Mata Hari's Last Dance(17)

“Are you ready, Mata Hari?” he asks. “Shall we get your cloak?”

Suddenly Jeanne is at my side, her arm linked through mine. “Oh, it’s early yet! Mata Hari is welcome to stay.”

“I don’t think that is advisable—”

“Would you like to stay, Mata Hari?”

I glance at Edouard. “Very much.”

I expect him to object; instead he leaves without saying goodbye.

Jeanne takes me by the hand and leads me to a room that is unbelievably overdone in florals and gold. A pair of Chinese lamps flank her bed, along with matching chairs in an aggressive pattern. But the bed! I have never seen one like it. It’s the size of the stage I performed on tonight. I look at Jeanne and think I know what she wants. Another performance. Instead, she leads me to the edge of the bed. Then she sits next to me and says, “That was extraordinary. Truly, Mata Hari.”

“Thank you.” In the way she looks at me she reminds me—for a fleeting moment—of Mahadevi. She could gaze with eyes like black fire. The heat of Mahadevi’s stare was sometimes too intense. Many times I looked away, embarrassed.

“I’ve never met anyone like you in France. Or anywhere else.”

“That’s what Edouard says,” I answer, looking her straight in the eye.

“He’s more than your lawyer, isn’t he?”

I don’t know why I’m blushing. “No. It’s strictly business between him and I.”

I can see by Jeanne’s face that she’s surprised. “I had thought you were lovers.”

“No,” I scoff. “He’ll never settle with one woman.”

“Men don’t have to. That’s how women like us stay alive, isn’t it?” I had thought she would be embarrassed by her past. “Thank you for agreeing to stay,” she says.

“I’m risking a great deal to be here.”

“Not with Edouard?”

“No. His client, Guimet.”

“Ah, yes. He won’t be pleased. Men like him never are when their ‘discoveries’ grow wings and fly away.”

I enjoy thinking of myself as a discovery.

“Come,” Jeanne says, with a mischievous look in her eyes. She takes my arm and I follow her to the window. “You see them?” she asks as we look out into her gardens.

In the silvery light of the moon, I don’t see anything but shadows and shrubs. On closer inspection, however, the shrubs begin to move and look like men. “Reporters?”

“They’re waiting to see what happens tonight. Late tonight.”

I cover my mouth. “I can’t believe it.”

“They know you didn’t leave with Edouard.” She pauses. “You do realize that we’re silhouetted against the light? Shall we give them a story?” she asks.

I throw my arms around her neck and say, “Why ever not?”

*

The next day Jeanne takes me to lunch at Café de la Paix. It’s my first visit and I am completely taken with the frescoed walls and ornate ceilings. Jeanne orders champagne and our heads bend together as we read from Bowtie’s column in Le Figaro.

No woman in France has ever put on such a performance as Mata Hari. To see her last night was to see Salome as she danced before King Herod, to watch Cleopatra as she sailed, ethereal, along the waters of the Nile. But even those women could not have held such a sophisticated audience as entranced as this mysterious siren hailing from the East.

Jeanne looks up and raises her glass to me. “To the most beautiful woman in Paris,” she says.

I raise my own glass. “Women,” I correct.

We dine on buttery gratinéed shrimp, sautéed mussels, and clams steamed open with garlic and wine sauce. Nothing has ever tasted so delicious. The staff knows Jeanne and when we’re ready to leave, they simply add our meal to her tab.

“I’m taking you to meet someone with tremendous talent,” she says.

“A dancer?”

“No, a fashion designer for Callot Soeurs. You’ve heard of them?”

The four Callot sisters are as famous in the fashion world as Jacques Doucet and Paul Poiret. “Of course I have heard of them. Even in India,” I add, “they are admired.”

Jeanne’s chauffeur lets us into her car. As we ride through the city, Jeanne tells me more about her plans.

“There is no one in Paris like Madeleine Vionnet. I’d go so far to say that there is no one like her in all of France. At the moment, she works for Callot Soeurs, but that will change, and soon, I’d venture. She’s going to have her own fashion house one day.”

“Is she young?”

“Only thirty. But thirty very difficult years.”

I am intrigued. “How were they difficult?”

“She lost her child. After that she divorced her husband. Two devastating losses in very short succession.”

I glance away. She could be talking about me.

Jeanne doesn’t notice my discomfort. “However, to meet her you would never know any of this. There’s a wonderful energy about her. When Madeleine creates, it’s as if a personal muse is guiding her hand.”

I am eager to meet this woman who has reinvented herself after so much tragedy. Surely, though, Jeanne is mistaken: There must be some sign of her past in her eyes, on her face. We stop in front of a beautiful shop on the Rue Taitbout and Jeanne’s chauffeur announces our arrival. He opens our doors, first Jeanne’s, then mine. I step into the sunshine and before we reach the shop Jeanne and I are already surrounded.