Jackie and Maria

by Gill Paul

  “Mr. Onassis is on the telephone,” a steward told her, and she leapt to her feet and sprinted to the handset in their private sitting room.

  “It’s over,” Ari said. “The hijacker surrendered. I have to talk to the police but I’ll be back by bedtime. Are you okay?”

  Jackie breathed deeply. “I’m fine now.”

  She was bewildered when she looked back on her behavior. What on earth had caused her to lose control like that? She had always thought of herself as a strong person. She was a strong person. But she couldn’t bear to lose another husband. The thought of Ari being in danger had triggered a panicked reaction. With any luck, it would never happen again.

  A WEEK AFTER the hijacking, Jackie and Ari went for a walk through the woods on Skorpios at dusk. When they reached a secluded beach, he turned to kiss her, then pulled her down onto the ground.

  “I need to get back and help the children change for dinner,” she objected, laughing.

  “In that case, I’ll be quick,” he quipped, pulling her white cotton kaftan over her head and pushing her bikini top aside so he could lick her salty nipples.

  “Are you sure we can’t be seen?” She glanced toward an island on the horizon. The engine of a small boat was sputtering just out of sight.

  “I’m sure,” he said, yanking off his shorts and spreading her legs with his knee.

  She was glad it was brief; she preferred the comfort of their king-sized bed to the scratch of shingle on her back, and she knew that the mosquitos would start biting as soon as the last rays of the sun disappeared over the horizon. But Ari liked sex in different locations—on planes, in the backseat of automobiles, and out in the open air—and she was happy to oblige. She enjoyed sex with him. He was a talented lover.

  Two days later, when a boat brought the international newspapers, Jackie picked one up to glance at the headlines and screamed out loud: “Telis, look!”

  There, on the front page, was a grainy image of them making love on the beach. She felt her heart hammering and heard the familiar rushing sound in her ears.

  “How did they get those shots?” she demanded, her voice high and squeaky, while Ari read the story. “I thought we were safe here. They must have landed on the island and crept up on us.” She felt feverish and touched a hand to her forehead. Thoughts of catastrophe filled her head, like angry ghosts.

  “Don’t overreact,” he said, unconcerned. “They were just passing and got lucky. You can’t make out any details. Besides, what’s the harm in people knowing we make love on our own beach?”

  Jackie sat down and hugged her knees to her chest, trying to calm her racing heart. “They could have had a gun rather than a camera,” she whispered.

  “But they didn’t.” He looked at her with a frown. “You’re shaking. What’s wrong? This is not worth upsetting yourself over.”

  Jackie closed her eyes and breathed in and out, trying to calm herself. Why did she keep panicking in such an extreme way? She had married Ari to feel safe, yet her panic was getting worse. What was going on?

  IN SEPTEMBER, SHE flew to New York with her children in time for the new school year. One day she and John decided to go for a bike ride in Central Park. They had just stepped out of the apartment building and John had climbed astride his bicycle, ready to pedal off, when a man jumped out from behind some shrubbery. There was a flash and a sound like an explosion. John swerved and almost fell. Jackie screamed and grabbed his arm.

  John’s Secret Service officer, who was only two steps behind them, apprehended the man within seconds, helped by her bodyguard, but Jackie was consumed by full-blown terror. She dropped her bike on the sidewalk and sprinted back into the building, pulling John by the arm, her heart thumping, brain buzzing, ears ringing—all the familiar symptoms.

  “It’s okay, Mom,” John was saying. “It was just another photographer.”

  She could hear his words but her brain couldn’t process them. She pulled John into the elevator and paced around, trembling, till they reached their floor. Her forehead felt scorching to the touch. Was it some kind of flu?

  Inside the apartment, she poured herself a vodka and lit a cigarette, hand shaking.

  “Can’t we go to the park now, Mom?” John asked, but she waved him away. She had to bring her heart rate down and catch her breath.

