‘The one person I do need to see is Louis Leblois. Would you be kind enough to take a message to him, asking if he could call round as soon as possible? But tell him he mustn’t mention to anyone that I’m here.’
‘So you only want to talk to your lawyer?’ Jules laughs. ‘That’s not a good sign.’ It’s the closest he comes to an expression of curiosity.
After breakfast he goes off to work, and then later Anna leaves to find Louis. I prowl around the apartment, examining its contents — the crucifix above the marital bed, the family bible, the Meissen porcelain figures that used to belong to my grandmother in Strasbourg and which somehow survived the siege. I peer out of the windows at the front of the apartment, which overlook the rue Cassette, and then at the rear where there is a public garden: that is where I would station a man if I were watching the house — with a small pocket telescope he could record every movement. I am unable to sit still. The most quotidian sounds of Parisian life — children playing in the park, the clip-clop of traffic, the cry of a hawker — seem charged with menace.
Anna returns and says that Louis will come as soon as he can get away from court. She cooks me an omelette for lunch and I tell her about life in Sousse as if I have been on some exotic grand tour — the narrow stone alleyways of the old Arab town unaltered since the days of the Phoenicians, the hot stink of tethered sheep on the street corners waiting to be slaughtered, the foibles of the tiny French community, only eight hundred souls out of nineteen thousand. ‘No culture,’ I complain. ‘No one to talk to. Nothing Alsatian to eat. My God, how I hate it!’
She laughs. ‘And I suppose you’ll tell me next they’ve never even heard of Wagner.’ But she doesn’t ask how I ended up there.
At four, Louis arrives. He crosses the carpet on his dainty feet and we embrace. The mere sight of him helps restore my nerve. His trim figure and beard, his neat appearance, his mild voice, his economical gestures — all convey an air of supreme competence. ‘Leave it to me,’ his personage seems to say. ‘I have made a study of all that is difficult in this world, I have mastered it, and I am ready to place my mastery at your disposal for an appropriate fee.’ Even so, I feel I have a duty to warn him what he might be getting into. So after I have fetched my suitcase from the children’s bedroom, and Anna has made tea and discreetly withdrawn from the sitting room, I sit with the case on my lap and my thumbs poised on the locks and say, ‘Listen, Louis, before I go any further, you ought to be aware that for us merely to have this conversation could put you in some danger.’
‘Physical danger?’
‘No, not that — I’m sure not that. But professional danger — political danger. It could become all-consuming.’ Louis frowns at me. ‘I suppose what I’m trying to say is that once you start on this I can’t promise you where it may end. And you need to be aware of that now.’
‘Oh do shut up, Georges, and tell me what all this is about.’
‘Well, if you’re quite certain.’ I press my thumbs on the locks and open the suitcase. ‘It’s difficult to know where to start. You remember I came to see you in the middle of November, to tell you I was going away?’
‘Yes, for a couple of days or so you said.’
‘It was a trap.’ From a false compartment at the bottom of the case I take out a wedge of papers. ‘First of all I was sent by the General Staff to Châlons to inspect intelligence procedures in the 6th Corps. Then I was told I would have to go straight on to Nancy to write a report on the 7th as well. Naturally I asked for permission to return to Paris, for a few hours at least, just to pick up some clean clothes. That was turned down flat by telegram — you see?’ I hand it over. ‘All these letters I’ve kept are from my immediate superior, General Charles-Arthur Gonse, ordering each move — there are fourteen. From Nancy I was sent to Besançon. Then to Marseille. Then to Lyon. Then to Briançon. Then back to Lyon again, where I fell ill. This is the letter I received from Gonse while I was there:
‘And all this time you were not permitted to return to Paris, not even for a day?’
‘See for yourself.’
Louis takes the handful of letters and scans them, frowning. ‘But this is ridiculous. .’
