Jackie and Maria

by Gill Paul

  She put the message out that she might consider a return to the stage, and offers flooded in, although she got cold feet at the suggestion that she sing La Traviata at the Paris Opéra. The truth was that she was nervous about performing; could her voice handle it? She was so out of practice, and she feared failure as much as she missed the music. And then the Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini called to see if she would play Medea in a film he was making of the great tragedy. There would be no operatic singing; this was an acting role, and it could pave the way for a whole new career in the movies. She accepted straightaway and began to prepare for filming the following spring.

  But she still had to get through the long days of winter, so when Maggie van Zuylen called to invite her to a dinner party, she accepted.

  Maggie’s dinners tended to be grand affairs, so Maria dressed in a full-length, décolleté scarlet evening gown and a diamond-and-ruby necklace that Ari had given her, with matching earrings. She had a hairdresser come to the apartment and took special care with her makeup, drawing the trademark thick black lines around her eyes and applying a pale lipstick, the current fashion. Maggie had assured her that the other guests were friends who were unanimously scathing about Ari’s precipitous marriage.

  When she arrived at Maggie’s apartment, her hostess rushed out to the hall to greet her. “I’m so sorry,” she said, kissing Maria on both cheeks, “but Ari is here.”

  Maria was startled. “How . . . ?”

  “He came earlier to talk to the baron, noticed we were expecting company, found out you were one of the guests, and promptly invited himself. I told him we didn’t have space at the table, but he said he would perch on the arm of my chair . . . we simply couldn’t get rid of him. I tried calling you, but Bruna said you’d already left.” Maggie looked harassed.

  “Is Mrs. Kennedy with him?” Maria was ready to turn on her heel if the answer were yes.

  “Oh, God, no! I wouldn’t subject you to that. The question is, can you cope with seeing him?”

  Maria’s legs had turned to jelly, but she was damned if she was going to slink off home again just because that man had gate-crashed the party. “I’ll stay,” she said, “but please seat me at the opposite end of the table.”

  Ari rose when she entered Maggie’s drawing room, with its smart, wood-paneled walls and Aubusson carpet. “Maria, how are you?” He stepped forward as if to embrace her, but she snubbed him with a curt nod and turned to kiss another guest. She could feel all eyes on the pair of them, and acted as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

  “Maria is becoming a movie star,” Maggie told the assembled company, and the questions poured in: What was the film about, who was directing, where were they shooting, who were the costars?

  Maria answered, pleased that Ari could hear of her triumph. He congratulated her and she met his eyes briefly, as she replied with a cool “Thank you.”

  Maggie’s dining table had been set for sixteen, and Maria noticed that she had hurriedly added an extra place setting for Ari as far from hers as possible. The huge Régence bronze gilt mirrors that lined the walls meant she had a good view of him, though—as he did of her.

  It was hard to be in the same company and not be with him. She thought of all the dinners when they had been seated side by side and he’d slid his hand up her skirt under the cover of the tablecloth, or she’d held his crotch with one hand while conversing with other guests about opera. Their eyes met in the mirror, and she wondered if he was remembering the same thing. She looked away first.

  Over the foie gras starter, Maria spoke with her neighbors on either side about movies they had enjoyed recently. Maria said she had been disappointed by Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet but mesmerized by 2001: A Space Odyssey, which had little dialogue but used classical music to great effect.

  As the main course of filet de boeuf aux truffes was served, the talk around the table turned to politics. All felt that President de Gaulle should step down in the wake of the student riots, most were alarmed by Nixon’s victory in the American presidential elections, and they applauded the anti–Vietnam War protesters in the States.

  “Of course, it would have been very different if Bobby Kennedy hadn’t died,” one guest remarked. “He would have won the election and pulled American troops out of Vietnam.”

  There was moment’s silence when they remembered that the new husband of Bobby’s sister-in-law was sitting at the table.

