An Officer and a Spy

But then, just before half past, the silence is broken by a clang as the door behind me opens. A squat female figure in a black skirt and shawl walks past. Halfway up the aisle she stops, makes the sign of the cross, curtseys to the altar, and then heads straight to the designated seat. I see her kneel. Less than a minute later she rises and strides back down the aisle towards me. I keep my eyes fixed on her, curious to see what she is like, this Madame Bastian, a commonplace cleaning woman, yet perhaps the most valuable secret agent in France, in Europe. She gives me a long, hard look as she passes — surprised, I suppose, not to see Major Henry in my place — and I note there is absolutely nothing commonplace in her fierce, almost masculine features, and the challenge of her stare. She is a bold one, maybe even reckless; but then she would have to be, to have smuggled secret documents out of the German Embassy for five years under the noses of the guards.

The moment she has gone, I stand and walk to the place where I left the money. Henry impressed on me not to waste any time. Tucked beneath the chair is a cone-shaped paper sack. It rustles alarmingly as I tug it out and stuff it into my briefcase. I leave the basilica in a hurry, through the doors and down the steps, striding along the dark and empty streets that surround the ministry. Ten minutes after collecting the sack, euphoric with success, I am tipping the contents over the desk in my office.

There is more than I expected: a cornucopia of trash — paper torn and crumpled and dusted with cigarette ash, paper white and grey, cream and blue, tissue and card, tiny pieces and large fragments, handwritten in pencil and ink, typewritten and printed, words in French and German and Italian, train tickets and theatre stubs, envelopes, invitations, restaurant bills and receipts from tailors and taxi cabs and bootmakers. . I run my hands through it all, scoop it up and let it trickle through my fingers — mostly it will be rubbish, I know, but somewhere within it there may be gold. I experience a prospector’s thrill.

I am beginning to enjoy this job.

I write to Pauline twice, but guardedly, in case Philippe opens her letters. She does not reply and I don’t try to seek her out to discover if anything is wrong, principally because I don’t have the time. I have to devote my Saturday nights and Sundays to my mother, whose memory is worsening, and most evenings I am required to stay at the office late. There are so many things to keep an eye on. The Germans are laying telephone cables along the eastern frontier. There is a suspected spy at our embassy in Moscow. An English agent is said to be offering to sell a copy of our mobilisation plans to the highest bidder. . I have to write my regular blancs. I am fully absorbed.

I still go to the de Comminges salons, but ‘your sweet Madame Monnier’, as Blanche likes to call her, is never there, even though Blanche insists she always makes a point of inviting her. After one concert I take Blanche out to dinner, to the Tour d’Argent, where we are given a table overlooking the river. Why do I choose this particular restaurant? For one thing it’s a convenient walk from the de Comminges house. But I am also curious to see where Colonel von Schwartzkoppen entertains his mistress. I look around the dining room; it is almost entirely filled with couples. The candlelit booths are made for intimacy — je suis à toi, toujours à toi, toute à toi. . The latest police agent’s report describes Hermance as ‘early thirties, blonde, petite, in cream-coloured skirt and jacket trimmed in black’. ‘At times their hands were not visible above the table.’

Blanche says, ‘What are you smiling at?’

‘I know a colonel who brings his mistress here. They take a room upstairs.’

She stares at me, and in that instant the thing is settled. I have a word with the maître d’hôtel, who says, ‘My dear Colonel, of course there is a room available,’ and after we have eaten our dinner we are shown upstairs by an unsmiling young man who takes a large tip without acknowledgement.

Later, Blanche asks, ‘Is it better to make love before dinner or after it, do you think?’

‘There’s a case for either. I think probably before.’ I kiss her and get out of bed.

‘I agree. Let’s do it before next time.’

She is twenty-five. Whereas Pauline at forty undresses in the darkness and drapes herself languorously with a sheet or a towel, Blanche stretches naked on her back under the electric light, smoking a cigarette, her left knee raised, her right foot resting on it, examining her wriggling toes. She flings out her arm and flicks ash in the vague direction of the ashtray.

‘Surely,’ she says, ‘the correct answer is both.’