*
Jeanne calls again, this time to tell me she has borrowed pieces from a friend’s collection to transform her salon into a temple to Kama, the handsome Hindu god of desire. She calls a third time to ask if I have read the morning paper. Specifically, she wants to know what I thought of the article describing how Isadora Duncan is teaching young girls to dance and “share in her classic ideals.”
“I have a surprise for you Mata Hari,” she says, her voice full of promise. Then she says that she has hired eight girls to dance with me. “Perhaps you could come over this evening and rehearse with them?”
As soon as we disconnect I find the newspaper. I search until I find the headline.
DANCE ON THE SANDS AS IN ARCADIAN DAYS
PARIS—At Neuilly, near Paris, in that charming “garden city,” where there are more trees than houses and where dwell more artists, musicians, painters, and sculptors than merchants, Miss Isadora Duncan, the American dancer, the priestess of Greek beauty, and her troupe of little girl pupils reside today in a pretty villa, and one can see all these young devotees of Terpsichore dancing on the sand of the shady paths or on the moss and amid the ferns of the grounds.
No picture could be more enchanting in its ideal charm and classic gracefulness than the dancing of these twelve little girls—the youngest is only 6 years old and the oldest 14—clad in light white or blue tunics, in the purest classic style, with their lasso hair held by a bandeau “a la Greeque,” bare armed and bare legged.
Several times a day Isadora Duncan teaches the little nymphs. One by one, or all together, the happy pupils learn to be graceful and yet natural.
If Jeanne has hired six-year-old children to dance with me, I will have no option but to cancel. Surely she wouldn’t have, almost certainly they’ll be adults, but I skim the rest of the article.
As to how Miss Duncan evolved the idea of training children in her art, the story is best told in her own words:
“I sat once, on a bright afternoon, on the sands of Noordwijk, in Holland. I saw from afar my little niece, who was ‘instinctively’ dancing on the silver edge of the ocean, because the sun was bright, because the air was warm and cheering, because she felt happy to live. Nothing could have been more beautiful than the little barefoot girl dancing with intense joy, with the ever moving blue sea as the background.”
I stop reading. I do not want to imagine little girls dancing by the sea.
*
“Mata Hari,” Jeanne says, kissing my cheeks and ushering me inside later that evening. “You are a vision!” She leads me down a number of hallways until we are in a wide room that I have not seen before. “Here are the ladies. They are yours to command.”
I do my best to hide my relief. They are tiny creatures—girls as thin and as pale as slips. But they are not children. I picture them flitting around as light and nimble as fairies. Standing before them, I feel like an Amazon. Did I look as eager and hopeful as they do when I first arrived in Paris looking for employment? “Thank you, Jeanne,” I say. I know exactly how I’ll incorporate them into my dance.
“Anything you need, absolutely anything, all you have to do is ask, Mata Hari.”
She leaves us alone. There’s a stage in the center of the room and sitting in the middle of the stage is a large bronze statue of the Hindu god Kama.
“Kama is the god of desire,” I explain, gesturing for them to come closer. “The dance we are going to perform is sacred in India. It happens only once a year—at harvest—when women gather before the statue of Kama and try to seduce him.”
“Why do they do this?” someone asks, a pretty girl with an upturned nose.
“Because Kama can grant them whatever they wish. Whatever desires are in their hearts. But he only chooses one girl. The one he desires most. Each of you will be standing on stage.” I arrange them around the statue. “When I appear, I will be dressed in nothing but a thin white veil and a snake.”
The girls look at one another. “Not a living creature?” one of them asks.
“Yes.”
“Will we have to—”
“No. I am the only one allowed to touch the snake.”
Their relief is visible. “And our dress?” another asks.
“I assume you’re all familiar with Isadora Duncan?” I say benevolently. “You will all wear the kind of sheaths she favors.”
Again, relief. Her sheaths are modest; they cannot be considered remotely revealing.
“I will be the only one undressed. Now in India, the girls approach the god with their hands outstretched. Here.” I show them a pose of supplication and each girl imitates it.