That night I dream of my father. Dressed in my best suit, a cream silk trimmed in green with small pearl buttons and looking like a genuine baron’s daughter, I walk quickly along the streets of Amsterdam, stepping over the fruits of the spindle trees that litter the sidewalks. My heels crush them into the ground, turning them into stains of red.
I follow the canals to the center of town. Here the ginkgo trees hang heavy in the heat. I arrive at the bottle-making factory. I stare up at the blackened brick building. I walk up steps covered in soot. Inside, the lights are dim. I adjust my hat and immediately a man appears to greet me. He is dirty, with stained trousers and grease on his face.
“May I help you?”
“Yes, I’m looking for a man. Mr. Adam Zelle.”
“Oh ma’am, I’m sorry.”
“He’s dead,” I whisper, feeling it in my heart.
“Dead? The last I saw him he was fit as an ox.”
“Then what are you sorry for?”
“He left six months ago to take another position.”
So he is alive. My papa is alive! “Do you have any idea where he went?”
“I can tell you exactly: 148 Lange Leidschedwarsstraat. I was there last night. His new wife cooks up a feast every Sunday.”
I awaken gasping for breath.
Chapter 7
Can Madrid Appreciate a French Sensation?
Edouard lets himself in to my apartment on Rue Balzac as if he’s the one paying the rent every month. “How would you like to move up from private shows to theater performances?” he calls to me.
“Like La Madeline?” I answer from the kitchen. That would be wonderful. They rejected me before Edouard discovered me at L’Ete. “Why not?” I take the flowers I’ve been arranging and join him in the living room; he is on my couch lighting a cigar. “We could charge five thousand francs,” I suggest, “for a single performance.” I think of the owner’s smug face and imagine the pleasure of telling him what a performance from Mata Hari now costs. Enough to buy a car for each day of the week. Although when I would find time to drive it would be another story . . .
“No, not in France.” He snaps his silver lighter shut with his thumb.
I stop fussing with Jeanne’s flowers.
“Madrid,” he says. “The Kursaal.”
The Central Kursaal in the Plaza del Carmen? It’s one of the most beautiful buildings in Spain. “Will they want me?”
“Of course. It’s time we build Mata Hari. You are a ‘French sensation’ right now,” he says, and I realize he is quoting someone, “but destined to be an international one, M’greet.”
He pulls a clipping from his breast pocket. It’s Bowtie’s latest article and now I understand. We met for dinner last week at Maxim’s. He told me our last interview had sold out Le Figaro. Tell me something sensational, he said, as if we might trade gossip of any other kind. I hesitated before giving him Givenchy; I did not want to make the marquis angry. Then Bowtie bragged about his interview with Isadora Duncan—how her latest lover is Paris Singer, of Singer sewing machines. I knew he was casting a line, but I bit. I gave him details. I told him where he could find us the next afternoon, at Longchamp betting on the horses. He waited with his camera and notepad. I pretended to be shocked by his sudden appearance; he pretended to be shocked by his good fortune. Now I read the headline: MATA HARI AND HER MARQUIS: WILL THEY MARRY? Beneath the headline is a photo: I’m wearing a walking skirt with a matching parasol and wide-brimmed hat. Givenchy, in his linen suit and straw boater, looks dashing.
As soon as Bowtie started snapping photos Givenchy became angry. Is that the man who interviewed you last month? I recall that bow tie.
I don’t recognize him, I claimed.
But he saw through my lie and hasn’t called since. Maybe it doesn’t matter now. “Do they sell Le Figaro in Amsterdam?”
Edouard raises his brows. “Someone there you’re hoping to impress?”
I shrug and tuck the clipping into my pocket. Another victory to put in my scrapbook.
“The Kursaal,” Edouard says, “is a venue that requires something extraordinary. Not an Indian dance. An exotic character the masses will identify with. I don’t want you to repeat Lady Godiva—”
“Cleopatra,” I say.
“Perfect.” Then his eyes grow distant. “We will book you in Madrid, Berlin, and after that, who knows?”
“In Berlin,” I say, “I want to dance Salome.”
That evening I leave messages with both Givenchy and Guimet to let them know that I will be leaving Paris shortly. It’s been so long since I’ve seen Guimet that I’m not sure if he will care. But he calls a few hours after Givenchy—who expresses dismay that I’m abandoning him.
*
“And that gives that lawyer a reason to abscond with you? What about my needs?”