An Officer and a Spy

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 assuming 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 glass through to her, she has undressed to her shift 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.’

‘God, 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 glass 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 God, 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 one another on my narrow bed, like survivors of a shipwreck, 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.