The Red Dancer

by Richard Skinner

  ‘What?’ du Parcq said.

  ‘Believe me, she is.’

  Wearing a long lily-white dress and carrying a matching lace-edged parasol, Mata Hari left the Café de Platerías and walked quickly along Calle Mayor. Men tipped their boaters as she passed, but she took little notice. When she arrived at the French Embassy, she announced herself and demanded to see Colonel Denvignes.

  A few minutes later, she was shown into an office, where a short elderly man with a dark moustache stood behind a wide desk. Mata Hari waited until the receptionist had closed the door before she spoke.

  ‘Is there a Captain Berruguete working here, Colonel?’

  ‘Please sit down, madame.’ Denvignes offered a seat.

  ‘Does Berruguete work here?’

  The Colonel sighed. ‘Yes, he does. What is it?’

  ‘I’ve just been talking with my friend Senator Junoy, who tells me he was advised by Berruguete to break off his friendship with me. Is this true?’

  ‘Madame, you worry too much. I’m sure it’s nothing. Please, sit down,’ he smiled.

  ‘I will not allow some insignificant attaché to tell my friends to stop seeking my company!’ She was breathing heavily. Her dress rustled as she sat down. Denvignes settled in his own chair. She took out a handkerchief from her cuff and patted her mouth.

  ‘I don’t know if you are aware of what happened to me in London,’ she said; ‘it’s only because of Ladoux that I was in England at all and still I wait to hear from him. It seems I’m not allowed to leave Spain!’

  ‘Madame, if you had allowed me, I could have told you that I have indeed received your orders from Captain Ladoux.’

  She glanced at him. ‘Oh, I see. What are they?’

  ‘Germany is about to prevent any possibility of an early peace by declaring unrestricted U-boat warfare. Captain Ladoux wants you to find out German submarine positions along the Moroccan coast from von Krohn.’

  She nodded.

  ‘As soon as possible,’ he added.

  She nodded again and rose. ‘I’m sorry, Colonel.’

  ‘Think nothing of it. Before you go, may I ask you something?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘May I have your handkerchief as a souvenir?’

  In one of the reception rooms at the German Embassy, Hans von Krohn was mixing two vermouth cocktails and thinking back over the message he’d received that afternoon. It was from Berlin, ordering him to instruct H21 to return to Paris, where a cheque for 15,000 pesetas would be given to her. Straightforward enough, but what intrigued him was that the cipher used for the message was old. Von Krohn was sure it was one that the French had cracked many months previously.

  Her recruitment by the Deuxième Bureau as a double agent was an open secret. Up to now, she had remained at liberty, a result either of incredible luck or incredible aptitude. Von Krohn had known from the very beginning who she was and what she was doing, so it wasn’t the latter. What did it matter? Either way, the game was up for her. Von Krohn felt a pang of regret. They had spent many nights together since he had first let her seduce him. She was a delicious creature in bed – passionate and uninhibited. He resolved to concentrate on the evening ahead and put the whole affair out of his mind until morning. He would pass on her final instructions then, after their last night together.

  Von Krohn had almost finished his cocktail when she finally arrived. She was a quarter of an hour late. He sucked in his breath at her long rose-red dress. It whispered to him as she walked into the room. She looked exquisite, as ever. He kissed her hand and complimented her, then handed her a vermouth. She drank it quickly and they left for the Café Gijon.

  The open-brick restaurant was only half full and they took a table near the back. ‘Have you ever noticed’, von Krohn said, ‘that there isn’t a straight line in here?’ She looked around the interior: all the doors, window frames and walls were curved. ‘Only the floor is flat,’ he said.

  For dinner, they both ordered cocido a la madrileña – chickpeas and boiled potatoes with bacon and chicken. She complained about the food in Madrid compared to Paris. He said Paris was overrated, he liked the simplicity and spice of the food here. They drank strong red wine from a bottle wrapped in sackcloth.

  During the meal, von Krohn pointed out three hatless young men in long black jackets who had just entered the café and were talking together at a table by the window.

  ‘Anarchists,’ von Krohn said. ‘They’re organising against Rivera. The Moroccans are beginning to rise as well; we heard today that there was some trouble in Annoual. This country is headed for disaster.’

  Von Krohn couldn’t help but notice her efforts at restraint. She let an appropriate few moments pass before inquiring further. Inwardly, he smiled.

