Mata Hari's Last Dance (10 page)

I met Captain Rudolph MacLeod in front of a glass case filled with rifles. He was tall and bald, with a white mustache and a sunburned face. He was holding a polished cane and looked old enough to be my father. But he wore the dazzling uniform of the Dutch colonial army.

“Captain MacLeod?”

“Lady Zelle.” I watched his face transform. He held out his hand. A bear paw. I felt the heat of tropical suns.

“Please, call me M'greet.”

We strolled arm in arm around the museum. I wondered what his house in Java looked like; I imagined bamboo floors and fans turning slowly on hot afternoons. With each step we took I left The Netherlands behind. When he asked for my hand, I'd known him for six days. We were married on July 11, 1895, in city hall. My wedding dress was yellow tulle. I bought it in the most elegant shop in Amsterdam. “In yellow, mademoiselle?” the French dressmaker questioned. “You can't possibly desire yellow. Cream, perhaps?”

“Yellow,” I insisted. Like saffron. And curry. And tropical suns.

*    *    *

Before I could leave Amsterdam behind, I climbed the seven steps to 148 Lange Leidschedwarsstraat and knocked. A blonde woman
answered the door and I was surprised by how young she was, a thirty-year-old version of my mother, but not as pretty.

“Is Adam Zelle here?” I could smell
hutsput
cooking. My mother made
hutsput.

“May I ask who's calling?”

“Tell him his daughter has arrived.”

Her hand moved to her chest. “
Daughter
?
”

I wondered if he hadn't told her, or if she simply believed I'd never intrude on his new life. I saw him in the kitchen and my chest constricted; he turned and I would have forgiven him anything at that moment. But then a terrible thought occurred to me. What if he wouldn't let me in the door? What if he denied knowing me, his black orchid? “Look at her. Could a girl that dark belong to me? No, my children are lilies, pale as snow.”

“Margaretha, you've come back!” He rushed over to embrace me but I backed away. I glanced at his wife as I said, “You were the one who left me. You left us all.”

“No.” He shook his head. “No, come into the parlor.”

I let myself be led into the parlor. I watched him. He was happy. No tears, no regret. He sat in a straight-backed chair, still the baron of Leeuwarden, now with a wife named Catherine. He sat forward in his chair. What had he been telling people all these years? That his children had abandoned him? That our mother had run off?

His wife sat next to him, pulling her chair close to his.

“I'm getting married,” I said, my voice flat. I couldn't accept that he was married to another woman, letting her cook for him, sleep with him. Had she given him children?

I held my purse tighter, watching my knuckles turn white on the clasp. “Will you give me permission to marry?”

“Oh.” He sat back. “So is that what this is about? I thought you had come to visit.”

A wave of anger swept over me. I felt a new M'greet blooming in place of the old, something darker. I stood, enraged. “Are you not the least bit curious to know what happened after you abandoned my mother? Aren't you interested to know why I was thrown out of Leyde's school for teachers? I
waited
for you,” my voice was shrill. “In Leeuwarden, in Leyde, in The Hague. You never came! Where were you?”

Catherine pulled a handkerchief from her pocket, giving it to me. I hadn't even realized that I was crying. “It's all right.”

She patted my hand as if I were a child, making a fuss over nothing.

What had he told her? That I had left? “Where are my brothers?” I demanded.

My father hesitated. “In the factories. They're doing well.”

No one did well in the factories. Grief overwhelmed me. This was not the man I remembered. My father really was dead. “Do you give me permission to marry?” I asked, moving toward the door. My body felt like lead.

My father hurried to his feet. “You're not leaving?”

I didn't answer him.

“Of course you can marry. As long as he comes to me to ask for your hand.”

I stopped. He hadn't cared what happened to me for years, and now he wanted a formal visit?

“He must come to ask for your hand.” The idea was blossoming in his mind. He was thinking of all the fruit it could bear.

My cheeks flushed. “How
dare
you ask this.” He was living in his own world. I wasn't his daughter. I considered telling him about fending off the Walrus. How would he react when I told him that I'd had half a dozen men at the Grand Hotel? I wanted him to see what he'd created, to feel the sharp edges of my pain.

