An Officer and a Spy

by Robert Harris

Later we sit at the piano, which occupies most of her tiny sitting room, and play a duet, the Chopin rondo. Her playing is faultless; the musical part of her brain remains quite intact; it will be the last thing to go.

At the highest level, the border between the military and the political ceases to exist. But we must never forget the army must always be above mere party politics.”

I stare over her shoulder at the open window and try to imagine us married. If we were, would we ever experience a night like this? Isn’t an awareness of their transience what gives these moments their exquisite edge? And I have such a horror of constant company.

It is the France for which I fight—if only by piecing together the garbage of a priapic Prussian colonel.

As I seal the envelope, I reflect how easily I am slipping into the clichés of the spying world. It alarms me. Already I trust no one. How long before I am raving like Sandherr about degenerates and foreigners? It is a déformation professionnelle: all spymasters must go mad in the end.

I want to say: “Because I can’t begin to tell you what’s on my mind, or what I do all day, and when there’s no longer a possibility of unguarded intimacy, social life becomes a fraud and a strain.” Instead I merely remark blandly, “I fear I am poor company these days.”

prolixity

My four golden principles are more important now than ever: take it one step at a time; approach the matter dispassionately; avoid a rush to judgement; confide in nobody until there is hard evidence.

Is this what people say about me—that I was Mercier’s errand boy? That I only got my present job because I knew how to tell him the things he wanted to hear? I feel as if I have walked into a mirrored room and glimpsed myself from an unfamiliar angle for the first time. Is that really what I look like? Is that who I am?

When soldiers break ranks and want to run away on the battlefield, it is the Henrys of this world who can persuade them to come back and keep fighting.

I did as I was told. You order me to shoot a man and I’ll shoot him. You tell me afterwards you got the name wrong and I should have shot someone else—well, I’m very sorry about that, but it’s not my fault.”

Really, it is beyond hypocrisy; it is beyond even lying: it has become a psychosis.