The Library Paradox (24 page)

‘I cannot give you the name at this point,’ said Mr Lazare, ‘for under the rules of democracy, the addressee must be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and to have him prematurely condemned by public opinion would be equivalent to the crime against Dreyfus himself. I will, however, give you the nature and text of the message discovered. It is a telegram, a so-called
petit bleu,
which was written and addressed but for some reason thrown
away and apparently never sent. The contents are as follows:
Monsieur, I await before anything a more detailed explanation than the one you gave me the other day on the question in suspense. Consequently I pray you give it to me in writing so as to be able to judge if I can continue my relations with the house of R or not.

The contents of the telegram seemed meaningless. Mr Lazare was sensitive to this impression.

‘To experienced eyes, this is very obviously an espionage document,’ he announced firmly, and in spite of the fact that this theory supported his personal views almost too perfectly, I felt inclined to agree with him. The peculiar message did seem to be purposely couched in a language of disguise and double play which did not obviously correspond to any normal way of writing.

‘What it means is simple: the
bordereau
formed part of a correspondence between an officer of the French Army and a German member of the Embassy, which has continued to this day, uninterrupted by the arrest and condemnation of Dreyfus! What conclusion could be clearer?’

Indeed.

‘I learnt of the existence of this document almost immediately,’ he continued, ‘for fortunately, France and its Army contain many honest people, who are aware of the injustice committed against Alfred Dreyfus, and are working together to overturn it. But do you think it will be easy for me to use this new discovery to advantage? No – it will be not only difficult, but dangerous. First of all, I have never seen the document, but only a hasty copy
made by my informant. If it becomes a serious threat to the upper echelons of the Army, nothing could be easier than to destroy the original. Secondly, if it becomes too well known to be destroyed, the person who takes it upon himself to make it officially public runs a serious risk of being accused of having forged it. All dealings with this new document contain a tremendous risk of backlash. For indeed, to any objective observer, it
proves and confirms
the innocence of Dreyfus, and indicates the guilt of another. But for those whose main goal is to confirm his condemnation and foment enmity against the Jews, it is nothing but a danger.

‘Before taking any other action, I must try to prevent the negative reaction I predict, by calmly apprising as many individuals as possible of the existence and reality of the
petit bleu,
in order to avoid them learning about it by some kind of public announcement such as a newspaper headline, which would only increase the intensity of the polemic. That is my purpose here today: to give you an objective version of events before you will learn of them through articles written by journalists, each of whom has a racist theory to prove.’

He bowed, to signify that he had finished, and the audience proceeded to applaud politely. I remembered Mr Lazare’s letter to Professor Ralston. The beginning of the professor’s answer gave a fair idea of what the rest would have been like; I remembered his qualifying the news as ‘vague nonsense’ and saying the telegram was sure to be ‘a forgery’. Out of pure indignation, I surprised my neighbours by suddenly redoubling my applause. Professor
Taylor stood up, calmed the noise with a gesture, and invited the audience to ask questions.

The exchanges continued over the next half an hour or so, and Mr Lazare filled in a good many details, telling us where and in what conditions Alfred Dreyfus is being held at this instant, the unceasing activities of his brother and his wife in his defence (what his wife must be living through at this very moment – it does not bear thinking about!) and a good deal of generality about the shameful wave of anti-Semitism in France and the shocking role of the newspapers in its development. Finally, the questions were over and the audience filed out. As the room emptied, Professor Taylor beckoned me forward and introduced me to the illustrious journalist, with no frills, as the private detective investigating the death of Professor Ralston.

‘That is very interesting,’ he said to me, raising his eyebrows. ‘But is there some way in which I can be of help to you in the matter?’

‘I do have a few questions I would very much like to ask you,’ I began hopefully. ‘He was one of the people to whom you wrote about the
petit bleu,
was he not? We found your letter in his study after his death. It seems as though he was in the process of answering it when he was killed.’

‘How terrible,’ he said. ‘There was a letter to me? What did it say?’

‘He hadn’t written much,’ I said. ‘But he said something to the effect that if the
petit bleu
existed at all, it was probably a forgery.’

