Jackie and Maria

by Gill Paul

  “Are you trying to bribe me?” She gazed at the darkening ocean. Fishing boats were heading out, their lights blinking as they rose and dipped on the waves.

  “I wouldn’t call it that. I want you to be happy and I’m asking you to tell me what that would take.”

  Her eyes blurred with tears, and she was glad of the dark and the wind blowing into her face, so that he wouldn’t realize it. Did any of them know what it felt like to have lost two babies when the other Kennedy wives and daughters were producing grandchildren like clockwork? To have to attend their baby showers and christenings was agony.

  “He does love you,” Joe continued. “As much as he is capable of loving anyone. But he’s thoughtless. You have to be very self-sufficient to be with my son.”

  “You can say that again.” She wiped her eyes quickly with the edge of her wrap.

  “You should get pregnant again soon, Jackie,” he said. “I can’t help you with that, but you know I’m right.”

  “You’re an interfering old goat, Joe.” She laughed to mask her embarrassment. Sexual relations with Jack had been almost nonexistent since Arabella had died. She was too angry with him. She should revive their sex life; she knew she should. It wasn’t good for a marriage to let these things slide.

  They stopped when they reached the end of the beach, where a fence separated them from the rocks beyond.

  “Start house hunting,” he said. “Let me know when you find one you like. Decorate it however you want. Build a nest.”

  Jackie nodded. She would enjoy that. As it happened, she already had a picture of her ideal house in mind. And perhaps, if there was any cash left over, they could buy their own place in Hyannis Port and not have to stay at the family home anymore. She’d like that.

  A FEW MONTHS later, a Washington paper printed a story claiming that Jackie had been thinking of leaving her senator husband but that Joe Kennedy had bribed her to stay by giving her a check for a million dollars. Where did they get these stories with their tiny kernels of truth? she wondered. It was alarming to think there could be a leak so close to home.

  She called her father-in-law, assuming he would have seen the story too. “Only a million, Joe?” she teased. “Why not ten million?”

  He laughed, but she could sense caution. “Worth it at any price,” he said at last.

  “I’ve got some news for you.” She crossed her fingers before continuing, so she didn’t jinx it. “I don’t want everyone to know yet because it’s early days but I followed your advice. I’m pregnant.”

  “That’s wonderful!” he cried, and she could hear that he was grinning. “Third time lucky, eh?”

  “Third time lucky,” she agreed, but she kept her fingers crossed after they got off the phone. At long last she hoped to give Jack a child, but she couldn’t help feeling scared. She didn’t know how she would bear it if anything went wrong this time.

  Chapter 7

  Milan

  April 1958

  It was as if the Rome fiasco had unleashed whole new levels of abuse on Maria’s head. Her voice was as strong as ever and all her performances were sellouts, but the papers insisted she was a diva, a tigress, a monster, and wouldn’t have it any other way. They twisted the facts. One piece reported that she had insisted on rehearsing for six hours straight when she wasn’t happy with a production; it was true, but the director had agreed with her, and the press weren’t attacking him. She admitted to being a perfectionist about her work, but she always behaved with professionalism and never lost her temper, seldom even raising her voice. Yet when photographers snapped pictures of her in airports and emerging from stage doors, editors always chose the ones that made her look as if she were snarling or scowling.

  “Does the public truly believe I am this vile creature?” she asked Battista, wincing at a particularly unflattering shot.

  “Ignore it,” he said, without answering the question. “Who cares? Your friends know the real you.”

  He didn’t understand her need to be liked. She couldn’t stand to have anyone think badly of her. She’d had a difficult childhood, with a mother who blatantly favored her elder, prettier, daintier daughter, Jacinthy. Maria grew up feeling ugly and unlovable, with her voice the only saving grace, so the news stories were rubbing salt in decades-old wounds.

  What had she done to deserve this media treatment except be successful? Was she being punished for that, as she had been in the early days of her career when other singers resented her getting solo roles?