  The Secret Service officer had followed them up to the fifteenth floor, and now he sat beside her. “Are you alright, Mrs. Onassis?” he asked, his expression concerned.

  She nodded but couldn’t speak, couldn’t meet his eye.

  “He’s a freelance photographer by the name of Ron Galella. I took his film, but he argued blue in the face that he has every right to photograph you when you are in a public place.” He frowned. “Mrs. Onassis, you’re very pale.”

  She opened her mouth to try to articulate the fierce anxiety that gripped her at moments like this. It seemed to have been getting worse lately.

  “Why don’t you tell me what you are thinking?” he asked, in a gentle voice.

  Tears welled in her eyes and she blinked them away. “It’s always about that moment,” she whispered. “The moment when there was an explosion and part of Jack’s skull flew through the air.” She traced the arc with her hand. “It’s almost six years now and still I keep feeling as though I am back in that Dallas motorcade. I get hot and I can’t breathe and my heart goes so fast . . .”

  The officer nodded. “It’s acute anxiety. I’ve seen this in soldiers coming out of war zones. I think you need professional help.”

  “Can anything be done about it?”

  He nodded, his expression serious. “I think it has to. You can’t live like this.”

  Chapter 65

  Tragonisi, Greece

  August 15, 1969

  Maria vacationed with friends on the private island of Tragonisi, just off Mykonos. The filming of Medea had been hard work, but she was excited to learn the new skills required on a film set and hopeful that it might lead to more acting work. Now she was in need of a rest.

  It was her name day, and her friends were planning a small celebration that evening in a beach restaurant renowned for its lobster dishes. She spent the afternoon sitting on the sand, enjoying the tranquility.

  Yachts sailed through the channel between her beach and Mykonos, and she kept an eye out in case the Christina should go past. She knew that Ari and Mrs. Kennedy (as she still called her) had friends staying with them. He hadn’t been able to slip away to see her since June 26, when they had met in Milan to visit Omero’s grave, and she missed him badly.

  It was easier for him to spend time with her when they were both in Paris, in the fall and winter. Avenue Georges Mandel was not far from Avenue Foch. On the evenings when he was expected, she extinguished the light at the front door so no photographer could catch him entering or leaving. It was best if Mrs. Kennedy didn’t find out about their rekindled affair; she might try to stop them.

  If Maria dwelled on all she had lost in the past year, she would never have stopped crying. Instead she tried to cherish the time she had with Ari. The three and a half months when they had not spoken had been excruciating. She would rather be his mistress than not have him in her life at all.

  She lay beneath her beach umbrella in a state of deep relaxation. Sounds appeared a long way off: the chirping of crickets, the lapping of waves, some distant voices carried on the breeze. She heard a helicopter approaching from afar, but instead of flying past, it grew louder as if toward a crescendo. Maria opened her eyes, shading them against the glare of the sun, and saw that it was coming in to land in a field behind the beach. She sat up to watch as it touched down, and minutes later a familiar silhouette climbed out. It wasn’t—was it? She couldn’t stop grinning as Ari walked down the sand toward her, wearing a smart gray suit, a white shirt, and a gray tie. He must be on his way to a meeting.

  “Congratulations on your name day!” he called. He leaned underneath the beach umbrella and gave her a long kiss.
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  “Thank you for remembering,” she said, touched.

  He felt in his pocket and pulled out a jewelry box. “A small token of my love.”

  Maria opened the box to see some art deco diamond–and–white gold earrings. “They’re beautiful,” she breathed. “Thank you. But the best present of all is to see you. Can you stay awhile?”

  “I have an hour. But I am not dressed for the beach. Shall we . . . ?”

  He held out his hand to pull Maria to her feet, and they walked side by side to her villa. They showered together in cool water, then made love on her bed beneath the noisy ceiling fan.

  “I miss this so much,” he said afterward as he lay on his side, running a hand over her naked body. “Making love with Jackie is like fucking a corpse. She doesn’t really like sex, not the way you do.”