“Margaretha,” Catherine interjected. “A formal proposal is only right.”

I turned around, prepared to give her a lesson on what was right. But I stopped myself. A woman can't marry in Amsterdam until she's thirty without her father's permission. It was either comply with my father's wishes or lose a husband, and I wanted Java too much to lose Rudolph.

I set my jaw, cursing him to hell. “Tomorrow, then.”

Chapter 11

A Girl's Private Laundry

I
'm changing my clothes after an exceptional opening night when Edouard lets himself into my dressing room at the Odéon. “Did you see the prince of Schwarzburg?” I ask. “He was in the second row tonight. I have to hurry. He's waiting for me in the lobby.”

I look up and notice Edouard's face. It's serious. He sits down across from my dressing table and I realize that he's holding something. “M'greet, I want you to be calm.”

Immediately, all calmness drains away. “Has something happened to Non? Has something happened to my daughter?”

He holds up the book he's carrying and I'm shocked. There's a photo of me on the jacket. I am nine years old, dressed in a ridiculously expensive outfit my father had indulged me with. I remember the moment it was taken clearly: I was standing in front of Leeuwarden's fountain, imagining I was a queen. It was summer and the air was heavy with jasmine blossoms.

“Who found that photo?” I reach for the book but he pulls it back.

“This book is going to make you very, very angry,” he warns me. “It's a biography,” he says. “Of you. Written by your father.”

Rage, white-hot, burns through my body. “You aren't serious!” But
he hands me the book and as I begin flipping through the pages I know that he is. “And what does he write about?” I demand, scanning the pages. “Does he apologize for abandoning me? For leaving my mother to die in Leeuwarden?”

Edouard moves toward the door. “I'm sorry. I wanted you to hear about this from me, not read about it in the papers. I believe your friend ‘Bowtie' is penning something about it.”

As soon as he closes the door I start reading.
The Life of Mata Hari: A Biography of My Daughter and My Grievances Against Her Former Husband
. Page after page details my father's flair for business, his former collection of art, his overall greatness that inevitably produced a person like me. In every chapter my father is the hero. I am a caricature and Rudolph is unrecognizable. My brothers are barely mentioned. And in my father's version of our life, my mother never existed.

*    *    *

The next morning Bowtie finds me in the Ritz taking my coffee in a shady little nook far removed from everyone else. The man has the homing abilities of a pigeon. He makes for my table and I wish to God he would make a right turn and perch with someone else. But I know why he's here. I might as well get it over with.

“Mata Hari!” His sandy hair is slicked back beneath his fedora. There's no
Press
card tucked inside the band today. He takes a seat and snaps for the waiter.

“Good morning,” I tell him. I hope it's obvious from my voice that I don't mean it.

“It's always a good morning, Mata Hari. If you're walking and breathing, it's good.” The waiter arrives and he orders a coffee. “Another?” he asks me.

“No.”

“You just opened a new show. No rehearsals today?”

“Not until next week.”

He nods. Then the coffee arrives and he's all business. “So.” He takes a sip. “Is it true? Everything your father wrote about you?”

I don't have it in me to play the fool. “Of course not. It's trash.”

“Doesn't matter, though, does it? Thousands of people will read his book. They'll read it and they'll be shocked.” He straightens his bow tie; today it's deep magenta. “Is there anything you'd like to tell them? I'm offering you the chance.”

There is tenderness in his voice. He's waiting for me to speak, his boyish face tilted to the side. He's exceedingly good-looking. I'm sure he has his pick of women wherever he goes. Or perhaps men. “Yes, there's something I'd like to say.”

He takes a pen from behind his ear and sits forward, ready to write.

“Tell them that my father is—”

“Delusional?” he offers. “That you were born in India, not Caminghastate?”

“Yes.”

“And what about your husband? Is any of that true?”

“I'd rather not speak about it.”

“But you do have a daughter?”

