A Man in Uniform: A Novel

ONE

Maître Dubon lifted his gaze from Madeleine’s right breast, which was peeking out tantalizingly from under a crisp white sheet, and let it travel slowly down the bed, admiring as he did so how the draped cotton clung to her body in some places and obscured it in others. He glanced across the room and let his eye come to rest, ever so casually, on the ornate gilt clock that sat atop the dresser. It was twenty minutes before the hour.

Well, perhaps it’s time we get dressed. Still leaning back against the pillows, he waited a long moment before he made up his mind to move, and then took the plunge, pulling the sheet off his own body, swinging his feet to the floor and standing.

Beside him, Madeleine stirred and stretched an arm languidly across the bed toward an armchair. Dubon crossed over to it, picked up the peignoir that was lying there, and held it open for her. As she rose to her feet, she slipped her arms into it, drawing the fluttering layers of its wide lace collar over her shoulders and around her neck. He moved to his clothes, pulling on his undershirt, shirt, pants, and waistcoat, buttoning buttons as he did so, methodically but with no apparent haste. He turned to a full-length mirror that stood in one corner of the room and straightened his tie approvingly. Though only of average height, he had a big head, and a finely shaped nose, straight but for the sharp break that formed a little shelf at the bridge, and his features gave him presence. His hair was still good and thick, he always noted with pleasure, and the occasional strand of silver that now appeared at the temples added an air of distinction.

He picked up his jacket. See you tomorrow, my dear.

Until tomorrow, she replied. He kissed her affectionately on one cheek, gently patted the other, and left her padding about her small apartment in her peignoir and little satin slippers as he stepped calmly into the street. It was fifteen minutes to the hour.

Maître Dubon’s day was a well-ordered thing. Its final goal, which the lawyer achieved without fail, was a seven-thirty dinner hour during which he shared a light meal with his wife, Geneviève, and his son, André. He also breakfasted with them at seven, and most days joined them for a large lunch at eleven, for he thought of himself as a family man and considered it his duty to eat three meals a day in the company of his wife and son, a duty he executed with affection.

From the breakfast table, he proceeded to the office, a pleasant walk, if the weather was fine, along the river and across the place de la Concorde to the rue Saint-Honoré, and so to his clients, who would visit him before lunch. They were prosperous burghers and people of society, and he drafted their wills and their contracts with diligence if no particular enthusiasm. The practice he had inherited from his father represented a limited set of legal permutations that he had long since mastered. The thrusts and parries of the courtroom, on the other hand, he left to others, simply passing on to a colleague the occasional unfortunate case that was headed in that direction. Returning home for lunch, he tried not to dally at the table and allowed himself only a single glass of wine, because after a few more hours in the office preparing documents and reviewing files, he would proceed to an engagement rather different from the dinner hour but to which he was equally faithful.

Between five and seven, Maître Dubon visited Mademoiselle Madeleine Marteau in her apartment off the boulevard des Italiens. He had been visiting her there five days a week for the past eleven years, ever since he had rented the apartment for her in the seventh year of his marriage, when André had just turned three. He had met Mademoiselle Marteau, or Mazou as he called her, a few years previously; he had been introduced to her by a legal colleague with bohemian connections. In those days, she worked as a seamstress with a leading fashion house and had received many different visitors in a second-floor studio in Montparnasse. His attendance at her little gatherings and the occasional tête-à-tête had ceased briefly when Geneviève presented him with the joyous news of her pregnancy, but he had resumed the acquaintance soon after André’s birth. Labor had strained Geneviève, and two things had become clear to him then. One was that his relations with his wife, while always cordial, were unlikely to become physical again anytime soon; the other was that if he wished to enjoy Madeleine’s company, he needed to regularize their situation. And so, he rented the apartment off the boulevard des Italiens and attended her there faithfully Monday through Friday, arriving with the occasional box of chocolates or new handbag to augment the check he paid into her bank account every month.

His relationship with Geneviève, meanwhile, remained happy enough. She was thirty-nine now; he was forty-three, and friends and relations had stopped dropping hints about the joys of big families. It was sad, but there it was: André would never have, could never have, a brother or sister. Although Dubon slept beside his wife each night, their sexual relations were less than infrequent.

