An Officer and a Spy

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.
    Over lunch, Edmond wants to talk about the impending visit of the Tsar. He takes the radical view. ‘I just think it is plain wrong,’ he says, ‘for our democratic republic to roll out the carpet for an absolute monarch who locks up people who disagree with him. That’s not what France exists for.’
    ‘France may not exist at all,’ I point out, ‘if we don’t have an ally who can help us defeat the Germans.’
    ‘Yes, but what if it’s the Russians who fight the Germans and we’re the ones who end up getting dragged in?’
    ‘It’s hard to imagine the scenario in which that might happen.’
    ‘Well, I hate to break it to a soldier, but things have a habit of not going according to plan.’
    Jeanne says, ‘Oh do shut up, Ed! Georges has come out to relax on his day off, not listen to a lecture from you.’
    ‘Very well,’ grumbles Edmond, ‘but you can tell your General Boisdeffre from me that alliances work both ways.’
    ‘I am sure the Chief of the General Staff will be fascinated to receive a lecture in strategy from the Mayor of Ville-d’Avray . . .’
    Everyone laughs, including Edmond. ‘Touché, Colonel,’ he says, and pours me some more wine.
    After we have eaten, we play hide-and-seek with the children. When it’s my turn I walk a hundred paces into the trees and search around until I find the perfect spot. I lie down in a small hollow behind a fallen tree and cover myself with dead leaves and twigs, just as I used to teach my topography students to do at the École Supérieure de Guerre. It is amazing how completely a human being can disappear if he is prepared to take the trouble. In the summer after my father died I would lie out in the forest like this for hours. I listen to the sounds of the children calling my name. After a while they get bored and move off; soon I can no longer hear them. There is only the cooing of the wood pigeons and the scent of the rich, dry earth and the softness of the moss against my neck. I savour the solitude for ten minutes, then brush myself down and go back smiling to join the others. They have already packed up the picnic and are waiting to leave.
    I say, ‘You see, that’s how a soldier learns to hide! Would you like me to teach you?’
    They look at me as if I have gone mad.
    Anna says irritably, ‘Where in heaven’s name have you been?’
    One of the children starts to cry.

13
    AT PRECISELY TEN o’clock on the morning of Tuesday 1 September, I present myself in General Boisdeffre’s outer office, carrying my briefcase.
    Pauffin de Saint Morel says, ‘You can go straight in, Colonel. He’s expecting you.’
    ‘Thank you. Would you make sure we’re not disturbed?’
    I enter to find Boisdeffre leaning over his conference table, studying a map of Paris and making notes. He acknowledges my salute with a smile and a wave and then returns to the map. ‘Excuse me, Picquart, will you? I shan’t be a moment.’
    I close the door behind me. Boisdeffre is tracing the route of the Tsar’s ceremonial parade, marking it on the map in red crayon. For security reasons, their Imperial Majesties will pass through a succession of wide-open spaces – the Jardins du Ranelagh, the Bois de Boulogne, the Champs-Élysées and the place de la Concorde – where all the houses are screened by trees and stand well back from the road. Nevertheless, every occupant is being given a background check: the Statistical Section has been brought in to advise; Gribelin has been busy with our lists of aliens and potential traitors.