As Time Goes By (28 page)

"Prosit,"
he said, raising his glass.
"Sieg Heil!"
Hail, victory.

Although it was nearly nine o'clock, the late spring
sun had only recently set. Heydrich set down his glass
for a moment and drew the curtains together gently.
"This way," he said, "we can have some privacy."

He kissed her far more quickly than she would have
supposed or was prepared for. One minute he was
drawing the curtains, the next she was in his arms,
being forced upward so that her mouth might meet his.
He devoured her hungrily but not rudely, and she fi
nally broke away.

"Herr Heydrich," she gasped, trying to force him
back
without angering him,
"bitte
..."
Surprised, not angry: that was the way she had to play it.

He took a smart step back, as if he were going to
salute her, but with a smirk on his lips, the lips that had
so freshly tasted hers.
"
You
will forgive my impetuos
ity, Fr
ä
ulein Toumanova," he said unapologetically. "I
find it difficult to restrain my emotions when faced
with incomparable beauty such as yours. The ability
to judge beauty is the hallmark of the civilized man,
wouldn't you agree?"

"
Yes
,
Reinhard," she said, softening her voice to dis
guise the loathing she felt. "And the ability to restrain one's emotions is the mark of the true leader."

At this moment she could not help but think of Vic
tor, whose calm resolve contrasted so greatly with Hey
drich's naked appetite. The mask had slipped away,
and she could see the skull beneath the skin, just as
clearly as the skull on the
Totenkopf
SS insignia he
wore on his uniform.

The monster, she knew, had blinked. His lust was his
weakness; that much they had known before. Now she also knew that he could be held off, at least for a time,
by appeals to his honor. His desire could be intensified;
the master manipulator could himself be manipulated.
That was something she could exploit. But carefully,
oh so carefully.

"We shall make some music now," he said, recover
ing.
"
You'll
find the piano more than satisfactory, I am sure. It is a B
ö
sendorfer made in Vienna to my
specifications. Naturally, they are of the most demand
ing exactitude."

He took his violin, an Amati, out of its case and
began to tune it. "Shall we try the
Kreutzer
Sonata?"

"With pleasure." She had not played the piece since
she was a teenager, but enough of it remained in her
fingers that she could give a good account of herself.

"The greatest of the Beethoven violin sonatas," he
remarked just before they began. "We don't even know
which key it really is in. Is it the A major of the title?
Or the A minor of the first movement?" He turned to her. "What do you think, Tamara?"

"To me," she said, "it is simply in A." She sounded the A for him to tune to. "You see?"

He drew the bow over the strings expertly, painstak
ingly, until he was satisfied that they were perfectly in
harmony.

"
You
are an empiricist, I see," he said, nodding. "It
is the curse of your sex to take the world at face value,
not to be able to perceive the depth and richness be
neath. That is, I suppose, why all the greatest artists are
men."

"
You
are right, Reinhard," she said.

"But the
Kreutzer
Sonata is so much more than sim
ply 'in A,' my dear," he said. "It is also a Tolstoy story
of surpassing power about a loveless marriage." He looked down at her, seated at the keyboard. She won
dered briefly if her decolletage were too deep. "Can
anything be more tragic than a marriage which joins
two bodies but not two souls?"

She lowered her eyes and looked away. "I'm sure I
wouldn't know," she replied, "not being a married
woman myself."

He began to play the slow, unaccompanied opening of the sonata, leaning into its plaintive chords, voicing them perfectly. He was, she had to admit, quite good.

That the greatest of all Russian authors had written a
short story about the
Kreutzer
Sonata was no wonder,
thought Ilsa as she dug into her part. Together they
played the music with great feeling and nuance, with
only a few minor technical mishaps to mar what otherwise might have been a professional performance. For
an all too brief twenty minutes Ilsa Lund forgot herself,
forgot where she was and whom she was with. When the last run had dashed down the scale to culminate in
the final chords, her exhilaration was overwhelming.

Heydrich finished with a flourish, his bow soaring
skyward. Her hands bounced off the keys and into the air. They looked at each other.

"Magnificent," he said. His face was flushed; even his coiffure was no longer perfect, for one lank strand of blond hair had fallen across his brow. "I have long
dreamed of such an accompanist. To find such a beauti
ful one into the bargain, well, a man could not ask for more."
   