‘I know this is a difficult thing to say of the dead,’
said the journalist slowly, ‘but I must tell you that my correspondence with Professor Ralston had led me to believe that he was becoming slightly mad. Not only did he suffer from a degree of anti-Semitism whose rabidity denoted some form of paranoia, but his correspondence had lately taken on a tone of insult and provocation which went beyond the limits of decency.’ Glancing at his watch, he added, ‘I must hurry away now, for I have a meeting with several journalists in half an hour. But we can meet again tomorrow morning, if you wish, before I return to France. I will show you some documents to explain what I mean. I propose that the three of us meet together at ten o’clock in the foyer of the Savoy, where I am staying.’

We nodded our heads, and the overworked gentleman bid us goodbye and dashed off into the street with an energy unexpected from one of his rather portly girth. Professor Taylor accompanied me to the exit at a calmer tempo, but his eyes were full of urgency.

‘Finally, we can talk,’ he said. ‘I heard this morning that young Sachs has been arrested for Ralston’s murder. Do you know anything about this? Are you connected with it in some way?’

‘No. The police arrested him on the grounds that the only logical solution to the mystery is that his testimony must be false. However, he insists that he is speaking the truth,’ I told him calmly. But my heart was beating wildly. Professor Taylor could be the murderer – for powerful reasons of his own – yet he did not seem the kind of person
who would allow someone else to be condemned in his stead. Was he going to confess?

‘Is it possible? Could he really have done it? I don’t know him well at all, yet it is hard to believe. Could they not be making a mistake? Have you discovered anything yourself?’ he continued anxiously.

‘I have other leads,’ I said feebly, wondering inwardly at the rigid unwritten social rules that made it impossible for me to ask him directly whether his was not, after all, the hand that had held the gun. Yet the eyes that were looking at me were blue and kind, and expressed only a distressed worry.

‘Is Mr Lazare one of your leads?’ he asked.

‘Not exactly – not as the murderer, I mean – yet I do have some questions to ask him,’ I said.

‘I will be pleased to join you tomorrow morning, then,’ he replied, and shaking my hand courteously, he departed before I could ask him anything more, even if I had been able to formulate a question.

I looked at the time, and seeing that it was nearing five o’clock, I decided to go to David and Rivka’s house immediately. Stepping smartly into the first dingy four-wheeler that passed, I directed him to Settles Street and sat back thoughtfully as we rolled off, trying to plan how best to tell them what had to be told. I wondered hopefully if they might not have learnt it already, by a telegram or a visit earlier in the day, but when Rivka opened the door in answer to my quick knock, I saw at once that she knew
nothing. Amy must have had her hands full dealing with her distraught parents.

‘I am very sorry to be the one to bring you bad news,’ I said quickly, drawing a chair towards her. ‘It is about Jonathan: last night, after we left you, he was arrested.’

‘Arrested!’ she gasped. ‘Jonathan! But why? What have they arrested him for?’

‘For the murder, Rivka. Do you remember that I thought I saw a policeman spying on the rabbi last night? Well, he really was a policeman, but in fact he was spying on Jonathan. And others were waiting for us at our flat. They arrested him as soon as we arrived.’

Rivka sat down; her face turned pale with horror, then chalk white. The baby sank in her weakened arms, and I hastened to bring her a glass of water and gather him up myself as she struggled to regain her composure. I worried that the little fellow might burst into shrieks, but he remained perfectly still, fixing enormous eyes on his mother and reducing the expression of his own little existence to the silent watchfulness that tends to overtake small children in unfamiliar circumstances. I watched her also, and the blank, childish terror in her eyes suddenly made me wonder, as I had the first time I saw her, how old she actually was.

‘Jonathan arrested – for murder! No, it’s impossible, impossible. No, this can’t be happening!’ she said in increasingly desperate tones, pressing her hands to her heart.

‘It doesn’t mean that he is guilty,’ I said quickly, unable to seriously entertain the possibility aloud in the face of
such a reaction. ‘We need to help him by finding the true murderer. I need your help, Rivka, yours and David’s. We need to work together; we need to see the rabbi, Rabbi Avrom. Will David be home soon?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know when he will come. He is in
shul
,’ she said, her emotion giving way to a kind of exhausted dullness.

