Mata Hari's Last Dance

by Michelle Moran

  “I was born in Caminghastate,” I said. “My father was a baron.”

  Zeeman narrowed his eyes as if he didn’t believe me, but he was short and unattractive and I didn’t care. Whereas Evert’s gaze made me giddy. He was tall and blond and possessed what the Dutch call Beïnvloeden. Power, influence. “You glow,” he told me, and I drank in his compliments, becoming intoxicated.

  “I went to his hotel room,” I tell Edouard. “I thought I’d never have to fear for my future again. The next evening, I lied to my aunt and said I was having dinner with the daughter of a shopkeeper, that I had found a friend. I took the tram and met Evert at the Grand. The hotel had a dance floor like a wide-open sea. We danced and I imagined I was Mrs. Margaretha Pallandt.” I feel my cheeks warming, remembering how foolish I was. “Every Friday I lied to my aunt and went to meet Evert at the Grand.”

  Edouard orders us another bottle of wine.

  “I will be with you forever,” Evert promised me. He was so gracious and so eloquent: our evenings together were precisely as I imagined true love would be. Music from the dance floor drifting out onto the terrace. Stars like diamonds overhead. “In Java we’ll have a house by the water,” he whispered. “Then we’ll start a family.”

  I tell Edouard about Evert Pallandt’s plans. “He wanted a little girl and two little boys. He wanted to reproduce his own family, and he had grown up with two sisters.”

  “So what happened to this young prince?”

  I finish my glass and pour myself another. How many glasses have I had? “Have I already told you that he was on leave? He was, and I waited for him to ask me to join him when he returned to duty.”

  “To Java?”

  I nod. “To Java. I had created our life together in my mind. I had never been outside of The Netherlands but Java was as real to me then as you are right now. Eight days before his ship was to sail, Evert appeared at my aunt’s house. It was a Monday. Aunt Marie was taken aback by my handsome visitor.”

  I remember how I rushed down the hall. “Evert!” I shook his hand as though we were old friends. “Aunt Marie,” I said, “this is Evert Pallandt, the brother of one of the girls I used to teach with. What a wonderful surprise!” Of course, she believed my lie. She had faith in me.

  “Everyone believed whatever I told them,” I tell Edouard.

  He doesn’t look surprised. Neither did Evert. He introduced himself to my aunt and then said, “I have news for M’greet from my sister, who’s fallen ill. May I take her for a walk to deliver the message? I will not keep her for long.”

  My aunt cast a nervous glance at her husband, as if he might object. He didn’t. “I’m so sorry. Well, I don’t see why not.”

  “I didn’t realize your aunt was married,” Edouard interrupts. “You didn’t mention that.”

  “Yes. She was married. To a man named Taconis. They were a strange couple.”

  He was not at all religious. I couldn’t imagine what had brought them together until my aunt confided in me that she wasn’t born a cripple; she was once young and carefree.

  “When they were married they were a good match, I suppose; her leg was crushed near the docks where Taconis worked. She was bringing him his lunch, when a cable snapped. That ill-fated day made her pious; it caused him to retreat into guilt.”

  “A sad story. Though now I have a more accurate vision of your circumstances. You were living with your aunt and her husband. What happened when Evert took you outside? Did your uncle reconsider giving you permission to walk alone with a young man?”

  I recall the scene. How I’d teased Evert. “Are you nervous?” I’d asked. I was so confident in him.

  “Nervous? No.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I want to say,” we paused under the shade of a maple, “that I love you, M’greet.” He pulled his hand out of his pocket and placed something round and solid in my palm.

  My heart beat so fast I could hear it in my ears. I closed my eyes, painting the moment behind my eyelids so I could see it always, even when I was asleep. Then I opened them and looked at what I was holding.

  It was a locket containing a photo of the two of us.

  “I don’t understand,” I whispered.

  “It’s a token,” he said, “for when we’re apart.” He paused. “I told my parents about you.” He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “If I take you with me to Java, they’ll disown me.”

