An Officer and a Spy

manuals – you know we’re not allowed to keep them for more than a day or two.’
    ‘Did he give a reason?’
    ‘He said he was thinking of suggesting some improvements . . .’
    We resume walking. The sun has dipped behind one of the dormitory blocks, casting the parade ground into shadow. The air is suddenly chilly. I say, ‘You mentioned earlier that he was dangerous.’
    ‘It’s not easy to describe. There’s a kind of . . . wildness about him, and also cunning. And yet he can be quite charming. Put it this way: despite the way he acts, nobody wants to cross him. He also has a quite extraordinary appearance. You’d need to see him to understand what I mean.’
    ‘I’d like to. The trouble is, I can’t risk letting him see me. Is there a place I might get a glimpse of him, without him realising it?’
    ‘There’s a bar near here he goes to most nights. It’s not certain, but you could probably spot him there.’
    ‘Could you take me?’
    ‘I thought you were getting out on the evening train?’
    ‘I can stay until the morning. One night won’t hurt. Come on, my friend! It will be like old times.’
    But Curé seems to have had enough of the ‘old times’ routine. His glance is hard, appraising. ‘Now I know it must be serious, Georges, if you’re willing to give up a night in Paris for it.’
    Curé presses me to come back to his quarters and wait with him for nightfall, but I prefer not to linger within the confines of the barracks in case I’m recognised. There is a small hotel for commercial travellers close to the station which I remember passing; I walk back and pay for a room. It is a stale-smelling, dingy place, without electricity; the mattress is hard and thin; whenever a train passes, the walls shake. But it will do for a night. I stretch out on the bed: it’s short; my feet hang over the edge. I smoke and contemplate the mysterious Esterhazy, a man who appears to possess in abundance the very thing that Dreyfus so singularly lacked: motive.
    The day fades in the window. At seven, the bells of Our Lady of Rouen begin to peal – heavy and sonorous, the noise rolls across the river like a barrage, and when it stops, the sudden silence seems to hang in the air like smoke.
    It is dark by the time I rouse myself to go downstairs. Curé is already waiting for me. He suggests I wrap my cape tight around my shoulders to hide the insignia of my rank.
    We walk for five or ten minutes through the shuttered back streets, past a couple of quiet bars, until we reach a cul-de-sac filled with the shadows of people, soldiers mostly, and a few young women. They are talking quietly, laughing, hanging around a long, low building with no windows that looks like a converted warehouse. A painted sign proclaims: ‘Folies Bergère’. The hopelessness of this provincial aspiration is almost touching.
    Curé says, ‘Wait here. I’ll see if he’s in yet.’
    He moves off. A door opens, briefly silhouetting his figure against a purplish oblong gleam; I hear a snatch of noise and music and then he is swallowed up by darkness. A woman baring a large expanse of cleavage, white as gooseflesh in the cold, comes up to me holding an unlit cigarette and asks for a light. Without bothering to think I strike a match. In the yellow flare she is young and pretty. She peers at me short-sightedly. ‘Do I know you, my darling?’
    I realise my mistake. ‘I’m sorry. I’m waiting for someone.’ I blow out the flame and walk away.
    She calls after me, laughing: ‘Don’t be like that, sweetheart!’
    Another woman says: ‘Who is he, anyway?’
    And then a man yells drunkenly: ‘He’s just a stuck-up cunt!’
    A couple of soldiers turn to stare.
    Curé appears in the doorway. He nods and beckons. I walk over to him. ‘I ought to leave,’ I say.
    ‘One quick look, then go.’ He takes my arm and steers me ahead of him, along a short passage, down a few steps, through a heavy black velvet curtain and into a long room, misty with tobacco smoke, packed with people sitting at small round tables. At the far end a band is playing, while on stage half a dozen girls in corsets and crotchless knickers hoist their skirts and kick their legs listlessly at the clientele. Their feet thump against the bare boards. The place smells of absinthe.
    ‘That’s him.’
    He nods to a table less than twenty paces away, where two couples share a bottle of champagne. One of the women, a redhead, has her back to me; the