“What are you doing?” Rudolph snapped the first time I allowed myself to inhale the fragrances of Java. The air was heavy with the scent of the yellow and white blossoms of frangipani trees.
“Smelling the air,” I said, already regretting my marriage to him.
“You enjoy the scent of cow shit?”
I ignored his comment and pointed to where terraced gardens were being cultivated in shades of emerald and jade. “What’s being grown over there?”
He licked a stray morsel of food from his mustache. “Those are rice paddies and coconut palms. The natives call the paddies sawahs,” he said with a dismissive grunt.
Sawahs. I committed the word to memory. “And that grass, what’s it called?”
“Alang-alang. A bloody uncivilized language if you ask me. Too much damn singsong. It’s no small wonder these people never contribute anything to society. They’re all too lazy and too busy singing.” He checked his pocket watch. If the driver went any faster our luggage would topple over and litter the streets. “It’s shameful. We colonized this land fifty years ago. But with darkies, what can you do?”
We were on our way to Yogyakarta, to the house that would have cost a prince’s fortune if it were built in Amsterdam. It was only a few days after my eighteenth birthday, and when we arrived, I ran inside and danced through its whitewashed rooms, admiring my burnished teak furniture and bamboo tables. “I can’t believe it,” I kept saying. I touched everything. The oyster-white countertops, the cinnamon and beige curtains, the flowers in terra-cotta pots. I took off my shoes so I could feel the polished floor, cool as silk, against my feet. “There are servants,” Rudolph said, impatient with my excitement. They appeared on cue behind him. Two women and a man. All three bowed. The women smiled and I recognized my amber tones in their skin, my long, dark hair in theirs. I felt I had come home and I thought that I would live there forever as Margaretha MacLeod. Lady MacLeod.
Now I know I should have married a man like Guimet. Intelligent, refined, a lover of art. A gentle man.
Three uncouth-looking men pass through the dingy lobby and try to engage me in conversation. I shiver inside my black cloak. I’m wearing almost nothing underneath it—only a few veils and a thin top. I turn my back on the men and wish Clunet would hurry. When he finally arrives, he parks across the street and I watch as he walks up the three steps into the lobby. As he enters, I’m certain he is appalled by the same things that dismayed me the day I made this building my home. The stains on the carpets, the old tarnished mirror decorating the wall—the odor. Still, this is preferable to -having him inside my apartment again; I know how shabby it is. Rue Durantin is all I can afford.
“Ready?” he asks, and pretends not to notice my embarrassment. He offers me his arm as if we were in an elegant hotel, and he walks me to his car. I wait as he opens the door for me. He tucks in the edges of my long cloak as well.
“Thank you,” I say. Rudolph never opened or closed my carriage door.
Clunet starts the car. As we drive toward the Place d’Iena I begin to feel nervous. I try not to imagine what will happen to me if my dance is rejected; life won’t be worth living if this evening is a disaster. Then the dream of Paris will truly be gone. I glance at Clunet, his expensive blue suit and thick salt-and-pepper hair. If I fail to impress, he’ll toss me away as easily as he tossed that rose from his car the day we signed our contract.
He must notice the way I am twisting the fabric of my cloak because he says, “Nothing to be frightened about, M’greet. I’ve seen you perform. You’ll conquer them tonight.”
But there is everything to be frightened about. “There will be so many guests—”
“Yes. Think of it as performing in a theater.”
“An exclusive theater; every member of the audience is astoundingly wealthy.”
He smiles. “That is the very best kind of playhouse.”
I recognize the statue of George Washington. We have reached the Place d’Iena. There are still three hours before the two hundred guests are due to arrive, but I’ll need the time to practice and dress. A butler answers the door and as soon as we’re inside, Guimet pounces on us. He’s all compliments and smiles with me, but with Clunet he’s more formal. He offers his hand and says, “Looking forward to tonight.” Then he turns back to me, as excited as a boy. “Wait until you see what I’ve done.”