A Man in Uniform (3 page)

If it weren’t for those unrelenting blue eyes, Dubon would have dismissed the widow then and there. Who was this lady with such inflated notions of what a lowly barrister could achieve? He answered rather feebly, “But I am a lawyer, not a detective.”

“Maître, you are both. Your very name is synonymous with justice. And you know the right people.”

Dubon knew the former was pure flattery and the latter much nearer the mark. Still, it was gratifying that after all this time people still remembered his work for the Communards. He had been only a junior lawyer in those years after the Franco-Prussian War. Maître Gaillard had taken the lead on the file, defending the many Parisians who had seized control of their own city after the Germans had lifted the siege. When the new national government at Versailles finally decided to march on the capital and wrench control of Paris away from its citizens, the suppression of the Commune was swift and brutal. Dubon was little more than a boy and had never seen such bloodshed before or since. The army had shot the Commune’s leaders on the spot and court-martialed thousands of others, executing anyone who had wielded a rifle or bayonet against the new government’s troops, and jailing everyone else unfortunate enough to be caught on the streets, whatever their sympathies might have been. In the long years that followed, it was Maître Gaillard who had fought hardest to get new civil trials for these bit players and bystanders, and Dubon had been his young assistant.

But Dubon had given up criminal law long ago.

“My friend …” she continued, “is deprived of her husband and
does not trust that his brother’s attempts to free him will ever succeed. We must help her.”

“I see,” said Dubon. He took a long look at her before he asked, “And your husband?”

“My husband?” She seemed startled by the question, as though momentarily she had forgotten she had a husband. “My husband is gone. He has nothing to do with this.”

“My condolences, Madame. He is recently deceased?”

“Oh no, six, seven months now.”

“So sad, very sad. Could he possibly have been as young as yourself?”

“Five years older.”

“Too young, too young. An accident perhaps?”

“An accident?”

“His death, I mean …”

“Oh yes, of course. An accident. But really, we need not speak of him.”

Dubon noted with interest that she did not seem to have been a particularly fond wife. The thought gladdened him a little, although he did not stop to examine why.

“Well, Madame.” He paused, knowing full well he should send her about her business but wanting now to prolong the acquaintance. “I will think on it and make some inquiries of colleagues. Perhaps I can find an advocate who would be more appropriate to your needs.”

“No, Maître, really, it must be you.”

“You flatter me. At any rate I will make my inquiries and contact you in a few days.”

“Can I come again the day after tomorrow at this time, if it is not too inconvenient?”

It was not in the least convenient. He glanced at the wall clock behind her. It was twenty past the hour, almost too late to bother visiting Madeleine. He would have to ask Roberge to send his mistress a message telling her he could not come tonight. And the following day he would again be pressed to see her because he and Madame Dubon were to attend a ball at General Fiteau’s. His wife was insistent that he be home early on such occasions so that she could discuss her costume
with him and review the probable guest list. So, if his visitor came again in two days’ time, on a Friday, he might be forced to make do without Madeleine until the following week. None of this was what he would have wished.

“Perfectly convenient, Madame. I am at leisure Friday afternoon.”

“I will try to be here by four.”

“I look forward to Friday, then.”

“Thank you, Monsieur.”

She stood and offered him her black-gloved hand. He took it and bent over it without touching it to his lips before slowly straightening himself and then letting it go.

“Until Friday,” he said.

She smiled in response and walked out the door.

He waited until he heard her speak to Roberge on her way out and close the door of the outer room before he picked up the speaking tube and called the clerk into his office.

“You will have to send a message for me. The post office is at the corner,” Dubon said as he opened a drawer and pulled out a blue sheet of paper. He sighed as he filled in the form. If Lebrun had been there, he would have taken a look at the time, readied the form himself, and been poised, without Dubon having to ask, to send the
petit bleu
. Paris’s system of local telegrams was known affectionately by the blue paper on which the messages were written before being stuffed into glass containers, ready to hurtle across the city along a network of pneumatic tubes that connected all the post offices and then be delivered by hand from the nearest outlet. There was a post office down the street from Dubon’s office and, but a few streets away on the other side of the avenue de l’Opéra, one next door to Madeleine’s apartment. Lebrun actually could have walked the distance in less time than it took the messengers to pick up the telegram and deliver it, but Dubon would never have submitted him to the embarrassment of appearing on his mistress’s doorstep.