He gazed at her for what seemed like an eternity with
those ice blue eyes.

"Shall we sit down?" he finally said. Out of no
where, two servants appeared and escorted them to the
table.

The meal was unexpectedly choice, a combination of German and Bohemian specialties whose centerpiece was a roast duck of surpassing tenderness. Her
wineglass, she noticed, was kept filled throughout the dinner, the transition from a Moselle to a Beychevelle seamlessly accomplished. Her head was swimming as
she rose from the table, and she resolved not to drink
any more around him. Too dangerous.

"Reinhard," she ventured, "that was delicious."

"My cook is the best in the Protectorate," said Hey
drich, taking her by the arm and guiding her out the
dining room's French doors and into a starry, moonlit
night.
    

"The lights of the city are not visible here," he said.
"Which is as it should be. I do not need to always be
reminded of my work."

The night air was chilly. Heydrich put his arms pro
tectively around her.

"I have enemies everywhere," he said quietly, re
flectively, as much to himself as to her. Or was this
part of the seduction as well?

"Surely not," she demurred. "After all you have
wrought here."

He laughed bitterly. "It is not enough. It will never
be enough until I—until we—have achieved total vic
tory. Until our enemies have been trampled underfoot,
their villages razed and salt sown in the earth so that they may never rise again. Enemies like these Czech
traitors in London who call themselves patriots while
they plot my death like the cowards they really are."

Her ears now achieved a kind of preternatural hearing: she fancied she could hear even the movement of
his tongue as he formed his words.
        

"But we shall be ready for them. They think we do
not know what they are planning, but they are wrong.
Our spies are everywhere."

He lit a cigarette, which he smoked attached to a
long ebony filter. He did not offer her one. "If per
chance they should succeed in killing me, they should
know that behind me are hundreds—no, thousands— more like me. We shall never rest until complete and total victory is ours."

He drew her close with his free arm. "I have had my
eye on you for some time," he said softly. Ilsa felt a
chill pass over her.

"A long time," he repeated, looking at the stars.
"Since you first arrived here, and offered your services
to the glory of the Reich. Your intelligence, your beauty,
your political instincts—so unusual in a woman—all
served to bring you immediately to my attention. De
spite the reservations of Frau Hentgen, I resolved to
elevate you to the position you now hold once you had
demonstrated your loyalty to my satisfaction."

"Thank you, Reinhard," she said. "It is an honor."

"That has all been a mere prelude," he told her. "I
have always believed that a man does not really know
a woman until he has made love with her. I would not,
of course, presume to be so importunate as to suggest
we do so immediately. With another woman, I might
not be so forbearing. You, however, are deserving of respect."
 

"Thank you," she said softly.

"Nevertheless, I do hold out the hope and wish that
someday soon we might consummate the meeting of
souls that we have begun here tonight, that our exqui
site music making might foretell a fuller, more com
plete union to come." He bowed deeply, like an
obscene cavalier.

"You will find your rooms more than satisfactory, I
hope," he said. "I wish you good night, Fr
ä
ulein Tou-
manova," he said.

Ilsa said nothing as his arms tightened around her, and he bent to kiss her lightly on the forehead. They
stood there together, silent, in the moonlight, until at
last he led her back into the house and shut the door,
tightly, against the terrors of the night.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-
F
IVE

They parachuted out of the RAF plane some time
after midnight. The drop went as well as drops could
go. Nobody shot at them.

As they stood in the hatchway, Renault patted Laszlo
fraternally on the shoulder.

"Nervous?" he asked.

"No, why?" replied Laszlo.

"
'You
ought to be," said Louis. "A man could get
killed doing this."

Rick jumped first, not really caring whether Laszlo
followed or not.

His chute opened as planned, and he floated down
into the Czechoslovakian night like an ungainly bird of
prey searching for an evening's meal. With a war on, very few lights were visible in the countryside. The
cities were another matter; there, the Germans were
confident of the ability of the Luftwaffe, the English
Channel, and the Baltic Sea to protect them from the
Royal Air Force. But the Czech peasants seemed to be taking no chances.