  “I feel for Rose Kennedy,” Maggie said. “She’s lost three sons and one daughter, with another incarcerated in a mental hospital. I don’t know how any woman copes with that.”

  “Did you hear they are talking about the Kennedys being cursed?” another female guest added. “It seems odd for so much ill fortune to follow one family.”

  “Superstitious nonsense!” Ari interjected crossly.

  Maria caught his eye in the mirror. “Why such a vehement tone, Ari? Are you afraid you might be jinxed by your association with them?”

  “I thought you were more intelligent than that,” he replied.

  “And I thought you were more intelligent than to marry a gold digger,” Maria shot back. “But men’s egos lead them into all kinds of unsavory beds.”

  For a moment, she thought Ari was going to lose his temper. He scraped his chair back and stood, then walked around the table toward her. A few of the male guests half rose from their seats as if unsure of whether to stop him. Was he going to assault her? Maria kept her composure, a faint smile on her lips. The guests collectively held their breath.

  When he reached her, Ari grabbed Maria’s face between his hands, bent her head back, and kissed her hard on the lips; then he whispered in her ear, “But it’s you I love.”

  She flushed bright scarlet and raised her napkin to her face to give her time to compose herself, while Ari returned to his seat.

  Maggie mouthed, “Are you okay?”

  Maria managed to nod, but she was far from okay. The touch of his lips, the smell of him, had shaken her badly. It stirred a yearning deep in the pit of her stomach. She felt like crying. This was too cruel.

  For the rest of the evening, she avoided looking at him, and spoke only with her immediate neighbors. She sipped a glass of wine and then accepted a brandy when the gentlemen were lighting their cigars. As early as she could without seeming rude, she made her apologies to Maggie and said she had to leave.

  “I understand, ma cherie.” Maggie embraced her. “My doorman will hail a taxi for you.”

  Ari appeared beside them. “No. I will give Maria a ride home. We are going in the same direction.”

  Maria opened her mouth to protest, but Ari was holding her coat—the black sable he had bought her. Her resistance crumbled.

  “Are you sure?” Maggie asked, her eyes blazing warnings.

  Maria nodded. “I’ll be fine.”

  SHE CLIMBED INTO the backseat of the Rolls-Royce and scooted over to the window so there was plenty of space between them. Her apartment wasn’t far. She just had to get there without losing her composure.

  “I’m delighted to hear about the film you’re making,” Ari began. “Have you worked with Pasolini before?”

  “No, but I admire his work. He won a Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival with his St. Matthew movie. He has an original vision.”

  She asked about Project Omega, his deal with the colonels, and he said there was no progress. “There are too many levels of bureaucracy. I get approval at one level, then someone on a different echelon overrules it. And Niarchos is still hanging around like a bad smell.”

  “I am sure you will prevail,” she said, watching a few raindrops meander sideways along the outside of the window.

  When they pulled up outside her apartment, Maria reached for the door handle but Ari stretched out an arm to restrain her.

  “Can’t we talk awhile longer?”

  “What did you want to talk about? Your marriage vows?”

  He sighed. “I know I have no r
ight to say this but I miss you. I can’t sleep, can’t think straight. I wish things could be different.” His hand was still resting on her arm and she shook it off.

  “I am not going to flatter your ego by spelling out how badly you have hurt me, but I think you know. You can’t continue to play with my feelings now you are married. Go home to your wife.”

  He shook his head. “She has flown to New York for her children’s birthdays.”

  “Why don’t you go with her as their new . . . what are you? Their stepfather?”

  Ari smiled. “I hear you called me their grandfather.”

  “You can see my point, given that you are in your sixties and they must be—what—around seven and ten?” She closed her eyes. Omero would have been seven too. It killed her to think that he had been replaced by Jackie’s son. She couldn’t bear to imagine Ari playing in the sea with John, all gentle and patient, the way he used to be with Alexander.

  “I don’t want to talk about Jacqueline, or her children. I wish . . .” He spoke wistfully. “I wish we could be friends again.”

