CHAPTER TEN En Voyage

THE CHRISTINA, MONACO, JULY 30, 1959

I

That night before she went to bed, Maria put on her glasses and stood on her balcony overlooking the harbor and looked at the bright lights of the Christina that twinkled in the middle of the bay like a chandelier. It was far and away the biggest boat on the water. Gossip had it that Prince Rainier of Monaco found it irksome that it was so much bigger than his own yacht and he resented the control that Onassis had over his tiny principality. But since it had been Onassis’s money that had redeveloped the faded glories of Monaco’s once splendid hotels and Onassis’s companies that employed so many of the Monegasques, Rainier could not afford to complain.

The Christina had started life as a Canadian frigate, but in the early 1950s Onassis had bought her from the Greek navy and had sent her to his favorite shipyard in Hamburg to be fitted out as a luxury yacht.

There were three decks: the lower one for the crew, the stateroom deck for the guests, and on the top deck a cabin for Onassis that communicated directly with the bridge, so that Ari could put any nocturnal navigational whims into practice. Although Ari and Tina had houses all over the world, the Christina, named after their daughter, had become their real home, with summers in the Mediterranean and winters in the Caribbean. The couple’s marriage, which could be fragile on dry land, was stronger on the water and Tina enjoyed the boat almost as much as Ari did. The crew, who had originally been German, were now mostly Greek, except for the English governess who worked with the children and the Finnish masseuse.

The yacht was the product of the decorating tastes of a man whose idea of splendor had been formed in the bordellos of Buenos Aires and his young wife who had spent most of her childhood in palace hotels. Onassis had decided that the floor of the swimming pool should be covered in mosaics copied from the palace of Knossos in Crete, and Tina had asked Ludwig Bemelmans, the artist who had decorated her favorite room in the Carlyle hotel in New York, to create murals for the dining room. But they chose the gold taps shaped like dolphins together. There was a reception room on the main deck that could hold eighty people and a cover could be extended over the pool to form a dance floor at the flick of a button.

It could also be retracted, a power that Ari was always threatening to use.

A painting that was said to be by El Greco hung in the marital bedroom. It was a gloomy elongated Madonna that the dealer who sold it to him suspected Onassis had bought for the name of the painter rather than for its artistic merit. The master bathroom was another tribute to the classical past, with mosaics copied from a fifth-century Greek vase.

All the staterooms were named after different Greek islands. The most splendid, after Onassis’s, was Chios, which was where Churchill slept, with Clementine, his wife, in Santorini next door.

The boat had two chefs, a Frenchman, who had previously been the chef de partie at Maxim’s, and a Greek who was happy to make whatever Greek snack Ari fancied in the middle of the night. Onassis never slept well, and he liked to pad around the yacht in the small hours, spending hours in the wheelhouse chatting to the crew. At first Tina had protested at the amount of time he spent there, but when she noticed that he came back more relaxed, she realized that it was something of a blessing. Onassis was always in motion, and to be in his orbit could be exhausting. Tina was an excellent hostess and she had tamed some of her husband’s uncouth behavior, like picking his teeth in the middle of a meal. Tina was the perfect blond millionaire’s wife; but as the child of a very wealthy ship-owning family, she had no idea of the hardships that Onassis had endured as a young man and that he could not help imagining might one day return.

II

The next day Maria dressed carefully for her first appearance on the yacht. Alain had made her a beautifully cut shirtdress in white linen, which she wore with a tan leather belt and matching sandals. There had been a hat to go with the ensemble, but Maria had been observing the women coming on and off the yachts and none of them were wearing hats.

She had prepared for the cruise as she would for a part. She had the costumes that fitted her role as a great diva on holiday—relaxed but not frivolous—she had thought of what she would say to the Churchills when she met them, and she had even made inquiries as to the right kind of presents to buy for the Onassis children, eleven-year-old Alexander and eight-year-old Christina. Maria knew what to say and how to look; the only thing she could not predict were her emotions. When she sang, the music told her exactly what to feel, but on this journey, she didn’t know the score.

Tita was humming one of his Neapolitan tunes as he adjusted the handkerchief in the pocket of his linen suit. He was, as usual, a semitone flat, which usually made Maria leave the room, but today she barely noticed it. She was surprised that Tita was in such a good mood. He kept hinting that he and Onassis had business to do, and that this cruise would be a great opportunity for them both. The only shadow for Tita was the presence of the Churchills, as Tita had been an enthusiastic supporter of Mussolini. What would happen if Churchill asked him what he did in the war? Maria laughed and said, “That isn’t going to happen, Tita. You hardly speak English and I am quite sure that Churchill doesn’t speak Italian.”

Tita had been reassured by this for a minute or two, but then he said, “But what if he asks someone to translate?”

“I think he will have other things on his mind.”

---

Maria’s extensive cruise wardrobe meant that there were fifteen pieces of luggage to be taken from the hotel to the quay where the tender would meet them to carry them out to the yacht. As she tried to keep track of the suitcases Maria regretted giving Bruna a holiday. There was a panic at the steps of the hotel when she noticed that her jewel case was missing. The manager personally searched the suite until Maria remembered that she had placed it in a lower layer of her Louis Vuitton trunk for safekeeping.

This delay meant that they were more than an hour late when Maria and Tita walked up the gangway lined with saluting sailors.

“I was beginning to wonder if I should send out a search party,” Onassis said.

Maria tried to sound apologetic. “I thought I had lost my jewel case.”

Onassis said tightly, “You can always buy more jewelry, but time and tide wait for no man.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize there was a tide in the Mediterranean. But you are the sailor,” Maria retorted.

Tina’ s laugh tinkled. “She’s quite right, Ari. You can’t possibly expect Madame Callas to travel without her jewels. I certainly wouldn’t.”

She looked conspiratorially at Maria. “You never know when you might need to make a quick getaway.”

The other guests were sitting under the striped awning that covered the main deck, drinking tea, cocktails, and in Churchill’s case, Pol Roger champagne.

Maria took a deep breath. The last time she had seen the great man had been in Athens in 1944, when the prime minister had come to lend his support to the provisional government in their fight against the communist insurgents.

Maria had stood among the crowds watching a large black car driving past and had only caught a glimpse of a white face in the back, but she had felt the force of his legend in the enthusiasm of the crowd. Her mother and all her friends called Churchill the savior of Greece. But Maria knew that among her colleagues at the opera, there were some who felt that Churchill and the British army had no business interfering in the battle for the Greek soul.

Maria had her own reason for cheering Churchill. She had spent three weeks holed up with her mother in Patission Street at the height of the battle of Athens surrounded by gun-toting communists, living on canned beans and dried fruit, until they had been eventually rescued by Jackie’s boyfriend. For Maria, Churchill was the man who had saved her from killing her mother.

Onassis led Maria and Tita up to where the great man was sitting in a wicker chair, a straw fedora pitched low over the famous features. His wife, Clemmie, crisp in a striped shirtdress, was standing behind him.

“Sir Winston, Lady Churchill, may I present”—Onassis paused for dramatic effect—“Maria Callas and her husband, Signor Meneghini.”