  ‘There’s going to be a landing of German and Turkish troops on the coast of Morocco. They’ll land in the French zone and use the political unrest as cover for a counteroffensive.’

  She took this in. Von Krohn knew that she would think this information important. As it was, it was useless. No such troops were going anywhere near Morocco. Now, she would relax, imagining she had her intelligence, and he could get what he wanted from her. He sipped his wine and glanced at the outline of her breasts.

  After dinner, they took an open carriage up to Palacio Real and around Plaza Mayor. The sky was purple to the west and there were few sounds apart from the horse’s tired walk. Their guide didn’t say a word throughout the trip. When they returned to the cobbled plaza, the guide edged his carriage into a line of a dozen other carriages, all waiting for customers. Von Krohn handed him some notes and said goodnight.

  They walked to von Krohn’s apartment near the Museum of Natural History. The city was almost dark at night because of the poor street lighting. Once in the apartment, he shut the door, put his keys down and told her to undress. When she had done so, she lay on the bed, waiting for him. During their sex, she seemed to be searching for something in him, but he knew she was just pretending. All the same, he made sure he wearied her, and himself. He insisted on fucking her three times through the night, making her flush and him sweat. She complied each time, finally leaning over the side of the bed and talking to him while he manoeuvred himself behind her.

  He slept badly and was awake when it grew light. He lay still, watching the east-facing window as it gradually grew less red. When she woke, she smiled and laid her arm across his chest. He told her that she had to go back to Paris immediately. She replied that she missed Paris. She seemed not to have heard him.

  ‘Are you awake properly?’ he asked.

  She opened her eyes.

  ‘You have orders to go back to Paris,’ he said. ‘Some money is waiting for you there. You have to go straight away.’

  She rubbed her eyes and sat up.

  ‘Paris?’ she said.

  *

  A few days later, on 13 February 1917, Mata Hari checked into her usual room at the Élysée Palace Hôtel on the Champs-Élysées, Paris. While she was unpacking, six men entered her room without knocking. Alarmed, she demanded to know who they were and what they thought they were doing. A man who identified himself as Police Chief Priolet informed her that she was being arrested. He indicated to one of his inspectors to read the accusation. The inspector took out a piece of paper from inside his jacket. He coughed and said:

  The woman Zelle, Marguerite, known as Mata Hari, living at the Palace Hôtel, of Protestant religion, foreigner, born in Holland on 7 August 1876, one metre, seventy-five centimetres tall, being able to read and write, is accused of espionage, tentative complicity and intelligence with the enemy, in an effort to assist them in their operations.

  PART III

  29

  St Lazare, Paris, 1917

  If you ask whether I thought her guilty, I should be compelled to answer ‘Yes, against my will.’ It does not seem logical to me that a creature of her nature, with her pride, her imagination, her love of art, her beauty, her culture, and her con
tempt for money could debase herself to the point of seducing drunken aviators to betray secrets of military importance. However, there is no doubt that the evidence before the court-martial was too strong for her defence. I recall paying her a visit on the day the death sentence was read to her. I can assure you that her calm, her indifference, amazed me. Had I been her confessor I should have been tempted to sound the depths of her soul and offer her the consolation of faith, but my role was merely that of medical adviser and for that reason I was compelled to maintain a reserved attitude.

  Dr Bralez (Mata Hari’s assistant prison doctor)

  When she received her death sentence in July, Mata Hari became calmer. She seemed to accept her fate, but in the first few weeks of her imprisonment, this wasn’t so. She was feverish and intractable and often displayed a violent temper. As one of the nuns who care for women prisoners at St Lazare, my duty was to stay with her, no matter how difficult it proved to be. And I stayed with Mata Hari until her last breath.

  On the day in May when I began my ministrations, she told me her world had fallen apart. She said everybody had turned their back on her. I told her that God had not forsaken her. She looked at me with cruelty in her eyes. I have seen the same look many times before. She said that my presence was an offence to her more fastidious taste in companions. She told me that she was not Catholic and therefore had no need of me. ‘As I go down it will be with a little smile of contempt,’ she said. I told her my duty had remained the same for fifty years – I would not leave her side. How she fought with herself, poor child.