“I can't talk—” My voice breaks. If Rudolph reads my father's horrible book, what will he do to Non? Will he take his rage out on her? Tears trail down my cheeks and I feel myself shaking. Bowtie offers me his handkerchief. I press it against my eyes. “Please,” I say. “She's only a little girl. If my ex-husband reads this book—”

“Are you afraid of him?”

“Yes.”

He shuts his notepad immediately. “Thank you,” he says. He stands, leaving his coffee unfinished.

The next day in
Le Figaro
I am the headline again:
BETRAYED: JEALOUS AND DELUSIONAL FATHER WRITES FALSE BIOGRAPHY OF THE FAMOUS MATA HARI
.

I am so grateful to Bowtie I could kiss him.

If only Rudolph reads this article and not my father's book.

*    *    *

“An orchid among buttercups.”

His voice is just as I remember it. I turn from my dressing table and there he is. After pruning the garden of my life, up pops a weed.

“M'greet,” my father says. “My God,
look
at you!”

He rushes to me, clasping me in his arms, holding me as if we've been apart for too long. He is such a convincing performer I find myself thinking,
Has he finally come to apologize?

Then he steps back and makes an imaginary toast. “To your success, Margaretha.” He leans forward, hat in his hand. It is expensive, a Wolthausen. I can smell alcohol on him. There is a knock on the door.

“Come in,” I call automatically, my eyes fixed on the man who deserted me.

“M'greet, I—”

It's Edouard. Thank God.

My father bounds over to him, extending his hand. “Adam Zelle,” he says. “Margaretha's father. You must be her director. My M'greet, the star. Did she tell you she was born in Caminghastate?”

“
Papa,
” I whisper.

“The world deserves to know! That's why I've written a book about you.”

I could kill him.

My father looks between me and Edouard, sensing tension. “Don't you think I deserve a little of the success I helped you achieve?” he
asks, belligerence creeping into his voice. He makes his way over to a table and picks through some crackers and cheese.

I've had enough. I don't remember my wedding ceremony beyond recalling that it was short, hot, and full of people I didn't know. But I do remember the banquet we held afterward, at the Café Americain. My father and a dozen of his friends were there, all men from the bottle factory dressed in suits that had fit them better twenty years earlier. It didn't surprise me that he would miss the ceremony and bring his own guests for the food, but I was ashamed that Rudolph's family had to witness it. I saw myself through their eyes, a harlot in yellow, a girl who answers ads in newspapers. They didn't know the beautiful house my family once owned, the servants we'd hired, the fountains that had trickled musically on our lawns. They didn't know the man my father once was. They only saw poverty masquerading as wealth, marrying into it, and I couldn't blame them for hating me.

I stand swiftly. “Edouard, please. Get him out of here.”

I hear them on the stairs, in the street—my father, my knight in shining armor, reduced now to a little man making a scene.

*    *    *

The next night the owner of the Odéon is in the doorway of my dressing room, his mouth tight. “You will encore.”

“I will not!” I fling my brush across the room, watch it smack into the wall with a satisfying thud. “I encored
twice
yesterday and
three times
the day before. I'm done tonight. I'm done for every other night. No more encores.” I grab my cloak and slam the door behind me. In the cold December street, I can still hear the crowd in the theater, chanting
Mata Hari! Mata Hari!

I search the busy streets for a cab. The night is a swirl of red and gold lights, a child's dream of Christmas trees and carolers. And
what have I spent it doing? Dancing naked for men who lie to their wives about where they're going. Inside the shops, the cheerful lights remind me of the way my family decorated our house; of how, on the Feast of Sinterklaas, my brothers would jump on my bed before dawn to wake me so we could creep down the stairs together and spy on the presents that were waiting for us. How different my life was before my mother died and I was sent to the Haanstra School for Girls.

The holiday I spent at that school was difficult. We girls gathered together under the mistletoe at the end of November to draw names for a gift exchange to celebrate the Feast of Sinterklaas. No one wanted to pick Hendrika Ostrander's name.

“No one wants her,” Naatje whispered.

Adda shook her head. “Last year, someone bought her a comb.”