If it was important that he arrive home by seven, it was no less important that he present himself at Madeleine’s door by five, for he considered himself, both at home and abroad, to be a gentleman and here too there were delicate social negotiations to be entered into before they could move to Madeleine’s bedroom. Perhaps there was a new dress to admire or a recent concert to discuss over a cup of tea or a glass of wine. Maître Dubon may have visited Madeleine’s bed more than two thousand times, but their relations remained enjoyably fresh thanks not only to Madeleine’s sense of invention but also to his lack of presumption—or at least his pretense of a lack of presumption.

Yes, it was important to arrive no later than five, but Maître Dubon often liked to be there earlier or even make Madeleine a surprise visit on a Saturday morning after he had spent an hour or two in his office. His mistress was a highly attractive woman almost ten years his junior and it would be unwise to take her for granted.

So he was particularly annoyed when, on the following afternoon shortly before five on a day that was already running late, a sharp whistle sounded. As he lifted the speaking tube off the edge of his desk and put it to his ear, the clerk Roberge could be heard mumbling something about a visitor to see him. Roberge had never mastered the gadget, always blowing the warning whistle too loudly but then speaking too softly into the tube to be heard.

Dubon blamed the interruption on Lebrun’s mother’s cat. Lebrun was his regular clerk and knew that afternoon visitors were rare and certainly not permitted after 4:00 P.M., but his aged mother had fallen over her cat the week before and broken some bone, the location of which, being a delicate man, Lebrun would not name. He had craved Dubon’s understanding—and a few days’ credit from his annual holiday to attend to his relative. He had called in, as his temporary replacement, Roberge, a downtrodden character who floated around the quartier picking up work in various law offices when his weak health would permit. And so, on that day, it was the less-than-satisfactory Roberge who ushered a lady into the lawyer’s office at an inconvenient hour.

The woman, a widow, entered the room with a firm but quiet step. Dubon guessed her husband must be six months’ gone now: she was dressed head to toe in black, but not veiled. Instead, she wore a tidy little hat. Her hair was carefully pinned up out of sight, and the little that showed around her forehead was dark but not quite black, hinting that the unseen mane was a luxurious brown or perhaps a rich chestnut color. She wore no ornament of any kind, not even a mourning brooch, except for a gold wedding ring on her left hand. She wasn’t old—perhaps thirty or thirty-five, certainly not yet forty, he estimated—and, if it were not for the sad contradiction between her youth and her bereavement, a man passing her in the street might not give her quiet figure a second glance.

Unless, of course, he had the gall to look her straight in the eyes. And what remarkable eyes they were, Dubon noted as he rose to greet her: a deep, deep blue, sparkling with an intensity that suggested widowhood had not dampened some quick spirit alive beneath her sorrows. Dubon was visited by a sudden image of her quite naked, her skin … He checked himself. Perhaps he had been staring.

Madame, my apologies. I so seldom receive visits after four o’clock; you have startled me, I’m afraid. He paused and reached for her hand, then held it in his as though he might kiss it before letting it drop. To whom do I owe the honor?

My name is Madame Duhamel. I apologize, Monsieur, for waiting until the very end of the day to call upon you—

Oh, not at all, Madame. You are most welcome. Please, do come in.

He adjusted the chair reserved for clients and swept a hand across it to invite her to sit down. Then, instead of going around and settling himself behind the large expanse of the desktop, he stayed in front of it, drew a second, smaller chair out from against one wall and sat down directly facing her. She made no move to take off her hat but sat there, clutching her gloves in one hand.

The weather is still so cold, don’t you find? Dubon asked. Almost unseasonably so. I always enjoy the spring, but here we are in mid-April and we are still bundled up in our winter clothes. If I may be honest, Madame, I would myself not say no to a ray or two of sunlight.

Oh yes, a ray of sunlight …

Her voice trailed off and she appeared puzzled, as though unsure why they were discussing the weather. She held his gaze now, and again her eyes arrested him. They darted and glittered. This time he was not imagining it: there was some humor there behind her evident grief. Indeed, she almost laughed, emitting a little sound that ended in a gulp.

Oh, Monsieur, I suppose you want me to state my business.

