Mata Hari's Last Dance(20)

“So tell me about your performance,” he says.

I sit opposite him, crossing my legs so that the silk of my dressing gown parts along my thigh. “It was nothing like the performance I gave for you.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

I try to turn the situation light. “It’s true. There were only women in this audience. How boring! Can you imagine?”

“No. I cannot. Why anyone would want to spend time with the Comtesse de Loynes I cannot imagine.” He emphasizes the word comtesse to indicate he knows how she came by the title. “I thought you had better judgment, Mata Hari.”

“No. Apparently not. Good night, monsieur,” I tell him.

Guimet stands, affronted. No woman, I’m sure, has ever spoken to him this way.

“Perhaps I will see you when you’re in better spirits,” I say. I don’t see him out. I disappear into my room and when I hear him shut the door, I call Givenchy.

“I’ll send a car for you,” he says.

*

The marquis is similar to my aviator at the Rothschilds’: slow and tender. He makes love as if the two of us have all the time in the world and nothing is more important than my pleasure. I know he has had women hundreds of times before, but there is something in the way he holds my gaze that lets me believe that none of his other women have mattered. It is us—only us. This is why he’s the most eligible bachelor in France. By the time we have finished our last glass of wine the sharp memory of my fight with Guimet is only a dull recollection; it means nothing.

Perhaps Guimet senses this. The next evening before I’m finished dressing for the night a large package arrives.

“Mata Hari?” the delivery boy asks.

“Yes.”

He holds out a box with a familiar logo and a single printed word: HERMèS. I take it inside and unwrap a cashmere shawl and gloves. The note inside is signed by Guimet. “I’m sorry,” it reads. I am trying on the gloves and wrapping myself in cashmere when there’s a knock at the door. Guimet! I open it at once but Givenchy is outside.

“Not a good time?” He looks past me, thinking he’s caught me with some other lover.

“No. Come in.” I take him into the salon. Guimet’s note and the box from Hermès is still on the table.

“A gift?”

I shrug. “They come sometimes.”

“I imagine it’s more than sometimes.”

I see he’s carrying a box as well. It’s small. Jewelry? He holds it out for me and I unwrap it slowly. A sapphire ring encircled with diamonds. How many nights of rent would this have paid for those first months in Paris? I take it out and slip it on my finger, showing it off for him. “It’s beautiful.”

“Enough to convince you to stop taking gifts from anyone else?”

“I can’t help it if friends want to send me gifts.”

His blue eyes meet mine. “Friends?”

*

Three months later—after a war of gifts—Givenchy gives me 3 Rue Balzac. He declares that the apartment is mine for being “the most exquisite woman on earth”—but we both know it is also the best way to rid himself of reminders of Guimet and to keep me to himself. It’s not in my name, but I am in love with the gorgeously wrought iron doors and the elaborate window boxes. It is on an elegant street and now I can live among the fanciest buildings in Paris. The décor will not be to Edouard’s taste. Even Guimet will probably be offended by how modern it is. But it’s new and chic and I think it is tremendously elegant. I call Edouard to give him the news.

After a chilly pause he says, “Let me understand. You are breaking my lease and deserting one of my most important clients.”

It never occurred to me to think about the lease on my current apartment. “I thought you’d be happy for me,” I say.

There is another pause on the phone.

“I’m sorry.” And I really am. “It’s bigger, Edouard. And closer to Givenchy.”

“Is that all that’s important now?” he says.

“Why don’t you come over? Let me take you to dinner.”

“I’ve already eaten.”

*

That night I dream of my father. Dressed in my best suit, a cream silk trimmed in green with small pearl buttons and looking like a genuine baron’s daughter, I walk quickly along the streets of Amsterdam, stepping over the fruits of the spindle trees that litter the sidewalks. My heels crush them into the ground, turning them into stains of red.

I follow the canals to the center of town. Here the ginkgo trees hang heavy in the heat. I arrive at the bottle-making factory. I stare up at the blackened brick building. I walk up steps covered in soot. Inside, the lights are dim. I adjust my hat and immediately a man appears to greet me. He is dirty, with stained trousers and grease on his face.

“May I help you?”

“Yes, I’m looking for a man. Mr. Adam Zelle.”

“Oh ma’am, I’m sorry.”

“He’s dead,” I whisper, feeling it in my heart.

“Dead? The last I saw him he was fit as an ox.”

“Then what are you sorry for?”

“He left six months ago to take another position.”

So he is alive. My papa is alive! “Do you have any idea where he went?”