When Mrs. Van Tassel held the red hat in front of me, I fished out a name: Hendrika Ostrander.

We exchanged gifts in the drawing room. From Georgiana I received a thick scarf. Adda was given an exquisite silver bangle, with tiny etchings and a clasp. Naatje's present was a leather purse made in Italy. All the girls were rapt as Hendrika opened her gift from me. There was the sharp intake of breath when the girl who was Mrs. Van Tassel's designated toilet cleaner held up a rabbit's fur bonnet for everyone to see. It had cost me two weeks' wages.

Hendrika's eyes were red. “Thank you,” she whispered to me and I nodded back.

Everyone deserved a little beauty in their life, I thought. Even Hendrika.

A black taxi pulls up next to the curb. Edouard is spending the evening with his mother; she is hosting a Christmas party. I want that. To have a mother who expects me every Christmas. Instead of a lying father.

“Where to, mademois—Mata Hari!”

I look out at the carolers. Last night Edouard invited me to his mother's party. I told him no. Now I change my mind. “Madame Clunet's,” I tell him. “On la Rue Jacob.” An hour's drive.

*    *    *

I wrap my fingers around the silver knocker and bang twice. The house is exactly as I imagined it, with cozy lace curtains and potted flowers.

The door swings open and there is Edouard: a drink in one hand, a cigar in the other. There is an expectant hush behind him, as if he were in the middle of a joke and I interrupted the punch line. It's an uncomfortable feeling.

“M'greet!” Edouard steps back. “You came.” His smile is genuine. “I'm glad.” The party turns to look at me, a woman arriving alone in a black dress and a mink stole. They are a refined group: ladies wearing ancestral pearls and men that smell of expensive business deals. Edouard picks up a spoon and taps his glass. “I would like to introduce a guest.”

I feel my cheeks warm. “Edouard, please.”

He clears his throat. “May I now have the pleasure of announcing Mademoiselle M'greet MacLeod.”

I feel the color drain from my face. It's been a long time since I've heard this name.

“She is my client and a most talented dancer.”

I am frightened to look up; will they recognize me like the taxi driver did? When I do, all their faces are still welcoming. No one at this party reads stories about Mata Hari. But they trust Edouard's judgment, and I am ushered in warmly.

They crowd around me, Edouard's grandpere in his black silk jacket, and his grandmere, with her strong perfume. They want to
hear about Edouard as a businessman, they want to tell me stories from his childhood, and how Aunt Adorlee met Uncle Geoffrey on the dance floor to the song “L'Amour Venge.” It is the most wonderful evening I've spent since I was a young girl and had a family. When it's time to go home, Edouard walks me out to his car. He smells like pine needles and brandy.

“I know why you came,” he says as he opens the car door. “You were lonely.”

I am mortified; hanging the embarrassing truth out like a girl's private laundry. “I wasn't!” I lie.

“Yes, you were.” He is smiling. “I also know you didn't encore. The Odéon called before you arrived.” He hesitates. “They fired you.”

I don't believe it. “
Fired me?
He can't do that. Encoring isn't in the contract.” I feel myself becoming enraged. I need that money for my daughter. “Edouard. I want that money. The full amount.”

“I don't—”

“I will never dance for the Odéon again!”

“All right.”

“And I want you to sue him for breach of contract.”

*    *    *

That night, alone and furious in my apartment, I allow myself to remember Rudolph. I conjure him sitting at the table waiting for me.

“You're home so early,” I said. “I—”

“Where have you been?”

“I visited a temple with Sofie.” I hurried my words.

His face went red. “Goddamn it!” He pulled his arm back and hit me. “I told you to stay in this house!” I backed up toward the stairs. He grabbed my hair, jerking my head toward his. “You think you can defy me?” He twisted my arm behind my back and shoved me into
the wall, crushing me with his weight. “Do you think I don't see how you look at other men, you little
hoer
?” He pushed me up the stairs and into the bedroom, throwing me on the floor.

The next thirty days stretched impossibly long.

When the blood didn't come, I had to acknowledge the horrible reality.

I was carrying Rudolph's child.