Churchill made a perfunctory effort to get to his feet, but then subsided, saying, “Forgive me for not getting up, but my knee is playing silly buggers again.”

“Please don’t think of getting up, Sir Winston. It is such an honor to meet you.”

Maria made a graceful gesture that was halfway to a curtsy, saying, “The last time I saw you, I was twenty-one years old. You came to Athens to bring peace to my poor country. I remember I cheered so loudly that I couldn’t sing that night.”

Her hand flew to her throat.

Churchill looked at her, puzzled. “So you are a singer, are you, Madame Callas? What kind of thing? Greek songs?”

Maria took a step back, trying to hide her astonishment. The other English guests tried to hide their smiles. Tina failed to hide hers, but Onassis stepped in quickly by laughing very loudly. “Greek songs!” He turned to Maria. “I hope you have come prepared for the British sense of humor.”

Maria stretched her mouth into something resembling a smile. Churchill, looking even more puzzled, added, “Well, I hope you will sing for us one evening, dear lady.”

Maria stiffened. Did Winston Churchill think she was a cabaret act? She was about to answer that she was not that kind of singer when Clemmie broke in. “My youngest daughter, Mary, has one of your records, Madame Callas. I believe it is one of her favorites.”

Maria made a graceful bow of acknowledgment, as if receiving a bouquet onstage.

“I am delighted to hear that, and I hope that you will bring her to hear me sing if I come to Covent Garden. I can get you the best seats in the house.”

Clemmie gave a small smile. “Oh, that really is too kind of you, Madame Callas.”

Onassis indicated a younger couple in their thirties who were standing on the other side of the Churchills. The man was tall and amused, the woman bright and observant; they were introduced at Anthony and Nonie Montague Browne, Churchill’s personal secretary and his wife. Beyond them were Churchill’s daughter Diana Sandys and granddaughter Celia, who was sixteen.

Diana shook Maria’s hand limply, and then turned to Meneghini. “How d’you do, Signor Callas?”

There was a pause, and then Meneghini said rather coldly, “Mi scusi, signora, but I am Signor Meneghini.”

Diana looked at him, surprised. “Oh, I thought you were married.”

Maria smiled graciously. “It is the custom on the stage for singers to keep their maiden names.”

“How perfectly fascinating,” said Diana.

Onassis was fussing over Churchill, whom he treated as a cross between a beloved uncle and the pope. When he sensed that the silence had carried on just a little too long, he summoned Tina. “I think that now all our guests have arrived, we should show them the boat.”

He beckoned Maria, Tita, and all the guests, apart from Winston and Clemmie, to follow him.

He ran down the grand staircase, crowned by an enormous chandelier, and took them into a room kitted out as a bar, complete with a white-jacketed barman.

“Everything in this room is inspired by my hero, Odysseus.” Ari gestured to the map on the wall that showed the epic hero’s travels across the Mediterranean, and then to the bar counter itself, which was inscribed with lines in ancient Greek. Anthony Montague Browne leaned forward and started to spell one out, “Thalassos oneiros, the wine-dark sea, if I am not mistaken.”

Ari beamed with pleasure. “I congratulate you on your classical education, Anthony. I have all my favorite lines from The Odyssey here on the bar.”

He looked at Maria. “What will you have to drink?”

Maria shook her head, but Onassis was already clicking his fingers at the barman. “Champagne for everyone, the Pol Roger.”

The barman immediately produced a bottle of ice-cold champagne, which suggested that he had been waiting for this moment for some time.

Ari held up his glass. “To the Christina and all who sail in her.”

The rest of the party dutifully clinked glasses.

Onassis sat down on one of the barstools, which were upholstered in gray leather. He patted the one next to him and beckoned to Maria to sit down.

Then he turned to her with an alarming smile. “Are you comfortable, Maria?”

This was clearly a rhetorical question, because he went on gleefully, “I hope so, because you are sitting on the largest penis in the world.”

Maria stood up as if stung, her drink sloshing onto the wine-dark sea.

Laughing heartily at his joke, Ari caressed the stool. “Oh there is nothing to be scared of.… The leather is taken from the foreskins of whales. Feel how soft it is.” He stroked the stool with a lingering caress.

Tina turned to Maria. “Take no notice. It’s Ari’s awful party trick. Nobody ever finds it funny, but he will persist. One day I am going to have those bloody stools reupholstered in a nice bright chintz.”

Onassis said to Maria in Greek, “I am sorry if my crudeness offends you. But at heart I am still a Tourkospouros from Smyrna.”

“That is no excuse for bad taste,” said Maria in the same language.

Ari laughed again; and when he caught Maria’s eye, she felt something spark between them. An understanding that excluded everyone else in the room. Her husband had not heard a word of the exchange, but he sensed that the atmosphere had changed, and he reacted like a mole coming up for air, turning his head to and fro until he caught the scent of danger.

Tina felt it too, and she touched Maria on the elbow. “Let me show you to your cabin, Maria.”

Maria followed her down the corridor lined with doors that all bore the names of Greek islands. Tina stopped in front of Ithaki and Maria noticed the slim gold bangle on her arm.

“Oh, what a pretty bracelet.”

Surprised, Tina looked down at her arm, as if she were about to brush off a fly. “This thing? Aristo gave me this when we…” She hesitated, not sure how to frame the postcoital circumstances of the gift, and then settled on “got engaged.”

Maria looked at the diamond initials on the thin gold band. “‘TTWLA’? What does that stand for?”

Tina looked over her shoulder at her husband, who had followed them. “I think it says ‘To Tina with love Ari.’ Is that right?”

Onassis shrugged his powerful shoulders. “What else?”

---

Their cabin was as luxurious as everything else on the yacht. But Maria, who was used to impersonal luxury from her years on tour, hardly noticed her surroundings. She was sitting in front of the burled walnut dressing table, drawing on the winged eyeliner that she always wore for an evening performance. In the corner of her eye was the red leather case from Cartier that contained the jewels that Onassis had given her. She opened it, was dazzled by the yellow fire in the stones, but with a sigh she shut the case with a loud snap.

She pressed the bell on the wall, and a uniformed maid arrived seconds later.

Speaking quickly before she could change her mind, Maria said, “Could you take this to Mr. Onassis, please. And tell him I can’t accept it.”

The maid nodded, her face a professional blank. “Yes, madame.”

“Oh, and best if you give it to him when he is alone.”

“Of course, madame.”

The maid disappeared, and Maria immediately regretted sending the diamonds back. Nothing she had came anywhere close. But there had been something about Onassis’s barstool joke that had unsettled her. It had been familiar in a way that she found uncomfortable. She had not given him the right to make a joke at her expense. If that was the price of the necklace, then it was not one she was prepared to pay.

---

Dinner was served in the formal dining room with its murals that portrayed Tina and her children frolicking in olive groves and classical temples like lesser gods.

The children had their own dining room, but that evening they came to be introduced to the guests before dinner.

Alexander, the older, had his mother’s delicate features and her lightness of manner; his sister, Christina, was the image of her father, with his strong features and hooded eyes, but without his explosive smile. They both had beautiful manners and moved among the guests without shyness until their English governess came to take them away. As they left Ari picked them up and enveloped them in a huge bear hug, kissing them both fiercely. But Tina only gave them a little wave and said, “Sleep tight, darlings.”

