Mata Hari's Last Dance(42)

*

In the morning, he finds me in the kitchen, already dressed. He is wearing a half grin. He comes behind me, wraps his arms around my waist. When he turns me around to kiss me, I can’t meet his eyes.

“Oh, God, don’t tell me you think it was a mistake,” he jokes.

I don’t say anything. My eyes grow hot with tears.

“Jesus Christ!” he says, stunned. He stares at me for a long moment. Then he kicks the counter. “I’m not one of your playthings! You want me and that makes you scared. You think I don’t know you after all this time, Margaretha MacLeod?” He summons my old name, a judge pronouncing a verdict.

“Don’t ever call me that again!” I say, appalled. “My name is Mata Hari. I’m not the person you think I am. You don’t know me at all, Edouard Clunet!”

“Is that so? I don’t know you at all? Tell me this—were those another girl’s memories you shared with me last night?”

I am sickened with myself. “If you want to know me, call on my aunt Marie in The Hague.”

“What are you talking about? Why would I do such a thing?”

“I didn’t tell you everything last evening, Edouard. You don’t know the true M’greet.”

“Then tell me. Who is the true M’greet?”

We look across the counter at each other. All right. He wants to know what I really am? “After Evert left for Java, I took Taconis to the Grand.”

“Aunt Marie’s husband,” he says quietly.

“Yes.” He worked on the docks and was rugged, handsome. I led him onto the dance floor and he put his hand around my waist. I rested my head on his shoulder. “I wanted Evert to mean nothing to me. I wanted to extinguish him with new memories.” A different face, the same room. I wrapped my shawl around Taconis’s neck. I tugged on the silk and pulled him toward me. He bent forward to kiss my lips and I let him. We took a room at the Grand and I replaced Evert’s memories there, too. Then we went back home for Aunt Marie’s dinner.

“You were very young, M’greet—”

“I was old enough,” I interrupt Edouard. “I knew exactly what I was doing.”

Aunt Marie watched Taconis and me laughing together over stories in the newspaper, or telling each other jokes, and she would smile like a mother who is watching children she no longer understands. And this continued for months.

“On Aunt Marie’s birthday, Taconis gave her a present. He’d secretly gifted me many pretty things, but he gave her a dowdy dressing gown and I was jealous. She whispered something in his ear that made him blush. As soon as we were alone, I wanted to know what she’d said.”

I can still see the coldness in Taconis’s eyes after I asked. “Be careful, M’greet,” Taconis had warned me.

A rush of heat flowed into my face. “Why? Are you careful of my feelings?”

He caught my arm and held it tightly. “Don’t think that telling her is going to assuage a guilty conscience. What’s done is done. Don’t hurt her more.”

I found Aunt Marie in the parlor, knitting. I wanted to get out of the house, so I claimed I was going to church. To my surprise, she put down her needles and said she’d join me. I was trapped. We put on our coats and walked together to St. James in silence. We crossed the threshold of the church and side by side we entered the first pew and knelt together. For a fleeting moment I caught her watching me with an odd expression. Then she said, “It’s never too late for redemption,” and she started to pray.

St. James was chilly; I hugged the coat that Taconis had given me closer around myself. I watched Aunt Marie’s lips move silently and I speculated on what she was praying for. I looked up at the crucifix, the gold and silver Christ.

“I want you out of my house.”

For a moment, I thought he was talking to me.

“I want you to leave.”

I turned, staring at her in shock. “Aunt Marie?”

“Aunt?” Her voice was high and bitter. “Is that what I am in my house?”

I hesitated, unsure what to call her. “Marie—”

“I treated you like a daughter. I allowed you into my house even after you disgraced yourself at that school.” She shook her head. “I should have known, but I trusted in God.” She laughed, a sound harsh and tainted. “God works only minor miracles today.” She clicked her purse open, took out some money. “Pack your belongings when we return. I’ll expect you’ll be needing several suitcases to hoard all of the gifts my husband has bestowed on you. If he asks why you’re leaving us, you’ll do the first decent thing you’ve ever done and tell him you have relatives elsewhere who want you.”

The next morning Taconis left at six for the docks. He suspected nothing and I told him nothing.

“By six that night I was gone,” I tell Edouard. “My aunt cried while the coach drove me away. I saw her tearstained face through the curtains.” And I felt the coins she had pressed into my hand. I could taste them in my mouth. “That’s the kind of person I am. You deserve better.”

“M’greet—”

“Don’t say it!”

He leaves my apartment without another word.

*

Instead of dining with Edouard that evening I arrange to meet with Bowtie at the Grand Hotel Bellevue in Potsdamer Platz. He is in Berlin hoping to interview an actress, Henny Porten. After he rings, I dress in my most cheerful spring gown, white heels, and a white cashmere coat. When I arrive, he’s standing in the garden behind the café. I’m prepared to accept his flattery and compliments, but he barely greets me.