Mata Hari's Last Dance(64)

Chapter 19


Anything You Haven't Told Me?

Officially, none of the prisoners in the Conciergerie are allowed visitors, but unauthorized exceptions are possible. Edouard has successfully bribed the guards for a second time. I rush to the bars, then hesitate. I haven’t bathed since I last saw him. My hair is stringy and unkempt. There’s dirt under my nails and on the hem of my dress.

“M’greet.” Edouard is dressed entirely in gray. If he is disgusted by my appearance, I can’t read it in his face. He seats himself on the stool that Bowtie used and immediately I notice there’s something different in the air between us. I wait for him to explain. “I want you to sit down,” he says.

I sit on my bed.

“You understand why you were arrested?”

“I do.” When he says nothing more, I elaborate. “They claim I’m a double agent.”

“Yes. And now there’s been a development.” He reaches into his suit pocket, retrieves a piece of paper, and pushes it between the bars. It’s a typed explanation of my arrest. I read quickly until I come to material that is wholly new and shocking to me. The report says messages were intercepted on their way to Berlin, sent in code, from Madrid, from Major Arnold Kalle.

Kalle’s messages describe a spy with the code name of H21. This spy was passing “significant information” about French military operations to Berlin. Credit for breaking the code Kalle used is given to Commandant Ladoux. At the bottom of the report is a handwritten note from Ladoux himself. “I am of the very strong opinion that Mata Hari is a double agent. Arrest her upon arrival in Paris.”

The paper I’m holding begins to shake as my hands tremble. “Liar!” I shout. My voice echoes in the prison. A few cells down someone shouts, “They all are!” I lower my voice and swear, “Ladoux is a liar, Edouard!”

“All of it, M’greet?” I can see in his eyes that he doesn’t believe me.

“Major Kalle is the man I seduced in Madrid.” I think of us in his bed, how I believed he was charmed by me, how I was proud of discovering an important secret for France. I am so embarrassed. “Whatever he sent in those messages isn’t true. It can’t be. I didn’t reveal anything to him! I don’t know any French military secrets. He has turned everything around. The truth is he told me Berlin’s secrets. Or, I thought he did—I don’t know what to believe anymore. I don’t understand this at all, Edouard. He’s lying.”

“If Major Kalle was lying with the intent to discredit you, M’greet, why did he send his telegrams to Berlin in code?” There’s fear in Edouard’s face. “A person transmits in code to keep a message secret.”

I begin to weep. “I don’t know.”

“Is there anything you haven’t told me, M’greet? Absolutely anything that you are withholding? Information you haven’t already given to Bouchardon or Ladoux?”

I close my eyes and I am back at Consul Cramer’s office. I see him scoffing at my suggestion that he compensate me for stolen property. “The consulate does not reimburse travelers for lost clothing. This applies in times of peace as well as war.” I hear myself agreeing to his alternative suggestion. I open my eyes as tears burn hot trails down my face. “A small thing. The full reason Consul Cramer gave me those twenty thousand marks.”

*

I am staring at the elephant-headed god Ganesh, the remover of obstacles. I hear Mahadevi telling me, “You have to let him go.”

“He was my son. I will never let him go. I want to feel whole again.”

“Let go of that desire. You will never be whole again.”

I recognize the first words of truth anyone has offered me. She is not vowing that all will be well, or begging me to eat because I still have Non.

“The house is haunted,” I tell Ganesh. “My little boy is everywhere.” We both know what I must do. But my little girl . . .

I turn to Mahadevi. “What will happen to her?”

“I was married once. I have a girl, too. She’s grown now. If I had stayed with her father, he would have killed me.”

The scent of my hair, the touch of my finger running down her tiny nose. What will Non remember of me if I leave her now?

Mahadevi looks straight into my eyes. “He is violent and I have seen how he hurts you. It is only a matter of time. You’ll be dead. What good is a dead mother to a girl?”

I wake up shouting Non’s name.

*

When the guards announce his arrival, I turn my back. I don’t want to see him.

“Mata Hari.”

“I know what you think. It isn’t true.” In my own ears, my voice sounds raw. I don’t understand why they keep letting him in to see me. Who does Bowtie know that he can gain access to the Conciergerie whenever he pleases? He can’t possibly afford to bribe the guards the way Edouard does.

“Look,” he says. “A peace offering.”

I turn and he holds up a newspaper: STAR OF THE EAST IMPRISONED FOR ESPIONAGE: BUT HAS SHE BEEN FRAMED? “I have nothing more to say to you,” I tell him and retreat to the back of my cell. “You can leave.”

“Mata Hari, please let me help you. I don’t believe you’re guilty of espionage against France. I think you’re being used as a scapegoat.”