An Officer and a Spy

‘Armand,’ I say, ‘I cannot tell you how pleased I am to see you,’ and I hold out my hand, but instead of offering me his, he merely gestures me towards the door.

‘There’s a motor car waiting,’ he says. ‘We need to leave before they run round to the front of the station.’

Drawn up outside is a big modern vehicle in the livery of the Compagnie Paris-Lyon Méditerranée. I am squeezed on to the back seat between Périer and Mercier-Milon. The luggage is stowed and the car pulls away just as the reporters come pouring out of the station towards us. Mercier-Milon says, ‘I have a letter here for you from the Chief of Staff.’

It is awkward to open the envelope in the cramped space. Colonel Picquart, I order you very strictly not to communicate with anyone until you have given your evidence to General de Pellieux’s inquiry. Boisdeffre.

We pass quickly and in silence through the darkened, rainy streets. There is no traffic at this hour; hardly anyone is about. We head west along the boulevard Saint-Martin and I wonder if they might be taking me back to my apartment, but then suddenly we turn off north and pull up on the rue Saint-Lazare outside the giant hôtel Terminus. A porter opens the door. Périer gets out first. He says, ‘I’ll go in and register us.’

‘Am I staying here?’

‘For now.’

He disappears inside. I haul myself out of the car and contemplate the vast facade. It occupies an entire city block — five hundred bedrooms: a temple of modernity. Its electric lights glisten in the rain. Mercier-Milon joins me. Out of earshot of anyone else for the first time he says, ‘You are a bloody fool, Georges. What can you have been thinking of?’ He speaks quietly but with force and I can tell he’s been bursting to say this since we left the railway station. ‘I mean, I feel sorry for Dreyfus myself — I was one of the few prepared to defend him at that charade of a court martial. But you? Passing secret information to an outsider, so that he can use it against your own commanders? That’s a crime in my book. I doubt you’ll find a soldier in the whole of France who’ll defend what you’ve done.’

His vehemence both shakes and angers me. I say coldly, ‘What happens next?’

‘You go to your room and change into your uniform. You speak to no one. You write to no one. You open no letters. I’ll wait in the lobby. At nine I’ll come and fetch you and escort you to the place Vendôme.’

Périer appears in the doorway. ‘Colonel Picquart? Our room is ready.’

‘Our room? You mean we are to share one?’

‘I am afraid so.’

I try to make light of this humiliating arrangement — ‘Your devotion to your duties really is exemplary, Monsieur Périer’ — but that is when I realise that of course he is not an official of the Colonial Ministry at all; he is a secret policeman of the Sûreté.

The only time he lets me out of his sight is when I take a bath. Lying in the tub I listen to him moving around in the bedroom. Someone knocks on the outer door and he lets them in. I hear low male voices and I think how vulnerable I would be if two men were to enter quickly and grab my ankles. A simple case of drowning in the bath: it would be over in minutes with barely a mark to show.

Périer — if that is his name — calls through the door, ‘Your breakfast is here, Colonel.’

I step out of the bath, dry myself and put on the sky-blue tunic and the red trousers with grey stripe that make up the uniform of the 4th Tunisian Rifles. In the mirror it seems to me that I cut an incongruous figure — the colours of north Africa in the winter of northern Europe. They have even dressed me up to look a motley fool. I doubt you’ll find a soldier in the whole of France who’ll defend what you’ve done. Well then. So be it.

I drink black coffee. I eat tartine. I translate another page of Dostoyevsky. What makes a hero? Courage, strength, morality, withstanding adversity? Are these the traits that truly show and create a hero? At nine, Mercier-Milon comes to collect me and we ride down in the lift to the lobby without exchanging a word. Outside on the pavement the pack of journalists surges towards us. ‘Damn it,’ says Mercier-Milon, ‘they must have followed us from the station.’

‘If only our soldiers were as resourceful.’

‘This isn’t funny, Georges.’

The same chorus of questions: ‘Dreyfus. .? Esterhazy. .? Search. .? Veiled lady. .?’

Mercier-Milon pushes them out of the way and opens the door to our carriage. ‘Jackals!’ he mutters.