At dinner Maria was seated between Churchill and Onassis, Meneghini between Nonie Montague Browne and Tina. As Maria sat down, she glanced at Onassis to see whether he had received the necklace, but nothing in his manner gave any sign of it. Unlike the other men who were wearing jackets and, in Tita’s case, a tie, Ari was wearing a short-sleeved polo shirt, chinos, and deck shoes. The two top buttons of his shirt were unbuttoned, exposing the hairy chest. Maria found this rather shocking, and it must have shown on her face because Onassis grinned and said in Greek, “You think I should be wearing a tie, like your husband?”

Maria shrugged. “If you want to dress like a peasant, no one can stop you—it’s your boat.”

Ari laughed. “That’s true. And I say everyone should wear what they want.”

“How would you like it if I came to dinner wearing shorts?” retorted Maria.

Onassis looked at Maria’s white off-the-shoulder evening dress. “I think it would be a pity, as I know that in the twenty or so pieces of luggage that came aboard with you are some very beautiful evening gowns like the one you are wearing now.”

After dinner Onassis was helping Churchill to his favorite chair on deck when Diana Churchill said to Meneghini, “I hope that your wife will sing for us while we are here together.”

Onassis turned around at this and said, “Yes. It would be an honor for the Christina if Maria Callas were to sing for us.”

Churchill caught the tail end of this conversation, and said, “Is she going to sing? Splendid—always had a soft spot for Gilbert and Sullivan. Used to hum the ‘Modern Major General’ from Pirates of Penzance in briefings, drove the real generals potty.”

Onassis looked at Meneghini and said, “Do you think we could persuade your wife to sing for us?”

Meneghini shook his head. “I am afraid my wife does not do after-dinner entertainment,” he said firmly.

Onassis’s smile did not falter. “Oh, what a pity.”

Maria appeared behind the two men.

Meneghini said to her in Italian, “I was just saying that you don’t sing for your supper, Maria.”

There was a growl from where Churchill was sitting. “Is she going to sing or not? If she isn’t, then I am going to bed.”

Onassis looked at Maria and she saw the appeal in his eyes. If she didn’t sing, then Onassis would lose face. For a moment she considered refusing as punishment for his uncouth behavior over the barstool, but she did not want to involve Churchill in her revenge. She made one of her graceful hand gestures toward the old man and smiled. “It would be a pleasure to sing for the man who saved my country.”

She walked over to the grand piano in the corner of the room. She thought for a moment about what she should sing. Then she turned to the other guests, her eyes resting for a moment on Onassis.

She breathed deep into her diaphragm and began “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle.”

Carmen’s siren song pierced the still of the Mediterranean night and wove its spell around the passengers and crew of the Christina, who could not help but be swept up in the seductive swirl of the voice. One by one the sailors crept up onto the deck to listen. For a moment everyone on the boat was frozen in time, listening to the music.

When the final note had died away, the passengers and crew clapped enthusiastically and Churchill, who had had a pleasurable doze, woke up. Seeing Maria making a gracious bow, he said, “What a fine pair of lungs you have, Madame Callas. My hearing isn’t what it was, but with you I didn’t miss a note.”

Maria gave a delighted smile and placed a slender hand on her collarbone. “I am so happy to hear it, Sir Winston. I wish all my audiences were so attentive.”

As Montague Browne helped his boss to his feet, the grand old man muttered in his ear, “Do you think she is going to sing every night?”

III

At two in the morning Maria was awake, the Habanera still vibrating through her body. Meneghini’s snores were increasing in volume and, irritated, Maria decided to go on deck. She pulled on one of her peignoirs and slipped outside.

The warm sea air embraced her. The boat was moving at a steady speed, and she watched the lights of the Côte d’Azur retreating into the distance. The moon had risen and was lighting the waves. For a moment Maria felt quite at peace, as if she could stand here forever looking out over the water.

She noticed the smell first, and then one of the boards creaked behind her. When she looked around Ari was there, a cigar between his lips.

“Oh, did I startle you? I’m sorry.” He did not look sorry.

Maria wrapped her arms around her chest, acutely aware that all she was wearing was a very thin layer of silk.

“I can never sleep after a performance,” she said. “It takes a long time for me to come back to earth.”

Onassis nodded. “Sleep is overrated. Four hours is enough for me. Seeing as we are both wide-awake, can I offer you a drink, something to eat, a cigar?”

Maria shook her head. “I never smoke.”

“I am only smoking this because I heard you sing the Habanera.” Onassis waved his cigar in front of her.

“Really?” Maria sounded skeptical.

Onassis grinned. “Your singing made me enjoy it even more.”

“I’m flattered,” she said.

Onassis took a step closer toward her; and at that moment the moon came out from behind a cloud, and she saw the look in his eyes. She put one of her hands down on the rail and gripped it tightly.

Ari took something out of his pocket.

Even in the moonlight, the necklace was breathtaking. “I am sorry you don’t want this.”

Maria could feel his breath on her face. “I am sure that it would look magnificent on your wife,” she said primly.

“But I bought it for you, Maria.”

Without taking his eyes off her, Onassis held his hand over the side of the boat and opened his fingers. Maria gasped as she heard the splash the necklace made as it hit the water, but they continued to look at each other.

Finally, Maria could bear it no longer and she said, “Are you trying to impress me?”

“Perhaps.” He took another puff of his cigar, “Did I succeed?”

Maria looked back at him. “Perhaps.”

Onassis edged closer. “My wants are very simple, Maria.”

Maria leaned away from him. “So are mine: I am hungry.”

Ari looked at her. “What for? Caviar? Lobster?”

Maria shook her head.

---

Ten minutes later they were in the Christina’s kitchen and Onassis was cracking eggs into a bowl with some feta cheese and oregano. He put a pan on the stove, poured in some olive oil, and when it sizzled, he added the egg and cheese mixture. Then he sliced up a couple of ripe tomatoes and arranged them on the edge of a plate onto which he slid the eggs.

“Strapatsada. My mother used to make this for me for breakfast. It’s so great to eat it again.” Maria started to eat like the greedy teenager she had once been.

Ari smiled ruefully. “Really, Maria, if I had known you were this easy to please I would have saved myself a lot of money.”

Maria caught his eye and started to laugh, and after a moment Ari joined in.

“That necklace was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” Maria said between gulps of laughter.

“Perhaps a lucky fisherman will find it and he will start his own shipping empire. And then one day he will come across a beautiful woman who makes him do something very stupid.”

Maria touched his hand very briefly. “If it makes you feel better, I was impressed.”

He laughed. “Of course you were. Even I was impressed.”

Ari sprang up and started to rummage about in the cupboards until he found the coffeepot called a briki, and he started to go through the ritual of making Greek coffee, his tongue between his lips as he concentrated on getting just the right amount of coffee grounds. Then while the coffee was steeping, he took a box out of a drawer, found a plate, and arranged some sweetmeats on it.

As he poured the coffee he said, “This briki was the only thing I managed to bring with me from Smyrna.” He tapped the battered copper. “We came through the fire together.”

He put the briki down, and said, “I was holding this when I heard the Turks had shot my uncles.”

