The Red Dancer

by Richard Skinner

  At the hospital, Favourier was in a great mood. For the first time, I saw him sitting on his bed, not lying in it. He was excitedly telling me all the places and people he would see back in Paris. One of the other poilus had had some whisky smuggled in. We waited until lights out, then cracked open the bottle out on the balcony. We had to whisper. The night air was moist. The outline of the trees below us hardly moved and the factory walls kept their yellowness in the dark. My night vision was getting better all the time. Favourier asked me if there was anyone he could see for me, or if I had any letters to post. ‘All my family are in Russia,’ I said. He went quiet and asked if I was afraid to go back into action. His question made me think about it, as if for the first time. He was right, I had to start thinking about it properly. I put my hand on his shoulder and told him I would be fine. We drank to that, then skulked back in, bumping into beds as we went.

  Favourier was moved out the next morning. It was odd to see him in uniform. He had a twinkle in his eye when he left; I’m not sure if it was a twinkle or a tear. He never said a word, just raised his hand and disappeared with the others. His departure was sudden. A part of me left with him and I was left wondering what would happen to me. As I was sitting on his bed, a nurse came by and told me I had a telephone call. It was the Grand Hotel. They said Madame Mata Hari was leaving on the 11:01 train to Langres and asked me to meet her at the railway station. She was on the way there herself. I thanked them and replaced the receiver. I looked at the clock: 10:37. As the station wasn’t far from the hospital, I could make it if I ran.

  As I came on to platform 2, I could just see the train further down the line. The station was busy. I glanced up and down the platform, looking for her, and saw her standing by her piles of suitcases. She shouted my name and waved. I ran to her, out of breath. She smiled and put her arms on my shoulders, apologising for her sudden departure. She said she had to go to Madrid immediately because her agent had organised a performance at the Central Kursaal. I was trying to take this in when she asked me if I would be all right. I nodded. The train pulled into the station and we watched it come to a standstill. Blasts of steam issued from the engine car. I helped a porter with the luggage while she got on to the train. She leant out of a window and handed me an envelope. Open it later, she said. We stood looking at each other while the train built up steam. I told her to have a drink of absinthe in Madrid for me. She nodded. The guard waved a red flag from the other end of the platform and the train began to pull away. She remained leaning out of the window, waving, until I could see her no more.

  I left the station feeling as though I’d just had another part of me suddenly cut away. People were leaving me. The sunshine was so bright outside that I had to squint. As I walked back to the hospital, I opened the envelope. Inside was a photograph of her, sitting sideways, but facing the camera. Her dark eyes were calm, her lips glistening with rouge. She had on a wide-brimmed white hat that was fluffy on top. A parure of pearls lay gleaming around her neck and hanging from her earlobes. She was wearing a simple white dress, sleeveless and low-cut, so that her milk-white chest and arms were bare.

  I remembered the past few nights with her, the way she was always quiet when we made love. Was she that shy? Or was she frightened? I wondered if such a sudden departure meant anything. The photograph of her was delicious and I vowed to carry it on all the sorties I would have to fly from Contrexéville. I glanced at the back and saw that there was an inscription:

  Vittel, 1916 – In memory of some of the most beautiful days of my life, spent with my Vadime whom I love above everything.

  26

  Oleum Absinthii

  Absinthe is a bitter spirit made from the leaves of the wormwood plant, a member of the huge Artemisia genus native to Europe and Asia, which also includes tarragon and mugwort. To make the drink, wormwood leaves are grown, harvested, dried and then mixed with angelica root, fennel, oregano, star-anise seeds, anise, hyssop, Melissa and balm mint. This mixture is left to macerate in alcohol for eight days, after which it is distilled and anise oil added. The large number of aromatic herbs is needed to hide the bitter taste of wormwood and the drink has a strong liquorice-like flavour, which comes from the anise. The drink is pale green, almost emerald-green in colour.