  “You don’t treat friends the way you treated me.”

  “Actually, I take that back. I don’t want to be your friend. I want you as my lover, my wise counsel, my sparring partner—all of that.” He took her hand, and turned it over, raising it to his mouth to give the palm a lingering kiss. “I hoped—I suppose it is foolish—but I wish you could ignore the fact that I am married and we could carry on as we were.”

  She tried to summon rage. What he said was arrogant, insensitive, selfish . . . but instead she could feel tears coming. She sniffed them back.

  Ari put his arms around her. “I’m so sorry,” he murmured. “I’m so very sorry.”

  With her head on his chest, Maria’s tears began to slide down her cheeks. She spoke with profound sadness. “When we got together, the thing that meant most to me was feeling truly loved. No one had ever loved me before. Not my family, not Battista. You made me feel I was the center of your universe.”

  “You still are,” he whispered, and a sob burst from her.

  “I don’t believe you. Not now. It makes me question whether you ever loved me at all, or if you pulled the wool over my eyes for nine years.”

  He made a strange noise in his throat and she raised her head to look at his face. He was crying too. “I always loved you and I always will,” he said. “My poor, beautiful, precious Maria. I have done a terrible thing and I wish I could undo it. I miss you every minute of every day.”

  She had never seen him cry, not properly, and she watched in wonder. Greek men didn’t cry. She glanced at the driver, sitting on the other side of the glass partition, eyes straight ahead. He shouldn’t see his boss like this.

  “You had better come upstairs,” she said. “Just for a nightcap.”

  Bruna was in bed, so Maria found glasses and a bottle of Napoleon brandy and they sat on the couch in the salon, arms around each other, and carried on talking. She drank more than she knew she should; she would have a raging hangover in the morning, but how else could she deal with the tidal wave of emotion?

  They began to kiss, tentatively at first, like teenagers. Very slowly they began to caress each other, to strip off clothes, and then to make love. It was poignant and more beautiful than ever; everything about it felt right. Afterward, they crept to the bedroom, and he fell asleep with his arms wrapped tightly around her as if scared someone might steal her in the night.

  Maria lay awake, listening to his breathing, a headache beginning to jab her temples. There was no going back now. She couldn’t throw him out in the morning and tell him this had been a one-off. It was meant to be. Destiny was destiny.

  A tiny part of her felt triumphant. Mrs. Kennedy might have his ring on her finger, but she clearly didn’t have his heart.

  Chapter 64

  New York City

  Winter 1968

  After the kako mati experience, Jackie was scared to stay alone on Skorpios. She felt rattled by the old woman’s words, even after a priest performed an incomprehensible ceremony with holy water. It was horrible to feel that anyone in her adopted homeland was hostile toward her. She had thought she would be safe on a private Mediterranean island, but it seemed danger followed wherever she went.

  It began to rain every day, and the sea became rough and uninviting for swimming. The ache of missing her children was all-consuming; she hugged pillows to her chest as a comfort and had to down a stiff drink when she got off the telephone with them each evening. It was with immense relief that she flew to New York for their birthdays and Thanksgiving at the end of November, then persuaded Ari to join them for a snowy Manhattan Christmas. She invited her mother and stepfather to celebrate with them but received the stony reply that they had “made other arrangements.”

  Lee didn’t bother to return her calls, and that hurt. She had no idea how to build bridges with her sister and didn’t have the strength to try.

  “Can’t we live in New York during the school year and spend vacations in Greece?” she asked Ari. The days she had been alone on Skorpios had been enough to show her that she couldn’t spend the winter there.

  “You want me to make deals with the Greek colonels on crackly international telephone lines?” he teased. “I have a talent for persuasion but that might be pushing it.”

  “We could fly back when you need to be in Europe, but base ourselves here till spring, so I can be with the children,” she pleaded. Why hadn’t she negotiated this with him before they were married? She hadn’t been thinking straight.