Maria crossed herself, and she was about to speak, but Onassis continued. “I’m biased, but I think this makes the best coffee in the world.” He pushed one of the tiny cups toward Maria.

She took a sip and nodded.

Onassis picked up one of the sugar-coated sweetmeats. “And you must try it with a piece of loukoumi. The contrast between the bitterness of the coffee and this melting sweetness is very…”

“Greek?” supplied Maria.

“Exactly.” He put the sweetmeat in his mouth; chewed it; and then, noticing that his fingers were covered in sugar, he put them one by one in his mouth.

“But,” he said, “it has to be eaten with care.”

Gravely Maria took a piece, put it in her mouth, and, copying Onassis, she licked the excess sugar from her fingers.

“Great care,” she said.

“But it’s worth it, don’t you think?” asked Onassis.

“I do,” answered Maria.

They were silent for a moment, their eyes locked on each other.

“The briki belonged to my mother,” said Onassis.

“Is she— Did she die in the massacre…” faltered Maria.

“No, she died of cancer when I was nine. After that my grandmother took over. She looked after me and my sisters, until the Turks came.” His face darkened.

“That was a terrible time, Maria. I still have nightmares about it.”

Maria crossed herself again, and she touched his hand in sympathy. “How old were you?”

“Fifteen. I was in the middle of doing my exams when they came. Suddenly everything I knew was gone.”

Maria nodded in sympathy. “I have some idea of how that feels. My mother took me back to Athens from the States when I was thirteen. I was a little American girl. I hardly spoke Greek and I didn’t want to leave my father. But she thought it would be better for my voice if I studied in Athens. That was nonsense—I could have gone to Juilliard which is the best conservatory in the world probably, but Mama wanted to be in control and she couldn’t be in America as she didn’t speak English. So we moved back in thirty-seven.”

“Bad timing,” said Onassis.

“The worst.” Maria gave a bitter laugh. “We lived through so much—the Germans, the civil war—but the worst thing was that my mother never cared about me, only my voice. I kept thinking if I became famous she would love me as much as she loved my sister. And then one day, a week after my thirtieth birthday, I suddenly understood that whatever I did, it would never be enough.”

Her eyes pricked with tears. They always came when she thought about her mother.

“And I haven’t spoken to her since.”

Onassis touched her hand, his eyes on hers. “We have both had to struggle, you and I. It’s one of the things that makes you so interesting.”

Maria was about to reply when she heard a step behind her and looked round to see her husband in his dressing gown, blinking like a baby owl. Maria stood up, moving away from Onassis.

Tita regarded her with reproach. “I have been looking for you everywhere, Maria. I can’t find my seasickness pills.”

Onassis looked surprised. “But the sea is perfectly calm.”

Maria sighed as she took Tita’s arm. “Poor Battista is not a good sailor. He feels every disturbance.”

Onassis looked at her. “Then I hope we don’t sail into choppy waters,” and he grinned, his meaning unmistakable.

---

Later Maria lay in the dark and ran through her encounter with Onassis in her head. She knew that she was on the cusp of something but what it was exactly and how much she wanted it she didn’t know. It felt strange to be with a man whose will was as strong if not stronger than her own, and she was not sure that she liked it. She remembered his smile as he dropped the necklace into the sea, and the image made her shiver.

IV

The boat had dropped anchor in the bay at Portofino early that morning, and the plan was for Tina to take a party onshore while Ari stayed behind to entertain Churchill.

Tina, the three Churchill women, and the Montague Brownes were standing on deck. Clemmie Churchill looked at her watch pointedly and, noticing this, Tina beckoned to one of the crew members. “Stavros, can you tell Madame Callas that we are ready to go.”

When she heard the knock on the door, Maria was just looking at herself in the floral cruise pajamas and wondering if they really were the right outfit. But there was no time to change again so she grabbed her sunglasses and the straw bag that Alain had said was suitable for port expeditions and hurried to join the others.

As soon as she saw the party assembled on deck, Maria knew that she had made a mistake. Tina was wearing a stripy Breton top with pedal pushers, and the other women were all wearing cotton shirtwaist dresses in pastel colors, apart from sixteen-year-old Celia, who was wearing shorts. Maria, in her brightly colored floral pajamas, felt like an exotic tropical interloper in a cottage garden. She knew from the imperceptible flick of Tina’s eyes and the glances exchanged between the Churchill women that they felt it too. Still, there was no going back, so she held her head high and walked toward the others as if she were Norma walking to her funeral pyre.

As the tender approached the port Tina spotted a small crowd waiting on the stone jetty.

“Oh, what a bore. It looks like we have a reception committee.”

As the boat drew alongside, Maria could see a line of paparazzi and reporters clustering around the steps. The sailor, who leaped ashore to tie up the boat, had to bat the men out of the way.

Maria stood up. “Let me go first. Once they have their pictures of me, then perhaps they will leave the rest of you alone.”

As she stepped onto the jetty she was surrounded by cries of, “This way, Madame Callas.”

“Smile, Maria.”

Maria stood and posed for a moment and then a voice asked, “Have you given up singing, Madame Callas?”

Maria turned round and snarled at them. “Will you just lay off. Can’t you see I’m on holiday.”

Lady Churchill, whose motto was “never complain, never explain,” was visibly shocked by Maria’s outburst, but she had to admit that the press did retreat when faced by her fury.

Maria sighed heavily. “They are the bane of my existence. I am sure you feel the same, Lady Churchill.”

The other woman nodded noncommittally.

Tina and Maria led the way up the narrow winding street of medieval houses crammed with shops selling lace and trinkets designed to attract the well-heeled tourists who had been coming to this picturesque little port with multicolored houses nestling among green hills since the end of the nineteenth century.

In one of dark little lace shops, Tina, Maria, and Lady Churchill were admiring the ever more intricate pieces of lace being brought out by the perspiring shopkeeper.

Maria held up a lace mantilla and wrapped it round her head with a graceful gesture. “Such beautiful work.”

“Did your husband not want to come ashore with us, Madame Callas,” asked Lady Churchill, who found the lace a little too Roman Catholic for her taste.

“No, poor Tita is feeling unwell. He is not really a sailor.”

“Then he is not going to enjoy this cruise, I’m afraid. The sea can be quite choppy in the Med. I hope you don’t have to cut short your holiday.”

Tina broke in. “I think you should definitely get the mantilla, Maria—so useful for visiting churches. And I am sure that Signor Meneghini will get his sea legs soon.”

“Winston thinks it is all in the mind. He says that no sailor ever feels seasick when there is a gun pointed at them,” said Lady Churchill.

Maria laughed. “I wonder if I brought my revolver.” She turned to the shopkeeper and paid for the mantilla.

Tina ushered them out of the shop. “Aristo absolutely loves the sea. I think he would live on the boat all year round if he could,” she said.

“I can see why—it’s magnificent,” said Maria.

“But even Aristo can’t spend his whole time at sea. He must come back to earth eventually,” Tina said, looking at Maria. There was an undertone that Maria caught. Was Tina giving her a warning?

---

That night the dinner was on deck. Tina placed Maria next to Churchill, and Aristo at the other end next to Clemmie.

