We bid each other farewell and he told me where he was staying, saying he would await my reply until the following day, when he had to return to his city. I left the cafe and went straight to Astruc's office. I confess that seeing all those posters of people just finding their fame made me feel a tremendous sadness. But I could not go back in time.
Astruc welcomed me with the same courtesy as always, as if I were his most important artist. I recounted the conversation I'd had and said that no matter what happened, he would receive his commission.
The only thing he said was: "But right now?"
I didn't quite understand. I thought he was being slightly rude to me.
"Yes, now. I still have much, much more to do onstage."
He nodded in agreement, wished me happiness, and said he didn't need his commission, suggesting that perhaps it was time I start saving my money and stop spending so much on clothes.
I agreed and left. I thought he must still be shaken by what a failure the debut of his theater had been. He must have been on the verge of ruin. Of course, putting on something like Rite of Spring, and with a plagiarist like Nijinsky in the lead role, was just asking for the crosswinds to smash one's ship.
The next day I contacted the foreigner and said I accepted his offer, but not before making a series of absurd demands that I was ready to forgo. But to my surprise, he merely called me extravagant and said he agreed to everything, because true artists are like that.
Who was the Mata Hari who embarked that rainy day from one of the city's many train stations? She didn't know what her next step was, or what her destination held in store, only trusted that she was going to a country where the language was similar to her own, and so she would never get lost.
How old was I? Twenty? Twenty-one? I couldn't have been older than twenty-two, though the passport I was carrying with me said I was born on August 7, 1876. As the train made its way to Berlin, the newspaper showed the date July 11, 1914. But I did not want to do the math; I was more interested in what had happened two weeks earlier. The cruel attack in Sarajevo, where Archduke Ferdinand lost his life along with his elegant wife, her only guilt being that she was by his side when a crazy anarchist fired the shots.
In any event, I felt completely different from all the other women in that car. I was an exotic bird traversing an earth ravaged by humanity's poverty of spirit. I was a swan among ducks who refused to grow up, fearing the unknown. I looked at the couples around me and felt completely vulnerable; many men were around me, but there I was, alone, with no one to hold my hand. True, I had turned down many proposals; I had had my experience with that--suffering for someone undeserving and selling my body for the supposed security of a home--in this life and didn't intend to repeat it.
The man next to me, Franz Olav, seemed worried as he looked out the window. I asked what the matter was, but he didn't answer; now that I was under his control, he no longer had to answer anything. All I had to do was dance and dance, even if I was no longer as flexible as I was before. But with a little practice, and thanks to my passion for riding horses, surely I would be ready in time for the premiere. France no longer interested me; it had sucked the very best from me and cast me aside, preferring Russian artists or those born in places like Portugal, Norway, Spain, who repeated the same trick I had used when I arrived. Show them something exotic from your homeland, and the French, always eager for something new, will certainly believe it.
Merely for a short time, but they will believe just the same.
As the train rumbled into Germany, I saw soldiers marching toward the western border. There were battalions and more battalions, gigantic machine guns, and cannons pulled by horses.
Again I tried to make conversation: "What is going on?"
But all I got was a cryptic reply:
"Whatever is going on, I want to know that we can count on your help. Artists are very important at this moment."
He couldn't have been talking about the war, as nothing had been published about it yet--the French papers were much more worried with reporting the latest salon gossip or complaining about some chef who had just lost a government medal. Though our countries hated each other, this was normal.
When a country becomes the most important in the world, there is always a price to pay. England had an empire on which the sun never set, but ask anyone which city they would rather see, London or Paris. I have no doubt the answer would be the city crossed by the River Seine, with its churches, boutiques, theaters, painters, musicians, and--for those a bit more daring--world-famous cabarets like the Folies Bergere, Moulin Rouge, Lido.
You had only to consider what was more important: a tower with a dull clock and a king who never appeared in public or a gigantic steel structure that was the largest vertical tower in the world and which was becoming well known across Europe by the name of its creator, Gustave Eiffel. Or what about the monumental Arc de Triomphe, or the Champs-Elysees, which offered up all the best things money could buy? England also hated France with all its might, but this was no reason for it to prepare its warships.
However, as the train traversed German soil, troops and more troops headed west. I urged Franz again, and received the same cryptic answer.
"I'm ready to help," I said. "But how can I, if I don't even know what this is about?"
For the first time he unglued his eyes from the window and turned to me.
"I don't know. I was hired to bring you to Berlin, to make you dance for our aristocracy, and then one day--I don't have the exact date--go to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was one of your admirers there who gave me the money to hire you, though you're one of the most expensive artists I've ever met. I hope the risk pays off."
Before I bring this chapter of my life to a close, my dearest, detested Mr. Clunet, I would like to speak a bit more about myself, because that was why I began writing these pages, which have turned into a record where, in many parts, my memory may have betrayed me.
Do you really think--in your heart--that if they were to choose someone to spy for Germany, France, or even Russia, they would choose someone who was constantly watched by the public? Does that not seem utterly ridiculous to you?
When I took that train to Berlin, I thought I had left my past behind. With each kilometer, I moved farther away from everything I had experienced, even the good memories like the discovery of what I was capable of doing onstage and off and the moments in which every street and every party in Paris were a great novelty. Now I understand that I cannot run from myself. In 1914, instead of returning to Holland, it would have been very easy to change my name again, find someone to take care of what was left of my soul, and go to one of the many places in this world where my face was unknown to start anew.
But that meant living the rest of my life split in two: as a woman who could be anything and one who was never anything, one who wouldn't have even
a single story to tell her children and grandchildren. Though at the moment I am a prisoner, my spirit remains free. While everyone is fighting a never-ending battle to see who will survive amid so much bloodshed, I don't need to fight anymore, only wait for people I've never met to decide who I am. If they find me guilty, one day the truth will come out, and a mantle of shame will be draped over their heads, and that of their children, their grandchildren, their country.
I sincerely believe that the president is a man of honor.