An Officer and a Spy

I inspect my mail: a letter from my sister and another from my cousin Edmond; both have been opened by the Statistical Section and then resealed with telltale over-firmness using glue. Like my fellow exile Dreyfus, I suffer the intrusion of having my correspondence monitored — although not, as in his case, actually censored. There are a couple of agents’ reports of the type that continue to be forwarded to me as part of the fiction that I am only temporarily seconded from my job; these too have been opened. And then there is a letter from Henry: his schoolroom handwriting is familiar — we have exchanged messages often since I left Paris more than half a year ago.

Until recently the tone of our correspondence has been friendly (Here, the sky is blue and the heat is sometimes too much in the afternoons; it is certainly nothing like Paris). But then in May I was ordered by the High Command in Tunis to take the regiment to Sidi El Hani for three weeks and instruct them in target practice. This entailed a day’s march south-west to pitch camp in the desert. The native troops were difficult to teach, and the heat and the boredom of the featureless stony landscape stretching in every direction, and above all the constant presence of Savignaud, combined to wring from me at last a cry of protest: My dear Henry, Let it be publicly admitted once and for all that I have been relieved of my duties. I have no reason to be embarrassed by that fact; what embarrasses me are all the lies and mysteries that have been spread about me in the course of the last six months.

I assume Savignaud has brought me Henry’s reply. I open it quite casually, expecting the usual soothing reassurances that I shall be returning to Paris very soon. Instead, the tone could not be colder. He has the honour to inform me that ‘an inquiry’ within the Statistical Section has concluded that the only ‘mysteries’ I can be referring to in my letter are the three I perpetrated, to wit: (1) running an illicit operation ‘unconnected to the service’; (2) suborning false testimony from serving officers ‘that a classified document had been seized at the post office and came from a known individual’; and (3) ‘the opening of a secret dossier and examination of its contents, leading to certain indiscretions taking place’. Henry ends with sarcasm: As for the word ‘lies’, the investigation was unable to determine where, how and to whom this word should be applied. Yours respectfully, J. Henry.

And this man is supposed to be my subordinate! The letter is dated a week ago, Monday 31 May. I check the envelope for the postmark: Thursday 3 June. I guess at once what will have happened: Henry will have written this letter and then sent it over the road to Gonse for his approval before dispatching it. So his clumsy threat almost certainly carries behind it the force of the General Staff. I feel a momentary chill on my skin, despite the African heat. I read the letter again. But then my anxiety slowly vanishes and in its place a tremendous feeling of anger begins to build within me (Yours respectfully?), reaching such a level of intensity that it is all I can do not to cry out loud and kick the furniture. I stuff my mail into my trouser pocket, jam my cap back on my head, and stride towards the door with such fury that I am aware of a sudden silence and of heads turning to follow my progress.

I clump across the wooden veranda, almost knocking aside two majors who are smoking cigars, down the club steps, past the flaccid tricolour, across the wide boulevard and into the Marine Garden where every Sunday afternoon the regimental band play familiar melodies to the French expatriate community in a tuneless parody of home. Here I pause to gather myself. The two majors are staring after me from the veranda in open bewilderment. I turn and walk on through the little park towards the sea, past the bandstand and the broken fountain, and along the harbour front.