An Officer and a Spy

Just before I go home, I call in at the ministry to make an appointment to see Boisdeffre. Pauffin de Saint Morel is the officer on duty. He tells me the Chief is not in until Tuesday. ‘Can I tell him what it’s about?’

‘I’d prefer not.’

‘Secret stuff?’

‘Secret stuff.’

‘Say no more.’ He enters my name in the diary for ten o’clock. ‘By the way,’ he asks, ‘did you follow up that business with old Foucault, about some German spy story?’

‘Yes I did, thank you.’

‘Nothing in it?’

‘Nothing in it.’

I spend Saturday in my office writing a report for Boisdeffre: ‘Intelligence Service note on Major Esterhazy, 74th Infantry’. It requires some delicate drafting. I make several false starts. I describe in guarded terms the interception of the petit bleu, the investigation into Esterhazy’s suspicious character, the information from Cuers that the Germans (whom I describe by the unoriginal code name ‘X’) still have a spy in the French army, and the similarity between the writing of the bordereau and that of Esterhazy (striking even to the least expert eye). The report runs to four closely written pages. I conclude:

The facts indicated seem serious enough to merit a more detailed inquiry. Above all it is necessary to seek some explanations from Major Esterhazy about his relations with Embassy X and the use he made of the documents that he copied. But it is vital to operate by surprise, with both firmness and caution, because the major is known as a man of unequalled audacity and trickery.

I burn my notes and discarded drafts in the fireplace, then lock the completed report away in my safe along with the secret file. It is much too explosive to entrust to the internal post. I shall deliver it by hand.

The following morning I take the train out to Ville-d’Avray to join my cousins the Gasts for Sunday lunch. The red-roofed house, La Ronce, sits prettily in its own land on the main road to Versailles. The day is fine. Jeanne has prepared a picnic patriotically redolent of childhood days in Alsace — rillettes de canard, and flammekueche and sauerkraut with Munster cheese. All should be well. Yet I can’t shake off the shadows of the rue de l’Université. I feel agitated and pale beside my relaxed and suntanned friends, although I try not to show it. Edmond fetches an old pram from the stable and loads it up with a wicker hamper, blankets and wine, then wheels it down the lane while we follow in a procession.

I keep a lookout for Pauline, and ask my sister, in an offhand way, if she happens to know if she’s coming, but Anna tells me she has decided to stay an extra week in Biarritz with Philippe and the girls. She scrutinises my complexion and says, ‘You look as though you could do with a vacation yourself.’

‘I’m fine. Anyway, it isn’t possible at the moment.’

‘But Georges, you simply have to make it possible!’

‘Yes, I know. I will, I promise.’

‘You wouldn’t work half so hard if you had a wife and family of your own to go home to.’

‘Oh my God,’ I laugh, ‘not this again!’ I light a cigarette to forestall further conversation.

We leave the sandy track and walk on into the wood. Suddenly Anna says, ‘It’s really very sad. You do understand that Pauline will never leave Philippe? Because of the girls?’

I glance at her, startled. ‘What are you talking about?’ She stares at me and I realise there’s no point in maintaining the pretence: she’s always been able to see right through me. ‘I didn’t think you knew.’

‘Oh, Georges, everybody knows! Everybody’s known for years!’

Everybody! Years! I feel a spasm of irritation.

‘In any case,’ I mutter, ‘what makes you think I want her to leave him?’

‘No,’ she agrees. ‘No, you don’t. That’s what’s sad.’

She walks on ahead of me.

We spread the blankets in a clearing, on the edge of a slope leading down to a rocky stream. We exiles love the woods, I have noticed. Trees are trees, after all: it is easier to pretend one is still in one’s homeland, collecting mushrooms and insects in the forest of Neudorf. The children slither down with the bottles of wine and lemonade to chill in the water. They splash around in the mud. It’s hot. I take off my hat and jacket. Someone says, ‘Look at the colonel, stripping down for action!’ I smile and pretend to salute. I have been in my job for more than a year and still no one knows what I do.