Beauty and the Beast

Dobry Den

The day I came face to face with you, Reinhard, was the worst day of my life. It was the brick that, when pulled out from underneath a tower of blocks, causes it to come crashing down.

It must be so surprising to you, that I would remember an event from so long ago.
Why should it surprise you, though? Do you think I could possibly forget the day the first hammer blow of the many that would hack away at my world was struck?
I remember it like it happened yesterday.
I had gone out into the heart of the village with my girlfriends, Liboslava "Libena" Fafkova and Maria Svobodova, to pick up the dresses we had had commissioned from the village tailor. We had spent hours poring over numerous fashion catalogs constructing our dream party dresses. We were set to go to Maria's older brother's engagement party in a few days, and wanted to make our best impression on all the boys that were certain to show up there.
It was a party that I would never get to attend.

We were all in foul moods that day because of the weather. It had been exceptionally chilly that September day, and to make matters worse, we had forgotten our coats at my house, where we usually went after school.

Libena gasped and pointed as we rounded the corner.
"Who is that?" she asked.

If I had known that in a matter of seconds I would come face to face with the man who would steal my present and eventually my future, I would have turned tail and fled.

But I didn't know, Reinhard. I had had no way of knowing what you would do to me.
I followed Libena's gaze; my eyes landed on the tall, blue-eyed, blond-haired man coming down our street atop a white horse, clad in brown riding pants and a cream shirt.
It was you. SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich.
You and your wife had a tradition, you see. Ever since your arrival in Panenske Brezany, both you and Lina made it a habit to ride your white horses together through the streets of the village. Sometimes it would be the two of you, sometimes only you, sometimes only her. From what I heard from the other villagers who had been unlucky enough to run into Lina Heydrich, anyone she passed was required to greet her in perfect German—or take a beating from the SS man tailing her for the purpose. I hadn't heard anything about what it was like to cross your path, though.

Even though you probably can't, I want you to try and remember that day.
What was going through your mind as you rode through the village?How were you feeling? Happy...? Sad...? Prideful...?

Understand that it doesn't matter to me how you felt. I don't give a damn. I only ask because I want to know what sort of mental state the man who destroyed my life was in the day we first laid eyes on each other.

All around us, the people on the street were freezing in their tracks. The wheel of time seemed to grind to a standstill as you guided your horse expertly up the street, a placid, indifferent expression on your face. As you passed the group of people standing on the street further ahead of us, your lips moved briefly, and they bowed their heads in subservience. I strained my ears to hear what you were saying, although I couldn't make it out from where I stood.

My friends and I all lowered our gazes as you passed us, your horse's hooves clip-clopping on the road in a staccato rhythm.

You suddenly reined in the animal and spoke to us. It was then that I heard your voice for the first time—a voice that would haunt my dreams years after its owner vanished from the world. It was high pitched and not at all masculine, and I could think of quite a few things to say about it. I could tell by the conspiratorial glint in my friends' eyes that they were thinking the same thing. However, we all knew to save our mockeries for the safety and privacy of our houses. The slightest display of contempt, we knew, would result in disastrous consequences for all of us.

When you came to Czechoslovakia, you didn't come alone. With you came the Gestapo, the fearsome, omnipresent Nazi secret police. With you came omnipotence, repression, terror, and death. That was well known not just in Panenske Brezany but throughout the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. You had established quite a reputation for yourself with all the executions and mass deportations you ordered upon your arrival in Prague.

"Dopriden," you said.

The greeting was so garbled I would have burst into laughter if it hadn't been Der Henker von Prague that I was standing before. I was sure you had purposely mispronounced 'Dobry den' just to have a laugh at the Czech language—after all, it was what your soldiers did when they entered Prague for the first time and hung up grammatically incorrect notices in Czech stating that the Republic was now under the control of the German Third Reich.
I doubted that someone like you would bother to assimilate with people you considered dirty peasants out of respect for their culture or their language. It was probably just a way to humanize yourself in the eyes of the people whose city you had overrun, so that they wouldn't look at you and see you for the slithering, slimy snake of a bastard you were.

Looking back, that sounds exactly like you, Reinhard. It was your habit, even among your peers, to lull people into a false sense of security in your presence.
We bowed our heads respectfully, expecting you to snap the reins and move along, but you didn't. Instead, your escort--a heavily built, machine gun toting SS man--whipped out a pad of paper and a pen. He clicked it open and pointed the ballpoint tip at me like a fencing sabre.
"You. What is your name?"
My heart began to race. I raised my head to look him square in the eyes—this was a soldier; I had no reason to be afraid of him. I didn't dare, however, meet your gaze, which was now fixated on me with a sort of perverse interest.
"Sophie Gabcikova," I said, trying to stop my voice from shaking.
"Where do you live?"
I heard Libena make a dismayed sound from beside me. Although the blood was roaring in my ears and my heart was pounding deafeningly in my chest, I somehow heard myself reciting my full address, which the soldier jotted down. I could feel your eyes on me, looking me up and down, and fought the urge to shudder.
Then you snapped the reins and your horse veered away from the side of the road and cantered away, the SS man sticking to your heels like your shadow. Libena, Maria, and I turned as one and stared at your receding back. All around us, people dispersed like scattered insects, looking over their shoulders at us and whispering to each other.

"Why did he do that?" Maria asked when she finally found her voice. "Sophie, what did you do?"

"I didn't do anything!" Tears of fear pricked the corners of my eyes.

Libena grabbed my arm in one hand and Maria's in the other and steered us down the sidewalk. "Of course you didn't," she said briskly. "He probably just hasn't seen you before and needed to take note of it."

It was a halfhearted explanation for a peculiar occurrence, but I took it. We continued on our way in palpable silence.

You were so smart, Reinhard, so shrewd. You allowed me to think nothing of what happened after a while, because that was just your style. You liked to strike when your victims least expected it. I'll give you credit for it--you caught me totally off guard.

My friends and I reached the tailor's shop rather shaken, picked up our dresses, our excitement over which had waned considerably, and took a different route to my house, purposely avoiding the street we ran into you on for fear of encountering you or your sidekick again.
But we never did. You were gone...for now.

Nothing happened the next day. Or the next, or the day after that, either. Life went on normally, to such an extent that I completely forgot all about the day the Deputy Reichsprotektor had my name and address written down for his reference. The villagers who had been on the street with us that day immediately informed my mother--everyone knew everyone in Panenske Brezany. She was beside herself with worry, but what could she have done? No one in the whole Czech Republic could prevent you from doing or getting what you wanted, and you knew it. Perhaps that's why you did what you did to me—because you could.
I on the other hand didn't think I would ever see you again. I avoided the street on which my friends and I encountered you for good measure, but aside from that, I continued to lead my life the same way I had before.
What I didn't know was that I would see you again soon, very soon...and that second meeting would be the start of your systematic destruction of me.

Der Henker von Prague: German for "The Hangman of Prague"
Dobry Den: "Good day" in Czech