Mata Hari's Last Dance(63)

*

I have a surprising visitor the next morning. As soon as the guard announces his arrival I’m immediately embarrassed. What will he think of me in these prison clothes and under such conditions? But his eyes are full of concern, not judgment, and when he clasps my hands in his through the bars, I feel warmth.

“Mata Hari.”

“How did you get in here?”

“There’s not a mousehole in France I can’t sniff out,” Bowtie boasts, and I’m not surprised. He sits on the wooden stool provided for him and I seat myself on the edge of my bed. “How are you?”

“I’ve been better.” I cough. It’s cold, and I have no jacket, only the threadbare blanket from the bed. I’m too proud to wrap it around my shoulders right now. “How has the war been treating you?”

“No one wants gossip or entertainment. Only news from the Front.”

“Is that why you’re here? War finally meets gossip now that Mata Hari is in prison for espionage?”

“Is it true?”

“Did I spy for Germany? Of course not.”

“I never believed you would.” He studies me, and I can’t tell if he’s doing his job or is under the notion that he might offer me help. “Mata Hari, what happened?”

“What happened? The Secret Service looked at my life and they got it all wrong.”

“I can help you,” he says. “But you have to meet me halfway. Tell me the truth—you were living in Berlin. You left and went to Amsterdam and Madrid. What were you doing in those countries?”

I study Bowtie through the prison bars. Non will never know the truth about me if I die. To her I’ll be a vile seductress, the loose woman who betrayed a country that loved her, that made her famous. Bowtie can change that.

I lean forward. “I was awaiting orders. I was paid to gather intelligence. Not by Germany,” I clarify. “England and France depended on my access and my information.”

He writes quickly. “Your access and information?”

“Yes.” I drop my voice to a whisper. “While I was waiting for orders in Amsterdam I helped distribute a secret newspaper. With an underground mail service. No one suspected me because of who I am. You can publish that; the Germans have already discovered it. I also helped a man across the border. A wounded soldier who needed to rejoin his regiment.”

Bowtie sits back. “Where was his regiment?”

“In The Netherlands.”

Now Bowtie is frowning. Perhaps he knows that I am lying. “I also joined the Red Cross.”

“In France?”

“In Madrid. While I was waiting.”

“For orders?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting. This is all very interesting.” He flips through his notebook, then sits back and watches me for a long time—so long that I am sure he knows that I’m fabricating the stories of another life. Then he says, “Can you tell me about Vadime de Massloff? The Russian you visited near our airbase in Vittel.”

I look at Bowtie through the bars. “Are you accusing me of something?”

“Of course not.”

“Because not even these monsters think I was spying in Vittel.”

“Are you sure?”

“We’re going to be married one day soon.” In New York. A new world, a new country, a new life. “Vadime is not a casual fling.” I will never deceive him.

“Does he know this?”

What an unkind, horrible thing to ask. “I’m finished with this interview!” It’s the first time in my life I’ve sent a reporter away. I turn my back on him until I hear his footsteps fading.

*

That night I dream of Leeuwarden in September when the maple trees paint the canals red and gold. Frida, our maid, is baking poffertjes and serving them hot with butter and caster sugar. My youngest brothers—three and two—eat everything on their plates, licking them clean, too young to have manners. Only my older brother behaves himself at the table.

“Ari, Cornelius, sit still,” Frida admonishes, and I glance at Johannes and we giggle, because we are older and know better.

My mother says to my father, “Your daughter causes too much trouble around the house. Frida doesn’t know what to do with her.”

My father says, “And what kind of trouble is this, my M’greet?”

“I took Mama’s pearls and shoes and dressed Ari in them. He was a princess.”

My father laughs, rubbing his beard with his knuckles. “Oh no! What else?”

With Papa, I can do anything. “I told my classmates I was born in a castle.”

“And so you should have been!” Papa cries, with a sweep of his hand. “Presenting the Countess of Caminghastate,” he announces to imaginary crowds and then, magically, we are walking hand in hand, past the Tower of Oldehove.

We stop in the bakery near the park where my brothers like to play.

“Ah, it’s the baron and little baroness of Leeuwarden,” the baker says, and he takes out two pieces of marzipan wrapped in tissue. He hands the sweets to me and turns into the Walrus, gruesome with fleshy jowls and yellow teeth. I turn to my papa for protection from the meaty hands that are reaching for me, but my papa has vanished.