‘Is it nearby? Could I fetch him? It is an emergency,’ I said, beginning to feel slightly worried. Her face was whiter than ever. I stared at her, and it dawned on me with increasing dismay that what I was seeing was similar to what I had seen in Amy yesterday evening. Like Amy’s, Rivka’s reaction did not appear normal to me. I would have expected indignation, even anger, and a solid declaration of belief in his innocence. Instead what I saw was excessive shock and fear. Was she fending off the unbearable notion that Jonathan might actually be guilty?

‘Don’t be so frightened,’ I told her. ‘The rabbi will surely give us the proof that Jonathan is innocent. Rivka, what is the matter?’

For answer she burst into tears.

I felt a little at a loss; I could see there was something I should know, but I could not see how to get it out of her; the more she was frightened, the more she sank into incoherence, and the more I reassured her, the more she would be likely to take hold of herself and say nothing of whatever family secret I now began to suspect her of sharing. I hesitated, and at that moment, to my relief, the door was flung open and David himself burst into the room.

‘I couldn’t stay in
shul
, Rivka,’ he cried, rushing towards her. ‘I felt so uneasy – I felt something was wrong! I left suddenly and came running home. Oh, what is it, what is it?’ and he knelt next to her and took her in his arms.

‘Jonathan has been arrested,’ she said in a voice muffled by the shoulder against which her face was buried.

‘Jonathan! For our murder? That’s – why, that’s crazy!’ He turned to look up at me. ‘How can it be? I didn’t know anybody suspected him.’

‘Nobody did, I think, until yesterday,’ I said, and recounted yet again the story of the newspaper article and the paradox.

‘That’s terrible,’ he said. ‘But he didn’t do it, of course. He shouldn’t be in much danger. We will have to confront Reb Avrom, come what may. We will find some way to tell him what’s going on. If he knows it’s a question of life or death, the rebbe will listen!’ He turned back to his wife with a look of tender concern. She was sobbing harder than ever.

‘Rivkele, what’s the matter? It will be all right, you’ll see. We’ll get Jonathan out of there. The police have made a mistake, that’s all. What’s wrong?’ he added, in a strange tone, suddenly perceiving, as I had, that something deeper was upsetting her. I moved a little farther back, holding the baby – the older boy was nowhere to be seen – and made myself as inconspicuous as possible, for I thought that David had a better chance than myself of persuading her to express what was in her heart.

‘Arrested for murder,’ she wailed incoherently. ‘Oh, I should never have married you.’

‘What are you talking about?’ he said, amazed. ‘Just because your cousin has been arrested by mistake? Rivkele, that’s nonsense. Of course you should have married me. I need you – aren’t you the one who draws water for me from the well? From the source of life?’ He put his arms around her shoulders more closely. I paused in my thoughts, struck by what he had just said. Was he referring to something from the Bible?

‘We must see what we can do to help your aunt and uncle,’ David continued. ‘I suppose they know of it already?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘Amy went to them immediately after it happened, last night. I have not heard from her since.’

‘Poor Aunt Judith,’ said Rivka, making an effort to speak more normally. ‘She will be desperate. But Uncle Simon will take control. Perhaps they can visit Jonathan.’

Everything came together in my mind at once. It was Rebecca with her pitcher who drew water from the well –
Rebecca!

And Uncle Simon, and Aunt Judith – Simon and Judith! I remembered the marriage certificate I had seen in Somerset House:
Judith Gad and Simon Sachs, married in the Synagogue, in 1871.
And I had not made the connection, because I had never heard the name of Uncle Simon, and Sachs was said to be a typical Jewish name.

‘Rivka’ – nothing but the Hebrew form of Rebecca. Rebecca, Judith Gad’s niece – Rebecca, Menachem Gad’s daughter! I have been scouring London for this girl, while seeing her every day.

My God, I have been so blind! I turned to her, and the
baby transferred his startled gaze from her face to mine.