Mata Hari's Last Dance(58)

*

On the first of December I travel back to Madrid to begin my assignment for the French Secret Service.

“Mata Hari the dancer?” Major Kalle confirms, surprised by my phone call.

“Yes. I was given your name by a good friend of ours.”

There is silence on the phone.

I continue, “General von Schilling said that if I found myself in Madrid I must call on Major Arnold Kalle. And here I am, in your beautiful city, not knowing a single soul.”

“Perhaps we should have dinner, then,” he suggests.

If Mrs. Van Tassel were here, I would gloat: My skills are far more valuable than knitting. My talent in bedding officers will gain me information that may help France win this dreadful war. Whatever Major Kalle divulges I will share with Ladoux. This is how France will remember me when I am living in New York.

*

We meet at Botín, with its warm paneled exterior and redbrick arches dating back to 1725. It’s the oldest restaurant in the world, Kalle says. He has clear blue eyes and thick blond hair. “A traditional horno de asar.”

I glance under my eyelashes at him, playing the role of a girl infatuated. “What does that mean?”

“Roasted meat.”

“I had hoped,” I say and touch my hair, “the translation would be something romantic.”

We dine and talk about the most trivial of things. The weather (good), the shops (so many closing), the food (I’ve never had its equal in Spain). Then he invites me back to his home. He slips his arm around my waist and within a few cobbled streets we reach his apartment. A few hours later, both of us are drunk. By midnight, we are lying together on his sheets. I brush my hand against his chest, an invitation to make love again, but he sighs and puts his forearm over his eyes.

“I’m too tired to move,” he says. “It’s a great deal of work arranging for German soldiers to be deployed in Morocco.”

I prop myself up on one elbow and gaze at him sympathetically, willing him to continue speaking.

“A submarine is dropping them off.” He lifts his arm briefly to look at me. “In the French zone.”

My heart is racing—German troops being transported to French soil; I am horrified. Yet my expression remains neutral.

“You will not tell anybody, I hope?” He leans back. “It’s all very confidential information.”

“I understand.” I keep stroking his chest, thinking of Ladoux. Surely this intelligence is equal to what I might have learned in Belgium? God only knows when Kalle’s plan will be implemented. Perhaps I have just saved French lives.

He turns and takes me in his arms. “Then again, maybe I’m not so tired.”

*

I don’t wait for morning; as soon as I leave Kalle’s apartment I rush to the French Embassy in Madrid and tell them that I have information for Commandant Ladoux.

“We can place a call—”

I immediately wave this offer away. “This is sensitive information, madam. A phone call would not be safe.”

They arrange for a telegram to be sent in code. A man takes me to a private room and I tell him what I know, carefully, slowly. Then he makes me repeat it and copies it out by hand. He assures me the message will be sent at once.

“Thank you,” he says when he’s sure he’s got it.

“When do you think we’ll hear back? I’m expecting the commandant to send me further instructions,” I explain.

“Where are you staying, madam?”

“La Paz.”

“Then wait there, madam. I’m sure word will come.”

*

On Christmas there is snow on the peaks of Pe?alara. How this sight would delight Edouard! How pleased Vadime would be if he were here and able to see it with me! His nurse wrote to tell me that he is blind now, in one eye. The other is healing, if slowly. “It is healing,” I wrote to him. “Rejoice in that. It could be so much worse.” But there has been no joy in Vadime’s latest letters. “All of my hope for the future rests with you,” he says. “I am counting the days—is it still more than a month?—when we will be together again.”

Together, not alone anymore.

I look around. While the world celebrates Christmas with their families, I sit by myself in a tiny café, reading a newspaper.

NAVY MEN BACK U.S. TO DUPLICATE FEAT

Declare American Submarines Could Cross Ocean as Did the Deutschland.

United States submarines can duplicate the Deutschland’s trans-Atlantic feat if the occasion arises, Navy experts asserted today.

A flotilla of K-class submarines last summer cruised 2,000 miles from Honolulu to San Francisco. They could have cruised for a week longer, according to navy men. They could have traveled as far as the Deutschland under the same conditions and at the same low speed maintained by the German super-submarine . . .

There is no one on the streets, so I’m shocked when a man comes inside and stands directly in front of my table, blocking my view of the mountain.

“Madam, my name is Pierre-Martin. I have a message for you. From a man who works with Ladoux.”

Finally! I sit up and take my purse off an empty seat. “Please. Sit down. I have been awaiting his instructions.”

He takes off his hat and sits. Without further introduction, he whispers, “I am to warn you to never go back to France.”