Mata Hari's Last Dance(31)

I see in his expression that Edouard believes I’m being overly dramatic. I don’t want to dwell on Rudolph MacLeod. But I can still see him at the train station, gripping Non’s hand in his while I boarded, my face streaked with tears. “Because he told me he would.”

Edouard takes my hands in his. “Rudolph MacLeod will have no inkling that he is being watched; my men are professionals.” There is steel in his voice as he says, “When the time is right, they will snatch your daughter from him and Jeanne Louise will be escorted safely out of The Netherlands so quickly that MacLeod’s head will spin. He will not be aware of anything unusual until after she’s gone, when he is powerless to do her any harm.”

*

I have revealed so much to Edouard about myself. But I have never told him that I found my husband through a personal ad. I was seventeen years old; I had no job and no money. Then I saw a paragraph in the paper:

Captain from the Indies, passing his leave in Amsterdam, seeks a wife—preferably with a little money.

I wrote to him immediately. We agreed to meet at the Rijksmuseum, in the glass-domed building that houses the museum’s military collection. I made my way to Amsterdam. I expected the city to have changed while I was gone, but as I walked along the narrow green canals and past the same brightly painted buildings, it became clear that the only thing that had changed was me. Was my brother, Johannes, still working in the same garment factory? All of my letters to him had gone unanswered. Perhaps the owners had kept them—perhaps he had never received my letters. I looked for signs along the canal that I should visit him, making little tests for the universe. If two ducks landed in the water before I reached the church, I would go and see him. Two ducks landed. I thought up another test. Then another. By the time I was finished I was standing in front of the dreary-looking building where my brother had been sent to work four years earlier. I mounted the steps and went inside. The chemical scent in the air was so strong I had to cover my nose with my hand.

“May I help you?” a man asked. A manager of some sort. I could see by his suit.

“I’m here to see a worker. Johannes Zelle.”

“Stay here and I’ll get him.”

I waited by two chairs and a very old couch. Beyond a pair of double wooden doors I could hear the sounds of a busy factory. Several minutes later the doors swung open and Johannes appeared. He lingered in the doorway for several moments. And when he finally spoke, all he had to say was, “Why are you here?”

It was as if someone had stolen the air from my chest. “To see you,” I said. I knew I had changed, but I barely recognized him.

He brushed his hands against his overalls. “So? Do you like what you see?”

I moved forward to embrace him and he moved away.

“Don’t. You’ll dirty your dress.”

“Have you been getting my letters?”

“About your hardships in Leyde? Your terrible time at school?”

This wasn’t the boy who sat next to me in class and giggled at the teacher. Even Johannes’s voice was unrecognizable.

“I didn’t feel like writing about my happy days soaking my hands in chemicals, dyeing women’s clothes. Or maybe you were hoping to hear how Ari enjoys the mill?”

He turned to leave.

“What about Cornelius?” I called after him.

He stopped and turned. “He’s no happier than the rest of us.”

“And Papa?”

He covered his mouth with a dirty hand, as if he wanted to keep something truly vile from spilling out. “He has forgotten about us, M’greet. Take a lesson from him and forget about us as well.”

*

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.”