why we are fighting the Jewish Marxists in Russia."

They rode together over the
Č
ech
ů
v Most, across the
river and through the big park called Letenske Sady—
she silent, he garrulous. Strange, he seemed never to
speak at all when he was in the RSHA office, even
when he was within his own inner sanctum. He merely
grunted orders in a low monotone, read infinite reports,
and met, usually weekly, with high-placed Nazis from
Vienna and Berlin. About once a month he would
travel to Berlin, only a few hours away by car, stay for a night or two, and then return.

Now, in private, the Hangman revealed himself to be
the soul of volubility. Indeed, his chatter had begun to
take something of a personal turn, complaining about
the stupidity of this or that official, praising Hitler, and even once letting slip a very mild criticism of his superior, Himmler.

So
wrapped up in listening to Heydrich was she that
she had not noticed they had left the city of Prague
behind them and were now driving in the countryside.

"Is this a rural restaurant to which we are going,
then, Herr Heydrich?" she inquired.

"Reinhard," he reminded her, spitting out the hard
"d" sound at the end of his name. "We are not going
to a restaurant. My own chef is preparing our meal to
night at my villa." He glanced over at her. "Don't
worry," he said. "Frau Heydrich is conveniently away
in Berlin, so we shall be quite alone."

Why was that piece of information not a surprise? Heydrich's intentions toward her could not have been
clearer had he written them down and handed them to her. She would have to play him very carefully. "This route we have taken is quite interesting," she ventured.

Heydrich agreed. "In a few days, when my security
precautions are complete, I shall be taking it each
morning. I could continue to cross the Charles Bridge,
but I no longer wish to do so. Far better for me to pass
over the
Č
ech
ů
v Most, where my museum is taking shape before my very eyes. Oh, how I am collecting
specimens now! Soon, all Europe will be one vast col
lection agency for my zoo. Each day I shall drive
across the
Č
ech
ů
v Most and let the animals see their
master coming, to strike fear and wonder and awe into
them. Those whom I, Reinhard Tristan Eugen Hey
drich, have personally selected as being fit for my insti
tution!"
       

"What about the others?" asked Ilsa.

"There will be no others," said Heydrich. "Wannsee
has decided that, and our vengeance demands it."

Her heart was pounding so hard she thought the
whole country must surely hear it. So he would not be
driving over the Karl
ů
v Most at all! But that had been
their plan all along, to kill him on the Charles Bridge! Even if she could get word to Victor, it was too late to
change now. Somehow she would have to get Heydrich
to stay on the Charles Bridge.

Ilsa was so agitated that not until the door on her side
opened and Heydrich was helping her out did she notice that the car had come to a stop outside a beautiful
villa tucked away in a comely, sheltered valley. "Wel
come to my home," he said graciously.

Still in a daze, Ilsa was escorted inside. An array of
footmen and other servants stood in ranks near the door
to greet the master of the house, each in turn nodding
his or her head silently as the great man passed by. Ilsa
saw fear and hatred in their eyes and knew he did not.

The formal dining room was prepared for dinner a
deux. The table was bedecked with the finest silver and
Meissen china. Heydrich guided her toward a love seat
in the corner, in front of which stood a fresh bottle of champagne and two crystal glasses. The champagne
had been freshly opened. Heydrich poured.