October 1915. They came for her at five in the morning. Mata Hari was fast asleep in her prison bed. Sleep is only ever given to the innocent. “Is it time for my execution?” she asked. They nodded. “I am not a spy,” she said. “All I ever did, I did for love. But kill me if you must.” So they did.  Dear M Clunet, I hope you never receive his letter. If you don’t receive it, I will have been reprieved. Yet I fear the worst, for you have been a terrible defence lawyer. So now I choose to set the record straight that I am not a spy and all I ever did was for love. Memories are full of caprice and bring with them a devil called melancholy – oh, cruel demon that I cannot escape – yet I shall try to set the record straight that I am not a spy and all I ever did, I did for love.  On one of my trips to Vienna I met a man called Freud. I cannot remember his first name, though I did get the feeling his ideas would become popular because I was not a spy and all I ever did, I did for love. Yes, I was a prostitute. Yes, I was a liar. But I can promise you I am not lying now. What can I tell you of my life? I was born Margaretha Zelle to parents whose lives did not amount to much. I longed to leave Holland and when an older man seduced me into becoming his wife and moving to Java, I leapt at the opportunity. Here is a list of some of the things I took with me: one hairbrush, one pair of spurs, two gold watches.  Once there, I could reinvent myself inside my loveless marriage. For everything I did, I did for love. I had a daughter whose name I forget, but hopefully someone has been looking after her these past 15 years. I also had a son who was brutally murdered – which was probably just as well, because he cramped my style of doing everything for love.  In Indonesia, I learned the sacred dances that I performed to large audiences. Unfortunately, every time I did so, all my clothes would invariably fall off and I would end up being seduced by a man who wanted to give me some money. “I couldn’t possibly accept your cash,” I would say before pocketing the money, “because all I ever do, I do for love.”  After a woman killed herself in front of me, because her husband tried to seduce me when I happened to be wearing no clothes, I persuaded my husband to return to Amsterdam. We separated soon after and I began to get paid a lot of money for taking my clothes off and being seduced by rich men. An artist called Picasso – I forget his first name – was keen to see me with no clothes on, but I refused because he had very dirty hands.  Before long, I felt constricted in Holland and yearned to go to Paris. Luckily, I met a rich man who gave me a lot of money when I was naked, which allowed me to fulfil my dreams of moving to Paris, which is the capital of France. How I admired the metal tower put up by M Eiffel. To me, that tower had the aura of a tower that existed only for love. In Paris, I met a lot of people, some of whom didn’t try to seduce me, but always my clothes seemed to fall off.  When the war started, I went to Germany. There I was paid a lot of money to keep my clothes on, which should possibly have alerted me that something was wrong, but love can make you blind. The Germans did ask me to tell them if I saw anything interesting, but I only ever told them what I am telling you. That love conquers all. I also went back to France and promised I would tell them everything I had told the Germans. So you see, I couldn’t have been a spy.  Dear Mme Mata Hari, I am writing this more for my own benefit than yours as you are already dead. I want you to know I wasn’t quite so hopeless a defence lawyer as you thought, though, sadly, not good enough to get you acquitted. But let me say that I never did think you were a spy. Rather, you were the goddess Psyche enthralled by the god Eros. I quite understand that everything you did, you did for love. Yours, M Clunet  PS: I hope the firing squad wasn’t too painful.
John Crace strips Paulo Coelho’s novel about Mata Hari – executed as a spy in 1917 – to its naked essence