  She was very ill in the beginning. It happens to all new prisoners. Every morning, when I got to her cell and relieved Sister Maria of her night ministrations, she was often not well enough to stand up. Sister Maria told me she spent many nights quietly crying. On one occasion, she vomited blood and Dr Bralez had to be sent for. Sometimes she shouted suddenly and involuntarily and looked at me with anguish in her eyes and said that no one had heard her. At these moments of despair, I took her hands in mine and prayed for her. Often, the Abbé Doumergue and the Protestant pastor, Arboux, visited her. In June, she asked to see Captain Bouchardon. When he came, she told him she was going mad and she hoped she wouldn’t have to stay in the cell for very long. Captain Bouchardon said that he would not improve the conditions of her imprisonment unless she revealed the names of other foreign spies. She begged him not to be so hard on her and said that no matter how much he made her suffer, he couldn’t make her tell him what she did not know. With a terrible lack of compassion, he said that he was going to make an example of her.

  In the days leading up to her trial, she was regularly visited by her agent and lawyer, Maître Clunet, who gave her great hope for an acquittal. On each of the two days of the trial, I sat alone in her cell, number 12, and looked up through the window and prayed for the souls of Mme Steinheil and Mme Caillaux, whom I had attended to previously. I regarded the strong shaft of sunlight coming through the window that lit a square on the cell floor. It was a hot July, but the cell itself was cool. It had the same chilliness as the chapel in the convent I was sent to as a young girl. When she returned from hearing the verdict, I made sure to exert greater vigilance. We sat together on her bed. Dr Bralez paid her a visit. She said only that she would like to sleep well that night and asked Dr Bralez to prescribe some veronal. He said regretfully that he was not permitted to do that. I do believe her sentencing was the moment in her great spiritual struggle when she let peace suffuse her soul. Prison is a model of the soul. To find peace in such confinement is the search for love in dark places. To find liberty in such a small space is the largest understanding I have seen of God.

  Maître Clunet stopped visiting her afterwards and this upset her deeply, for she was greatly brightened by his news of her friends and acquaintances and his perennial hope. He sent word to her that he was arranging for an appeal against the decision, which would surely secure her acquittal or a mitigation of the sentence at least. She took heart from this, but the weeks went by. In September, she requested to see a journalist friend of hers called Georges du Parcq. Together, they smoked small cigars and she passed many hours dictating her memoirs. Mostly, the things they discussed were not for my ears, but I remember one memory which struck her oddly. She said that when she was a young girl, her father had been in the habit of calling her ‘an orchid among buttercups’. I remember this because of the beauty of the sentiment and because she seemed distressed by the memory. The journalist asked her if she had any regrets and she looked at him with great reflection and said she would like to have known her daughter better. She hadn’t seen her Non since 1903 and it was only now that she realised just how much she’d missed her. She asked him to visit her daughter and he said he would. This man seemed to me to be considerate. After he left, she was quiet. The only thing she said to me that whole evening was: ‘Dreams are silver, Sister, but memories are pure gold.’ During her sleep, she twice uttered a name: Norman.

  She remained quietened for many days after this meeting. Noticing this, Dr Bralez suggested that she take to reading. He advised her of the wonderful writings of Prévost, Bourget and Rosny. I have never read any of these writers but the doctor assured me they were marvellous. She admonished the doctor and told him she could not tolerate European things, not even the religion. She said, ‘I am a Hindu, although born in Holland. Hindu? Yes, certainly. You who are an intelligent man will say that there must be something European in me. No, there is not. I am absolutely Oriental.’ However, she told the doctor that there was indeed one book she wished to read, Lotus of Faith, which I am told is a book of Buddhist instruction. Dr Bralez returned with it and, in the days that followed, she took great delight in reading aloud long passages to me. She revelled in the book’s contempt for everything in life and I saw that she was once again fighting against the workings of God. I prayed for her while she read.

