Mata Hari's Last Dance(37)

“Not like you!” He crosses the room and holds me with surprising strength. “I’ll take care of you,” he swears. “I promise.”

My attempt to leave makes him more generous. I write to Edouard and ask about his progress with Non. I end with a postscript. “PS: Maybe this is love?”

Edouard writes back. The status of Non’s custody remains the same. He ends with his own postscript: “For whom? You or the old man?”

*

“I have a surprise for you,” Rousseau says, and the next day we go for a ride. His chauffeur turns left on Rue Windsor, one of the most expensive avenues in the fashionable suburb of Neuilly. The car stops in front of a glittering white villa with wide, arching windows and sweeping vistas. Rousseau turns to me. “The Villa Rémy.” He hands me an envelope. “My surprise. It’s yours.” Inside the envelope is the deed. “All I ask is to be welcome to visit once in a while.”

I am crying. “Why did you do this? Why?”

“Because I can.”

*

I usher Edouard inside. The stained glass over the door reads Sois le bienvenu.

“Isn’t it beautiful?”

I watch his eyes as they appraise the villa. My villa. Not an apartment belonging to someone else. “There are six bedrooms,” I say. “Plus a pool and a garden and a stable with horses.” I show him everything: my boxes of jewels, my closets filled with clothes. But I save the best for last. A room meant for Non. I’ve had the walls painted pink.

“Your banker friend must have a lot of money.” Other men he has no trouble calling lovers. But Rousseau is “my banker friend.”

“Imagine my daughter living here,” I say. I will do for Non exactly what I dreamed my father would do for me.

Edouard takes a seat on the child-size bed. He looks at the dolls and frowns. “I know this is taking a long time,” he says.

“Yes, but I have something to tell you.” I am nervous.

“You aren’t pregnant?” he asks.

“Of course not!”

He looks relieved.

“I told Rousseau about Non. I told him the first day we met.”

“M’greet—”

“He’s hired someone to get her.”

“What?”

His expression makes me nervous. I rush the rest of my news. “Rousseau hired a woman named Anna. She speaks Dutch. She was born in the same town that I was. She knows what to do. She’s going to find Non and bring her to Paris.”

“Who is she? Do you trust her? M’greet, my men consistently report—”

“What? Don’t you trust Rousseau?”

“Why should I trust him? I don’t even know him.”

“You know me and I know Rousseau—he interrogates everyone thoroughly. He hired Anna, so she is qualified. She’s already in Amsterdam. Non will be here tomorrow!”

Edouard looks positively ill. “M’greet. My men are meticulous. They’ve been working for—”

“Months. And months and months! I can’t wait any longer, Edouard. Anna will arrive at my daughter’s school early for dismissal and say she is Rudolph’s new servant. She will produce a locket with my picture inside so Non won’t be afraid. The two of them will go directly to the train station.”

He watches me with a strange expression in his eyes.

“Non will be here tomorrow, Edouard. Be happy for me.”

*

It is the Ides of March. An unlucky day for Caesar, but my day of triumph. In three hours, Anna will return to France with Non.

Edouard arrives at two o’clock. Together, in the salon, we wait.

I am so excited, I feel brave enough to talk about the past. I say to Edouard, “In Java, Rudolph stopped forcing me to stay in the house after I became a mother. He decided that with a child I was safe and undesirable. Norman and I—my son and I—we visited all of the ancient shrines to gods my people don’t have names for. I took him to see Kraton, the two-hundred-year-old palace, and Tamansari, a water castle. Those were my favorite days. We would climb the stone steps and be the only people in the world. We’d be hypnotized by mango valleys newly washed with rain, listen to the chanting of monks. I told Norman about Buddhism and Hinduism. About why Brahma has four heads and Ganesh is an elephant. I began earnestly learning Malay. By that summer I was able to speak it.”

“What happened to Norman?” Edouard asks gently.

I wave him off. I never allow myself to visit that dark corner of my memory.

When the clock strikes four o’clock, I begin pouring wine. “You don’t think something’s happened?” I ask. “Should we call the station? The train may be delayed.”

He calls the station. No trains are delayed. I stare out the window as darkness begins falling. I had wanted so badly for her first sight of the villa to be in daylight. “Something has gone wrong.”

“Perhaps . . .” He tries to think of a positive scenario.

“What?” My voice sounds foreign in my ears.

“I don’t know.”

At eight, when Anna arrives alone, Edouard holds me close to him as I cry. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Anna whispers. “I’m so very sorry—”

“What happened?” Edouard demands.