He composed a brief message of regret and folded it over, addressed it, and handed it to Roberge.

“You can take it now and send it on your way home. I will lock up behind you.”

“Yes, Maître. See you tomorrow.”

Dubon tidied his papers and left the office ten minutes later. He walked down to the rue de Rivoli at a leisurely pace and entered the place de la Concorde at the northern corner, passing the statues representing the cities of Lille and Strasbourg, the latter draped in black ever since the province of Alsace had been lost to the Germans during the war. Since André was a boy, Dubon had joked to him that his father crossed all France to get home in time for dinner, for he then walked down the eastern side of the square and across the bottom, passing the statues of Bordeaux and Nantes as he reached the Seine. Today, however, he barely noticed the geography and walked by the work site where the new exhibition halls were being built at the bottom of the Champs Élysée without even checking on their progress. Absentmindedly, he traced his habitual route along the river and up the rue Bayard, still thinking over his conversation with the widow. There was some question about her story that he had meant to ask, a little inconsistency or discrepancy that was floating just out of reach. Whatever it was, it quickly evaporated as he pushed open the door of his home and walked into the salon.

“You’re early.” Geneviève greeted him in slightly accusatory tone. She was standing on the far side of the room, in front of its two heavily curtained windows. André was with her, his growing body jammed up against the delicate writing desk his mother had squeezed between the windows and the back of a long sofa. His school books were spread over the desk’s impracticably small surface and Geneviève stood at his shoulder, shepherding some piece of homework. André turned his head and, without comment, glanced back to where his father stood before returning his attention to his books.

“I had a client show up at the last minute but …” Dubon paused, remembering that he was early not late. Geneviève eyed him quizzically. “But I … well, I tried the tramway again. Really very quick.” One of the new electric trams had been installed along the quay, and on cold days the previous winter, Dubon had come to prefer it to the crowded horse-drawn omnibus that served the rue de Rivoli. Geneviève herself had even tried it on a few occasions.

“Oh, the lovely new tram. It’s a godsend, isn’t it?” she replied. “I’ll
just see if Agathe can get dinner on the table at seven. It would be nice to eat early for a change.” She smoothed her skirts and made her way toward the door Dubon had just entered.

“André, tidy up your books, dear, and take them to your room. Your father doesn’t want your schoolwork cluttering up the salon.” She glanced at Dubon as she passed him, and walked out.

“You don’t need to tidy up on my account,” Dubon said, smiling at his son.

André, however, was already bundling his books into his arms. He mumbled, “Doesn’t matter,” as he brushed by his father and was gone.

Dubon was left standing by the door, staring at an empty room. He crossed to a small table at his left, poured himself a short glass of red wine from a decanter and sat down in the one comfortable armchair Geneviève’s decor permitted. She favored Louis XV, although the apartment itself was of a much more recent style. He removed an embroidered cushion from behind his back and tossed it over to the sofa, settled himself, and took a sip from his glass. It was the Château Cheval Blanc from ’93, probably better cellared than drunk this young, but Geneviève, who ordered all their wine, permitted older vintages only when they had guests. He swallowed—the wine had not improved since the previous evening—and sighed lightly.

Yes, he was home in plenty of time for dinner.

Dubon watched his wife waltz away in another man’s arms and noted with satisfaction that she was looking particularly beautiful that evening. Her blond hair was swept back in a sleek chignon, and her mother’s diamonds sparkled convincingly at her neck. She was wearing a new dress he had bought her and that he admired not so much for its delicate shade of blue or finely tailored skirt as for its clever neckline, which succeeded in plunging without provoking. Most women of her age—those muffled matrons now sitting out the dance on the little gilt chairs that lined one wall of the ballroom—would have been unable to carry off such an uncompromising look. Geneviève, however, could hold her own against any of the debutantes swirling across the floor in their white dresses. She was in her element here, surrounded by her intimates, and it was the easy confidence of that familiarity as much as the pleasures of the dance that gave an extra light to her eye. Just now she was leaning a little closer to hear what her partner was saying in the midst of the din and laughed delightedly as they spun back down the room.

