An Officer and a Spy

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-’

‘Also known as the Demigod,’ interrupts Blanche.