  It’s been twenty years and the memory still brings me to tears. I swirl the wine in my glass so I don’t have to look at Edouard, who says quietly, “The boy was a fool.”

  I meet his eyes. “When he gave me that locket, I remembered something my mother told me one afternoon while we were sitting in the garden together. ‘There are the girls you marry and there are the girls you enjoy but never take home.’ I had given myself to Evert because I thought I was the girl he would marry. But I was wrong. I was the other girl—the one no one wanted to take home.” I dab my eyes with my napkin.

  “What did you say to him? You must have been deeply shocked at the turn of events.”

  “I said nothing. I threw the locket in his face. Then I ran back to Aunt Marie’s house. I expected him to chase after me. When he didn’t, I cried for days. After a week passed I was still hoping he’d change his mind. That he’d come back for me. That he would propose.” I shake my head at my foolishness, my naivety.

  “You were young,” Edouard says. “You were gullible. You were hoping he’d do what your father hadn’t.”

  “Yes. Come back and rescue me.” I hadn’t learned anything. “The date he was due to leave The Hague for Java came and went. I never saw him again. But I loved him.”

  “You think you loved him,” Edouard counters.

  I cover my eyes. “I’ve never told anyone this story,” I say.

  “I’m honored you shared it with me.”

  * * *

  We head down nearly deserted streets to my apartment and stumble drunkenly across the doorway. “I think it’s time I kissed you,” Edouard says. And I let him. I let him raise my chin and kiss my lips. Then I let him kiss my arms, my neck, my breasts. And take me into the bedroom and make love to me, as if we’ve been apart for a hundred years.

  * * *

  In the morning, he finds me in the kitchen, already dressed. He is wearing a half grin. He comes behind me, wraps his arms around my waist. When he turns me around to kiss me, I can’t meet his eyes.

  “Oh, God, don’t tell me you think it was a mistake,” he jokes.

  I don’t say anything. My eyes grow hot with tears.

  “Jesus Christ!” he says, stunned. He stares at me for a long moment. Then he kicks the counter. “I’m not one of your playthings! You want me and that makes you scared. You think I don’t know you after all this time, Margaretha MacLeod?” He summons my old name, a judge pronouncing a verdict.

  “Don’t ever call me that again!” I say, appalled. “My name is Mata Hari. I’m not the person you think I am. You don’t know me at all, Edouard Clunet!”

  “Is that so? I don’t know you at all? Tell me this—were those another girl’s memories you shared with me last night?”

  I am sickened with myself. “If you want to know me, call on my aunt Marie in The Hague.”

  “What are you talking about? Why would I do such a thing?”

  “I didn’t tell you everything last evening, Edouard. You don’t know the true M’greet.”

  “Then tell me. Who is the true M’greet?”

  We look across the counter at each other. All right. He wants to know what I really am? “After Evert left for Java, I took Taconis to the Grand.”

  “Aunt Marie’s husband,” he says quietly.

  “Yes.” He worked on the docks and was rugged, handsome. I led him onto the dance floor and he put his hand around my waist. I rested my head on his shoulder. “I wanted Evert to m
ean nothing to me. I wanted to extinguish him with new memories.” A different face, the same room. I wrapped my shawl around Taconis’s neck. I tugged on the silk and pulled him toward me. He bent forward to kiss my lips and I let him. We took a room at the Grand and I replaced Evert’s memories there, too. Then we went back home for Aunt Marie’s dinner.

  “You were very young, M’greet—”

  “I was old enough,” I interrupt Edouard. “I knew exactly what I was doing.”

  Aunt Marie watched Taconis and me laughing together over stories in the newspaper, or telling each other jokes, and she would smile like a mother who is watching children she no longer understands. And this continued for months.

  “On Aunt Marie’s birthday, Taconis gave her a present. He’d secretly gifted me many pretty things, but he gave her a dowdy dressing gown and I was jealous. She whispered something in his ear that made him blush. As soon as we were alone, I wanted to know what she’d said.”

  I can still see the coldness in Taconis’s eyes after I asked. “Be careful, M’greet,” Taconis had warned me.

