An Officer And A Spy Part 29

A faint sound comes from the other room-a creak, a breath, a groan. Slowly I draw my revolver. I take a couple of steps across the bare boards and cautiously push open the door. Curled up on the bed, looking up at me through eyes bruised and swollen by crying, still wearing her coat, her hair dishevelled, her face white, as if she has fainted or suffered an accident, is Pauline.

"They told Philippe," she says.

She has been here all night. She read in the papers that I'd been brought back to Paris so she came round at midnight a.s.suming I'd be here. She stayed, waiting. She didn't know where else to go.

I kneel beside the bed, holding her hand. "What exactly has happened?"

"Philippe has thrown me out. He won't let me see the girls."

I squeeze her fingers, momentarily speechless. "Have you slept?"

"No."

"At least take off your coat, my darling."

I stand and pick my way through the damage in the drawing room. In the kitchen I heat a saucepan on the gas ring and make her a drink of cognac, hot water and honey, all the while struggling to comprehend what is happening. Their methods stagger me-the ruthlessness, the speed. When I take the gla.s.s through to her, she has undressed to her s.h.i.+ft and got into bed and is lying half raised on the pillows with the sheet drawn tight around her neck. She looks at me warily.

"Here. Drink this."

"G.o.d, it's disgusting. What is it?"

"Cognac. The army cure for everything. Drink it."

I sit at the bottom of the bed and smoke a cigarette and wait until she is suffiently revived to start telling me what happened. On Friday afternoon she went out to tea with a friend: everything normal. When she returned home, Philippe was back from the office early. There was no sign of the girls. "He looked strange, mad ... At that moment I guessed what had happened. I was almost sick with worry." She asked him calmly where they were. He said he had sent them away. "He said that I was not morally fit to be the mother of his children-that he wouldn't tell me where they were, not unless I told him the truth about my affair with you. I had no choice. I'm sorry."

"Are they safe?"

She nods, cupping the gla.s.s between her hands for warmth. "They're with his sister. But he won't let me see them." She starts to cry. "He says he won't let me have custody of them after the divorce."

"Well, that's nonsense. Don't worry. He can't do that. He'll calm down. He's just shocked and angry to have found out you've been having an affair."

"Oh, he knew about that," she says bitterly. "He's always suspected. He said he could tolerate it so long as no one else knew. It was being called in and told about it by his superiors-that's what he can't abide."

"And who told the Foreign Ministry, did he say?"

"The army."

"Unbelievable!"

"He said the army are convinced I'm this 'veiled lady' the papers keep talking about. He said it will destroy his career to be married to a woman mixed up in it all. He says the girls ..." She starts to cry again.

"My G.o.d, what a mess!" I put my head in my hands. "I am so very sorry to have dragged you into this."

For a while neither of us says anything, and then, as ever, when faced with emotional turmoil, I try to take refuge in practicalities. "The first thing we need to do is find you a decent lawyer. I'm sure Louis will take it on, or at least he'll know someone good who can. You'll need a lawyer to deal with the army on your behalf, and to try to keep your name out of the papers. And to handle the divorce-Philippe will divorce you, you're sure of that?"

"Oh yes-if it's a question of his career, I have no doubt."

Even this I try to put in a good light. "Well then at least it will be in his interests to keep it quiet. And perhaps you can use that to negotiate custody of the children ..." My voice trails off. I don't know what else to say, except to repeat: "I am so very sorry ..."

She reaches out her arms to me. And so we cling to each other on my narrow bed, like survivors of a s.h.i.+pwreck, and that is when I vow to myself that I will have revenge.

19.

A few days later, just before midnight, a note is pushed under my door. By the time I step outside to check the landing, whoever has brought it has gone. The message reads: 11, rue de Grenelle-if you are sure.