  Some of the blame lay with La Scala’s press office, who fueled the flames by inventing a rivalry between Maria and another first soprano in the company, Renata Tebaldi: “Clash of the Prima Donnas!” It made good copy, but there was little truth in it. Renata was trained in the verismo school, which focused on a strongly produced tone and dropped the coloratura, while Maria trained in bel canto and had a full armory of trills and vocal flexibility. That meant they gravitated toward different repertoires. Maria didn’t know Renata well, but they were perfectly friendly whenever they met.

  All the same, the rumor that they were rivals spread like the plague among Milanese opera lovers. They were a passionate bunch, never slow to express their opinions. If a singer missed a note, they would sing it back to him or her. If a performance was disappointing, the booing and hissing began. Their actions were in complete contrast to the hushed respect of other concert halls, especially London’s, where the audience was so polite that they would never dream of interrupting a performance. Maria admired the Milanese’s love of opera but not their bad manners.

  It got to the point that one section of the La Scala auditorium was occupied by Renata Tebaldi’s supporters and another by Maria’s. Whenever she stepped onstage, Renata’s followers would shout abuse, and hers would try to drown them out with cheers. The moments before she opened her mouth to sing were like an ancient Roman gladiatorial contest: “Kill her!” “No, let her live another day.”

  “Why can’t I just sing, without all the politics?” she pleaded with the press office, but they shrugged in that maddening Italian fashion, as if to say, “What can we do? It’s just the way things are.”

  IN THE SPRING of 1958, Maria was rehearsing two productions back-to-back: Anna Bolena and Il Pirata. That was manageable, but for some reason Ghiringhelli, the artistic director of La Scala, was being childish and petulant. One morning, when he saw her entering through the stage door, he ducked behind a piece of scenery and disappeared, knocking over some wooden castle battlements that hit the floor with a resounding clatter.

  “What’s eating him?” she asked the doorman, and he shook his head in bewilderment.

  Ghiringhelli sat near the back of the auditorium during rehearsal that day and rushed out at the end before Maria could ask him for feedback.

  “Have I done something to upset him?” she asked a nearby tenor.

  “I think it’s to do with your contract,” the tenor whispered behind his hand. “I hear he’s in a rage about your husband’s demands.”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake!” Maria exclaimed. “That’s just business. I’ll go and speak to him.”

  “He’s not here,” Ghiringhelli’s secretary insisted, panic etched across her face.

  Maria glanced through the frosted glass and saw a figure crouched behind a filing cabinet. He was hiding from her. Unbelievable! She considered bursting in and confronting him but thought better of it.

  “Please tell Mr. Ghiringhelli that I merely wanted to ask about my opening nights,” she said, making sure her voice carried. “No one has yet told me when they will be.” It was a reasonable enough request.

  “Of course,” the secretary agreed, scribbling on a notepad. “I’ll ask him to let you know.”

  No word came. Two days later, Maria found out by chance, when she saw the dates printed on a poster in the vestibule.

  She knew Battista could be aggressive in his negotiations with opera houses, but she never interfered. Their deal was that she focuse
d on the singing while he handled the business side, but it was hard not to feel alarmed. For all its faults, she loved La Scala with a passion. It was the crème de la crème of opera houses, the home of Verdi and Toscanini, the place where every opera singer dreamed of triumphing yet few succeeded. When she had been invited to join the company back in 1952, it had been the proudest moment of her life. They had given her the chance to sing all the choice soprano roles, and she loved working with their top-notch musicians and highly skilled stage crew. It felt as if she had a real home at last, and a musical family to make up for the love she lacked from her birth family.

  “Please don’t alienate Ghiringhelli,” she begged Battista that evening. “You know I would sing at La Scala for no fee whatsoever, simply for the honor.”

  “Leave the contract to me,” he insisted. “I think I’m getting through to them at last.”

