An Officer and a Spy

‘I didn’t know we had an appointment.’

‘We didn’t. I just thought I’d drop by.’

‘You’ve never done that before.’

‘Haven’t I? Perhaps I should have done it more often. What a separate little operation you have running over here.’ He holds out his hand. ‘I’ll take that secret file on Dreyfus, if I may.’

‘Of course. Might I ask why?’

‘Not really.’

I’d like to argue. I glance at Henry. He raises his eyebrows slightly.

You have to give them what they want, Colonel — they’re the chiefs.

Slowly I bend to unlock my safe, searching my brain for some excuse not to comply. I take out the file marked ‘D’. Reluctantly I hand it over to Gonse. He opens the flap and quickly thumbs through the contents.

I ask pointedly, ‘Is it all there?’

‘It had better be!’ Gonse smiles at me — a purely mechanical adjustment of his lower face, devoid of all humour. ‘Now then, we need to make a few administrative changes, in view of your imminent departure on your tour of inspection. Henceforth, Major Henry will bring all the Agent Auguste material direct to me.’

‘But that’s our most important source!’

‘Yes, so it’s only right that it comes to me, as head of the intelligence department. Is that all right with you, Henry?’

‘Whatever you wish, General.’

‘Am I being dismissed?’

‘Of course not, my dear Picquart! This is simply a reshuffle of responsibilities to improve our efficiency. Everything else remains with you. So that’s settled then.’ Gonse stands and stubs out his cigarette. ‘We’ll talk soon, Colonel.’ He clasps the Dreyfus file to his chest with crossed arms. ‘I’ll look after our precious baby very well, don’t you worry.’

After he has gone, Henry looks at me. He shrugs apologetically. ‘You should have taken my advice,’ he says.

I have heard it claimed by those who have attended the public executions in the rue de la Roquette that the heads of the condemned men after they have been guillotined still show signs of life. Their cheeks twitch. Their eyes blink. Their lips move.

I wonder: do these severed heads also briefly share the illusion that they are alive? Do they see people staring down at them and imagine, for an instant or two before the darkness rushes in, that they can still communicate?

So it is with me after my visit from Gonse. I continue to come into the office at my usual hour as if I am still alive. I read reports. I correspond with agents. I hold meetings. I write my weekly blanc for the Chief of the General Staff: the Germans are planning military manoeuvres in Alsace-Moselle, they are making increasing use of dogs, they are laying a telephone cable at Bussang close to the border. But this is a dead man talking. The real direction of the Statistical Section has passed over the road to the ministry, where regular meetings now take place between Gonse and my officers Henry, Lauth and Gribelin. I hear them leaving. I listen to them coming back. They are up to something, but I cannot work out what.

My own options seem non-existent. Obviously I cannot report what I know to my superiors, since I must assume they already know it. For a few days I consider appealing directly to the President, but then I read his latest speech, delivered in the presence of General Billot — The army is the nation’s heart and soul, the mirror in which France perceives the most ideal image of her self-denial and patriotism; the army holds the first place in the thoughts of the government and in the pride of the country — and I realise that he would never take up arms on behalf of a despised Jew against ‘the nation’s heart and soul’. Obviously also I cannot share my discoveries with anyone outside the government — senator, judge, newspaper editor — without betraying our most secret intelligence sources. The same applies to the Dreyfus family; besides, the Sûreté is watching them night and day.

Above all, I recoil from the act of betraying the army: my heart and soul, my mirror, my ideal.

Paralysed, I wait for something to happen.

I notice it on a newsstand on the corner of the avenue Kléber early one morning in November, when I am on my way to work. I am just about to step off the kerb and it stops me dead: a facsimile of the bordereau printed slap in the middle of the front page of Le Matin.