Maria, who was wearing a red silk column gown with a matching chiffon wrap, made great use of the scarf as she set out to fascinate Churchill, using it to punctuate her conversation just as she did onstage.

Churchill had asked her something about wartime Athens and Maria was telling him a story that she felt must endear her to the statesman, who she sensed was not entirely aware of her significance.

“The RAF pilot spoke no Greek, and he had blond hair and blue eyes, like Mr. Montague Browne. He could not walk around the streets of Athens like that—the Italians would have picked him up at once—so we hid him in our apartment in Patission Street. We dyed his hair brown and stained his skin with walnut juice and pretended he was our cousin Stavros, who had come from the Peloponnese, while we waited for the NKD, the Resistance, to arrange his escape. Unfortunately, not everyone in those days was on the side of the British and one of our neighbors betrayed us.” Maria made a dramatic gesture with her hand, bringing it down on the table, which made the cutlery rattle and roused Churchill from his torpor sufficiently to make him drain his glass of champagne and call for another one.

“There was a knock on the door, a hammering, and I knew that the enemy was on the other side. We were in mortal danger. The price of harboring the enemy was death.” Maria’s eyes opened wide. “But I would not give Jimmy up. I had to think of something that would give him enough time to escape through the window and climb onto the roof; from there he might be able to find his way to one of the Resistance safe houses. I wanted to give him a chance.”

By now the whole table had gone silent, and Maria was giving a full performance.

“So I tell my mother, who was shaking with fear, to answer the door. And there on the threshold were five Italian soldiers with guns, looking for Jimmy. I had to act quickly. I wonder if you can guess what I did?”

Her eyes swept the table.

“Remember that in those days I was just a plump teenager with glasses and spots, not glamorous like my sister, Jackie. I knew that they would not be interested in me as a woman. So I sat down at the piano, and I started to sing.”

Maria paused and then, seeing the whole table was listening, she opened her mouth and sang the first lines of Tosca’s great aria, “Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore,” at full volume.

The stewards, who were coming in to serve the main course, stopped dead.

The notes hung in the air as the whole table wondered if she would continue, and then Maria smiled. “My audience was enemy soldiers, but they were also Italians and they had opera in their souls. When I started to sing, they stood motionless until I had finished, and, because of Jimmy, I can tell you that I did not hurry. And when they finally came to their senses and searched the apartment, Jimmy had escaped. As they left, they thanked me for the music and the captain came back the next day with a packet of spaghetti for my mother.”

Maria put her hand on Sir Winston’s arm. “So you see, Sir Winston, in my small way I was part of your great victory.”

The entire table was silent. And then Onassis started to clap. “What a heroine you are, Maria, offstage and on.”

Maria lowered her gaze as if taking a curtain call.

“Don’t you agree, Sir Winston?” Ari looked over at the statesman, who was emptying his champagne glass.

Churchill lifted his empty glass to Maria. “On behalf of the RAF, I must thank you for your service, Madame Callas. What a pity you weren’t at Dunkirk.”

Polite laughter rippled around the table.

Tina opened her blue eyes wide and said in her high, clear voice, “What an amazing story, Maria. It sounds like a scene from one of those operas where impossible things keep happening, but nobody seems to notice.”

Her smile was warm, but Maria heard the skeptical undertone and bristled. It was true that she had made the story a little neater for dramatic effect, but that was all. They had sheltered a young British airman called Jimmy in their flat on Patission Street. He had a crush on Jackie, of course, but he knew enough about music to know that Maria was the talented one. He told her that when the war was over he would come and hear her sing in Covent Garden. But he had been killed a few months after his escape, a fact that she had not included in her story as it spoiled the ending. And when the soldiers came looking for Jimmy, he had already been gone for days. She had sung for them, but it had not been her idea. Litza had been the one to suggest that she might like to sing for their “guests.” Maria had been reluctant, but her mother had made it impossible to refuse.

So she had sat down at the piano and had sung “Vissi d’arte,” which had indeed brought tears to the eyes of the captain in charge of the search party. Later he had returned with a sausage and a packet of spaghetti, and Maria had sung for him again while her mother made dinner.

All she had done really was to compress the story into a more dramatic form, and Tina had no right to wrinkle her tiny little nose as if there was a bad smell.

Ari frowned at his wife and said, “Those were dramatic times during the war when strange things happened. Not all of us were lucky enough to spend those years at boarding school in America.”

Tina’s eyes were blue chips of ice, but she laughed merrily and said, “That is the remark of someone who has never been to a girl’s boarding school. I think even Sir Winston would struggle to mediate between fifty feuding teenage girls.”

Celia, Churchill’s granddaughter, who had barely opened her mouth since she came on board, said in a loud, clear voice, “I quite agree. Girls my age are simply horrid. I would much rather drive a tank than be a prefect at my beastly school.”

Her mother and grandmother looked at her in astonishment, but her grandfather chuckled. “Quite right too. I always say that my education was only interrupted by my schooling.”

There was general laughter at this, and the moment of tension was forgotten. But Maria knew that a line had been crossed, that whatever there was between her and Ari was no longer their secret. She looked down the table to see how her husband had reacted, but he wore his usual expression of incomprehension. Maria wondered how it was possible that she could speak four languages fluently and her husband could barely parse a sentence in English. She could see that the other guests were not happy to sit next to him, and she wondered what it would be like to have a husband who was as socially adept as Onassis.

V

The Christina was on course for Greece via the Strait of Messina. Onassis decided not to stop in Genoa but to press on until they got to Capri and the Amalfi Coast.

That afternoon as they hugged the Tuscan shore, the passengers were gathered around the swimming pool. Tina was wearing a turquoise bikini that was chosen to set off her tan and immaculate figure. Lady Churchill was doing a stately breaststroke in the pool; Diana was asleep on a lounger; and Celia was languishing in the shade, clearly mortified by having to wear what looked like her regulation school swimsuit.

Maria, who remembered the agonies of adolescence, took pity on her. “Celia, I have brought too many bathing suits, and I wonder if any of them might fit you.”

The girl looked up at her in surprise. “But … I mean, that’s awfully kind, but wouldn’t they be too grown-up?”

Maria smiled. “How old are you? Sixteen? That sounds quite grown-up to me.”

Celia went with Maria apprehensively; she found the singer rather alarming. But she forgot her fear when she saw the amazing array of swimwear that Maria was inviting her to choose from. Maria urged her to try on a green bathing suit with a halter neckline and a bikini in blue-and-white polka dots. Celia put them on in Maria’s bathroom and was amazed at how flattering they were. She had always been rather bashful about her breasts, but the swimsuit made her look as though breasts were meant to be displayed, not hidden.

“Can I see?” Maria’s voice came through the door. Celia came out and shyly turned around in front of her.

“Well, that’s much better. You don’t want to cover up that lovely figure. God, what I would have given to have had a body like yours when I was your age.”

Celia looked puzzled. “But you have a very good figure, Madame Callas.”

“Now, yes, but I wasn’t born with one. I had to work at it.”

Celia was surprised. “That must have been awfully hard. Doesn’t singing make you really hungry? I know I am always starving after choir at school, and when we did the Pirates of Penzance, I lived on cream buns.”