  The day before the execution was a Sunday. There are never any executions on God’s day of rest. Despite the imminence of her terrible ordeal, she awoke brightly that morning owing to Maître Clunet’s promise of news. The evening before, he had sent word that he had an audience with President Poincaré and was confident that his personal friendship with the President would result in the mobilization of his powers of clemency. She prattled all morning that her friends in high places would secure her release and I silently prayed that she was correct. By the mid-evening, Maître Clunet had still failed to appear. Major Julian arrived and told her that the President had refused to exercise clemency. Oh! How her happy disposition was thwarted with those words and she fell into a deep gloom. I did not know how to combat such despondency. She desperately needed something to hold on to, to overcome the gravity of her soul. The true fight against oneself is against one’s gravity. Only by effacing it could she then be spiritually light and clear and so be nearer to God. I thus requested that she dance for me. At first, she did not believe that I was in earnest, but I convinced her and she eventually acquiesced. She stood opposite me and for several moments held a pose rather like a ballerina’s. Then she twirled her arms up and down and gyrated her body round and round, opening her arms to heaven and then sinking on to the hard floor of the cell. I told her it was a splendid example of her art. She thanked me and, after a few moments, she asked if it was true I had received the Légion d’honneur. I replied that it was. She looked at me with great reflection and said that we were not so unalike after all. I was happy that she had made some use of me.

  The warden came then, accompanied by the prison photographer. The warden explained it was regulations that she have her photograph taken for the records. She nodded. The photographer set up his tripod in the cell and directed her to sit on the bed in front of the bare wall. She did as she was instructed. The photographer disappeared under a black hood and soon there was a loud pop and a flash. He took a second photograph, of her profile, and left with the tripod over his shoulder. She asked the warden if she was permitted to write her final le
tters and was soon furnished with paper and a pen. She spent the rest of the evening composing and writing two letters, one to her young daughter, to whom she offered much motherly advice, and one to her lover, who now resided in Russia. She told me that she would have walked through fire for this young man, but that even he had betrayed her. Dr Bralez came to ask if she wished for a sleeping draught. She said she did and drank all that was offered. Her spirits seemed greatly restored as she lay down on her bed. As is my custom, I told her I would not leave her side and prayed for the deliverance of her soul as she slept. The prison was quiet that night. I have often observed this phenomenon and know that the guards and other prisoners are keeping silent.

  At a quarter to five, Major Julian arrived with Dr Bralez. She was still asleep, poor child. Dr Bralez admitted that he had given her twice the usual dosage and woke her gently. Major Julian told her that Maître Clunet had just arrived hurriedly and announced that he opposed the execution and invoked Article 27, Book 1, Chapter 1 of the Penal Code. I became greatly agitated over this development. He asked her if she understood what this meant. She admitted that she didn’t and he explained that it meant she was pregnant. Maître Clunet claimed to be the father. The warden cried that it was impossible and, indeed, I knew it to be impossible as well. Major Julian said if she could prove that she was an expectant mother by submitting herself for medical examination, her life would be spared. She burst into laughter and dismissed the claim, saying that Maître Clunet was just a dear old man who was trying very hard to help her. My heart fluttered at such bravery; she was truly finding the lightness and clearness within her soul. Major Julian said, ‘Ayez du courage, l’heure de l’expiation est venue.’

  Two matonnes helped her with her corset and pearlgrey dress. She asked what the reason was for executing prisoners at dawn? In India it was not so. ‘There, death is a penalty that is made into a ceremony – in full daylight, before crowds of guests, and to the sweet scent of jasmine. I would have preferred to lunch with friends, and then go to Vincennes in the afternoon. But you choose to shoot me on an empty stomach! It is unreasonable!’ I recommended a cordial, but Dr Bralez suggested a tot of rum. She smiled at me and said she would take the rum, which the warden duly produced. After drinking the rum, she donned a long black coat and a black tricorn hat, without pins in case she tried to do damage to herself. She turned to me and asked, ‘My hat becomes me, does it not?’ The ease with which she accepted her fate that morning was courageous in the extreme and moved me so greatly that, against my will, I began to cry. I reminded her that the Protestant pastor was in attendance and urged her to make her peace with God. She smiled a most gracious smile and said she would if it pleased me. The Protestant pastor, Arboux, was sent for and, kneeling before him, she was baptised according to the rites of Anabaptism. I was happy for her delivery into the hands of God and could not control my weeping. When the ceremony was finished, the greffier came forward and asked if she had any declaration to make. She declared that she was innocent and a victim of murder. The greffier said he would record it. Major Julian asked if she was ready. She looked at me and I saw a great calmness in her eyes that made my tears flow freely. She comforted me and said, ‘Don’t fear, Sister, I shall know how to die without weakness.’ Together, we left that dreaded cell and she walked with her head high, into His arms.