  In bars and cafés, the drink was prepared by following a little ritual. From the bottle, an inch of absinthe was poured into a tall glass. A lump of sugar was placed on to a two-pronged fork, which was then balanced on the glass. Water was poured slowly on to the sugar lump, dissolving it into the absinthe and turning the whole drink cloudy. This was the mark of a pure absinthe – cheaper imitations would curdle when water was added.

  The drink was used by the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans as a vivifying elixir. Pliny the Elder (23–79 ad) recommends absinthium as an aphrodisiac as well as a relief for headaches, flatulence and coeliac trouble. He also noted that it was customary for the champion of a chariot race to drink a cup of wormwood leaves soaked in wine ‘to remind him that even glory has its bitter side’.

  The word ‘absinthe’ derives from the Greek word apsinthion, which means ‘undrinkable’, because of its bitter taste. The common English term is ‘wormwood’. The German word is Wermut, or vermouth, a drink originally distilled using wormwood leaves or drops of wormwood oil. This progenitor of absinthe had been distilled in Germany for centuries before absinthe was established as a drink in its own right.

  The first person to do this was Pierre Ordinaire, a French doctor who fled the French Revolution in 1792 and settled in Couvet, a village in the west of Switzerland. While exploring the region on horseback, he discovered wormwood plants growing wild in the hills and began using them in his homemade remedies. His 136° proof elixir became popular with the local community as a stomach tonic and was known as ‘La Fée Verte’ – the Green Fairy.

  The first medical study of absinthe was completed in 1864 by Dr Valentin Magnan, who was then a physician at the asylum of Sainte-Anne in Paris. He found that the effect of absinthe differed from alcoholic delirium tremens in that it provoked an état vertigineux resembling the petit mal form of epilepsy. In large quantities, he concluded that the drink could lead to ‘absinthe epilepsy’, caused by brain tissue lesions.

  But what caused Magnan the most medical concern was the bitter oil, oleum absinthii, extracted from wormwood, which contains a powerful narcotic poison called thujone. Magnan concentrated his studies on thujone and found that it profoundly affected the motor centre of the cerebrum, producing convulsions and hallucinations of sight and hearing. Chronic absinthistes, he declared, were prone to automatism and amnesia, as well as violence and epileptic seizures, all caused by damage to the central nervous system.

  As a result of studies such as Magnan’s, absinthe was banned in every European country except England, Spain and France during the years leading up to the First World War. In England, the drink was never that popular, while in Spain production levels had always been low. But in France, absinthe was drunk in prodigious quantities and any attempt to ban production was met with hostile lobbying from the absinthe industry. In 1912 alone, the French consumed 221,897,000 litres of absinthe.

  With the Franco-German war looming, however, the French government and military were worried, since much of the population was unfit for military service owing to the effects of absinthe. Ironically, it was as a fever preventative that the French military had introduced absinthe during the Algerian War in the 1840s. Two weeks after the Germans declared war on France, the Minister of the Interior, Louis Malvy, was compelled to ban the sale of absinthe. The Chamber of Duties followed suit and, in March 1915, banned the production, circulation and sale of absinthe in the whole of France.

  At the height of its popularity, absinthe consumption was particularly heavy in Paris and Provence, and particularly popular among the artists and writers of the time. Picasso’s Blue Period paintings are said to have been inspired by the effects of absinthe; Toulouse-Lautrec was committed to a sanatori
um because of it, and Verlaine shot Rimbaud while under its influence.

  But perhaps the most famous absinthiste of all was Van Gogh. According to Gauguin, it was while drinking absinthe that Van Gogh threw his glass at Gauguin’s head. The auditory and visual hallucinations, epileptic-type convulsions and attacks of delirium that Van Gogh experienced during the last ten years of his life in Arles fit exactly the symptoms of toxic poisoning by thujone.

  While in Arles, Van Gogh once had to be restrained from drinking a quart of turps. Shortly after cutting off his own ear, he wrote to his brother that his cure for insomnia was ‘a very, very strong dose of camphor in my pillow and mattress’. Like thujone, both camphor and turpentine are terpenes, and Van Gogh may well have developed a strong addiction to all chemicals in this group.