  ANNA BOLENA PREMIÈRED and the reviews were glowing, although the audience was rowdier than ever. Booing and cheering at curtain was par for the course, but one night a section of the crowd was so noisy that she could scarcely hear herself sing. In the third act, at the point where the guards came to arrest her character, she snapped. She pushed the guards aside, charged to the footlights, and sang directly at the offenders, shaking her fist, eyes blazing: “Judges? . . . My fate is decided if my accuser is also my judge. . . . But I will be exculpated after death . . .”

  Her supporters went mad, their clapping and cheering filling the auditorium all the way to the gods. The orchestra had to pause for several minutes till the furor died down, and Maria stood her ground, fists clenched, glaring at the troublemakers.

  It was gratifying at the time, and backstage her fellow performers congratulated her, but that’s when the trouble began to spill out into Maria and Battista’s private lives. Their address was well known—Via Buonarroti 40, in the Teatro district. One day, not long after she had confronted the audience, their driver found a dead dog on the backseat of their car; a few days later excrement was smeared on their railings, and obscene graffiti scrawled on their walls.

  Maria began to fear that the hysteria was building to a crescendo and they weren’t safe in their beds. The police came and recommended that doors and windows on the ground floor be kept locked. She couldn’t walk her pet poodles anymore, couldn’t browse in local boutiques or relax outside a café with an espresso—those days were gone.

  The price of fame kept getting higher. It was crazy. All she’d ever wanted to do was sing.

  ARISTOTLE RANG IN the midst of that tumultuous time. He caught Maria at a vulnerable moment and she let off steam.

  “It’s absurd that such beautiful music can provoke such ugly behavior,” she told him. “We have policemen patrolling the theater and I have a police escort to take me from the stage door to my car. Can you believe it?”

  “I’ve been following reports in the press,” he said. “Can’t your publicist release some stories to calm the atmosphere? Perhaps a photo showing you and Renata Tebaldi having dinner together, the best of friends?”

  “I don’t have a publicist,” she said. “Battista handles press inquiries.”

  “You’re kidding! He does that and manages your contracts and bookings as well? It’s a lot for one person. A decent publicist could place positive stories and help to kill the negative ones. I’ve had a PR for years.”

  Maria wrinkled her nose. She preferred to avoid the press. “I keep hoping it will die down. I’ll be in London in June; then we’re having a long summer break. Maybe by fall the atmosphere will be calmer. If not, the way things are going I may have to hire a bodyguard.”

  “Perhaps you should do that anyway,” he said. “I don’t like to think of you at risk from some lunatic.”

  She shivered. “I’m safe at Lake Garda at least. We’ve got a house in Sirmione that is my sanctuary. The locals don’t bother me. That’s where we’ll spend the summer, and I can’t wait.”

  She loved the serenity of the little town on the shores of the lake, where the water was as deep as the Alps were high, the ice-cream shops had fifty different flavors, and there was an old-fashioned civility. Her dogs loved it too.

  “I was hoping to persuade you to come for a cruise on the Christina,” he said. “Would I be wasting my breath?”

  She hesitated. It was flattering that he was being so attentive, and it seemed harmless enough since they were both married to other people. She might have been tempted to visit his famous floating palace, where they would surely be cosseted in the utmost luxury, but she was too exhausted. “This year I need rest and solitude,” she said. “But thank you.”

  There was another reason for turning down the offer. Celebrities were often photographed on his yacht, the women chic in Chanel beachwear and cat’s-eye sunglasses. It had been only four years since Maria had lost eighty pounds and slimmed down to her present shape, and she still felt like a fat girl inside. Posing alongside the world’s most glamorous women, with press photographers snapping away like sharks, was her idea of hell on earth.

  Chapter 8

  Milan

  May 1958

  Maria was in the music room one evening, accompanying herself on the elegant Bechstein grand piano she’d bought with her first paycheck from La Scala, when Battista came in. “They aren’t renewing your contract,” he announced.

  She was horrified. “La Scala? But why not? They have to renew!”

