Page 51 of Jackie

“A tour?” he asks. Jack takes my arm as Onassis leads us through the converted warship, deck to deck, stem to stern, through the famous bar and bathrooms of white marble sourced from the same quarry as the Parthenon. There are painted fish and mosaics, lapis-crusted fireplaces—all of it opulent, lavish, shameless.

“What do you think, Mrs. Kennedy?” Onassis asks.

“It’s beautiful.”

“Many things are beautiful.”

“It reminds me of a line in a poem. ‘La Vie Antérieure.’ ”

“The life past.”

“A kind of Xanadu.”

“Ah. You will tell me the rest sometime.”

Jack is a few feet away, studying a nautical oil painting. He’s heard our exchange. Such a curious man Onassis is. His stumpy height, rugged face, hair greased with brilliantine.

“Shall we go on?” he asks.

We come into the salon, where the others, including Churchill, are gathered. The master of history slumps in a chair, white cuffs, handkerchief, black suit, and bow tie, the broad famous jowls of that face. Onassis brings Jack over to introduce them. I follow partway, then hang back. Jack sits down beside Churchill, looking awkward, as he tries to engage the old statesman. Churchill’s shoulders curl forward. He’s already into his cups.

What kind of memory lives in a man like that? A man who has passed through trials and turns of history. Who has failed and risked, lost and achieved, risen and fallen and risen again. What remains?

Churchill turns in his chair toward a dark-haired man on his left and says, in a booming voice, “I knew your father. Hated him. Isolationist and defeatist. He knew nothing of diplomacy. They tell me you’re different. How are you different?”

The man’s face is blank as Jack leans across to say that he is the one, son of the reviled ambassador. Churchill turns back to Jack. A snap of recognition, putting the face to the story. But it’s hard going. Jack stumbles through the titles of Churchill’s oeuvre: “I’ve read every one,” I hear him say, and I remember that day in his childhood room in Hyannis Port on the Fourth of July. I remember what I saw in his face as he read aloud to me—the want, the dream, the reach.

It’s why I stayed.

Jack keeps talking to Churchill, trying to light the grim silence, and he is again that boy from the little bedroom—this is his childhood hero. The writer, the statesman, the soldier who failed at the battle of Gallipoli, then led the fight against Hitler, no compromise, no appeasement. The old prime minister is at best a shrunken nodding version of his former self, but Jack speaks to him, his face animated, like these are better days. Churchill just looks bored. He drains his glass, pushes it toward Jack, nodding to the bar. Jack stands, wincing slightly—his back. He takes the empty glass and starts across the room. It’s then that I notice Onassis standing alone by the wall, a painting behind him that looks like a Goya, watching me with a curious unwavering intensity, watching this tableau play out. The smile on his face jackal-like, his eyes with their rude desire. Jack pauses on his way to me with Churchill’s glass. The rest of the room continues to bustle and mill, the tinkling sound of glasses, plates, passed hors d’oeuvres. Lamps and candles flicker as a warm breeze blows the dusk through the open doors, the night like a tide sweeping in. The sunset colors are fragile, and Onassis is still looking at me—he doesn’t seem to care that Jack has noticed, or maybe he does, in a way that turns the night into a sport I didn’t realize we’d been invited on board to play.

It was a Greek, Heraclitus, who insisted that change is the fundamental impulse of the universe. Our souls are like the stars and moon, turning bowls of fire.

Later that evening, in the car on our way to dinner, Jack asks me, “Well, how did I do?” It takes me a moment to realize he’s referring to Churchill.

“I think he thought you were the waiter,” I say.

He sighs. I slip my fingers through his.

“It’s just too late, Jack,” I say. “You met him too late. That’s all.”

—

But I remember that night. Even after we are home, back in the blustery chaos of Jack’s Senate reelection campaign, I remember the exotic otherworldliness of the Christina. The heady sensation I felt watching that evening play out. The contradiction of Onassis. Not attractive. To me, something almost repulsive about him, the base sense of humor, gargoylish features. At the same time, I felt galvanized by him and his world. Not the blatant wealth; it was more than that—something inexorable, visceral, so alive that everyone else, even Churchill, even Jack, seemed colorless. Only he was real.

—

Years later, when I see Onassis again, he’ll allude to that night.

“It was ten years ago this month, the first time I saw you,” he says.

“Yes.”

“You were aloof. Why aloof?”

“I wasn’t sure I liked you.”

“You wanted to stay for dinner.”

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