Paper Conspiracies
Page 37
Innocent, the judge proclaimed in subtitles. Cleared of all trumped-up charges.
Rejoicing in the streets followed. Lucie Dreyfus cried and hugged her husband. Shamefaced, du Paty de Clam shook his fist at the camera as he was led away, presumably to a prison no angel would help him escape from. The real spy, Esterhazy, recognizable by his dark hollow eyes and pointed, ferretlike nose, slouched at the edge of the frame. He tried to slip away, but he too was dragged off to jail, arms and legs struggling in protest. The forgers, a man and a woman, were apprehended on the street. I followed orders from Z, that’s all, the subtitles declared. The woman, well dressed, large hat blowing off her head, was angry. I’m an ordinary citizen just trying to live my life. I had no idea who D was, I really didn’t. No opinion about him whatsoever. Why should I be carted off?
The man, whose ink-stained hands hung at his sides, offered no resistance.
The film was very eroded here, nothing but grain appeared on the screen giving way to a mass of bodies, a riot scene; it was a postscript, the scene following the credits that few stay for. A face was visible in the crowd, then it shifted to the bottom of the frame. The man looked like the actor, the ironmonger who had played Dreyfus in the film. He and another man holding a glass slipper appeared to yell at one another in recognition across a sea of faces. The ironmonger was swept out of the frame, but the other man was swept closer to the camera, an expression of panic on his face. It looked as if he was being trampled, but the crowd turned into fog, and the film all but disintegrated under the light.
I pushed back my chair and bumped into bare shelves. Even the happy ending hadn’t saved Alphabet. Julius’s business was finished. I unthreaded the film and put it under the guillotine splicer. Slice. The trial scene with its false but true verdict was cut, chopped into bits and dropped into the trash. Just as the citizens of Krasilov had relegated the papers reporting Dreyfus’s guilty sentence to the rubbish heap, never to believe those papers again, I tossed empty coffee cups and other garbage on top of the footage so no casual observer of the wastebasket, no Auguste Bastian, could fish it out and say, See, this is what really happened.
I replaced A Miracle Under the Inquisition, but before sealing the large box it was meant to be shipped in I added The Affair to the lot, taking it from my pocket and packing Styrofoam peanuts around it. Had I done the right thing? Julius had disappeared, and I knew what he’d say if he were around. I slipped the guillotine splicer into my bag. You never know when it might be useful, now that I’m out of a job. Though harmless to live humans its blade is oddly sharp and lethal to filmed ones. It made a muffled clanging sound as I walked. There would be other jobs because there are always other stories that need to be preserved, Julius himself said so the last time I saw him. His picture with Charlie Chaplin winked at me as I secured what remained of the lock and left for the night.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Page 6: Affaire Esterhazy: identité absolue des écritures (broadside, n.p., January 1898?), courtesy of Lorraine Beitler Collection of the Dreyfus Affair, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania.
Page 114: The Bordereau, 1893, courtesy of Lorraine Beitler Collection of the Dreyfus Affair, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania.
Page 147: The Suicide of Henry, from The Dreyfus Affair, Georges Méliès, 1899.
Page 218: The Arrest of Dreyfus, from The Dreyfus Affair, Georges Méliès, 1899.
Page 278: The Man with the Rubber Head, Georges Méliès, 1902.
Page 352: Devil’s Island, from The Dreyfus Affair, Georges Méliès, 1899.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to the many people who helped me along the way with the writing and research of this book. Richard Kaye, Esther Allen, Linda Collins, John Foster, Leslie Camhi, Tom Bissell, and Shirley Miller Daitch read early drafts for which I am very grateful. Conversations with Sander Gilman and Stephen Brown at the Jewish Museum about Dreyfus and Thomas Gunn about Méliès were immeasurably helpful. David Kehr’s Méliès collection was an invaluable resource and John Pollack of the Lorraine Beitler Collection of the Dreyfus Affair, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania, provided generous assistance. Thanks also to Marion Falk, Bill Kanemoto, Mary Kanemoto, Debarati Sanyal, Radhika Subramanian, Mark Cohen, Ivone Margulies, Anna di Lellio, Sam Crawford, Jennifer Gordon, Karen Weltman, Jon Sterngass, Sunita Viswanath, Stephen Shaw, Brooke Stevens, Margo Cooper, George Seminara, and Magui Nougue-Sans. To the incomparable Elaine Katzenberger for her confidence and enthusiasm, through actualities and preconstructions, I’m grateful and in awe.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Susan Daitch is the author of two novels, L.C. (Lannan Foundation Selection and NEA Heritage Award) and The Colorist, and a collection of short stories, Storytown. Her work has appeared in numerous publications and literary venues, and has been the subject of various critical studies. She has taught at Barnard College, Columbia University, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She currently lives in Brooklyn and teaches at Hunter College.