  “It’s a mixture of money and the trouble that’s been breaking out. Plus Ghiringhelli is being a bastard.” He shrugged. It seemed he was just going to accept it, as if this were purely a business decision and her feelings didn’t come into it.

  “No!” She panicked. “Go back to them. Reduce the fee. I can’t leave La Scala!” She felt as if she’d been stabbed. It would break her heart to go.

  “We’ve got no choice,” he said. “There are plenty of other opera houses, decent places where you won’t be intimidated by maniacs.”

  “Are you sure about that? We’ve got lawsuits with Rome, Vienna, and San Francisco.” When performances were canceled for any reason, it always ended up in the courts. She hated it, couldn’t bear conflict. “If I can’t work with the best orchestras and top conductors, I would rather retire. I’ll give up singing entirely!”

  She spoke out of passion, not meaning it. She would miss singing too badly. It had been her whole life. But she also knew that when she did retire, sometime in the far-off future, she would relish the peace. Being able to go out for dinner without dodging photographers would be heaven.

  Battista was in a brusque mood, still riled from his conversation with La Scala’s manager. “Don’t be ridiculous! There are dozens of top places where you can sing: London, Paris, and New York, to name but three. Besides, we can’t afford for you to retire. Don’t exaggerate and turn this into more than it is.”

  It was quite a speech for him, delivered with brio. Maria rose and paced to the window, picking up a porcelain vase from the side table. He looked wary, as if worried that she might throw it at him, but instead she stroked the delicate, hand-painted flowers on the sides. It was one of her favorites.

  “I’ve always told you I want to retire at the top. I don’t want to be one of those sad old has-beens trailing round dingy clubs trying to remind audiences of their glory days. I’m not there yet, but we have to plan for it.”

  “For the love of God, pull yourself together,” he snapped. “I never had you down as someone who quits at the first sign of trouble, and I’m not going to let you. Do you hear me?”

  He turned and left the room, pulling the door sharply behind him. She stared after him, suppressing the urge to scream.

  The following day the papers would report she had been “sacked” by the greatest company on earth, and they would blame her for being a “diva.” It was humiliating and deeply hurtful. La Scala had made her the star she was and now they were whipping the red carpet from beneath her, after all she had done for them. It was a rejection that resona
ted on many levels, taking her all the way back, yet again, to the little girl whose mother never loved her.

  MARIA LAY IN bed fretting about what the future might hold. Should they leave Italy altogether and try to join the company at another opera house? It would feel like a comedown, because nowhere else was as prestigious as La Scala. The alternative was constant touring, living out of suitcases for more of the year than she did already, and that was a daunting prospect.

  Battista was snoring, making a rumbling noise like a lawn mower, and she felt irritated with him. When they’d first been married, she’d relied on his support and his ability to handle her business affairs. She had felt protected. Now he kept alienating opera house managers, and it was a bone of contention that he refused to hire a publicist, as Aristotle had suggested. He claimed they couldn’t afford it. Why was he always the one who decided how her money was spent?

  Months had passed since they had last had marital relations. They had become like brother and sister, bickering over trifles such as who hadn’t closed the door of their new American refrigerator. Tensions were exacerbated without the glue of passion. She often felt cross with him for no good reason.

  Actually, there was a good reason. He knew she was approaching her thirty-fifth birthday at the end of that year and she was desperate for a baby, yet he never wanted to make love. She had tried everything: wearing sexy negligees and sitting on his lap, rubbing against him; sponging him in the bath in her most seductive manner; rolling over in bed to kiss him, then letting her kisses stray lower. Always he would return the embrace at first, then find a reason to push her away. “It’s too hot to make love,” he had claimed the previous night.

  “But I like getting hot with you,” she whispered.

  “I’m tired, darling,” he said. “Sleep well.”

  She thought back to the early days of their marriage: even then, she had been the one who wanted more. She would have made love several times a day, given half a chance. Battista laughingly called her his “sexy puppy.” But back then he was still interested. Now, nothing.