  A thuja tree, which is another source of thujone, grew over Van Gogh’s grave for fifteen years after his death. When his casket was disinterred for reburial in a larger plot of land, it was discovered that the roots of the tree had completely entwined themselves around the casket, as though embracing it. The thuja tree was replanted in the garden of Dr Gachet, Van Gogh’s friend, and is reportedly still flourishing in the Provençal sun.

  27

  London, 1916

  In November 1916, Mata Hari travelled by steamer from Vigo, in Spain, to neutral Holland. Owing to increased enemy submarine and mine-laying activity in the English Channel and North Sea, the British Admiralty had ordered all neutral shipping to make a port of call in England to be searched. The French authorities had informed the British of Mata Hari’s presence on the Hollandia and, when the steamer docked at Falmouth, she was arrested by officers from Scotland Yard. She was taken to London and interrogated for two days. What follows is the verbatim transcripts of the two interviews. When Scotland Yard had finished with her, they prevented her onward journey to Holland and chose instead to send her back to Madrid. At the time of her arrest, Mata Hari was carrying no fewer than ten pieces of luggage. The contents were listed as follows:

  One small wooden box containing a gilt clock.

  Hat box containing: six hats, two hat pins, white feather boa, one veil, two fur necklets, two fur hears, two hat decorations, one imitation peach, one dressing gown.

  Trunk containing: one pair gent’s boots, one brush, one bundle wadding, one pair puttees, one pair spurs, three pairs shoes, three chemises, one napkin, one pair leggings, three veils, one box of ribbons, two brass shells, two belts, two underskirts, three skirts, one dress, four pair gloves, one umbrella, three sunshades, one douche, three scarfs, one night dress case, one coat, one costume, one bag of dirty linen, one bundle sanitary towels, one box contg. four hair ornaments, one hat pin and false hair, three fur necklets, one bottle Vernis Mordore Dore, one box of powder, one bottle of white fluid.

  Boot trunk containing: six pairs slippers, one box face cream, three pairs boots, two pairs shoes, one pair stockings.

  Trunk containing: two pairs corsets, 30 pairs stockings, one lavender packet, one veil, eight under bodices, one shawl, 10 pairs knickers, three princess petticoats, three combs, two dressing jackets, 11 chemises, one dressing gown, one towel, one garter, two coats, one petticoat, two pairs gloves, two powder puffs.

  Trunk containing: one handbag with mirror inside, one hair comb, three coats, one fancy box, one box contg. copper plate and visiting card in the name of Vadime de Massloff, Capitaine, 1er. Regiment Spl Imperial, Russe.

  Wooden box containing: china tea service.

  Gladstone bag containing: one pair shoes, nail polisher, two boxes contg. cigarettes, eight hair nets, box visiting cards, box soap, sachet contg. 21 handkerchiefs, one empty cash box, pearl necklet in case, monocle in case, two earrings in box, two pearls in case, green stone ring in case, green stone necklet and two earrings in case, three fans. Holdall of cotton, needles, etc., handbag contg. cigarette case (two photos inside), powder puff and rouge stick on chain, boat tickets, sterling, francs, gulden, pesetas and Russian notes, two pieces of music, Spanish and French dictionary, bundle of photographs, crayon drawing. One travelling rug.

  One fitted lady’s dressing bag.

  New Scotland Yard, S.W. 15th November, 1916.

  5’5”, medium stout, black hair, oval face, olive complexion, low forehead, grey brown eyes, dark eyebrows, straight nose, small mouth, good teeth, pointed chin, well-kept hands, small feet. Handsome, bold type of woman. Well and fashionably dressed in brown costume with racoon fur trimming and hat to match.

  MARGARETHA ZELLE MACLEOD was seen here today by A.C.C., D.I.D., and Lord Herschell, and interrogated as follows:-

  M.Z.M. My real name is Margaretha Zelle Macleod. I married

  Macleod and was afterwards divorced from him.

  A.C.C. Where were you born?

  In Frisia.

  That is your photograph?