I hold it to the fire and watch as it catches light, then drop it in the grate. Later I take the poker and crush the cinders to powder. If my maid is an informant, as I strongly suspect, it really would be too rich a joke if she were to take my torn-up litter to the Statistical Section for them to piece it back together. I have tried to convince Louis of the need for these precautions. "Use intermediaries wherever possible," I tell him. "Pay a stranger to deliver your messages. Trust nothing to the postal services. Avoid regular patterns of behaviour. Plant false trails if you can-go and see people whose views might be considered suspect, purely in order to confuse your watchers. Take indirect routes. Switch taxis. Remember their resources are extensive but not inexhaustible: we can run them pretty ragged if we try ..."

When I go to bed, I am careful to keep my gun nearby.

The concierge brings me the morning's newspapers; she leaves them outside the door. I wait until she's gone before I fetch them in, and then I read them in bed, wearing my dressing gown. I have nothing else to do. As usual, the Dreyfus affair is the dominant story. It unfolds each day like a serial, peopled by an exotic cast of characters I scarcely recognise, including me (the forty-three-year-old high-flying bachelor spymaster who has betrayed his former chiefs). Among the latest plot twists are the letters Esterhazy sent to his then mistress, Madame de Boulancy, thirteen years ago, which have ended up in Le Figaro (If this evening I were told that I am to be killed tomorrow like an Uhlan captain while running my sword through the French, I would certainly be perfectly happy. I wouldn't harm a little dog, but I would have a hundred thousand Frenchmen killed with pleasure). Esterhazy has denounced these as Jewish forgeries and demanded, through his lawyer, a full court-martial to clear his name-a request to which the army has agreed. emile Zola has written another of his pa.s.sionate evocations of Dreyfus's plight: a being cut off from everyone else, isolated not only by the ocean but by eleven guards who surround him night and day like a human wall ... Meanwhile, in the Chamber of Deputies there has been a full-scale debate on the affair, opened by the Prime Minister, who took shelter behind the ramparts of res judicata: "Let me be clear at the outset. There is no Dreyfus case! [Applause] There is not and cannot be a Dreyfus case! [Prolonged applause]" And for the avoidance of any doubt on the matter, General Billot, summoned to the tribune from the Ministry of War, has restated the government's position even more strongly: "Dreyfus has been rightly judged and unanimously condemned. On my soul and conscience, as a soldier and the head of the army, I hold that verdict truly delivered and Dreyfus guilty."

I lay aside the papers. Really, it is beyond hypocrisy; it is beyond even lying: it has become a psychosis.

My uniform hangs in my wardrobe, like the sloughed-off skin of some former life. I have not been formally discharged from the army. Technically I am on indefinite leave pending the verdict of Pellieux's inquiry and the minister's response. But I prefer to dress in civilian clothes in order not to draw attention to myself. Just before noon I put on a good stout overcoat and a bowler hat, take my umbrella from the stand and go out into the day.

Outwardly, I hope, I wear my usual mask of detachment, even irony, for there has never been a situation, however dire, even this one, that did not strike me as containing at least some element of the human comedy. But then I think of Pauline, of how when I discovered her on my bed she could only keep repeating the same phrase, over and over: "He won't let me see the girls ..." She has given a deposition to Pellieux and has fled the press and gone to stay with her brother, a naval officer, and her sister-in-law near Toulon. Louis has agreed to handle her legal affairs. He has advised us not to have any contact until the divorce is finalised. We said goodbye in a rainstorm in the Bois de Bolougne, watched by an agent of the Srete. And it is for what they have done to her, more even than what they have done to Dreyfus, that I cannot forgive the General Staff. For the first time in my life I carry hatred inside me. It is an almost physical thing, like a concealed knife. Sometimes, when I am alone, I like to take it out and run my thumb along its cold, sharp blade.