Maria laughed. “Yes, it was awfully hard, but I wanted to look right.”

Celia looked around the cabin and saw Alain’s sketches of the cruise outfits that were taped to the dressing table mirror.

“Oh, how glamorous. I wish Mummy had something like this. She has very nice clothes, but she always gets something wrong somehow, like the wrong belt or funny shoes.”

Maria, thinking of Diana Sandys’s clothes, mentally agreed, but said, “Everyone knows that your mother is the daughter of Winston Churchill. They do not expect her to be a fashion plate. But when you are Maria Callas, the whole world expects you to look the part.”

Maria sighed and Celia wondered whether she was meant to feel sorry for her.

When they went back on deck, Tina was the first to notice the swimsuit.

“That color looks terrific on you, Celia.”

“Madame Callas gave it to me.”

“You should have asked me—I have hundreds of bathing suits.”

Celia could tell that Tina was annoyed.

Maria took off her caftan to reveal a white bikini. She lay down on her sun bed and called to Meneghini, “Tita, darling, can you come and do my back?”

Her husband, who had been sipping ginger tea in the shade, obediently went to where Maria was lying and poured out some of the bronzing oil she used onto her back, and started to rub it in.

Onassis, who had been talking to Churchill under the awning, came out on deck and stood watching Tita oil Maria’s body and then her legs. Throwing the end of his cigar overboard, he started to take off his Hawaiian shirt. As he undid the buttons Maria’s eyes widened. She had never seen such a hairy chest before, even in Greece. Ari caught her glance and he smiled.

“Are you coming in?”

Maria shook her head. “Not yet. I need to warm up first. Tita and I are battling over the air-conditioning. If there is one thing that sopranos hate more than other sopranos, it’s air-conditioning.”

Ari jumped into the water with a loud splash. “The water’s lovely.”

But before Maria could move, Tina was up on the diving board and executed a perfect swan dive into the pool, narrowly missing her husband.

---

That evening Tina spoke to her husband as they were getting ready for dinner.

“I was thinking, Ari, that it might be nice to ask Reinaldo to join us in Naples. He is such good company, and we are a man down, not to mention Signor Meneghini being such a washout. Reinaldo would flirt with the little Churchill girl and be charming to her mother, and of course he would amuse me.”

She looked at Ari, her little mouth pouting adorably.

But her husband shook his head. “No, Tina, not while the Churchills are on board. I don’t want to embarrass them.”

Ari was standing in his boxer shorts, looking at himself in the mirror as he decided which shirt to wear. He sucked in his stomach and threw back his shoulders.

Tina’s retort was icy. “Don’t you think you have done that already?”

Ari tore himself away from the mirror. “What are you talking about?”

“The way you behave around the great diva. But I suppose I should be grateful: at least she isn’t one of my friends.”

Tina had not been happy to come home to their estate on Long Island to find her friend Jeannie Rhinelander with her head between her husband’s legs. She knew that Aristo had other women, and as she no longer found him sexually attractive, she didn’t much care, but she did not want to be publicly embarrassed. Part of the advantage of the boat was that it was the place, until now, where Ari could be trusted to behave.

“Tina, you are being ridiculous. Maria and I have a lot in common. We are the only two people on this boat who started with nothing and have made something of ourselves.”

“You think you have more in common with the warbler than with Churchill?” said Tina, opening her eyes wide.

“Sir Winston is the grandson of a duke. He was born an aristocrat. Your father is one of the biggest shipowners in Greece; even the Montague Brownes went to the right schools and know the best people; but Maria and I didn’t have any of that. We had to make it on our own. So I enjoy her company.”

Tina sighed. “Well, you are the only one who does, Ari. That story she told the other night about saving the airman as if she were some Resistance heroine was quite absurd. Everyone thought so.”

Aristo picked up a white shirt and started to put it on. “I enjoy the fact that she has more to talk about than gossip and shopping. But let’s not fight, Tina.”

“Only if I can invite Reinaldo.”

Onassis shrugged. “If you are discreet about it. I don’t want the press to pick it up. These things are damaging to my reputation.”

Tina looked sullen.

“And I can assure you that absolutely nothing untoward has happened between me and Maria.”

“Oh, dear. Perhaps you are losing your touch. Or has your little problem come back?”

Ari ignored this and started tying a printed silk ascot round his neck.

“But I expect Maria’s used to it. I can’t believe her husband has much to offer in that department.”

“Don’t be spiteful, Tina. It will give you wrinkles,” said Ari as he tucked a handkerchief in his pocket and went to the door.

---

On the deck below, Meneghini had been having a miserable afternoon. There was quite a swell now, and he was wretched. Now he longed more than anything to go back to Milan. He suggested to Maria that they leave the cruise when the boat docked at Naples.

Maria did not agree. “Tina Onassis would never forgive us for deserting her party. It would be incredibly rude.”

Meneghini looked at her from where he was lying on the bed. “I am sure that she will understand that I am unwell.”

“But I don’t want to leave. It’s not my fault that you are such a bad sailor.”

Maria pulled up the zip of her dress with a sharp, angry tug.

Tita picked up the score of Poliuto that was lying on the bedside table. “Have you even looked at this, Maria? You are meant to be singing a new role in a few months. Is staying on this boat really more important than your next performance?”

Maria’s hand shook as she painted on her eyeliner, and she had to wipe it off and start again.

“I am entitled to a holiday, Tita. I can’t work all the time.”

He stood behind her and put a hand on her shoulder, stroking her collarbone with his finger.

“Maria, mia carissima, you must cherish your voice while it is still here.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Maria snapped.

“I am just trying to protect you. Have you forgotten what happened in Rome?”

Maria looked at him in the mirror.

“Just give me one more week, Battista, that’s all I want.”

---

At dinner Maria made her way to her usual place next to Churchill, but Aristo caught her arm before she could sit down.

“Tonight I am going to be selfish and have you all to myself with no other gentlemen to distract you,” he said.

Maria saw Celia hovering at the end of the table and called to her to come and sit down next to her. Onassis would not have it all his own way.

She leaned over to Celia. “I want to hear all about your horrible school.”

Celia blushed. “It’s not so bad really. But there are lots of stupid rules, like having to wear a hat every time we go into the village. I think it’s to make us look so hideous that we won’t meet any boys.”

Aristo leaned over. “And does it work?”

Celia blushed again.

Maria tapped his hand crossly. “Don’t embarrass the poor girl. I am sure she has many admirers, with or without the hat.”

Celia looked down at her plate.

“But you should be careful. How old are you? Sixteen? I married Tina when she was seventeen.”

“Oh, I don’t want to get married yet, Mr. Onassis.”

Aristo finished his drink. He was getting bored with this conversation. “But why not? Every woman wants to marry a good provider who will look after her and the children.”

Maria looked at him in surprise. “Do you really think that is all women want?”

Onassis shrugged. “Pretty much. But I admit there may be some exceptions.” He looked directly at Maria.

Maria felt uncomfortable under that gaze; she wanted what he seemed to be offering, but she was also terrified. She decided to retreat.

“This cruise has been so delightful, but I worry that I am becoming something of a lotus-eater.”