  No, it is not my photograph.

  I put it to you that your real name is Clara Benedix.

  I swear to you that it is a mistake.

  I put it to you that that passport is a false passport on which somebody has written the upper part.

  No.

  Just to show you are not speaking the truth – there is writing under the photograph.

  Send it over to Holland and you will see that it is right.

  Are you ready to account for the fact that that seal does not meet?

  I did nothing with my passport, Sir.

  Can you account in any way for that seal not meeting? Do you wish to say anything about the writing coming under the photograph?

  That is my passport.

  You wish to say nothing?

  Nothing.

  You say you were born in Frisia?

  Yes.

  What was the name of your father?

  Ardum Zella.

  Living where?

  He is dead. He was born in Laeuwanden.

  When did he die?

  In 1913. I think in March.

  Where?

  In Amsterdam.

  What address?

  He died in a hospital: I do not know which. I have not seen my father since my divorce from Macleod.

  What was the date of your birth?

  The 7th August 1876.

  Are you 40?

  Yes.

  You were born at that same place?

  Yes.

  At what age did you leave home?

  When I married Macleod in 1895 in Amsterdam.

  Where were you married?

  In the Consulate. I have two children by Macleod, one born in Amsterdam in 1897 and the other child died in India. My daughter is 16 years old and is living with Macleod in Holland. I have not seen her for ten years, and she does not want to see me.

  Had you begun your stage career when you married Macleod?

  No, I left him in 1903 to go to Paris, and my divorce was taken out in 1907.

  You never went under the name Clara Benedix?

  Never, but I have been in the same compartment in a train with that woman.

  When was that?

  As I went from Madrid to Lisbon.

  Was that the 24th of January of this year?

  Yes, it must have been.

  Have you been at Seville at all?

  Never. I know Barcelona, San Sebastian and Madrid.

  But you were working in Malaga, were you not?

  I never saw Malaga.

  Where were you when the war began?

  I was in Italy. I danced in the Scala at Milan; then I had an engagement at the Metropole in Berlin. Then the war broke out and I went back to Holland.

  Where did you stay in Holland?

  In my home.

  Do you speak Dutch?

  Yes.

  When did you leave Holland?

  I left Holland to go to Paris: you have my French passport. I came to London, to Folkestone and then to Paris.

  Were you in Holland in 1914?

  Yes. I have a friend in Holland who is with the 2nd Regiment of the Fusiliers and I lived
with him.

  In November 1915 you got a visa for London. It was on the 27th November 1915 that this passport was issued No.312. And you were in Paris on the 4th January 1915?

  Yes.

  Did you ever have inflammation of the left eye?

  No, I have never had anything the matter with my eyes.

  You know that one of your eyes is more closed than the other?

  Yes, it has always been so.

  This photograph also has that peculiarity.

  It is possible, but that is not me.

  There are also other similarities. Is this your photograph? (photo in small red book)

  Yes. That was taken in Madrid this year.

  You then left Paris, on what date?

  I do not remember, it was 1916.

  I notice that your visa is for Holland via Spain and Portugal: why was that?

  Because I had a great deal of baggage and my Consul advised me to go that way as there were good boats going from Lisbon.

  Was it less expensive to go that way?

  I think a little more so. The agent looked after the forwarding of my luggage.

  What did you actually do – did you go straight through Spain and Portugal, or wait?

  I left Paris on Sunday night, 5th February, arrived in Madrid on Wednesday and Vigo on Thursday. Then I went to a French gentleman in Barcelona Juan Caris Januona (?)

  Why did you stop a fortnight in Barcelona if you were on your way to Holland?

  To see the place.

  What was happening to your baggage all the time?

  It was with the agent.

  Have you got the bill for this baggage?

  Yes, in my home in The Hague.

  Are you wearing a bracelet?

  Yes (this was shown).

  (An inspector was instructed to speak to her in Dutch, and he stated that she spoke the language well, but with a northern accent.)

  You went to Barcelona in February for a fortnight, then to Madrid and on to Lisbon?