Mata Hari's Last Dance(14)
“Mata Hari, this is Ishan,” Jeanne says. “He comes to us all the way from Bombay, not so far from where you were born, I believe?”
His face registers surprise; I hold his eyes and he keeps his silence.
“I know you must be eager to begin your rehearsal,” Jeanne continues, “so I’ll leave you two alone.” She shuts the door and the expectation on her face is almost embarrassing to witness. She should learn to better conceal her emotions.
I look at the crate. “The snake is inside?”
“You have never handled a snake before,” he says.
“No. And I’m afraid of snakes.”
He sighs. “The key is not to be afraid.” He reaches inside the box and lifts out a glistening creature that is much larger than I anticipated. It must be at least six feet long and it’s very muscular. Its forked tongue flicks in my direction. “Touch,” he says, holding the snake out for me, one hand keeping the head firmly at a distance while the rest of the animal is winding its way around his body.
“Will it bite me? Will it poison me?”
“I am holding the head. And this snake constricts; there is no poison. Touch.”
I touch. The skin is dry and cool like spun silk—not at all how it appears. I run my hands along its back and I feel a small thrill. This creature is powerful and elegant—and looks so dangerous.
“I will put her around your shoulders,” he says.
“She?”
He drapes the python around my shoulders and smiles. “Yes.”
I hold my breath as the snake moves its heavy body around mine, hugging my limbs, sliding over my breasts. The creature’s weight is somehow comforting. “She is beautiful.”
“She likes you.”
I think he must be mocking me: Can a snake truly be partial to someone? But Ishan is the picture of earnestness. I watch as the snake slides her tail between my thighs, her skin reflecting the light. “She glistens like water but feels like silk,” I observe.
Ishan’s entire face glows, like a proud father. And for the next four hours he guides me, instructing me on how to hold her, where to place my hands so that she is supported, how to understand her body language.
“Treat her well,” he promises when we are finished, “and she will never harm you.”
*
Jeanne calls again, this time to tell me she has borrowed pieces from a friend’s collection to transform her salon into a temple to Kama, the handsome Hindu god of desire. She calls a third time to ask if I have read the morning paper. Specifically, she wants to know what I thought of the article describing how Isadora Duncan is teaching young girls to dance and “share in her classic ideals.”
“I have a surprise for you Mata Hari,” she says, her voice full of promise. Then she says that she has hired eight girls to dance with me. “Perhaps you could come over this evening and rehearse with them?”
As soon as we disconnect I find the newspaper. I search until I find the headline.
DANCE ON THE SANDS AS IN ARCADIAN DAYS
PARIS—At Neuilly, near Paris, in that charming “garden city,” where there are more trees than houses and where dwell more artists, musicians, painters, and sculptors than merchants, Miss Isadora Duncan, the American dancer, the priestess of Greek beauty, and her troupe of little girl pupils reside today in a pretty villa, and one can see all these young devotees of Terpsichore dancing on the sand of the shady paths or on the moss and amid the ferns of the grounds.
No picture could be more enchanting in its ideal charm and classic gracefulness than the dancing of these twelve little girls—the youngest is only 6 years old and the oldest 14—clad in light white or blue tunics, in the purest classic style, with their lasso hair held by a bandeau “a la Greeque,” bare armed and bare legged.
Several times a day Isadora Duncan teaches the little nymphs. One by one, or all together, the happy pupils learn to be graceful and yet natural.
If Jeanne has hired six-year-old children to dance with me, I will have no option but to cancel. Surely she wouldn’t have, almost certainly they’ll be adults, but I skim the rest of the article.
As to how Miss Duncan evolved the idea of training children in her art, the story is best told in her own words:
“I sat once, on a bright afternoon, on the sands of Noordwijk, in Holland. I saw from afar my little niece, who was ‘instinctively’ dancing on the silver edge of the ocean, because the sun was bright, because the air was warm and cheering, because she felt happy to live. Nothing could have been more beautiful than the little barefoot girl dancing with intense joy, with the ever moving blue sea as the background.”
I stop reading. I do not want to imagine little girls dancing by the sea.
*
“Mata Hari,” Jeanne says, kissing my cheeks and ushering me inside later that evening. “You are a vision!” She leads me down a number of hallways until we are in a wide room that I have not seen before. “Here are the ladies. They are yours to command.”
I do my best to hide my relief. They are tiny creatures—girls as thin and as pale as slips. But they are not children. I picture them flitting around as light and nimble as fairies. Standing before them, I feel like an Amazon. Did I look as eager and hopeful as they do when I first arrived in Paris looking for employment? “Thank you, Jeanne,” I say. I know exactly how I’ll incorporate them into my dance.