She saw a glimpse of gold as he smiled. “Why would you be afraid of that?”

“Well, I am singing in a new production soon and I really should go home to prepare.”

Onassis leaned closer. “You know that the lotus-eaters were most likely eating opium? They were perfectly content in the present. But here you are, worrying about your next performance. It seems to me you need to eat more lotus, not less. But if you feel you really must go back, then I will arrange for one of my planes to take you anywhere you want.”

Maria nodded and was about to reply when Onassis continued. “Yet I hope you will stay until we reach Asia Minor. I would like very much to show you Smyrna where I grew up, and then we are making a stop in Istanbul. The patriarch, the Orthodox pope, is an old friend and I promised him that I would bring you to his church for a blessing on your name day, which is on the fifteenth I think, the feast of the Blessed Mary.”

Maria looked surprised. “You know my name day?”

Onassis shrugged. “I am Greek Orthodox too. We grew up with the same calendar. And that is why I know that you can’t refuse, not if you want to go to heaven.”

Maria crossed herself. “But my life will be hell on earth if I am not prepared when I go to the Met. My public is not forgiving.”

Onassis gestured to the sea, which was Homerically wine-dark. “Do you know where we are right now?”

Maria shook her head.

“We are entering the Strait of Messina between the toe of Italy and the island of Sicily. On the Sicilian side, there is a whirlpool and on the Italian side—hidden rocks. Our ancestors called the rocks Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis. Odysseus had to make a hard choice as he made his way through the strait. Which was the greater evil—the man-eating monster living in the rocks, or the whirlpool that destroyed everything it touched? You will have to plot your course very carefully, Maria.”

He signaled to the waiter to fill everyone’s glasses with champagne.

“To Scylla and Charybdis!”

Maria raised her glass. “But which are you, Aristo?”

Aristo shrugged and drained his champagne glass.

---

Maria hardly slept at all that night.

She should leave, of course she should, but if she did, it would mean ending the possibility that Onassis represented. She could go back to Milan and her rehearsal room, and tend to her talent, the tyrant that had ruled her for so long.

Or she could stay on board and find out what it was like to be kissed by a man who made the hairs on her arms stand up every time he touched her. She did not dare think further than a kiss; the sight of the hair on his chest by the swimming pool had been disturbing. It had been so long since she had seen another man’s naked body. It had been so long since she had taken off her clothes in front of anyone but Meneghini’s indifferent gaze. She bit her lip as she imagined being naked in front of Onassis. The thought of it made her twitch with desire. There was a week until her name day, a week to feel like this, a week to pretend that there was nothing else in the world but what was here right now. A week to be a lotus-eater.

VI

The Christina wound its way through the Greek islands and the Dardanelles to reach Izmir in Turkey (formerly Smyrna), where Onassis had been born and lived till he was sixteen.

That night Onassis recounted the story of how the Turks had massacred the Greeks of Smyrna in 1922.

“In those days, the town was a mixture of Greeks, Armenians, Turks, and Jews. My father, Socrates, was a merchant who was on very friendly terms with the Turkish community. My grandmother Gethsemane spoke only Turkish because her family had been in Asia Minor for so many generations. Even her Bible was in Turkish. There were more Greeks living in Smyrna then than in Athens.

“But the Greek army had been active in Asia Minor and my father heard from the American consul that the Turks were planning to retaliate by attacking Smyrna. He sent the women in my family—my stepmother, my sisters—away to Lesbos with gold sovereigns sewn into their underwear.”

Onassis looked around the table. Everyone was listening intently except Tina who looked out to sea, as if she had heard this story many times before.

“The Turkish cavalry came the next day. They made the men kneel in the square and they took their scimitars and went like this”—Onassis made a dramatic gesture with his hand and Maria shuddered.

“I was on an errand for my father and I was trying to get home when I saw a Muslim mob enter the cathedral and set upon the Metropolitan Chrysostomos. They gouged out his eyeballs and then they cut off his nose, his ears, and finally his hands.”

Aristo looked down at his own hands.

In the pause that followed Tina protested, “Really, Aristo, it’s been a long day. Perhaps you should save the gruesome details for tomorrow. You don’t want to give everybody nightmares.”

Onassis looked up, his hooded brown eyes liquid. “Maybe you’re right, Tina. I have lived with this horror for so long that sometimes I forget what it must sound like. To see this man of God cut to pieces is something I shall never forget.”

The table was silent until Maria asked, “What happened to your father?”

“The Turks took him away to a camp. But he was luckier than my uncles. They were hanged in the main square and my aunt Maria, her husband, and their little girl took shelter in a church that the Turkish soldiers set alight.” He stopped, looking out over the sea for a moment before continuing.

“I managed to convince the soldiers that I was too young to fight and to let me stay in our villa that they had requisitioned. They tolerated me because I could find them things like cigars and alcohol.”

Onassis looked at Maria. “I find in life that if you make things comfortable for people, they will like you.”

Tina yawned. “Well, right now I think everyone will like you a lot more if you let them go to bed, Ari.”

VII

Onassis looked uncharacteristically ill at ease as the tender drew up alongside the quay.

“This is the first time I have been here to Smyrna, since I left in 1922,” he announced.

The cars were waiting for them. Onassis took the Churchills in the first car, and Tina took Maria and the Montague Brownes in the second. The tour started with the colonnaded white building where the young Onassis had gone to school.

“I was not the hardest worker in the class, but I was the most popular because I could always get hold of cigarettes.”

Churchill flourished his cigar. “You have always had a way with tobacco, dear boy.”

From the school they went to the house where Onassis had grown up. The white paintwork was faded, and the green shutters were hanging off their hinges. But in the ironwork of the gates, the initials of Socrates Onassis still wound their way across the entrance arch.

Aristo jumped out of the car, eager to have a look at his old home, but when he saw his father’s initials he stopped and was silent. Maria could see the pain in his face as he ran his fingers over the Greek letters sigma and omega.

Tina, who was wearing a pink gingham strapless sundress with white pumps and a bow in her blond hair, looked about her with bemusement. “Such a funny little house. I thought your father was a successful merchant, Aristo?”

Onassis ignored her and pushed the gate, but it was locked. He turned and looked at the view of the harbor.

“I used to play here every evening. My father and his friends would smoke hookahs, and we would rush up and down these steps pretending to be…” He stopped and Maria thought that there were tears in his eyes.

Churchill must have seen something too, because he put a hand on his friend’s shoulder and said, “I’m sorry I never met Mr. Onassis Senior, but take it from an old man, I know that he would have been damn proud of you.”

Onassis brushed his eyes with the back of his hand and smiled at Churchill.

“He would have been very glad to know that I was coming here in such distinguished company.” Onassis was looking at Churchill as he said this, but Maria thought that he raised his eyes to look to hers, just for a second.

At that moment all she wanted was to run toward him and kiss away his tears. His sadness had made him real suddenly, not an invincible wizard who could produce anything in his kingdom with a click of his fingers but a man who needed solace.

“It used to be so beautiful here. We had a pomegranate tree and so many figs. My grandmother always said that the figs from this garden were the sweetest she had ever tasted.”

