An Officer and a Spy

Once again I hurry out into the chilly grey half-light. I take a cab from the rank on the corner of the boulevard Saint-Germain, and when we reach the École Militaire I ask the driver to wait while I run inside. The silence of the vast empty parade ground mocks me. The only sign of life is the workmen clearing the litter from the place de Fontenoy. I return to the cab and ask to be driven as fast as possible to the headquarters of the military governor of Paris in the place Vendôme, where I wait in the lobby of that gloomy and dilapidated building for Colonel Guérin. He takes his time, and when he does appear he has the air of a man who has been interrupted in the middle of a good lunch to which he is anxious to return.

‘I’ve already explained all this to General Gonse.’

‘I’m sorry, Colonel. Would you mind explaining it to me?’

He sighs. ‘Captain Lebrun-Renault was detailed to keep an eye on Dreyfus in the guardroom until the ceremony started. He handed him over to the escort, and just as the degradation started he came over to where a group of us were standing and said something like “Well I’ll be damned, the scum just admitted everything.”’

I take out my notebook. ‘What did the captain say Dreyfus had told him?’

‘I don’t recall his actual words. The essence of it was that he’d handed over secrets to the Germans, but they weren’t very important, that the minister knew all about them, and that in a few years’ time the whole story would come out. Something like that. You need to talk to Lebrun-Renault.’

‘I do. Where can I find him?’

‘I’ve no idea. He’s off duty.’

‘Is he still in Paris?’

‘My dear Major, how would I know that?’

‘I don’t quite understand,’ I say. ‘Why would Dreyfus suddenly admit his guilt to a total stranger, at such a moment and with nothing to gain by it, after denying everything for three months?’

‘I can’t help you there.’ The colonel looks over his shoulder in the direction of his lunch.

‘And if he’d just confessed to Captain Lebrun-Renault, why did he then go out and repeatedly shout his innocence into a hostile crowd of tens of thousands?’

The colonel squares his shoulders. ‘Are you calling one of my officers a liar?’

‘Thank you, Colonel.’ I put away my notebook.

When I get back to the ministry, I go straight to Gonse’s office. He is labouring over a stack of files. He swings his boots up on to the desk and tilts back in his chair as he listens to my report. He says, ‘So you don’t think there’s anything in it?’

‘No, I do not. Not now I’ve heard the details. It’s much more likely this dim captain of the Guard got the wrong end of the stick. Either that or he embellished a tale to make himself look important to his comrades. Of course I am assuming,’ I add, ‘that Dreyfus wasn’t a double agent planted on the Germans.’

Gonse laughs and lights another cigarette. ‘If only!’

‘What would you like me to do, General?’

‘I don’t see there’s anything much you can do.’

I hesitate. ‘There is one way of getting a definite answer, of course.’

‘What’s that?’

‘We could ask Dreyfus.’

Gonse shakes his head. ‘Absolutely not. He’s now beyond communication. Besides, he’ll soon be shipped out of Paris.’ He lifts his feet from the desk and sets them on the floor. He pulls the stack of files towards him. Cigarette ash spills down the front of his tunic. ‘Just leave it with me. I’ll go and explain everything to the Chief of Staff and the minister.’ He opens a dossier and starts to scan it. He doesn’t look up. ‘Thank you, Major Picquart. You are dismissed.’

2

That evening, in civilian clothes, I travel out to Versailles to see my mother. The draughty train sways through Paris suburbs weirdly etched by snow and gaslight. The journey takes the best part of an hour; I have the carriage to myself. I try to read a novel, The Adolescent by Dostoyevsky, but every time we cross a set of points the lights cut out and I lose my place. In the blue glow of the emergency illumination I stare out of the window and imagine Dreyfus in his cell in La Santé prison. Convicts are transported by rail in converted cattle trucks. I presume he will be sent west, to an Atlantic port, to await deportation. In this weather the journey will be a bitter hell. I close my eyes and try to doze.

My mother has a small apartment in a modern street near the Versailles railway station. She is seventy-seven and lives alone, a widow for almost thirty years. I take it in turns with my sister to spend time with her. Anna is older than I, and has children, which I do not: my watch always falls on a Saturday night, the only time I can be sure of getting away from the ministry.

It is well past dark by the time I arrive; the temperature must be minus ten. My mother shouts from behind the locked door: ‘Who’s there?’

‘It’s Georges, Maman.’

‘Who?’

‘Georges. Your son.’