A Man in Uniform (9 page)

She had laughed when he had, on the spur of the moment, suggested she accompany him to the races that afternoon.

“I am hardly dressed for it,” she had said, indicating her mourning clothes.

“No, but I don’t suppose it matters. It’s a weekday: the diehards won’t care what you are wearing.”

“The diehards and the aristocrats …”

“Maybe. We can lunch there,” he added expansively, supposing to himself that if she accepted he would send a note to Geneviève to tell
her he was unexpectedly delayed at the office and would not be home at noon.

The truth is he hadn’t known what else to suggest to the widow. She had come to see him that Thursday morning. Lebrun had been out filing documents at the Hôtel de Ville, and finding no one about, she had popped her head through his office door, calling out, “Anyone home?” He had received her gladly, but he had little to show her. The mysterious journalist, Azimut Martin, had yet to reply to Dubon’s message, and his only plan was to go out to Longchamp that afternoon to meet his friend Morel and the military correspondent from his paper, a man by the name of Fournier. He had exaggerated Fournier’s importance to the widow, to make the trip to the racecourse seem like some kind of action, but he had found a few of the journalist’s articles in her clipping file and the man was clearly only parroting what little information the military had released officially. If Dubon wanted to find someone with an insider’s view of the case so he could steer the widow toward the right lawyer, he doubted Fournier was the man.

“We will see what this journalist can tell us,” he said to her brightly. “You can bat your eyelids at him. Men are susceptible to that.”

She smiled, but straightened herself and smoothed her black dress with one hand. “Really, Maître, I hope that’s not what you think I am doing here.”

“No, of course not. My apologies, Madame. That was a thoughtless remark.”

“All right, I’ll come,” she said, cutting short his apology. She seemed eager enough to accept the pretense she might be of some use.

“Tell me, Madame, what is Dreyfus like? What kind of man is he?” asked Dubon, as they settled together in the back of the carriage.

She looked down at her skirt as though she might find an answer in its folds.

“Noble and brave, Maître,” she began.

He waited, hoping for something more revealing.

“A meticulous officer, very hardworking, and, most of all, loyal. He is always loyal.”

“Meticulous, you say?” It was the only adjective that gave any hint of personality.

“Oh yes. He is scrupulous about his financial affairs and a perfectionist on the job. And very generous, to his family, to his friends. Very generous. And the children … he is very dedicated to his children, although of course his military duties sometimes interfere with family life. He used to work long hours. Other officers would tease him about it sometimes. It hurt him. He often said they were simply lazy. To question his commitment to the army is so unfair.”

The carriage rounded a corner, jostling her against him. He gently placed a hand on her shoulder to help her right herself. Through her satin sleeve, he could feel the soft flesh of her upper arm compress ever so slightly beneath his touch.

“He sounds admirable, Madame,” he said. “And your friend’s family is comfortable, Madame? It is not at all possible there was some financial …”

“No, Monsieur, not at all. Some have speculated the captain might have stooped to spying because of financial need, and I think it is impossible. I don’t know the particulars, but the family is quite wealthy, I believe. They come originally from Mulhouse, but most of the family moved to Carpentras after the war. One brother remained to run the family’s businesses in Alsace—they own several textile mills, you see—and he sends the proceeds back to France. Indeed, I don’t think the captain really needed the military salary. I … I think his wife … my friend … found it frustrating sometimes when her husband was working particularly hard. He was truly dedicated to the army; he had seen what the Germans had done. His family felt the loss of Alsace personally and he wanted to protect France. He was very eager to get his next promotion because he cared so much about the profession.”

“A loyal soldier,” Dubon replied soothingly, but he suspected that such a man might be rather bothersome, especially to his colleagues, an officer who didn’t need the pay but showed the others up by working harder than anyone else.

“Did he have many friends in the army, then?”

“The captain is mainly a family man. He prefers to spend his time at home—even if he is distracted sometimes. I really don’t know his friends … no, I don’t think he has that many friends in the army. He
was respected by his colleagues, of course, well liked … until this happened.”

Well liked. Dubon wondered. He hesitated before beginning delicately, “You, Madame, would you be … that is to say … would you and your friends be coreligionists?”

“Yes. I am Jewish, if that is what you are asking. You are thinking we were isolated … It’s true, the captain and his wife, many of their friends are Jewish. But it is hardly a crime to pick one’s friends from among one’s coreligionists.”

“True, Madame.”

“People seem so ready to believe a Jew would betray France, Monsieur. Yet, we felt the loss of Alsace and Lorraine every bit as much; we are as loyal citizens as any others.”

“Yes, Madame, I do not doubt that.”

“Do you mean that?” she asked him earnestly, her look demanding an honest answer.

“Yes, Madame, I believe religion or birth are immaterial when it comes to patriotism. Any Frenchman can be a patriot—or a traitor.”

“Oh, Maître, I am so glad to hear you say that,” she responded. “I did not like to ask you where you stood, but the captain’s brother is convinced he has been singled out for this unfair treatment because of his religion.”

“Perhaps he’s right,” Dubon replied thoughtfully.

This conversation with the widow had been more useful to him than her clipping file, he thought to himself, cheered by the idea he might have some skills as a detective after all. She was not, despite herself, drawing a very flattering portrait of the man: He was ambitious, serious-minded, and hardworking, that much was clear—but he also sounded stiff, even pompous perhaps, and sometimes not as devoted as his wife might have wished. He certainly had no time for military camaraderie, and his colleagues probably disliked him as a result, especially if he was rising faster than them. Did his perfectionism somehow get him into trouble? Perhaps he had been too embarrassed by some peccadillo to go to his family for money? Or had his professional success and earnest personality so angered his colleagues that
one of them had framed him for espionage? His religion would have made him, quite unfairly, an all-too-easy target for a comrade with a grievance against him or perhaps a superior officer irritated by his zeal.

