Robert Harris - An Officer and a Spy

I stare from one general to the next. So this is what the army of France has sunk to. Either they are the greatest fools in Europe or the greatest villains: for the sake of my country I am not sure which is worse. But some instinct for self-preservation warns me not to fight them now; I must play dead.

I bow my head slightly. ‘If you are satisfied that it is authentic, then naturally I accept that it must be.’

Billot says, ‘Therefore you also must accept that Dreyfus is guilty?’

‘If the document is authentic, then yes — he must be.’

There. It is done. I do not know what else I could have said at that moment that would have made any difference to Dreyfus’s plight.

Billot says, ‘In view of your previous record, Colonel, we are willing to suspend taking legal action against you, at least for the time being. We do, however, expect you to turn over all documents connected with the investigation of Major Esterhazy, including the petit bleu , to Major Henry. And you will proceed immediately to the depot at Châlons to begin your tour of inspection with the 6th and 7th Corps.’

Gonse is smiling again. ‘I’ll take all your office keys now, my dear Picquart, if I may. There’s no need for you to return to the section. Major Henry can take over the day-to-day running. You go straight home and pack.’

I fill a suitcase with enough clothes for three or four days. I ask the concierge to forward my mail to the Ministry of War. Then I just have sufficient time before my train leaves at seven to call on a few people to say goodbye.

Pauline is in the family’s apartment on the rue de la Pompe, supervising tea for the girls. She looks alarmed to see me. ‘Philippe will be back from the office any minute,’ she whispers, half closing the door behind her.

‘Don’t worry, I’m not coming in.’ I stand on the landing with my suitcase beside me and tell her that I’m going away.

‘For how long?’

‘It should only be for a week or so, but if it turns out to be longer and you need to make contact, write to me care of the ministry — only be careful what you say.’

‘Why? Is something the matter?’

‘No, but precautions are always wise.’ I kiss her hand and press it to my cheek.

‘Maman!’ shrills a voice behind her.

‘You’d better go,’ I say.

I take a cab to the boulevard Saint-Germain and ask the driver to wait. By now it is dark and the lights of the great house are bright in the November gloom; there is an atmosphere of activity: Blanche will be holding one of her musical soirées later in the evening. ‘Stranger!’ she greets me. ‘You’re far too early.’

‘I won’t come in,’ I say. ‘I’m afraid I have to leave Paris for a few days.’ I repeat the instructions I’ve just given Pauline: if she needs to get in touch she should do so via the ministry, but she should try to be discreet. ‘Give my love to Aimery and Mathilde.’

‘Oh, Georges!’ she cries in delight, pinching my cheek and kissing the tip of my nose. ‘You are a mystery!’

When I climb back into my cab, I see her in the downstairs window, showing the musicians where to set up. I retain one final impression of chandeliers and a profusion of indoor plants, of Louis XIV chairs covered in rose-pale silk and of light gleaming on the polished spruce and maple of the instruments. Blanche is smiling at one of the violinists, pointing out where he should sit. The cabman flicks his whip and this vision of civilisation jerks out of sight.

My final call is on Louis Leblois. Again the driver waits; again I do not go in but stay on the landing to say my goodbyes. He has only just returned from court. He sees my anguish immediately.

‘I suppose you can’t talk about it?’

‘I fear not.’

‘I’m here if you need me.’

As I get back into the cab, I glance along the rue de l’Université to the offices of the Statistical Section. The building is a patch of gloom even in the darkness. I notice that a taxi has parked about twenty paces behind us with the yellow light of the Poissonnière-Montmartre depot. It pulls away as we do, and when we arrive at the gare de l’Est, it stops a discreet distance away. I guess I must have been followed ever since I left my apartment. They aren’t taking any chances.

On a Morris column outside the station, amid the adverts and the multicoloured playbills of the Opéra-Comique and the Comédie-Française, is a poster showing the facsimile of the bordereau from Le Matin beside a sample of Dreyfus’s writing: placed together the two look very different. Mathieu has already paid for these posters to be plastered all over Paris. That was quick work! ‘Where Is the Proof?’ demands the headline. A reward is offered for anyone who recognises the original.

He is not going to give up , I think, not until his brother is either free or dead . As I stow my suitcase in the overhead rack and settle into my seat on the crowded eastbound train, that thought, at least, gives me some hope.

The Sousse Military Club looks out from behind a screen of dusty palms across an unpaved square, past a modern customs shed to the sea. The glint from the Gulf of Hammamet is particularly fierce this afternoon, like sunlight on tin: I have to shield my eyes. A boy in long brown robes passes, leading a goat on a length of rope. The glare melts both figures into tarry black silhouettes.

Inside its heavy brick walls, the Military Club’s decor makes no concession to north Africa. The wooden panelling, stuffed armchairs and tasselled standard lamps are of the type that might be seen in any garrison town in France. As is my custom after lunch, I am seated alone beside the window while my brother officers of the 4th Tunisian Rifles play cards or doze or read the four-day-old French newspapers. Nobody approaches me. Although they are always careful to treat me with the deference owed to my rank, they keep their distance — and who can blame them? After all, there must be something wrong with me — some unspeakable disgrace must have ruined my career: otherwise why would the youngest colonel in the army have been transferred to a dump like this? Against the sky-blue tunic of my new regiment, the scarlet ribbon of my Legion of Honour draws their fascinated eyes like a bullet wound.

As usual, at about three o’clock, through the high glass-panelled door comes a young orderly carrying the afternoon’s post. He is a pretty boy in a rough street-urchin sort of way, a musician in the regimental band who goes by the name of Flavian-Uband Savignaud. He arrived in Sousse a few days after I did: dispatched, I am fairly sure, by the Statistical Section, with orders from Henry or Gonse to spy on me. It is not the spying I resent as much as the incompetence with which he goes about it. ‘Look,’ I want to tell him, ‘if you’re going to search my belongings, make sure you put them back as you found them: try to make a mental picture in your mind before you start. And if your job is to ensure my mail is intercepted, at least go through the pretence of putting it in the box normally rather than handing it direct to the post office official — I have followed you twice now and observed your sloppiness on both occasions.’

He stops beside my chair and salutes. ‘Your mail, Colonel. Do you have anything to send?’

‘Thank you. Not yet.’

‘Is there anything else at all I can do for you, Colonel?’ The remark carries a hint of suggestion.

‘No. You may go.’

He sways slightly at the waist as he walks away. One of the younger captains puts down his paper to watch him pass. This is something else I resent: not the fact that Henry and Gonse think I might be tempted to go to bed with a man, but that I’d be tempted to go to bed with a man like Savignaud.