Assassination attempt on Hawthorne Abendsen
The assassination attempt on Hawthorne Abendsen is the novel's most direct confrontation between the Nazi Reich's will to power and the fragile, defiant act of writing. Abendsen, the author of the banned alternate-history novel The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in the Rocky Mountain States, a region nominally outside direct German control but still vulnerable to the long arm of the Reich's security apparatus. The attempt is not a spontaneous act of violence but a carefully planned operation, reflecting the regime's fear of the book's subversive power. The plot is set in motion by the SD, the Sicherheitsdienst, which has compiled a file on Abendsen, noting his attraction to a certain type of dark, libidinous girl—a weakness they intend to exploit. The chosen instrument is Joe Cinnadella, a Swiss national who has infiltrated the United States posing as an Italian truck driver, complete with a fabricated war record and a tattoo marking his supposed service at the Battle of Cairo. His mission is to gain entry to Abendsen's home, using Juliana Frink as bait, and to kill the author. The plan, however, unravels in a Denver hotel room, where Juliana, having deduced Cinnadella's true identity, slashes his throat with a razor blade, an act that saves Abendsen's life and sets the stage for her journey to Cheyenne to warn him. The event is a turning point in the novel, not only for its dramatic violence but for the way it forces a reckoning with the nature of truth, the power of fiction, and the possibility of resistance in a world dominated by tyranny.
The Conspirators and Their Motives
The assassination plot is hatched within the highest echelons of the Nazi security apparatus, reflecting the regime's paranoid obsession with controlling dissent. The SD, under the leadership of figures like Bruno Kreuz vom Meere, the local chief in the Pacific States, operates with a ruthless efficiency that belies its bureaucratic facade. The decision to target Abendsen stems from the book's dangerous popularity, which has spread even into the Reich's own territories, where it is banned. The novel's premise—that the Axis powers lost the war—is not merely a harmless fantasy but a direct challenge to the ideological foundations of the Nazi state. As Freiherr Hugo Reiss, the German Consul in San Francisco, reflects while reading the book, it is "dangerous" and should be suppressed, even suggesting that Abendsen should be "found dangling from the ceiling" as a warning to others. The SD's file on Abendsen reveals a man who is both a target and a symbol: a former U.S. Marine sergeant, wounded in England by a Nazi Tiger tank, who has retreated to a fortified "High Castle" in the mountains, surrounded by barbed wire and weapons. The file notes his vulnerability to a certain type of woman, a detail that the SD believes will be his undoing. The choice of Cinnadella as the assassin is deliberate: he is a seasoned operative, a veteran of the Brandenburgers, a Wehrmacht commando unit that infiltrated British headquarters, and he has the skills and the ruthlessness to carry out the mission. His cover as an Italian truck driver is carefully constructed, complete with a backstory of having fought in North Africa, a story that he tells with conviction, even to Juliana, whom he meets in a diner in Canon City, Colorado. The plot is thus a product of the Reich's totalitarian logic, which sees the elimination of a single dissenting voice as a matter of state security.
Juliana Frink's Unwitting Involvement
Juliana Frink, a judo instructor living in Canon City, Colorado, becomes entangled in the assassination plot through a chance encounter with Joe Cinnadella. She meets him at Tasty Charley's Broiled Hamburgers, where he is a truck driver passing through town. Their meeting is charged with tension: Cinnadella is brooding and intense, and Juliana is drawn to him despite her unease. He spends the night at her apartment, and the next morning, she discovers his Iron Cross Second Class medal, engraved with the date June 10, 1945, and the word "Cairo," confirming his service in the Axis forces. Over breakfast, he reads from a copy of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, and his reaction to the book is revealing: he is angered by its depiction of Italy betraying the Axis, and he dismisses the novel as a fantasy. Juliana, who has heard of the book but never read it, is intrigued. Cinnadella proposes a trip to Denver, a shopping spree, and then a visit to Abendsen's home in Cheyenne, ostensibly to meet the author. Juliana, eager for adventure and a break from her monotonous life, agrees. As they travel, Cinnadella's behavior becomes increasingly erratic. He dyes his hair blond, buys expensive clothes, and insists on driving to Cheyenne that very night, despite Juliana's protests. In the hotel room in Denver, the tension comes to a head. Cinnadella reveals his true nature, not through a confession but through his actions: he produces a fountain pen that is actually a two-watt transmitter and receiver, used to maintain radio contact with his handlers. Juliana, realizing the truth, confronts him: "You must be an SD man," she says, "Posing as a wop truck driver. You never fought in North Africa, did you? You're supposed to come up here to kill Abendsen; isn't that so?" Cinnadella does not deny it. He explains that he is Swiss, not Italian, and that he fought with the Brandenburgers, not Pardi's artillery battery. He tells her that the SD has a file on Abendsen, noting his attraction to a certain type of dark, libidinous girl, and that she is meant to be the bait. The revelation is a shock, but Juliana is not entirely surprised; she has sensed something wrong from the beginning. In a moment of desperate clarity, she takes a razor blade from the hotel's courtesy pack and slashes his throat. The act is both self-defense and a deliberate choice to stop the assassination. As she later tells Abendsen, "I cut his throat." The killing is not without consequence: Juliana is traumatized, and she flees the hotel, leaving Cinnadella to bleed to death on the floor. The newspaper report the next day describes the incident as a "fatal slashing" resulting from a "marital quarrel," with the police seeking a woman named Mrs. Cinnadella, but they have no idea of her true identity.
