An Officer and a Spy

of spectacles and peers down at the Earth, like a short-sighted deity.
    ‘I need to put him in a place where it’s impossible for him to talk to anyone. I don’t want him smuggling out any more treasonous messages. And just as important, I don’t want anyone communicating with him .’
    The minister places a surprisingly delicate hand on the northern hemisphere and gently turns the world. The Atlantic slides past. He halts the sphere and points to a spot on the coast of South America, seven thousand kilometres from Paris. He looks at me and raises an eyebrow, inviting me to guess.
    I say, ‘The penal colony at Cayenne?’
    ‘Close, but more secure than that.’ He leans in and taps the globe. ‘Devil’s Island: fifteen kilometres off the coast. The sea around it is infested with sharks. The immense waves and strong currents make it hard even to land a boat.’
    ‘I thought that place had been closed down years ago.’
    ‘It was. The last inhabitants were a colony of convict lepers. I will need to seek approval in the Chamber, but this time I will get it. The island will be reopened especially for Dreyfus. Well, what do you think?’
    My immediate reaction is surprise. Mercier, married to an Englishwoman, is considered a republican and a free-thinker – he refuses to attend Mass, for example – qualities I admire. And yet, for all that, there lingers about him something of the Jesuit fanatic. Devil’s Island? I think . We’re supposed to be on the brink of the twentieth century, not the eighteenth . . .
    ‘Well?’ he repeats. ‘What’s your view?’
    ‘Isn’t it a trifle . . .’ I choose the word carefully, wishing to be tactful, ‘ Dumas ?’
    ‘Dumas? What do you mean, Dumas?’
    ‘Only that it sounds like a punishment from historical fiction. I feel an echo of The Man in the Iron Mask . Won’t Dreyfus become known as “The Man on Devil’s Island”? It will make him the most famous prisoner in the world . . .’
    ‘Exactly!’ cries Mercier, and slaps his thigh in a rare display of feeling. ‘That’s exactly what I like about it. The public’s imagination will be captured.’
    I bow to his superior political judgement. At the same time I wonder what the public has to do with it. Only when I am collecting my coat and about to leave does he offer a clue.
    ‘This may be the last time that you will see me in this office.’
    ‘I’m sorry to hear that, General.’
    ‘You understand I take little interest in politics – I am a professional soldier, not a politician. But I gather there is great dissatisfaction among the parties, and the government may only last another week or two. There may even be a new president.’ He shrugs. ‘Anyway, there it is. We soldiers serve where we are ordered.’ He shakes my hand. ‘I have been impressed by the intelligence you have shown during this wretched affair, Major Picquart. It will not be forgotten, will it, Chief?’
    ‘No, Minister.’ Boisdeffre also rises to shake my hand. ‘Thank you, Picquart. Most illuminating. One might almost have been there oneself. How are your Russian studies, by the way?’
    ‘I doubt I’ll ever be able to speak the language, General, but I can read Tolstoy now – with a dictionary, of course.’
    ‘Excellent. There are great things happening between France and Russia. A good knowledge of Russian will be very useful to a rising officer.’
    I am at the door and about to open it, feeling suitably warmed by all this flattery, when Mercier suddenly asks: ‘Tell me, was my name mentioned at all?’
    ‘I’m sorry?’ I’m not sure what he means. ‘Mentioned in what sense?’
    ‘During the ceremony this morning.’
    ‘I don’t think so . . .’
    ‘It doesn’t matter at all.’ Mercier makes a dismissive gesture. ‘I just wondered if there was any kind of demonstration in the crowd . . .’
    ‘No, none that I saw.’
    ‘Good. I didn’t expect there would be.’
    I close the door softly behind me.
    Stepping back out into the windy canyon of the rue Saint-Dominique, I clutch my cap to my head and walk the one hundred metres to the War Ministry next door. There is nobody about. Clearly my brother officers have better things to do on a Saturday than attend to the bureaucracy of the French army. Sensible fellows! I shall write up my official report, clear my desk, and try to put Dreyfus out of my mind. I trot up the stairs and along the corridor to my office.
    Since Napoleon’s time, the