  “There are wonderful international boarding schools in Switzerland,” he replied. “If they go there, you could fly from Athens in a couple of hours. I’ll even lend you a plane!”

  Jackie hated the idea of boarding school. It wasn’t right for her kids. Their friends and family were in New York, and they were getting a world-class education there.

  The discussion was good-natured, but no resolution was reached before Ari had to fly back to Europe in the New Year.

  “I’ll be traveling a lot in the next couple of months,” he said. “Why don’t you stay here? My security team will make sure you and the children don’t come to any harm.”

  Jackie decided to give it a try. Caroline and John needed her in New York, and they would be safer with the cushion of Ari’s money. He promised to return whenever work permitted.

  Before long, Jackie fell into a routine of commuting across the Atlantic the way other people commuted across the Brooklyn Bridge. It was easy when your husband owned an airline. She and Ari were leading separate lives, but in many ways that suited Jackie, just as it had in the early years of her marriage to Jack. She could go horseback riding or shopping, see her New York friends, then jet over to Paris for a few days with her husband, before returning to her children and her own apartment.

  Whenever she stepped out her front door, she had a bodyguard hired by Ari to protect her, and she had more personal spending money than she’d ever had in her life. Her allowance was $30,000 a month, and Ari had agreed that on top of that she could send larger bills to the Olympic Airways New York office. To be able to visit designers’ collections and pick up six or eight outfits at a time was a novelty that she knew she would never tire of. She bought shoes, handbags, coats, evening gowns, and clothes for the children too. The purchases filled her wardrobes and closets with their enticing smell of newness.

  Jackie planned the summer break carefully, inviting groups of guests to stay either on Skorpios or on the Christina from June through September, to help celebrate her fortieth birthday. It would be one long sunshiny party, with swimming and watersports, live music, and dancing. That her own sister didn’t want to come made her melancholy, but perhaps it was for the best. After the trauma of 1968, this would be her year of recovery.

  ON AUGUST 16, Jackie, Ari, and the children were on board the Christina with some American friends when he got a call saying that an Olympic Airways plane had been hijacked. There
had been a spate of hijackings that year, with a fresh story hitting the newsstands every couple of weeks. It terrified Jackie that one man armed with a knife or a gun could threaten passengers and force pilots to reroute their planes. Many of them were leftists, who demanded to be taken to Communist Cuba, but for some reason the hijacker on Ari’s plane was asking to go to Albania.

  Ari spent the afternoon on the phone, talking to police and ground-control staff in Athens. There were twenty-eight passengers on board, and one of them was a pregnant woman who was said to be feeling unwell. Just before five, he told Jackie he was flying to Athens. “I’ll offer to take the place of the pregnant woman and, once I am on board, I can make a deal with the hijacker.”

  “No!” Jackie screamed. Her heart began thumping so hard she thought it might leap out of her chest, and there was a rushing sound in her ears. She grabbed hold of a railing.

  Ari seemed surprised by the force of her reaction. “I won’t be gone long. It’s the best way to bring the situation to a head.” He kissed her forehead.

  She heard the chop-chop sound of the helicopter’s blades and clutched his shirt. “Please don’t go. Please,” she begged.

  “Pull yourself together,” he urged. “Go downstairs and rest. Perhaps you’ve had too much sun today.” He motioned to a steward. “Could you help Mrs. Onassis to her room and fetch her some water?”

  She felt faint as she staggered down to their bedroom and lay on the silk coverlet. The blood was still pounding in her ears and she was overwhelmed by terror.

  What if Ari died? Who would protect her? Who would look after her children? She felt boiling hot one moment, then started shivering the next. Was she ill? Was Ari right about the sunstroke?

  After a while she forced herself to get up, take a cool shower, and change for dinner, but still her heart fluttered like a bird trapped under the skin. Her hand shook as she tried to apply lipstick. The children mustn’t see her like this. She rang the bell to order a vodka martini and downed it in three gulps.