The Journey to Cheyenne and the Warning
After killing Cinnadella, Juliana drives through the night toward Cheyenne, driven by a compulsion she does not fully understand. She consults the I Ching, the oracle that has guided her life, and receives a hexagram that she interprets as a command to go to Abendsen and warn him. The oracle's message is clear: "One must resolutely make the matter known at the court of the king. It must be announced truthfully. Danger." She reads the lines and understands that the killer, or someone like him, will get to Abendsen if she does not act. She stops in Greeley, Wyoming, and calls the Abendsen residence, speaking to Caroline Abendsen, who is initially wary but agrees to let her visit the next day. Juliana arrives in Cheyenne the following afternoon, checks into a motel, and finishes reading The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. She is struck by the book's deeper meaning, which she believes only she truly understands: it is not just an alternate history but a revelation about the nature of reality. That evening, she dresses in the blue Italian dress she bought in Denver, pins it with a small silver horse-shaped pin, and takes a taxi to the Abendsen house. The house is not the fortified High Castle of legend but an ordinary stucco home with a tricycle in the driveway, a fact that surprises her. She is greeted by Caroline and then by Hawthorne Abendsen himself, a tall, dark-haired man with glasses, who is hosting a small party. Juliana wastes no time in delivering her warning: "They're going to show up here eventually," she says. "You should go some place they can't find you, instead of holding open house here like this, letting anyone walk in, the way I did. The next one who rides up here—there won't be anyone like me to put a stop to him." Abendsen, who has been fatalistic about his own safety, listens with a mixture of weariness and gratitude. When Juliana tells him she killed the man who was sent to assassinate him, he believes her without hesitation. The warning is not just about the physical threat but about the deeper truth that Juliana has uncovered: the oracle wrote the book, and the book is true. This revelation, which she shares with Abendsen and his wife, is the climax of her journey and the novel's central philosophical moment.
The Aftermath and the Revelation of Truth
The assassination attempt, though foiled, has profound consequences for all involved. For Juliana, the act of killing Cinnadella is a traumatic but liberating experience. She has faced the darkness within herself and emerged with a new understanding of the world. Her visit to Abendsen's home becomes a moment of revelation, not just for her but for the author himself. When she asks him directly whether he used the oracle to write the book, he initially deflects, but his wife, Caroline, reveals the truth: "One by one Hawth made the choices. Thousands of them. By means of the lines. Historic period. Subject. Characters. Plot. It took years." The oracle, the I Ching, was not merely an inspiration but the very instrument of creation. Juliana, who has used the oracle herself, understands the implications. She asks the oracle why it wrote the book, and the answer is the hexagram Inner Truth, which she interprets as meaning that the book is true: Germany and Japan lost the war. Abendsen, confronted with this, is shaken. He cannot fully accept the truth, but he acknowledges it. "Even you don't face it," Juliana says. The revelation is a kind of anagnorisis, a recognition that the fictional world of the book is more real than the world in which they live. For Abendsen, the truth is too terrible to bear, and he retreats into irony and deflection. For Juliana, it is a source of peace. She leaves the house, feeling that she has done what she was meant to do. The event also has broader implications for the novel's world. The failed assassination is a sign that the Reich's power is not absolute, that there are cracks in the edifice of tyranny. The fact that a single woman, armed with a razor blade and the wisdom of an ancient Chinese oracle, could thwart the plans of the SD is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. The novel ends with Juliana walking away from the Abendsen house, uncertain of her future but at peace with her past. The assassination attempt, which began as a plot to silence a dissenting voice, instead becomes the catalyst for a deeper truth to emerge, a truth that challenges the very foundations of the Nazi world order.