My watcher is there as usual, on the opposite side of the street, leaning against the wooden fence surrounding the building site, smoking a cigarette; no doubt he will have a partner somewhere. This particular fellow I have registered before-scrawny, red-bearded, in a thick brown jacket and flat cap. He has given up even pretending to be anything other than a police agent. He flicks away his cigarette and slouches after me, about twenty paces behind, his hands in his pockets. Like a company commander in a bad mood I decide this sluggard could do with a thorough workout, and I quicken my speed until I am almost running-across the avenue Montaigne and along to the place de la Concorde and over the river to the boulevard Saint-Germain. I glance back. I am sweating despite the December cold, but I am not suffering half as much as my tail is, to judge by the look of him: his face is now as red as his hair.

What I need is a guardian of the peace, and I know exactly where to find one: close to the police commissary of Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin, patrolling on the corner of the boulevard Raspail. "Monsieur!" I call to him, drawing closer. "I am a colonel in the French army and this man is following me. I request that you arrest him and take us both to your commanding officer so that I can lay a formal complaint."

He moves with gratifying alacrity. "You mean this gentleman, Colonel?" He takes the elbow of the breathless agent.

The red-bearded man gasps, "Let ... go of me, you ... idiot!"

Seeing what is happening, the second Srete agent, this one dressed as a travelling salesman with a cardboard briefcase, breaks cover to cross the street and argue on behalf of his partner. He too is perspiring and frustrated and also makes an insulting remark about the general intelligence of uniformed policemen, at which the guardian of the peace loses his temper and within a minute they are both in custody.

Ten minutes later I am able to leave my name and address with the duty sergeant in the commissary and slip away unescorted.

The rue de Grenelle is only just round the corner. Number 11 is an imposing ancient property. I check along the street to make sure I am un.o.bserved and then ring the bell. Almost at once the front door opens and a maid lets me in. Behind her, Louis waits anxiously in the hallway. He glances past my shoulder. "Are you being followed?"

"Not anymore." I give the maid my umbrella and hat. From behind a closed door comes a drone of male voices.

Louis helps me off with my coat. "Are you really sure you want to do this?"

"Where are they? Through there?"

I open the door myself. Six middle-aged men in morning coats standing around a blazing fire cease talking and turn to look at me: I am reminded of a group portrait by Fantin-Latour-Homage to Delacroix, perhaps. Louis says, "Gentlemen, this is Colonel Picquart."

There is a moment of silence and then one of the men-bald-headed and with a heavy drooping moustache, whom I recognise as Georges Clemenceau, the left-wing politician and editor of the radical newspaper L'Aurore-starts a round of clapping in which everyone joins. As Louis ushers me into the room, another man, dapper and attractive, calls out cheerfully, "Bravo Picquart! Vive Picquart!" and I recognise him too, from the surveillance photographs that used to cross my desk, as Mathieu Dreyfus. Indeed, as I go round shaking their hands, I find I know all these men by sight or by reputation: the publisher Georges Charpentier, whose house this is; the heavily bearded senator for the Seine, Arthur Ranc, the oldest man in the room; Joseph Reinach, a left-wing Jewish member of the Chamber of Deputies; and of course the pudgy figure in pince-nez to whom I am introduced last, emile Zola.

-- A fine lunch is served in the dining room, but I spend too much time talking to eat very much. I tell my fellow guests that I need to say my piece and leave; that every minute we spend together increases the chances that our meeting will be discovered. "Monsieur Charpentier may believe his servants are above acting as informants for the Srete, but regrettably experience has taught me otherwise."

"It has certainly taught me," adds Mathieu Dreyfus.

I bow to him. "My apologies for that."