  “I don’t want to hear this,” Maria said, putting her hands over her ears, but in fact she relished the odd detail he let slip. She knew Mrs. Kennedy refused to try some of the more adventurous activities she and Ari enjoyed; according to him, all she did was lie back and open her legs.

  It had upset her when she saw a photograph in the newspaper of them making love on the beach on Skorpios—and then she looked at the angle of the shot. The photographer must have been standing behind the beach cottage. A suspicion entered her mind that Ari had commissioned him to take the shot and leak it to the press. It wasn’t enough to marry the former First Lady; he wanted the world to see him fucking her.

  “I miss your glorious thighs,” he said, grabbing a handful. “Jackie’s all skin and bone. She eats like a bird and exercises constantly.”

  “That’s healthy,” Maria said, then pinched a handful of flesh at his waist. “Perhaps you should follow her lead.”

  “Healthy—but not sexy,” he replied, then slithered down the bed to bury his face between her legs.

  THEY HAD SLIPPED back into their old routine of speaking every evening at six o’clock, and they always chatted in Greek. If Jackie asked who was on the line, Ari lied that it was Costa Gratsos. Maria knew “the Widow” was close by if he started calling her Costa in the middle of a call.

  During their telephone conversations, Ari poured out whatever was on his mind. His son Alexander was still wildly in love with the model Fiona Thyssen, and their devotion showed no sign of lessening.

  “Alexander told me she won’t accept presents if they are bought with my money. She only likes gifts he has paid for with his own earnings.” Ari seemed astounded by this.

  “I like the sound of her,” Maria replied. “I know it’s not ideal, but the one thing I wish for both Alexander and Christina is that they find partners who love them for themselves and not for your money.”

  Ari grunted. “She’s happy to visit the villa in Athens I bought him.”

  “That is a matter of practicality. I’m living in an apartment you bought me, but I think you know by now that I am not after your millions.”

  “I do know that.” His tone was warm, but it switched suddenly. “You wouldn’t believe how much Jacqueline spends on clothes. I get clothing bills that are equivalent to the gross wealth of a small African nation, yet all she ever wears are jeans and shirts. Where does it go?”

  Maria refrained from commenting, but she took note. Every black mark against her rival was a point in her favor. “Any news on Project Omega?” she asked.

  “It’s going in the right direction. I’ve become a majority shareholder in a British-American oil company, I’m virtually running a Russian one, and the Saudis are all ears.” He seemed pleased with himself.

  “Are you aiming for a world monopoly on oil?” she asked. “Because I think they probably have laws against that.”

  “They would have to find out first.”

  Maria knew his empire was a vast network of shell companies based in different countries and registered under different names. That’s what had kept him out of jail when the Americans arrested him back in 1954.

  “What about the Niarchos scheme? Has he dropped out of the running?”

  “Not yet, but if all goes to plan I will destroy him before this is over.”

  She chuckled. “What does Mrs. Kennedy think of your crazy rivalry with Niarchos?”

  “She doesn’t know. I never discuss business with her.”

  Maria was surprised but pleased to hear it. Another point for her.

  She heard a door opening in the background; then Ari said, “Anyway, thanks for the figures, Costa. I’ll get back to you tomorrow.”

  “Good night, my love,” she said sadly, before he hung up and went to join his wife.

  Chapter 66

  New York City

  February 1970

  Jackie quickly realized that Ari was speaking to Maria Callas on the phone—often. She’d always had a facility for languages, and her Greek was progressing fast, but she didn’t really need to understand the words to guess when Maria was on the line. Ari had a particular tone he adopted with her: soft, tender, confiding.

  Jackie could make out enough to know that he discussed his business interests with Maria, and that irked her; it was as if her opinion counted for nothing. It annoyed her that he thought he was fooling her by pretending he was talking to Costa Gratsos—but she did not confront him. She had her own male friends, so at first she was resigned to let him have a female one. Maria had been a big part of his life, after all.

