Mata Hari's Last Dance by Michelle Moran Read Free Book Online Page B

distract him instead. “It’s only a dance,” I say. I lead him to my bedroom and we make love. Afterward, he isn’t angry. But he’s not happy, either, and he doesn’t offer to take me to dinner.
    I spend the night alone, feeling anxious. I am unable to sleep for the longest time, and when I finally do, my dreams take me to my darkest times in Java.
    *    *    *
    I’m in no mood to rehearse the following day. It is a clear day and I wander the boutiques along the Champs-Élysées with the money Edouard left for me. I can hear his voice in my head, scolding me. “Only for important expenses!” But today everything feels tremendously important: the hand-painted silk scarf in aquamarine, thestunning citrine ring and matching necklace, the bronze incense burner I discover in a shop run by an Egyptian man and his son. Nothing could feel better than this. Then I see a young girl begging outside of an expensive clothing shop and all of my happiness turns to dust. The girl has dark hair and wide dark eyes. Her arms look thin. She holds out her cupped hands and I tell her to wait while I go inside. When I come out, I wrap a new cashmere shawl around her shoulders. She begins to cry. “Thank you, madam. Thank you,” she keeps saying.
    â€œIt’s nothing, little one,” I tell her. “Where are your parents?”
    â€œMaman is gone.” Meaning dead. “Papa is working.”
    â€œWhat does he do?”
    She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
    I buy her a warm baguette and several slices of meat. When I return home, my purse is empty, but Guimet has completely vanished from my thoughts.
    *    *    *
    Comtesse de Loynes phones to tell me that the snake has arrived. Edouard is sitting across from me, looking completely at home in one of a pair of aubergine chairs he bought for my apartment. As soon as I click the receiver back into place, he wants to know why the wealthiest woman in France is calling me at home.
    â€œWhy isn’t she calling me at my office?”
    â€œPerhaps because you’re not there,” I offer. He doesn’t find my answer humorous. I can see by the look on his face that he is concerned. “Don’t look so grumpy,” I say. “I’ve planned a surprise.” Or a disaster.
    He fixes me with his eyes. “I don’t like surprises.”
    *    *    *
    â€œMata Hari!” Jeanne moves swiftly down the steps and kisses both of my cheeks. We walk arm in arm into her foyer, and for the second time in a week I am surprised by how little taste she possesses for furniture. The mirrors are ridiculously ostentatious. Her ornate chairs must have started life in Versailles; they look too complicated to sit on. She leads me into the foyer where the walls are frescoed with pasture scenes. Waiting for me is a man standing next to a crate. I smell straw and hear rustling. If I live to be a hundred, I vow silently, I will never boast about snake handling again.
    â€œMata Hari, this is Ishan,” Jeanne says. “He comes to us all the way from Bombay, not so far from where you were born, I believe?”
    His face registers surprise; I hold his eyes and he keeps his silence.
    â€œI know you must be eager to begin your rehearsal,” Jeanne continues, “so I’ll leave you two alone.” She shuts the door and the expectation on her face is almost embarrassing to witness. She should learn to better conceal her emotions.
    I look at the crate. “The snake is inside?”
    â€œYou have never handled a snake before,” he says.
    â€œNo. And I’m afraid of snakes.”
    He sighs. “The key is not to be afraid.” He reaches inside the box and lifts out a glistening creature that is much larger than I anticipated. It must be at least six feet long and it’s very muscular. Its forked tongue flicks in my