Rick hit the ground hard, his chute billowing down
over his head. He got out from underneath it quickly
and cut away the cords. As near as he could tell, they
were very close to the drop zone, which was a tribute
to the skill of their pilot. They had had to take the long
way, flying mostly over the Baltic, away from the well-
defended German cities of Hamburg, Berlin, and Stettin. Now here he was, on the ground in one piece.

He heard Victor and the two Czechs moving somewhere nearby; at least he hoped it was them. Were he
captured now, he would expect even less mercy than
he would have in New York, which was to say none at
all.

"Jana
č
ek," he whispered, which was the password.

"Jenufa," came the reply. Renault was walking gin
gerly, brushing debris from his camouflage: Always dapper, thought Rick admiringly.

"If you ask me, sky-jumping is very much over
rated," said Louis. "I prefer indoor sports."

"I'll bet you do," said Rick.

A few moments later, Victor Laszlo stepped out of
the shadows. Behind him came Kubiš
 
and
Gabčík
, lug
ging the equipment with them. So far, so good.

They huddled together briefly, talking as softly as
they could. Since Jan and Josef had been born nearby there was no need for a map.

"Where are we?" hissed Rick.
          
"Not far from Kladno," said
Gabčík
, a young man
grown prematurely old from his experiences over the
past two years, "near Lidice."
   

The two Czechs led them through Bohemia's woods
and fields. To Rick it looked like parts of Pennsylvania,
only neater.

Presently they came to a small village and an even smaller house, snuggled up against its neighbors like
cows in a rainstorm. Kubiš
 
knocked twice softly,
counted to seven in Czech, then knocked again. The
door opened, to utter darkness.

Not for long. Someone found a shielded lantern, the dim light from which revealed the presence of an old woman, bent with age but clear of eye. She led them to
a table in a back room, whereon a modest repast had
been laid out; the men tucked into it as though it were
dinner at the Ritz. They washed down the
nudeln
and
the roast pork and the strudel with liter upon liter of
cold Budvar beer.

Ten minutes later one never would have suspected
anything had been consumed on the table; instead it was laden with rifles, pistols, and a bomb. Neat as a
pin, thought Rick, just like the Germans. No wonder
most of the Bohemians aren't putting up much of a
fight: they're brothers under the skin.

Renault bid the company good night and went off to
bed. Laszlo spread out a well-worn map of Prague and
pored over it. Rick ignored him, preferring the com
pany of his own thoughts. By now he could probably
qualify as a taxi driver in the city, so many times had
they gone over it. He knew every street in both the
Star
é
M
é
sto and the Nov
é
Město
, and across the river
to Hrad
č
any. Hell, he could even name the statues of
the saints on the Charles Bridge: Nepomuk, who was
flung off the bridge and into the river and duly com
memorated in 1683; the crucifix erected by a Jew thir
teen years later in expiation of some blasphemy or
other; and the lovely St. Luitgard, caught in 1710 in the
middle of a wondrous vision of the Christ.

"Everything is clear, then?" Victor was saying.

Rick assured him that it was and rose from the table.
"I think I'll step outside and have a smoke," he said.
"Jan, you want to join me? They're real Chesterfields."
Sam had given them to him as a present just before he
left. Where he'd gotten them Rick had no idea, but
Sam could always get things that no other human being
could. Laszlo looked at the two of them suspiciously
as they went out the door, but he said nothing.

He offered a cigarette to Kubiš and struck a match,
cupping his hand around it so as not to let the wind
blow it out. The young Czech leaned forward and in
haled; Rick followed his lead, then shook out the match
and tossed it on the ground.

"Beautiful night," he said.

Kubiš
 
agreed. "Our May nights," he said, "are the
most beautiful on earth."

Talk of beauty got Rick's mind around to what was
really beautiful.
"
You
got a girl, Jan?" he asked.

The boy—he was about twenty-one but looked five
years younger—nodded. "Martina," he said. The kid
fished in his pocket for a photograph.

"That's a nice name," Rick supplied. He supposed
it was. Maybe it wasn't. It was all the same to him. He
squinted at the picture in the moonlight. "Pretty girl," he said. He couldn't tell if she was or she wasn't.

Kubiš gazed soulfully at the picture. "She was," he
said. "She's dead."

