Mata Hari's Last Dance(15)
“Anything you need, absolutely anything, all you have to do is ask, Mata Hari.”
She leaves us alone. There’s a stage in the center of the room and sitting in the middle of the stage is a large bronze statue of the Hindu god Kama.
“Kama is the god of desire,” I explain, gesturing for them to come closer. “The dance we are going to perform is sacred in India. It happens only once a year—at harvest—when women gather before the statue of Kama and try to seduce him.”
“Why do they do this?” someone asks, a pretty girl with an upturned nose.
“Because Kama can grant them whatever they wish. Whatever desires are in their hearts. But he only chooses one girl. The one he desires most. Each of you will be standing on stage.” I arrange them around the statue. “When I appear, I will be dressed in nothing but a thin white veil and a snake.”
The girls look at one another. “Not a living creature?” one of them asks.
“Yes.”
“Will we have to—”
“No. I am the only one allowed to touch the snake.”
Their relief is visible. “And our dress?” another asks.
“I assume you’re all familiar with Isadora Duncan?” I say benevolently. “You will all wear the kind of sheaths she favors.”
Again, relief. Her sheaths are modest; they cannot be considered remotely revealing.
“I will be the only one undressed. Now in India, the girls approach the god with their hands outstretched. Here.” I show them a pose of supplication and each girl imitates it.
I describe what the room will be like on the night of the performance. The lights will be dim. There will be incense and smoke.
“Each of you will entreat the god yet fail to move him. You will then glide to the edge of the stage, maintaining your arms in prayer, and form a semi-circle around Kama. After the last girl has attempted to seduce the god—you,” I choose Upturned Nose, “I will appear.”
Chapter 6
Give Them a Story
Are you sure there’s nothing else I can bring you?”
Jeanne has delivered a cup of water to me. I’d desperately love a glass of wine as well, but I have to be clearheaded for this performance. Women are taking their seats in the salon and I hear them whispering to one another, asking about the statue in the center of the room. The only men here tonight are Edouard and Bowtie; I invited them both.
“I have everything I need,” I tell her. I tighten the pair of gold vanki on my upper arms and slip heavy red bangles over my wrists. Both the vanki and the bangles are adorned with snakes, and I admire the gleam of their ruby eyes. I shake the bells on my anklets to be certain they are untangled and will sing while I dance. I touch the triangle between my breasts and feel the silver amulet that Mahadevi gave me one afternoon as we sat in her parlor in Java, sipping rum from frosted glasses. It is the only piece of jewelry I wasn’t able to pawn after I arrived in Paris and I am glad I still possess it. Shaped like an eye, it is meant to ward off evil. Rudolph believed it was a sign of witchcraft.
“I have everything I need,” I repeat. I wish Jeanne would take this cue and leave, but she lingers; now she is glancing at the amulet. “Were you born in India?” she asks. “Is that the truth?”
I’m tempted to say no. We’re so very similar, Jeanne and I. She wasn’t born into luxury and wealth; she was born Marie-Anne Detourbay. Bowtie told me she earned her title on her back. But I tell her what Edouard would want me to say, especially before this performance. “Yes.”
The gamelan orchestra she’s hired begins to play the piece I call “Seduction.”
“It’s time,” I tell her.
“Good luck.” She kisses both of my cheeks. Her hand lingers on mine. “You’re quite the mystery, Mata Hari.” And I can see this excites her.
She leaves and I allow myself a quick memory. I am learning to imitate Mahadevi’s hands; we are moving our hips together slowly and hypnotically, our arms raised. “Did you know,” she asks me, “that my mother was Buddhist and my father was Hindu? It was a forbidden love.” She sighs. “It should have stayed forbidden.” Then she stops our lesson abruptly and says, “You must dance in public with me.” She reaches out and touches my hair. “In yellow, you would be a goddess,” she says.
I am shocked. I’ve discovered that she is twenty-nine and has entertained many men. She understands men, the way they think. She is more than a dancer. This was why she owns such nice things yet has no husband. I envy her. I want to be able to look at a man and say, “He wants me for a week. No more, no less.” I think about what it would be like to buy anything I want. I compare my life to Mahadevi’s and decide I want that kind of freedom, even if it comes at the price of men who only stay for a week. I accept her invitation although I know there will be consequences. My error is in believing I will be the one to suffer them.
The night that I dance with Mahadevi, two hundred people sit in Rudolph’s garden, dressed in chiffon and gold, laughing with one another. The women wear silk and pearls; the men look dashing in their uniforms and brass. When Mahadevi and I finish our performance, the wives of my husband’s subordinates, not knowing whether to be awestruck, scandalized, or both, finally stand and applaud. Their husbands’ admiration follows, and I bathe in their sun as Mahadevi kisses me on the lips, her taste like saffron; our sarong-clad bodies melt together like molasses in the warm island moonlight.