A Man in Uniform (12 page)

“So,” he concluded, “the arrest and court martial of Captain Dreyfus were considered a great coup.”

“Well, it’s a fraud, Maître, a fraud. The captain is innocent, as
innocent as you or me. You must go and talk to these counterespionage people and demand they review their evidence.”

“I can’t do that, Madame. They are a secret operation. The only way to gain access to their files would be through an appeal. Did the captain’s lawyers not consider appealing?”

“We were told there was no point, unless new evidence came to light. They said court martials are very rarely appealed,” the widow said. She paused a moment and then pronounced her conclusion: “You’ll just have to go over there and tell them they have the wrong man.”

“I can hardly march right in …” he remonstrated, but she was not to be swayed from direct action.

“Why not?”

“It’s a strategy, I suppose. I’m just not sure it would be a productive one.”

“Then we’ll have to come up with something else.”

“You have to remember I am not a detective, Madame. I am a lawyer.”

“Yes, Maître, a good lawyer,” she said with a note of apology. “You are an excellent lawyer, and the captain, well, the captain seems to have suffered some bad lawyering, wouldn’t you say?”

“Certainly an innocent man convicted of a dastardly crime hasn’t been well served by his lawyers,” Dubon agreed.

“So approach this Statistical Section as a lawyer, as a new family lawyer preparing for an appeal.”

“They would be unlikely to share the files with me.”

“What about from the other side?”

“The other side?”

“If you were a government lawyer …”

“You mean if I were the prosecution?”

“Yes, the prosecution, preparing itself, in case the verdict is ever appealed. The family still maintains the man is innocent and the rumors of an escape have brought attention back to the case. The government must be prepared.”

“I follow your thinking …” She was clever, and pleased with herself now, he noticed.

“So you go over there, and you say you are Maître … well, Maître Petit, and your superiors in the Ministry of—”

“You are suggesting I misrepresent myself?”

“Yes, I guess I am.” She looked at him. “It’s for a good cause, Maître.”

“Yes, a good cause,” he repeated, but he wondered about that, and about the pressure that built up in his chest every time she stepped into his office. It had been long enough since he had experienced the feeling that it had taken him a while to recognize it for what it was.

Love—was it really such a good cause?

There were surely things much more disruptive of domestic harmony than the sight of one’s brother-in-law hopping about one’s library in his skivvies, but Dubon just couldn’t think what they might be. Jean-Jean, who appeared to have got one leg stuck while putting on the trousers of his dress uniform, let out a yelp of surprise as Dubon entered the room and clasped his hands to his privates. This was both unnecessary—he was wearing underwear, after all—and destabilizing. He promptly fell over, landing in a pile of clothes on the floor.

“Damn it, Dubon. You startled me.” Jean-Jean got to his feet, pulled on the trousers successfully this time, yanked his braces over his undershirt and began gathering up the other garments, most of them an unappealing shade of gray. “Just thought I had time before dinner to try on my new kit,” he explained, although Dubon did not understand how that activity justified the man’s inability to stand on his own feet. “Horrible stuff. New battledress they’re experimenting with. If it works, they plan to do away with all this.” He gestured vaguely at his dress uniform. He was wearing the trousers, blue with a wide red stripe
down each leg, while the blue tunic with its brass buttons was hanging over a chair nearby.

“Right, well, I’ll leave you to it,” Dubon said, excusing himself, retreating from the room and closing the door.

He had been hoping for a nice quiet drink in his study before the guests arrived and now stood outside the room wondering where he could hide. Geneviève was in full command of both the salon and the dining room, where she had been supervising the finishing touches to her table when Dubon arrived at five. For no reason that was discernible to him, he was called upon to return home early whenever they entertained: Geneviève and Luc always had everything under control. They both loved these occasions and prepared for them like coconspirators, whispering under their breath as they adjusted the angle of a flower or a fork, and continually congratulating each other on their discernment.

Dubon made for the salon and gingerly opened the drinks cabinet. He poured himself a small glass from the decanter—he had been drinking a ’91 Giscours with which he was very pleased—and placed it with great care on the table by his armchair before returning to shut the cabinet: Geneviève would be peeved if anything were out of place. He settled in the chair, took a sip, and mentally prepared himself for the evening ahead.

It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy parties or that he found playing host particularly onerous, it was just that they interrupted his schedule with Madeleine, forcing him to do without her companionship for an evening. It was his old routine and one he had been sticking to rigorously all week in an attempt to build a bulwark against the new things that seemed to be happening in his heart.

Geneviève entered the room.

“Oh, good, you’re home. You’ll have to take that glass into the kitchen when you are finished. Luc is far too busy to be picking up after you.”

He knew that Luc, who was as likely to let his employer step into the kitchen as he was to let him carry the coal, could be trusted to appear at his elbow with a tray soon enough. Dubon sank lower in his chair.

Two hours later he was poking some kind of molten chocolate confection about his plate with his fork—just waiting for the ladies to retire to the salon so that he could return to his wine—and growing increasingly anxious, for someone had raised the topic of Captain Dreyfus. In the weeks to come, try as he might, Dubon could never remember who had first brought it up, but the whole party had leapt upon it with glee. The government had now successfully squelched the rumors of his escape, but that week the small faction who thought the man innocent had begun once again to voice their beliefs. The press seemed to feel that swift and brutal denunciations of that position had to be made. Dubon’s guests apparently agreed.

“I think it outrageous that the man tried to escape,” said Madame Bataud, one of Geneviève’s regulars.

