He escorts us across the street to the library and I’m truly amazed. He has transformed a cathedral of books and art into an Indian temple. Incense wafts, thick and heady, between the columns, while men dressed in gold silks and wearing jewel-encrusted turbans wave ostrich-feather fans. A three-foot statue of Shiva Nataraja, the destroyer of worlds, glitters from the center of the room. I close my eyes for a moment and breathe deeply. He has spared no expense and the authenticity is exquisite; it is as if Paris is thousands of miles away and I am standing in a temple in Java.
Exactly as I requested, a gamelan orchestra is poised, waiting for me. The musicians have set up in the back of the room. In the car I was nervous; the stakes are so high. If I succeed, I am guaranteed entry into high society; if I fail, it is back to Montmartre and misery. Yet standing in front of Shiva—who is trampling Illusion with his right foot—I feel powerful and strong. I take off my light cloak. I am wearing only the silver brassiere and a thin silver band on my thigh that is clearly visible through my diaphanous skirt. Guimet cannot take his eyes off me.
“I must rehearse,” I say, dismissing the two men.
Guimet immediately kisses each of my cheeks. “Bonne chance,” he says on the first, and on the second kiss, “Shubhkamnaye.”
Good luck in both French and Hindi.
But it’s clear that Clunet isn’t going to leave. “Thank you, Edouard,” I say, handing him my cloak. Then I focus all of my charm on the men in my orchestra. “And thank you for joining me for tonight’s experience. This dance is unlike anything you’ve witnessed before. While we rehearse I ask but two things of you: If you are shocked, hide your emotions. If you are offended, leave.”
The men exchange looks between themselves. A few of them have glanced at Clunet; none have met my eye.
“My hope, however, is that each of you will stay. That you will help me create one of the most memorable evenings in Paris, one that will make you famous throughout this city.”
The men look intrigued; one or two has risked meeting my glance.
“We have less than three hours to come to know each other, to anticipate each other’s needs. We will practice the entire dance together. We will rehearse until we know we are perfect. I will enter from beneath the stairs.” I indicate the exact spot. “You will start to play moments before I come out, gently transporting our audience away from the present, away from their everyday lives. Then—at the instant I appear—the music must crescendo.”
We run through the dance and my hips sway to their music, the movement and the percussion carrying us all to another world. I am certain some of these musicians have seen dancers partially disrobe; they have knowing looks in their eyes. But when I slip off the last of my layered skirts and kneel before Shiva, my back arched, everything I was born with displayed, I know their shock is genuine. I glance over in time to see Edouard Clunet with his eyes as wide as those of the men in my orchestra.
His expression tells me I’m in exactly the right position.
*
I hear the sounds of people moving into the library, members of French society talking and laughing and taking their places.
“This is quite a spectacular room.”
“I hear the entertainer is Japanese.”
Chairs scrape across the floor. Then the lamps dim and all conversation stops as Guimet begins his introduction.
“Our guest was born in the south of India at Jaffnapatam. She is the daughter of a great Brahmin family. Tonight we will witness one of the sacred dances of India.”
The audience murmurs as the orchestra begins, filling the room with music few people in Paris have ever heard.
“She will honor us with the dance of the devadasis, a sacred art belonging to the Hindu god Shiva. In doing so, she will bless this library. I present to you the dancer, Mata Hari.”
I enter the room and the music crescendos.
Two hundred pairs of eyes turn toward me.
“My dance is a sacred poem,” I begin, as the orchestra plays a slow rhythm. I am offering them the precise speech Mahadevi fabricated in Java, a Dutch colony worlds away from this exclusive gathering. I have memorized it faithfully, to the letter. I spread my arms. “Each movement is a word and every word is underlined by music.” I pause; la gratin listens, spellbound. “The temple in which I dance can be vague or faithfully reproduced as it is here tonight. For I am the temple. All true temple dancers are religious in nature and all explain, in gestures and poses, the rules of the sacred texts.”
I begin to move my hips. “One translates the divine attributes of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva—creation, fecundity, destruction. This is the dance I dance tonight. The dance of destruction as it leads to creation.”
The room is mesmerized as I translate the speech into English, Dutch, German, then Javanese. By the end, no one understands what I’m saying, but I see that they are enraptured with the foreignness of my words, hypnotized by my movements.
The music changes, becomes a slow sensuous beat. I close my eyes and free the knots that hold the veils of my skirt in place, letting them drift, like petals, to the ground.
The hypnotic sounds of the flutes rise and yet I hear the audience gasp as one.