  But soon it became clear that they were doing more than just talking. She first began to suspect this when she called from New York late at night, Paris time, to be told he was not home. It should have been the perfect time for them to talk: six in the evening for her and bedtime for him.

  “I went to a nightclub with friends,” he explained. Another time he claimed to have been at a restaurant; yet another, at a dinner party. Always a friend’s name rolled off his tongue with plausible ease. Yes, it made sense on the surface, but Jackie knew. She had been married to Jack Kennedy for ten years and had an instinct for detecting infidelity. As with Jack, she decided not to challenge him. What would it achieve? She didn’t want a divorce, and Ari was not the kind of man who would change his ways because she demanded it. As long as their affair was discreet, she would close her eyes to it. As she had done so many times before.

  JACKIE’S LIFE IN New York continued to be marred by photographers, and Ron Galella in particular. She never knew when he might leap from behind a tree, or lurk in a doorway and then pounce when she passed by. Sometimes he disguised himself with a fake beard or a hat pulled low, so that he could surprise her and get a shot or two before she had a chance to shield her face with her handbag. Every time, her heart would hammer fit to burst and she would gasp for breath; every time, she feared she was about to be shot and killed. It made her reluctant to leave the apartment if she could avoid it. She would rather that friends visit her there than brave the sidewalks outside.

  Ari was furious at Gallela’s persistence and hired lawyers to force the police to press charges against him. It took months to get to court, and the resulting press was almost unanimously in Gallela’s favor when he argued that he had the right to earn his living by taking photographs in public places. It came as no surprise when he got off scot-free.

  “What kind of judge will let a man terrorize you like that?” Ari snapped. “I’ll have my security team scare him off.”

  “No, please don’t!” Jackie begged. “It would end up in the papers. I need to learn to deal with it and not let him get to me.” She hesitated, before continuing. “One of the children’s protection officers told me I should see a psychiatrist.”

  “What nonsense!” Ari scoffed. “Does he want you to lie on a couch and confess that you had erotic dreams about your daddy? Isn’t that what modern psychiatry is all about?”

  She had guessed he wouldn’t be in favor of shrinks. “Not quite. It’s because a flashbulb going off in my face brings back memories of the moment Jack was shot. The officer is ex-military and he said that soldiers suffer
similar symptoms after battle.”

  “It’s hardly the same, is it? You need to stop dwelling in the past. Do you realize how often your conversation is about Jack and life in the White House and what happened in Dallas? I wish you would start living in the present. If a photographer is bothering you in New York, the answer is simple: spend more time in Europe.”

  “But the children . . .” Her voice trailed off. This argument kept rearing its head as high school beckoned. She had made up her mind she wanted Caroline and John to continue their education in New York and was steeling herself to tell him, but this wasn’t the moment.

  “Forget the shrink,” he reiterated. “I don’t want a docile wife popping happy pills and incapable of stringing a sentence together. We’ll find another way of dealing with Mr. Gallela.”

  JACKIE WAS ALARMED when a gossip column reported that some letters she had written to Ros Gilpatric, the very suave attorney who had pursued her before she married Ari, were to be auctioned. She hadn’t seen him since March 1968, but she had heard that his latest marriage was on the skids. Jackie wracked her brain to try to remember what she had written him, praying that there was nothing incriminating.

  When the letters were published in the press, it was a note written in late October 1968, in which she told Ros of her Skorpios wedding, that made Ari explode. “I hope you know all you are and ever will be to me,” she had written at the end. It had seemed an innocent-enough phrase at the time.

  “On our fucking honeymoon!” he screamed at her over the phone. “You’ve made me look a fool! I will not tolerate you carrying on with other men behind my back.”

  “I’m not carrying on with anyone,” she protested. “Anything with Ros ended before our marriage. I haven’t seen him since.”

  “You spend my money, so you can start acting like my wife!” he yelled. “From now on, you must live within your allowance. I don’t want to see any more bills for clothes turning up in the Olympic Airways accounts.”