“But he didn’t try to escape. It was all some silly story planted by the British press.” That was Jean-Jean’s friend Le Goff dismissing the escape story out of hand. A lanky blond man with a sallow complexion, he had joined the service at the same time as Jean-Jean and they had trained together in Normandy. He shared Jean-Jean’s intelligence but was much more worldly. Indeed, he had a certain cynical edge that had sometimes irritated Dubon, and his tone now was verging on the contemptuous.

Madame Bataud visibly bristled, but Le Goff continued forcefully, “The man can’t possibly escape; he’s kept in shackles.”

“Well, I certainly hope they have him securely locked up,” she replied, refusing to be cheated of her righteous indignation. “The man is clearly a schemer, we have proof enough of that.”

Dubon leaned forward and asked, “What proof, Madame Bataud?”

“Well, he’s a spy, isn’t he?”

“But what proof do we have, Madame?”

“Well, they arrested him, didn’t they?”

The conversation was making Dubon feel guilty. It was Friday and he had not seen the widow all week. She had kissed him on both cheeks on Monday and merely said, “Think about it. I’ll come again,” before leaving his office. He wanted her back but had made no decision
about her scheme to impersonate a government lawyer and realized that he had no way of contacting her. She had simply appeared in his office three weeks ago and now she was not appearing.

Irritated, he pressed his point: “But what, Madame, if the man were innocent?”

Le Goff, he noticed, was leaning forward eagerly.

“He can’t be innocent. He was caught spying and was court-martialed, wasn’t he?” Madame Bataud replied and, happily unaware of the circularity of that argument, leaned back in her chair and folded her arms with an air of having carried the day.

“But what if they were wrong?” Dubon persisted.

“But they couldn’t be wrong …” The lady looked puzzled now, while Geneviève was giving Dubon increasingly meaningful looks from her end of the table.

It was Masson, seated across the table from Madame Bataud, who stepped in.

“You are perfectly right, Madame. Your faith in military justice is no doubt exceedingly well placed. Court martials may seem very harsh to us civilians but it must be remembered that in the army, discipline is paramount.”

How suave he had become, Dubon thought, as Masson continued with a speech of appeasing generalities. A diplomat by profession, he was successfully taking charge—Dubon noticed Geneviève’s grateful glance—and rescuing the situation without ever appearing to manipulate it. It was annoying, and because he was annoyed, Dubon interfered.

“Is it not possible, my dear Masson, that the brass are simply prejudiced against the man because he’s Jewish?”

Masson drew himself up and gave Dubon a long look. He answered quietly but emphatically: “Dreyfus is guilty. I am given to understand the evidence presented to the court martial was conclusive in that respect.” And then his voice grew lighter, as though he was aware he was striking too earnest a note. He said dismissively, “All this nonsense will blow over. You know what they say, the dogs bark and the caravan passes.”

But Dubon was not so easily put off.

“No, I don’t think it’s that fleeting, Masson. I believe we may yet discover the whole case against the man has been driven by anti—”

He couldn’t finish his sentence because Masson interrupted him in a jocular tone: “Now, my friend, you did always sympathize with the radical element. It’s got you into trouble before, you know.”

The two men stared at each other. They were venturing into dangerous territory. Dubon turned away and beckoned to Luc.

“Ah yes, Luc, more of the Veuve Clicquot. We are running dry,” he said, gesturing down the table. “It really is very pleasant. You know,” he remarked to the assembly, “I am a Bordeaux man myself, but Geneviève and Luc know better and insist on champagne with dessert. She selects all our wine herself. Did you know that?”

“Madame has excellent taste. We always drink exceedingly well at your table, Dubon,” Masson replied.

“Yes, what would I do without her?” Dubon asked, looking toward her with some pride. Geneviève, meanwhile, was making her move, rising from the table to lead the ladies to the salon. Dubon and Masson stood with the rest of the men, and Dubon watched with some relief as Madame Bataud left the room.

“Fancy a cigar, Masson?” he said expansively, as though compensating for the moment of tension between them. “I have a new one, a Brazilian that is nice and mellow …” He gestured toward the sideboard where Luc was busy with a tray of glasses and a bottle of brandy. “In that green case,” he said.

Masson prepared to help himself, moving to the sideboard and stopping at a box covered in red velvet.

“No, no. The green one, the leather one,” Dubon corrected as he came up behind him. “Those are Geneviève’s chocolates. You’re welcome to those, too, of course.” Masson hesitated and then reached for the second box, dismissing his mistake with a light laugh.

“My old problem. Color-blind. Can’t tell the two apart. Remember how you used to tease me about it when we were at school? Ah, here they are.” He picked up the green box, brought it to the table to share, and began to trim and light a cigar as the other men gathered around.

Dubon, standing alone at the sideboard now, found Le Goff’s tall, thin figure at his elbow.

“You’re on the right track, Dubon,” he said quietly. “The right track.”

“In what regard?” Dubon asked, but Le Goff had melted back into the party at the table.

The following day, although Dubon had intended to go to the office that morning, he sat at the breakfast table long after his family had dispersed.

Jean-Jean had been up and out before they had even woken, leaving only the rumpled bedclothes on the divan in the library visible through the open door. “Early start. Off on maneuvers for the week,” he had explained the night before as he headed to bed the moment the last guests had left. André had eaten in a hurry and left for his Saturday morning lessons with his mother snapping at his heels.

As soon as the door closed behind him, Geneviève settled herself at the table with a second cup of coffee and the day’s mail. She had already performed her postmortem on the previous evening and shared the results with her husband. It had gone off rather well, she thought, despite that awkward little moment over dessert. Now she reviewed their commitments for the following week—Masson was taking her to a matinee Monday; Dubon still had to pay the dressmaker’s bill; would he accompany her to a meeting with André’s music teacher Wednesday?