Robert Harris - An Officer and a Spy

My dear Lucie,

At last I am able to write you a word. I have just been informed that my trial takes place on the 19th of this month. I am not allowed to see you.

I will not describe to you all that I have suffered; there are no terms in the world strong enough in which to do so.

Do you remember when I used to say to you how happy we were? All life smiled upon us. Then suddenly came a terrible thunderclap, from which my brain is still reeling. I, accused of the most monstrous crime that a soldier could commit! Even now I think I am the victim of a terrible nightmare. .

I turn the page and scan the lines rapidly to the end: I embrace you a thousand times, for I love you, I adore you. A thousand kisses to the children. I dare not speak more to you of them. Alfred .

The next letter, again a copy, is written from his cell a fortnight later, the day after his conviction: My bitterness is so great, my heart so envenomed, that I should already have rid myself of this sad life if the thought of you had not stayed me, if the fear of increasing your grief still more had not withheld my hand .

And then a copy of the reply from Lucie on Christmas Day: Live for me, I entreat you my dear friend; gather up your strength, and strive — we will strive together until the guilty man is found. What will become of me without you? I shall have nothing to link me with the world. .

I feel grubby reading all this. It is like hearing a couple making love in the next-door room. But at the same time I cannot stop myself reading on. I leaf through the file until I come to Dreyfus’s description of the degradation ceremony. When he writes of the glances of scorn cast upon me by his former comrades, I wonder if he has me in mind: It is easy to understand their feelings; in their place, I could not have restrained my contempt for an officer who, I was assured, was a traitor. But alas! that is the pity of it; there is a traitor, but I am not the man. .

I stop and light another cigarette. Do I believe these protestations of innocence? Not for an instant. I have never met a scoundrel in my life who hasn’t insisted, with exactly this degree of sincerity, that he is the victim of a miscarriage of justice. It seems to be a necessary part of the criminal mentality: to survive captivity, one must somehow convince oneself one is not guilty. Madame Dreyfus, on the other hand, I do feel sorry for. It is obvious she trusts in him entirely — no, more than that, she venerates him, as if he is some kind of holy martyr: The dignity of your demeanour made a deep impression upon many hearts; and when the hour of rehabilitation comes, as it will come, the remembrance of the sufferings that you endured on that terrible day will be graven in the memory of mankind. .

With some reluctance I have to break off here. I lock the file inside the escritoire, shave, change into a clean dress uniform, and set off to the home of my friends the comte and comtesse de Comminges.

I have known Aimery de Comminges, baron de Saint-Lary, since we were stationed in Tonkin together more than a decade ago. I was a young junior staff officer; he an even younger and more junior lieutenant. For two years we fought the Vietnamese in the Red River delta and knocked around Saigon and Hanoi, and when we returned to France our friendship prospered. He introduced me to his parents and to his younger sisters, Daisy, Blanche and Isabelle. All three women were musical, single, high-spirited, and gradually a salon arose, consisting of them and their friends and those army comrades of Aimery’s who took — or, for the sake of meeting the sisters, pretended to take — an interest in music.

Six years on the salon persists, and it is to one of these musical soirées that I am bidden tonight. As usual, for purposes of fitness as much as economy, I walk to the party rather than take a cab — and walk briskly at that, for I am in danger of being late. The de Comminges’ family hôtel stands, ancient and massive, on the boulevard Saint-Germain. I can tell it from a distance by the carriages and cabs drawn up to drop off guests. Inside I am greeted with a friendly salute and a warm double handshake by Aimery, now a captain on the staff of the Minister of War, and then I kiss his wife, Mathilde, whose family, the Waldner von Freundsteins, is one of the oldest in Alsace. Mathilde is the mistress of this house now, and has been for a year, ever since the old comte died.

‘Go on up,’ she whispers, her hand on my arm. ‘We’ll be starting in a few minutes.’ Her method of playing the charming hostess — and it is not a bad one — is to make even the most commonplace remark sound like an intimate secret. ‘And you’ll stay to dinner, won’t you, my dear Georges?’

‘I would love to, thank you.’ In truth, I had been hoping to get away early, but I submit without demur. Bachelors of forty are society’s stray cats. We are taken in by households and fed and made a fuss of; in return we are expected to provide amusement, submit with good grace to occasionally intrusive affection (‘So when are you going to get married, eh, Georges?’), and always agree to make up the numbers at dinner, however short the notice.

As I move on into the house, Aimery shouts after me, ‘Blanche is looking for you!’ and almost at the same moment I see his sister dodging through the crowded hall towards me. Her gown, with matching headdress, contains a great number of feathers dyed dark green, crimson and gold.

‘Blanche,’ I say, as she kisses me, ‘you look like a particularly succulent pheasant.’

‘Now I hope you are going to be a Good God this evening,’ she replies chirpily, ‘and not a Horrid God, because I have prepared a nice surprise for you,’ and she takes my arm and leads me towards the garden, in the opposite direction to everyone else.

I offer token resistance. ‘I think Mathilde wants us all to go upstairs. .’

‘Don’t be silly! It’s barely seven!’ She lowers her voice. ‘Is this a German thing, do you suppose?’

She marches me towards the glass doors that open on to the tiny strip of garden, separated from its neighbours by a high wall strung with unlit Chinese lanterns. Waiters are collecting discarded glasses of orangeade and liqueurs. The drinkers have all left to go upstairs. Only one woman stands alone, with her back to me, and when she turns I see it is Pauline. She smiles.

‘There,’ says Blanche, with a strange edge to her voice, ‘you see? A surprise.’

It is always Blanche who arranges the concerts. Tonight she presents her latest discovery, a young Catalan prodigy, Monsieur Casals, only eighteen, whom she found playing second cello in the theatre orchestra of the Folies-Marigny. He begins with the Saint-Saëns cello sonata, and from the opening chords it is clear he is a marvel. Normally I would sit rapt, but tonight my attention wanders. I glance around the audience, arranged against the walls of the grand salon, facing the players in the centre. Out of sixty or so spectators, I count a dozen uniforms, mostly cavalrymen like Aimery, half of whom I know for a fact are attached to the General Staff. And after a while it seems to me that I am attracting some sidelong looks myself: the youngest colonel in the army, unmarried, sitting beside the attractive wife of a senior official of the Foreign Ministry, and no sign anywhere of her husband. For a colonel in a position such as mine, to be caught in an adulterous affair would be a scandal that could ruin a career. I try to put it out of my mind and concentrate on the music, but I am uneasy.

In the interval Pauline and I return to the garden, Blanche walking between us, clasping each of us by the arm. A couple of officers, old friends of mine, come over to congratulate me on my promotion, and I introduce them to Pauline. ‘This is Major Albert Curé — we were in Tonkin together with Aimery. This is Madame Monnier. And this is Captain William Lallemand de Marais-’