  A rush of heat flowed into my face. “Why? Are you careful of my feelings?”

  He caught my arm and held it tightly. “Don’t think that telling her is going to assuage a guilty conscience. What’s done is done. Don’t hurt her more.”

  I found Aunt Marie in the parlor, knitting. I wanted to get out of the house, so I claimed I was going to church. To my surprise, she put down her needles and said she’d join me. I was trapped. We put on our coats and walked together to St. James in silence. We crossed the threshold of the church and side by side we entered the first pew and knelt together. For a fleeting moment I caught her watching me with an odd expression. Then she said, “It’s never too late for redemption,” and she started to pray.

  St. James was chilly; I hugged the coat that Taconis had given me closer around myself. I watched Aunt Marie’s lips move silently and I speculated on what she was praying for. I looked up at the crucifix, the gold and silver Christ.

  “I want you out of my house.”

  For a moment, I thought he was talking to me.

  “I want you to leave.”

  I turned, staring at her in shock. “Aunt Marie?”

  “Aunt?” Her voice was high and bitter. “Is that what I am in my house?”

  I hesitated, unsure what to call her. “Marie—”

  “I treated you like a daughter. I allowed you into my house even after you disgraced yourself at that school.” She shook her head. “I should have known, but I trusted in God.” She laughed, a sound harsh and tainted. “God works only minor miracles today.” She clicked her purse open, took out some money. “Pack your belongings when we return. I’ll expect you’ll be needing several suitcases to hoard all of the gifts my husband has bestowed on you. If he asks why you’re leaving us, you’ll do the first decent thing you’ve ever done and tell him you have relatives elsewhere who want you.”

  The next morning Taconis left at six for the docks. He suspected nothing and I told him nothing.

  “By six that night I was gone,” I tell Edouard. “My aunt cried while the coach drove me away. I saw her tearstained face through the curtains.” And I felt the coins she had pressed into my hand. I could taste them in my mouth. “That’s the kind of person I am. You deserve better.”

  “M’greet—”

  “Don’t say it!”

  He leaves my apartment without another word.

  * * *

  Instead of dining with Edouard that evening I arrange to meet with Bowtie at the Grand Hotel Bellevue in Potsdamer Platz. He is in Berlin hoping to interview an actress, Henny Porten. After he rings, I dress in my most cheerful spring gown, white heels, and a white cashmere coat. When I arrive, he’s standing in the garden behind the café. I’m prepared to accept his flattery and compliments, but he barely greets me.

  “Hard day?” I ask, taken aback.

  He hands me a newspaper clipping without a word. April 19, 1913:

  MOTOR-CAR IN THE SEINE. MME. ISADORA DUNCAN'S TWO CHILDREN DROWNED

  I glance up, flustered, and he motions for me to read on.

  Yesterday, a little after three o’clock, the car carrying Isadora Duncan’s nurse and her two children plunged into the river. Passersby tried to dive into the water but the car was beyond anybody’s reach. On hearing the news, Isadora Duncan fainted. The children’s chauffeur has been arrested for culpable homicide.

  “This is horrible,” I whisper. “Why are you showing me this?”

  “I know you failed to get your daughter back,” he says to me, and I feel the sentence like a blow. “I’m a reporter. It’s my job to know these things. What I’m trying to say is, you still have hope—”

  “I thought,” I say, cutting him off, “that you wanted some gossip.” I am fighting to keep my composure. “Ask me about Tristan and Isolde.”

  “Pay attention, Mata Hari. Isadora’s children are gone. They are dead. Your daughter is still alive. If she’s alive, there’s still hope.” He takes the clipping back and tucks it into his vest pocket. “We’ve known each other now for how many years?”