“That’s very useful, Madame,” he said as the cab pulled up outside the racetrack. “Very useful indeed.”

During the break after the fifth race, they ate in the public dining room, a large space on the ground floor of the racetrack’s main pavilion with a good view of the course—if not the finish line—from its floor-to-ceiling windows. It was a well-appointed restaurant with white linen tablecloths and white lace curtains blowing in the breeze, as the maître d’hôtel had seen fit to open the windows despite a continuing chill in the air, but it was less than half full that weekday. Sitting at a prime table pretending it was warmer than it was, they cheerfully dined on sole and lemon mousse as though summer were truly at hand and continued their discussion of the track, content to leave the subject of the captain aside for a while.

It was as they were hypothetically debating whether they believed in backing favorites over a long shot that Dubon saw Morel signaling at him from the door of the restaurant. He excused himself and walked over to his friend.

“Morel, good to see you. Won’t you come and meet … my companion,” Dubon said, not wanting to attach the word
client
to the widow.

“No, no. I have been looking all over the place for you. I thought you would be alone and just lunching in the café. Fournier is waiting for us upstairs in the members’ bar. It’s men only, Dubon.”

“Of course, I’ll just settle the bill here and perhaps you could stay with …”

Morel shook his head. “Sorry, but I have to be out there doing my job. I was just going to introduce you to Fournier before I scampered. We’ve only got ten minutes until the sixth race.” He grinned at Dubon. “Your lady friend will just have to entertain herself.”

Dubon flagged the waiter, requested his bill, and went back to the widow to explain the circumstances. She was perfectly accommodating.

“You go ahead. I’ll meet you in the stands later.”

“Are you sure? I don’t like to leave a lady alone …”

“I am a widow, Maître. Widows can get away with a lot.”

“I’ll have to remember that.”

“If you’re not there for the seventh race, I’ll wait. But after that, I’ll start betting …”

She waved at him reassuringly as he went back to join Morel, who was already beginning to push his way through the gathering crowds outside the restaurant, squeezing through gaps in the same sinuous manner, Dubon recalled, that he had once crawled over the Communards’ barricades.

Morel never seemed to age or slow down: Dubon remembered him fondly as someone who had always been in a rush, trailing bits of paper and leaky pens as he hurried to class at the lycée, zigzagging across town with his leather satchel during the days of the Commune, or hurtling into the church but a few steps before the bride on his own wedding day. His energy was infectious and he was, Dubon gathered, wildly popular with his readers, a success based on some uncanny ability to understand sports that he was neither rich enough nor athletic enough to play himself.

“Don’t know why you want to meet Fournier,” Morel called over his shoulder as he hurried up the stairs to the second floor. “Don’t imagine
Le Soleil
is the paper of choice in the Dubon household, and he is not exactly our brightest spark.”

“Madame Dubon reads your paper regularly,” Dubon reassured him, although Morel only guffawed at this. “It’s just a military case Fournier has written about. A client of mine wanted his opinion. I appreciate the introduction.”

“Bah. It’s nothing. A day at the races is a real treat for Fournier. And me, I owe you, at the very least my livelihood—if not my life,” Morel replied as he reached the top of the stairs and surged across the landing.

“It was all Maître Gaillard,” Dubon said, brushing aside the compliment but warming at the memory.

“He always gave you a lot of credit,” Morel said.

Dubon had retreated into his parents’ house that bloody week in May when the Commune fell, slipping back safely into the new bourgeois neighborhood in the 8th, but Morel had stuck it out in the streets
to the east and had been marched to the court-martials at Versailles in a parade of thousands. Nobody could find the officer who was supposed to testify against him, so he had been found not guilty—at least in theory. In practice, even those who were acquitted had a
C
stamped on their identity papers and now found schools, professions, and even Paris itself to be off-limits. Without any such stigma, Dubon was able to study law, while Morel had languished on a cousin’s farm in the provinces until Dubon had asked his mentor, Maître Gaillard, what they could do for his friend. The senior lawyer was already working on the campaign for an amnesty for those in jail or in exile. He vouched for Morel with the police, brought him back to Paris, and eventually found him a job as a copy boy with the newspaper where his wife’s cousin worked. Ironically, it was a monarchist publication.

Dubon now followed Morel toward the bar and over to a table where a burly man with a large black beard was waiting for them.

“You’re one of the de Ronchaud Valcourts, aren’t you?” Fournier inquired eagerly, once they had been introduced and Morel had escaped to the stands for the next race.

“Yes, that’s right. My wife, Geneviève, is the late general’s eldest daughter.”

“But you aren’t a military man?” Fournier sounded disappointed.

“No, I’m a lawyer. Did you serve?”

“Not more than my national service. I’m a journalist by profession. Sort of fell into the beat, you know. I used to cover police news. Grimy stuff. This is very pleasant in comparison. Talk to all sorts of fine people—like yourself. It’s a larger canvas, bigger issues at stake.”

“Well, your writing certainly gets at the issues. As one familiar with military life, I can say you show great sympathy for what it’s really like. The straight goods,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound sycophantic.

Dubon had read some of Fournier’s recent columns in preparation for their meeting and had found them full of sentimental stuff about the average soldier laboring to protect the motherland. The man’s contacts, he gathered, were fairly low down the hierarchy, and he doubted he would have any inside information about Dreyfus, but at least Dubon could ask him where to find Azimut Martin.