Opposite my place hangs a large portrait of Charpentier's wife and children by Renoir, and from time to time as I recount my story my gaze wanders up to it and I experience that strange feeling of disconnection that can sometimes afflict me when I talk to a group of people. I tell them that they ought to take a look at a certain Colonel Armand du Paty de Clam, who was the officer who first interrogated Dreyfus and whose lurid imagination has shaped so much of the affair. I describe the methods of interrogation he used, which amounted almost to torture. And then there was my predecessor, Colonel Sandherr, a sick man who became convinced, wrongly, that the spy must be on the General Staff. I say that the greatest public misconception is that what was handed over to the Germans was of crucial military importance, whereas really it was the merest trivia. Yet the treatment of Dreyfus-the secret trial, the degradation, the imprisonment on Devil's Island-has been so extreme the world has somehow become convinced that the very existence of France must have been at stake. "People say to one another, 'There has to be more to it than meets the eye,' when the truth is there is less. And the longer this scandal goes on, the more colossal and absurd becomes the discrepancy in size between the original crime and the monumental efforts to cover up the judicial error."

At the far end of the table I see Zola taking notes. I pause for a sip of wine. One of the children in the Renoir is sitting on a large dog. The pattern of the dog's fur echoes the colouring of Madame Charpentier's dress, and thus what seems a natural pose is actually artfully contrived.

I go on. Without revealing cla.s.sified information, I tell them how I discovered the real traitor, Esterhazy, more than twenty months ago, and how Boisdeffre and especially Billot were initially supportive of my inquiry, but then how completely they changed their view when they realised it would mean reopening the Dreyfus case. I recount my exile to Tunisia, the General Staff's attempt to send me on a suicide mission, and the way they are using the forgeries and false testimony presented to General Pellieux's inquiry to frame me just as they framed Dreyfus. "We have arrived at the ludicrous position, gentlemen, of the army being so determined to keep an innocent man imprisoned that they are actively helping the guilty man to evade punishment, and are perfectly willing to put me out of the way too-for good, if necessary."

Zola says, "It's fantastical! The most astonis.h.i.+ng story there has ever been."

Ranc says, "It makes one ashamed to be French."

Clemenceau, who is also taking notes, says, without looking up, "So who are the senior members of the military hierarchy most culpable, Colonel Picquart, in your opinion?"

"Among the senior ranks I would pick out the five generals: Mercier, Boisdeffre, Gonse, Billot and now Pellieux, who is running a cover-up disguised as an inquiry."

Mathieu Dreyfus interjects, "And what do you think will happen to you now, Colonel?"

I light a cigarette. "I would imagine," I say, twirling the match and extinguis.h.i.+ng it with as much nonchalance as I can summon, "that after Esterhazy is formally cleared of all charges, they will discharge me from the army and put me in prison."

There is a muttering of disbelief around the table. Clemenceau says, "But surely even the General Staff wouldn't be that stupid?"

"I fear they've trapped themselves in a position where their logic doesn't leave them much alternative. If Esterhazy is innocent-as they are determined to find him, in order to avoid reopening the Dreyfus case-then it follows that the campaign against him is a wicked conspiracy; and as I am the one ultimately responsible for that campaign, I must be punished."

Reinach says, "So what is it you would like us to do, Colonel?"

"That is not really for me to say. I've told you as much as I can, without disclosing national secrets. I can't write an article or publish a book myself-I'm still subject to army discipline. What I do believe is that somehow this affair must be taken out of the jurisdiction of the military and elevated to a higher plane-the details need to be a.s.sembled into a coherent narrative, so that everything can be seen for the first time in its proper proportions." I nod to the Renoir and then glance at Zola. "Reality must be transformed into a work of art, if you will."

"It already is a work of art, Colonel," he replies. "All that is required is an angle of attack."

-- Before the hour is up, I stub out my cigarette and rise to my feet. "Excuse me, gentlemen, but I should be the first to leave. It would be better if everyone departed at intervals, perhaps of ten minutes? Please don't get up." I turn to Charpentier: "Is there a back way out of the house?"

"Yes," he says, "there's a garden gate. You can get down to it through the kitchen. I'll take you myself."

"I'll fetch your things," says Louis.

I make my way round the dining room shaking the hand of each man in turn. Mathieu covers mine with both of his. "My family and I cannot adequately express our grat.i.tude to you, Colonel."