That got his attention. "How?"

"How else?" Jan said softly. "The Germans killed her. Right after Munich, when they marched into the
Sudetenland. They were trying to expel her family
from their home, she resisted, she died. It is a very
short story." He put the picture back in his jacket.
"She was only seventeen. She did not deserve it."

Rick blew out a lungful of smoke. "Nobody does," he said, "but everybody gets it anyway."

They finished their cigarettes, then ground them un
derfoot in the green Czech grass.

"Very soon," said Jan, "she shall be avenged."

Rick looked at him. " 'Vengeance is mine, sayeth the
Lord.' "

"But He has abandoned us," retorted Jan. "It is up
to us, by our actions, to bring Him back again."

"Whatever you say," said Rick. "Tell me, though,
have you thought about anyone else?"

By the look on his face, Jan plainly didn't know what Rick meant.

"I mean"—Rick lit another of his precious but dwindling supply of Chesterfields—"have you given any
thought at all to what might happen if we actually suc
ceed?"

"Of course we will succeed," said Kubiš . He seemed
surprised there could be any question, any alternative
to triumph.

"Let's suppose we do," Rick argued. "Let's suppose we blow Heydrich to hell and gone. Then what?" He tried to blow a smoke ring and failed; must be losing
his touch.

"Then we will have succeeded and Martina will have
been avenged. After that, I don't care."

That was the way he used to talk. He found himself
liking Jan. He hoped the boy wouldn't have to die.

"Maybe you should," said Rick. "Maybe you ought
to give some thought to what might happen. Do you think the Germans are going to take this lying down?

You've seen the way they are. Take out one of theirs
and they kill a hundred, maybe a thousand of yours.
Has Laszlo thought of that?"

"I doubt it." Jan scuffed his shoe on the grass. "Victor Laszlo is a hero to every true son of Czechoslova
kia. There is not one of us who would not follow him
to hell if he asked us to. Whatever happens after we
kill Hangman Heydrich happens. There is nothing we
can do about it."

"Isn't there?" Rick wondered softly. "Well, there's no sense standing out here debating it. Come on, let's
go back inside."

Gabčík
had already retired for the night, if retired
was the right word. The young soldier had fallen asleep
in his clothes, his backpack slung over his shoulders
and his loaded pistol on his lap. Kubiš
 
bade both Rick
and Laszlo a good night and departed to sleep in the
barn.

"You still have your doubts, don't you?" said Laszlo.

"It's not kosher to have doubts about something after
you've given your word,"said Rick. He wasn't in the
mood for any of Victor's speeches. "I'm just holding
up my end of the bargain."

Laszlo shook his head in disbelief. "That is not what you said to me back in Casablanca. There you made a
choice. A number of them, in fact. You chose to give
us the letters of transit—excuse me, you chose to give
me
a letter of transit; my wife was going to obtain one no matter what. You chose to make your bargain with
me after I was arrested. You chose to dupe Captain Re
nault, you chose to put us on that plane, and you chose
to shoot Major Strasser when all you had to do was
stand by and do nothing."

"You weren't there," Rick demurred. "Major Stras
ser chose to draw on me first."

Laszlo smiled. "And like a good American cowboy
you beat him to the draw and, as you say, gunned him
down in cold blood."

Rick let his hands rest on the tabletop. "It was him
or me."

Laszlo trumped him. "When it didn't have to be either. You could have walked away and let him try to
stop our plane. You could have walked away in London as well. You might still be able to walk away now. You
don't trust me, I know that. You think I am a fanatic."

"That's where you're wrong," Rick interrupted. "I
know
you're a fanatic."

"Very well, perhaps I am." Laszlo poured himself a
small glass of beer from one of the last remaining bot
tles. He didn't offer one to Rick. "Sometimes one has
to be. My question to you, though, remains: Why don't you just leave?"

"It's a little late for that now, don't you think?"

"Because of Ilsa?"

"Because of a lot of things," Rick shot back. "Look,
Laszlo, we're both grown men. We don't need to beat around the bush here. I fell in love with your wife in
Paris, before I knew she was your wife, and I'm still in
love with her even though now I know she is your wife.
If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be here. But I am, and
so are you, and we have to make the best of it."