I describe what the room will be like on the night of the performance. The lights will be dim. There will be incense and smoke.
“Each of you will entreat the god yet fail to move him. You will then glide to the edge of the stage, maintaining your arms in prayer, and form a semi-circle around Kama. After the last girl has attempted to seduce the god—you,” I choose Upturned Nose, “I will appear.”
Chapter 6
Give Them a Story
Are you sure there’s nothing else I can bring you?”
Jeanne has delivered a cup of water to me. I’d desperately love a glass of wine as well, but I have to be clearheaded for this performance. Women are taking their seats in the salon and I hear them whispering to one another, asking about the statue in the center of the room. The only men here tonight are Edouard and Bowtie; I invited them both.
“I have everything I need,” I tell her. I tighten the pair of gold vanki on my upper arms and slip heavy red bangles over my wrists. Both the vanki and the bangles are adorned with snakes, and I admire the gleam of their ruby eyes. I shake the bells on my anklets to be certain they are untangled and will sing while I dance. I touch the triangle between my breasts and feel the silver amulet that Mahadevi gave me one afternoon as we sat in her parlor in Java, sipping rum from frosted glasses. It is the only piece of jewelry I wasn’t able to pawn after I arrived in Paris and I am glad I still possess it. Shaped like an eye, it is meant to ward off evil. Rudolph believed it was a sign of witchcraft.
“I have everything I need,” I repeat. I wish Jeanne would take this cue and leave, but she lingers; now she is glancing at the amulet. “Were you born in India?” she asks. “Is that the truth?”
I’m tempted to say no. We’re so very similar, Jeanne and I. She wasn’t born into luxury and wealth; she was born Marie-Anne Detourbay. Bowtie told me she earned her title on her back. But I tell her what Edouard would want me to say, especially before this performance. “Yes.”
The gamelan orchestra she’s hired begins to play the piece I call “Seduction.”
“It’s time,” I tell her.
“Good luck.” She kisses both of my cheeks. Her hand lingers on mine. “You’re quite the mystery, Mata Hari.” And I can see this excites her.
She leaves and I allow myself a quick memory. I am learning to imitate Mahadevi’s hands; we are moving our hips together slowly and hypnotically, our arms raised. “Did you know,” she asks me, “that my mother was Buddhist and my father was Hindu? It was a forbidden love.” She sighs. “It should have stayed forbidden.” Then she stops our lesson abruptly and says, “You must dance in public with me.” She reaches out and touches my hair. “In yellow, you would be a goddess,” she says.
I am shocked. I’ve discovered that she is twenty-nine and has entertained many men. She understands men, the way they think. She is more than a dancer. This was why she owns such nice things yet has no husband. I envy her. I want to be able to look at a man and say, “He wants me for a week. No more, no less.” I think about what it would be like to buy anything I want. I compare my life to Mahadevi’s and decide I want that kind of freedom, even if it comes at the price of men who only stay for a week. I accept her invitation although I know there will be consequences. My error is in believing I will be the one to suffer them.
The night that I dance with Mahadevi, two hundred people sit in Rudolph’s garden, dressed in chiffon and gold, laughing with one another. The women wear silk and pearls; the men look dashing in their uniforms and brass. When Mahadevi and I finish our performance, the wives of my husband’s subordinates, not knowing whether to be awestruck, scandalized, or both, finally stand and applaud. Their husbands’ admiration follows, and I bathe in their sun as Mahadevi kisses me on the lips, her taste like saffron; our sarong-clad bodies melt together like molasses in the warm island moonlight.
I look at myself in the mirror. What is the difference between those men in Java and these women in Jeanne’s salon? “None,” I whisper. They both crave a spectacle.
*