There is something proprietorial about his warmth which makes me feel awkward, even chilly.

"You have no reason to thank me," I reply. "I was simply obeying my conscience."

The street outside is clear and I take advantage of the fact that I have temporarily shaken off my police tail to walk quickly along the boulevard Saint-Germain to the de Comminges house. I give my card to the footman and am shown into the library while he goes upstairs to announce me. A minute later the door is flung open and Blanche rushes in and flings her arms around me.

"Darling Georges!" she cries. "Do you realise you're now the most famous person I know? We're all in the drawing room having tea. Come along right now-I want to show you off!"

She tries to pull me after her, but I resist. "Is Aimery in?"

"Yes, and he'll be thrilled to see you. Come upstairs. I insist." She tugs at my hand again. "We want to hear everything!"

"Blanche," I say gently, detaching her hand from my arm, "we need to talk in private, and I think perhaps Aimery should join us. Would you mind getting him?"

For the first time she sees that I am serious. She gives a nervous laugh. "Oh, Georges," she says, "this is too ominous!" But she goes and fetches her brother.

Aimery saunters in, as young-looking as ever, wearing a well-cut grey suit and carrying two cups of tea. "h.e.l.lo, Georges. I suppose if you won't come to the samovar, the tea will have to come to you."

And so the three of us sit by the fire, and while Aimery sips his tea and Blanche smokes one of her brightly coloured Turkish cigarettes, I describe how her name has been used on a fake telegram, almost certainly dreamed up by du Paty, sent to me in Tunisia. Her eyes gleam. She seems to think it a great adventure. Aimery, though, scents the danger at once.

"Why would du Paty use Blanche's name?"

"Because she knows Germain Duca.s.se, and Duca.s.se worked for me on an intelligence operation against Esterhazy. And so it looks as though we're all part of this imaginary 'Jewish syndicate' that is working to free Dreyfus."

"It's utterly ridiculous," says Blanche through a mouthful of smoke. "No one will believe it for an instant."

Aimery asks, "Why use Blanche's name? I also know Duca.s.se. Why not use mine?" He sounds genuinely puzzled. He glances at me, and then at his sister. Neither of us can quite bring ourselves to meet his gaze. A few awkward seconds pa.s.s. Aimery is no fool. "Ah," he says quietly, nodding slowly, "I see."

"Oh, for heaven's sake," exclaims Blanche irritably, "you're worse than Father! What does it matter?"

Aimery, who is suddenly very tense and silent, folds his arms and stares hard at the carpet, leaving it to me to explain: "I'm afraid it does matter, Blanche, because you're bound to be questioned about the telegrams, and then it's certain to reach the newspapers, and there will be a scandal."

"Let there be-"

Aimery interrupts her furiously: "Just be quiet, Blanche-for once! It doesn't only concern you. It drags the whole family into the mess! Think of your mother. And don't forget I'm a serving officer!" He turns to me. "We'll need to talk to our lawyers."

"Of course."

"In the meantime, I think it would be better if you didn't come to this house or make any attempt to contact my sister."

Blanche appeals to him: "Aimery ..."

I stand to leave. "I understand."

"I'm sorry, Georges," says Aimery. "That's just the way it has to be."

Christmas and the New Year pa.s.s, the former spent with the Gasts in Ville-d'Avray, the latter with Anna and Jules in the rue Ca.s.sette; Pauline stays in the south. I sell my Erard piano to a dealer for five thousand francs and send her the money.

Esterhazy's court-martial is fixed for Monday, 10 January 1898. I am summoned to appear as a witness; so is Louis. But on the Friday before the hearing, his father finally succ.u.mbs to his long illness and dies in Strasbourg; Louis is excused to go home to his family.

"I don't know what I should do," he says.

"My dear friend," I reply, "there is no doubt about it. Go and be with your family."

"But the trial ... You'll be alone ..."

"Frankly, it will make no difference to the outcome whether you are there or not. Go."