Whenever you wish, Madame. I am in no hurry.

And indeed, Dubon, who but moments before had felt annoyed at the interruption keeping him from Madeleine, was now happy to linger. She seemed hesitant, as though sensing there was specific etiquette to be employed when visiting a lawyer’s office but ignorant of what it might be. Dubon found the effect charming.

She drew a long breath and shifted in the chair. Maître. They do call you Maître, I suppose …

Oh yes, indeed. Lebrun, my clerk, always insists on introducing me that way to clients. That wasn’t him who let you in. That was Roberge; he’s just temporary. He calls me Maître too. My friends, on the other hand—

She interrupted him here. That’s fine. I will call you Maître. And, she added, her tone serious now, I will tell you my business.

By all means, do go ahead.

I come to you on behalf of a friend of mine … Some skepticism must have shown in his face for she repeated it. Yes, a dear friend of mine. She is in serious trouble but cannot risk coming to see you herself. Indeed, she does not know that I am here, only that I said I would try to make some inquiries as to what might be done to save her husband.

Save her husband? What ails him, Madame?

Nothing that true justice could not cure, Monsieur.

Well, Madame Duhamel. I am not sure you have come to the right place. A lawyer will get you the best justice he can, but as to whether that constitutes true justice …

Maître, please. Your reputation precedes you. Your work on the—

No, no, Madame, please, that is not necessary. Dubon did not want to hear her fabricate some tribute to his supposed credentials by dragging up his minor role in events now long past. He could only suppose someone had told her that his services came cheap by the standards of the rue Saint-Honoré. God only knew what a client might be asked to pay the society lawyer de Marigny, whose offices were across the street, or the much-praised Socialist, Déon, who was just one floor up and always willing to take on a high-profile cause.

Please, do continue. Tell me about your friend’s husband.

He is an army officer, Maître, a captain in the artillery. Dubon began to guess the real reason she had come to his office; she must have learned of his family connections and judged they would be useful if her case involved the military.

I will come to the point. There is no way to put it gently and you have perhaps read about the case in the papers. It caused some furor at the time: about two years ago, my friend’s husband was accused of spying for the Germans. He was court-martialed, convicted, and deported to serve his sentence in cruel exile. Even now, he languishes on Devil’s Island.

But, Madame, his trial is then long past. Why seek legal advice now?

Because he is innocent, Monsieur.

Madame, I am sure your friend is a charming person and a loyal wife—

Do not patronize me, Maître, she interrupted.

Dubon, unaccustomed to such directness in any lady other than his wife, drew himself up and began again. No, I would not dream of it, Madame. So naturally, your friend believes completely in her husband’s innocence.

It is not a matter of belief; it is a matter of fact. The man is innocent. I have known him, well, many years. It is unthinkable that the captain is a spy.

That may be, Madame. However, if the army has convicted him at a court martial, I don’t see what possible help a lawyer could be now. Most especially, Dubon thought to himself, a lawyer with no current experience in criminal law and whose only knowledge of the workings of the military was limited to Sunday lunches with his wife’s relations, however much the lady’s informants may have billed him as the highly placed son-in-law of the late General de Ronchaud Valcourt. I can only assume your friend’s husband had the benefit of good legal advice at the time of the court martial?

Yes. I believe a Maître Demange undertook his defense. But clearly he did not succeed in forestalling a conviction.

She paused and looked down at her lap before raising her face to him. He found it was all he could do to stare straight back.

"Monsieur, I am … we are … increasingly desperate. It has been more than two years, two and a half, and the captain is seemingly forgotten. His brother is responsible for the family’s attempts to exonerate him and win him a new trial, but makes no progress. No progress at all. I do not wish to undercut his efforts, or divide the family, but I despair that his approach will ever bear fruit. No one knows I am here today. I do not wish my friend to be associated in any way with my demarche. I believe the family has made a mistake in simply proclaiming the captain’s innocence, as though justice will ultimately triumph just because he is innocent. I have concluded that the secret to his release is to find the reason for his conviction. The army had evidence that someone was selling secrets to the Germans; the generals’ mistake was to convict the wrong man. And you, Maître, you can find the real spy so as to exonerate the captain."

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.

TWO

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