She was happy now, but as always her social anxiety during the
preparations for a party had been pronounced if, in his opinion, utterly unfounded. He had arrived home in plenty of time, listened attentively to her instructions, and admired her dress, reassuring her that the neckline was appropriate and that he would stick to safe topics of conversation. The Fiteaus were old friends of her family, wealthier versions of the same titled Catholic military stock, and their annual spring ball was an occasion she had attended for years. Still, she had been irritable and impatient until the moment the carriage rented for the occasion pulled into the courtyard of the Fiteaus’
hôtel
in the heart of the Left Bank’s aristocratic quarter. Her mood had lifted only as she stepped from it and ascended the wide staircase that led up to the spacious hallway where the host and hostess were greeting their guests. They could hear the sounds of the orchestra warming its instruments, readying itself for the first dance. Dubon had taken Geneviève’s arm and they had moved together into a ballroom glittering with old-fashioned candlelight. The room, a long gallery with large windows at the front overlooking the street, ran the full length of the second story of the building, and they had proceeded slowly down it with Geneviève greeting friends and adding names to her dance card. At the end of the room, an archway led into a little adjacent salon where those who wished could sit out the dance. That’s where Dubon was standing now.

“You’re a lucky man.”

It was his old friend Masson, coming up behind him and echoing his thoughts.

“Even if she is dancing with someone else,” he added. They both laughed.

“She looks well. What about you? The law still keeping you happy? I keep meaning to come in about my will. Always putting it off. I suppose all your clients say that.”

“Yes. Lots of them do. But I prefer you to the ones who are rewriting it every week.”

“And for my first son …” said Masson, adopting the cracked voice of the aged, “nothing. To punish him for serving wine instead of brandy last Sunday.”

“Exactly. Very trivial stuff compared to the affairs of state.”

Masson worked for the Foreign Ministry. He and Dubon had been
at school together, and Dubon had never abandoned the friendly habit of deferring to Masson’s intellectual achievements. Dubon had been the good-looking one, the leader of his gang, and had shown early promise with the girls at the nearby convent, while the gangly and bookish Masson had been viewed with some suspicion by his peers, both for his unfailingly high marks and for his ability to talk his way around the grown-ups. He was the kind of friend one’s mother was always inquiring about.

“Bah, the affairs of state,” Masson said with an insouciance Dubon did not quite believe. “Developments that seem so momentous one year will be forgotten the next.” The Baron de Masson, as the diplomat styled himself these days, had returned from a posting in Russia two years before, and Dubon was never exactly sure what it was that he was now doing. “Who will remember you or me when we are gone, Dubon? We are little people, eh? Private life is our true realm. Family, friends …” He gestured toward the crowd around them. “That’s what really matters.”

“What really matters, my dear baron?” It was their formidable hostess, Madame Fiteau, joining them in time to catch the end of their conversation.

“Yes, yes, off you go, dear,” she added to the pimply, red-haired youth at her side, dismissing the younger of her two sons with an annoyed wave of the hand. An awkward Louis Fiteau beat what looked like a very welcome retreat from the ballroom into the salon.

Dubon wondered in passing at his discomfort—surely Louis Fiteau was at least five years older than his own fourteen-year-old André and mature enough to manage social occasions? He noticed that the youth was soon joined by an older man, an officer—tall but rather stooped, dressed in a baggy uniform and sporting a large white mustache—who seemed to have been waiting for him. The two disappeared through a small door in the salon’s ornate gilt paneling that once closed behind them was almost invisible to the casual eye. Dubon turned his attention to his hostess, a large and determined woman not easily ignored.