Mata Hari's Last Dance(44)

*

I invite a German general named von Schilling into my dressing room after one of my shows. He is tall, strong, with a rigid jaw, graying blond hair, and sharp blue eyes. We drink together at the Hotel Fürstenhof and then go to his apartment, a five-bedroom suite in cream and gold. He has no pictures of any children, no wife. He professes to be an extremely practical man: children are too expensive, brass buttons are not cost effective in the military, war is good for the economy. But when he takes me to his bed a second time and gifts me diamond earrings for entertaining him, I understand how practical he is in actual fact.

We see each other for several weeks and I amass an impressive collection of jewelry: two bracelets, an anklet, a necklace, an emerald brooch. My conquest makes me feel giddy. I decide to telegram both Givenchy and Guimet to boast of my success in Berlin. Givenchy writes back at once, inviting me to an important soiree in Paris.

You have no idea how bored I am without you. All of Paris is black and gray for me now. Why don’t you return and the two of us will attend the Marcell soiree? Think of the entrance we’d make! Maybe you’re angry that I was photographed taking Edith Lane to the Rothschilds’ chateau last week? Don’t be, ma chérie. You know very well that your Givenchy can’t go anywhere alone. Come back and all of Paris will talk about us again. Then we can go south. Think of all the fun we’d have on the Riviera. Your Givenchy in a bathing costume. My exotic dancer in—well, preferably nothing at all.

I imagine myself with him. Perhaps I should catch a train, only for the weekend. But I have plans with Kiepert that I don’t want to break. The Rothschilds and the Riviera will have to wait. I fold the letter into my collection. Guimet is more reserved. His brief response comes by telegram a week later. Givenchy, at least, is still mine.

*

“Come,” Kiepert says. We are in my apartment, the bedsheets twisted around us like vines. He wants me to accompany him to Silesia where we are invited to watch the German army practice their maneuvers. It’s tempting to join him. Especially when he drapes himself across the bed and watches me with his deep blue eyes. But I can’t leave Berlin; Edouard may want to reconcile.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “But you know I can’t.”

“If that lawyer needs to find you, he can send a telegram.”

I look away and Kiepert goes alone. When he returns, a German reporter discovers him visiting my apartment. Berlin’s leading paper runs a photo of us linked arm in arm. Underneath, the -caption: SCANDAL! MATA HARI LURES GERMAN OFFICER FROM WIFE. The next day, another paper picks it up. By the end of the week we are everywhere. “The temptress Mata Hari and her innocent victim.” Berlin was in love with me; now women hiss at me in the streets. I tell Kiepert that it is time for us to part.

“I rely on the papers to draw in audiences. If they focus on you—”

“I don’t care what these papers print!” Kiepert rages.

He’s so passionate that I can’t make him see reason. It’s as if he is on fire and using all of the oxygen in my apartment. I want him to leave, and I claim I must go to attend rehearsal. He says he will wait for me. Exasperated, I pretend to head to the theater and instead take a walk. It’s winter and the streets are too cold. I spot a little shop selling stationery and confections. I go inside to browse and warm up. The items for sale are exquisite. I pick out a frosted pink card decorated with hearts and, unbidden, an image of Non comes to me. I wonder if she’s an orchid among buttercups now? She’s a young woman. When she was a child, Edouard’s men reported that she had my dark hair and features; they said no one would fail to recognize her as mine.

I return to my apartment and Kiepert—thankfully—is gone.

I take out the pink card I purchased and write my lost daughter a letter that I know I’ll never send. I tell her what I’ve been doing in Berlin these past six months without Edouard’s guidance. I confide in her about Kiepert and von Schilling. Then I say what is truly important: I apologize for failing to save her. “If I had known what a disaster Anna’s attempt would create and the danger it would put you in, I never would have undertaken it. One false move destroyed our future together. I have never forgiven Rousseau for hiring Anna and I never will. Never.” I underline the last word. “He and I are no longer on speaking terms. How can I look at him when all he reminds me of is the way I failed you?”

*

We walk along the Ratsplatz beneath a vault of stars and I slip my hand inside my white muff. Von Schilling has taken me to Freiberg’s Christmas Market. I am charmed by the dozens of stalls selling brightly colored toys, roasted almonds, and wooden trains. Everywhere, there are children laughing. Von Schilling doesn’t notice; all he talks about is war.

“We don’t want to be like the French, going into battle in red and blue.”

I try to turn our conversation to something more pleasant as we walk arm in arm—the elaborate facades of the renaissance buildings, I say, are delightful—but von Schilling continues describing the importance of green uniforms over red. Music from the carousel dances into the night, German songs I’ve never heard before. The air is crisp and the Christmas stalls are decorated with fairy lights, selling bags of chocolate nuts and gingerbread cookies. Edouard would love this, I think. Out of habit and hope I glance around, but he isn’t here. I notice straw shoes, hundreds of them, lined up on long tables and selling briskly.