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Chapters (46)
  1. The Man Who Loved Mata Hari
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. PART I: The Early Years
  5. Prologue
  6. Chapter One
  7. Chapter Two
  8. Chapter Three
  9. Chapter Four
  10. Chapter Five
  11. Chapter Six
  12. Chapter Seven
  13. PART II: The Middle Years
  14. Chapter Eight
  15. Chapter Nine
  16. Chapter Ten
  17. Chapter Eleven
  18. Chapter Twelve
  19. Chapter Thirteen
  20. Chapter Fourteen
  21. Chapter Fifteen
  22. Chapter Sixteen
  23. Chapter Seventeen
  24. Chapter Eighteen
  25. PART III: The War Years
  26. Chapter Nineteen
  27. Chapter Twenty
  28. Chapter Twenty-One
  29. Chapter Twenty-Two
  30. PART IV: The Last Year
  31. Chapter Twenty-Three
  32. Chapter Twenty-Four
  33. Chapter Twenty-Five
  34. Chapter Twenty-Six
  35. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  36. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  37. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  38. Chapter Thirty
  39. Chapter Thirty-One
  40. Chapter Thirty-Two
  41. Chapter Thirty-Three
  42. Chapter Thirty-Four
  43. Chapter Thirty-Five
  44. Montserrat
  45. Author’s Afterword
  46. Table of Contents

"Well, I had a vision that night—of dancers. It's difficult to explain really, but it was like watching a dream. I didn't understand everything, but I felt it. I felt it very strongly, and it changed me. Two days later, when I saw my husband, I told him that I was leaving . . . which I'd say he took pretty well, considering."

She lay back down, and Gray moved to the window. "Where is he now?"

"Amsterdam, I think."

"And your daughter?"

"Also Amsterdam, but naturally I will bring her here just as soon as I've become a famous dancer in the oriental tradition." She did not smile when she said this.

It was the first time he had ever heard her mention it. A mid-August dawn, she on the mattress, he at the window, and then from nowhere: just as soon as I've become a famous dancer in the oriental tradition.

She said nothing more about it the next day, or the day after, or the day after that. And even later in October, when she actually began to rehearse for her Paris debut, there did not seem to be much one could say. She was to dance on the fourth of February in the salon of a Mme. Kireesky. Her sponsor was the director of a riding academy. Vadime de Massloff would take the photographs, Gray was to help with the background sets. The evening was to be billed as a selection of "authentic" oriental dances by the incomparable Mata Hari—"Eye of the Dawn."

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

THERE is a photograph of her first performance, probably taken by de Massloff. She appears in studded breastplates and a low sarong descending to her hips. An Indian diadem curls above her hair, knotted along the shoulders. She seems to be tearing a veil away, while a young attendant kneels at her feet. Suspended from a balcony are chains of hothouse orchids and clusters of her Parma violets. Torchlight tends to deepen the mystery, while a four-armed Siva emerges floodlit from behind.

In a second photograph, taken at the later reception, she appears in a sumptuous gown with an oversleeve of white brocade. To her left stands the industrialist M. Guimet, dark and powerful against the damask. In profile to her right stands a thin young man who vaguely reminds one of Jean Cocteau, and finally there is also Gray.

His own memories of this night would never be as precise as the photographs. After drinking too much in her dressing room, he withdrew to a garden filled with ivy and terracotta urns. Long after they had all described her as marvelous, he would clearly remember her naked, slightly trembling on the marble, waiting for the applause. . . .