  I can’t be bothered with this. I don’t know. Seven years? Eight? What does he know about my daughter and hope? I have done my best to let Non go. I have stretched my imagination to the limits fashioning a life for her in which she is happy living with her father. A day after Anna’s botched rescue attempt, a telegram arrived at Edouard’s office. It said: Your daughter is dead to you. Do not try again. Still, I begged Edouard to send his men back, to arrange another attempt. I was nearly out of my mind with grief. I spent days drinking; I went to the south of France and visited every dance club on the Riviera. I took in the sights without seeing them, drank and danced all night, and then repeated it all the next day. Eventually, I accepted the truth. I had put Non in danger. The only way for me to keep my little girl safe was to leave her alone.

  “I don’t believe I know you at all,” I say coldly. Then I go inside the hotel and straight to the bar. I order myself a gin and tonic.

  The next morning, it’s the first drink I have when I wake.

  Chapter 14

  A Good Deal of Money to be Made

  For weeks and weeks I drink to excess, shop to excess, and rehearse until my dancers fall asleep on their feet. I do this until one day I’m so sick of my life I decide to stay in bed and never leave. I draw the curtains and lock the front door. I unplug the phone and turn off the lights. I stay like this for three days. On the third night I dream of the cavalry officer I spent time with during my first visit to Berlin: Alfred Kiepert.

  When I awaken, I am curious: Is he still married? Is he still tall and handsome in his military uniform? Is he still enthralled with me?

  I rise and dress. Beyond my desire to see Alfred blooms an awareness that the manager at the Deutsches must be frantic and wondering where I’ve been. Soon they’ll be beating down my door. Then they’ll send Edouard. Even though I miss him desperately, I don’t want to see him. Not yet. We haven’t spoken in a month.

  I put on my favorite red gown and a black hat with a short veil that I bought in Paris. The dress feels snug: a consequence of indulging in alcohol. I put on one of the many bracelets that Alfred gifted to me—a gold dragon with beautiful ruby eyes. Then I go to the lobby and ask the concierge to look up his address.

  He’s still married, handsome, and wonderful.

  “You don’t ever change, do you, Mata Hari?”

  I lay my cheek on his naked chest, wanting to believe that his compliment is true.

  “What is it like not to have a care in the world?” he asks. “No demanding husband, no needy children?”

  I laugh as if he’s said something funny. But for a moment I find it difficult to speak. If I was honest, I’d tell him, “I have too many cares. That’s why I’m with you.” Instead, I m
ake some silly remark about never being tethered down.

  Later though, I can’t shake off his question. I go back to my apartment and sit on my small balcony, watching the people go by. Men hurrying to the office. Women pushing prams with other women, laughing over something their babies did at home. So that’s how I appear to all of these men. As a lighthearted diversion without any worries at all. A pretty dancing girl with a smile permanently etched on her face like one of the apsaras carved into the temples. I think of all the people in my life who know the truth, but all of them are gone. Even Edouard.

  * * *

  Six months somehow disappear and Edouard and I remain strangers. I know that he is still in Berlin, living in an apartment on Unter den Linden, because I see him one morning while I’m shopping for fruits and vegetables at the Bäckerei.

  I catch his eye. He nods.

  But we don’t speak to each other.

  * * *

  The following Sunday as I am strolling with Alfred I spy Edouard window shopping with a woman. He doesn’t see me and I watch them until they are out of sight. For days I can’t get their image out of my head. How she gazed up at him with her big blue eyes, how his arm touched the pearl buttons on her waist as he gently steered her from shop to shop. I was the one who told him to leave, but my heart aches when Kiepert presents me with a pendant shaped like a dragon, because I realize I want to feel Edouard’s arm on my waist, and instead I only feel gold, heavy around my neck.

  * * *

  I invite a German general named von Schilling into my dressing room after one of my shows. He is tall, strong, with a rigid jaw, graying blond hair, and sharp blue eyes. We drink together at the Hotel Fürstenhof and then go to his apartment, a five-bedroom suite in cream and gold. He has no pictures of any children, no wife. He professes to be an extremely practical man: children are too expensive, brass buttons are not cost effective in the military, war is good for the economy. But when he takes me to his bed a second time and gifts me diamond earrings for entertaining him, I understand how practical he is in actual fact.