He started to walk back to the car, the rest of the party following. Maria caught up with Aristo.

“What happened to your grandmother? Did she escape?”

Onassis turned around, his eyes dark. “She refused to leave with my sisters, but when the fires started, my father persuaded her to get on a boat going to Greece. But the crew was Turkish and when they saw that she had money, they tried to rob her. My haj neh fought back, she was not a coward, but the effort was too much for her and she had a heart attack. The other passengers, the Greek ones, tried to save her, but it was too late. When they got to Athens, she was dead. She is buried in the cemetery at Piraeus. I always visit her there when I am in town. I have to speak to her in Turkish though, because her Greek is very bad.”

He gave her a smile quite unlike his usual wolfish grin. It was the expression of a little boy who is trying to be brave after being stung.

Nonie Montague Browne, who was standing nearby, said, “Your grandmother sounds like a redoubtable lady.”

“She was. My sisters sometimes complain that they never got the chance to go to college and have a proper education. But I always say to them that they have a degree from the University of Gethsemane, which is the best kind of degree to have.”

“It’s true—there is nothing like a Greek grandmother,” said Maria.

Tina appeared impatient to be back on the boat in time for lunch. Onassis said that he had one more stop to make, and that anyone who wanted to go back should go with his wife. Churchill was clearly dying for a rest and a drink, so he went back with Clemmie and the girls. Maria found herself sitting next to Onassis again, with the Montague Brownes in the back.

Onassis drove the car up a winding road to a hilltop where there was the dilapidated ruin of a Greek church and an equally tumbledown cemetery. Onassis looked about him, confused, trying to get his bearings, and then he walked to a spot in the northwest corner shaded by a cypress tree, where the weeds had been trimmed and the headstone stood unencumbered. In Greek letters, the stone read “Penelope Onassis, beloved wife of Socrates and mother of Aristotle and Artemis.”

Onassis crossed himself. “Poor Mama. She was ill in bed for much of my childhood, and I used to like to sit on her bed and talk to her. She had a gentle voice and such a sweet smile. My grandmother was very stern, but Mother was always sympathetic. I was so upset when my father married again. I couldn’t understand it. I was still missing my mother so much. But he couldn’t live without a woman, and six months later he found himself a new wife. Now I understand, but then…”

He shook his head, and Maria said, “Parents forget that children have feelings too.”

“Sometimes I think that her death was the reason for my success. There is no doubt that if she had lived, she would have spoiled me rotten, as the English say. I was the only boy and she adored me. If she had lived, perhaps it would have been too hard to leave her side and make my way in the world.”

He shrugged and Maria said, “What would you rather have?”

Aristo turned to look at her. “What do you mean?”

“Your success or being spoiled by your mother.”

Aristo smiled. “Oh, that’s easy. We always want what we can’t have.” He looked out to sea.

“I would exchange everything, even the Christina, for one more evening lying on my mother’s bed, listening to her stories, and feeling her stroking my hair.”

Maria was silent. She was picturing Ari as a little dark-eyed boy gazing up at his mother.

“What about you, Maria?”

“What about me?”

“Is there anything you would rather have instead of all your fame and success?”

Maria sighed. “There was a time when all I wanted was for my mother to love me properly. I realized a few years ago that was never going to happen, but the wish still remains—to be loved as Maria, not as Callas.”

Onassis looked at her searchingly. “But I have seen you perform. Don’t tell you weren’t happy when the audience was applauding. I was watching you and I thought you looked ecstatic.”

Maria smiled. “You have to remember that I am an actress as well as a singer.”

“And you have to remember that I know something about women. That wasn’t acting!”

“Not entirely. There is enormous pleasure in knowing that you have accomplished the task of singing to the best of your ability and knowing that the audience understands that. After what happened in Rome, it was a relief to know that I could still perform to my own satisfaction. But I think that I would give all that up to have a mother like yours, who adored me just as I was.”

The Christina’s horn blared out over the water, startling them, and making the Montague Brownes, who had retreated to a tactful distance, come out of the shade.

“Sound like it’s time for lunch,” said Anthony.

Nonie stepped forward with a small bunch of wildflowers that she had picked, and gave them to Ari. “I thought perhaps you might like these for your mother’s grave.”

Onassis looked surprised, but he took them and put them at the foot of the small tombstone and, kneeling down, he kissed the earth.

“Goodbye, Mama.”

Then he sprang to his feet with an agility surprising in a man in his fifties and, taking Maria by the elbow, he shepherded his party back to the car.

On the way back to the quay, Onassis drove past a house with blue shutters set back from the road and shaded by pomegranate trees. He slowed down and pointing to it, he said, “That was Fahrie’s, where I got my real education.”

Maria looked puzzled, until Ari continued. “Fahrie’s was the finest brothel in Smyrna. Oh, the smell of the women there. The noise their silk stockings made when they crossed their legs.”

Ari smacked his lips.

“My father took me there on my fifteenth birthday. He said that it was time I understood how the world worked.”

He looked over to Maria and Nonie. “Forgive me, ladies. I hope you are not shocked.”

Nonie shook her head, but Maria said solemnly, “I shall pray for your immortal soul.”

Onassis looked taken aback, but when he saw the glint in Maria’s eye he said, “I remember one old Turkish whore telling me, ‘You know, kid, in the end, one way or another, all ladies do it for the money.’ As I said, it was an education.”

VIII

When Maria woke up the next day, the first thing she saw as she looked out of the window was the unmistakable profile of the Hagia Sophia. In the night they had crossed the Sea of Marmara and sailed up the Golden Horn to moor on the European side of the ancient city. In the bay directly ahead of them was a small island with a spherical building that Onassis said was where the sultan’s concubines who no longer pleased their master were left to die.

“Or sometimes if they had misbehaved they were sewn into a sack and tipped off the cliff just there.”

Churchill nodded his approval. “There are a number of women and men whom I would happily put in a sack. One of the great disadvantages of not being a sultan.”

Onassis grinned. “Life would be so much simpler,” he said with a sigh, “but these days we have to be civilized.”

He looked across at Maria. “Do you agree?”

She thought for a moment. “I can think of at least two people I would like to have sewn up in a sack.”

“But could you push them over the cliff?” asked Onassis.

“Easily,” said Maria. “I am Greek, after all.”

Tina, who was listening to this conversation with barely concealed impatience, clapped her hands. “Well, I am just as Greek as both of you, and I have no desire to put anyone in a sack or push them over a cliff, so you can’t use that as an excuse for your homicidal impulses.”

Onassis laughed. “Tina, you have never spent more than five minutes in Greece, you don’t like Greek food, and you speak Greek with an English accent.”

Tina flushed, but then she recovered her poise. “And when I speak English, people say I have a Greek accent, and in French an Italian one. I will never be at home anywhere, it seems.”

---

That morning Onassis drove Maria and the Churchills around Istanbul in the open-topped Fiat that he kept on board for sightseeing trips. There had been no press when they started out, but by the time they reached Hagia Sophia, photographers had started to gather. Maria sighed and prepared to smile and pose, but Onassis ignored them and swept his party inside.

They stood inside the vast space that had been a church, then a mosque, and was now a museum. Maria was fascinated by how the sound traveled around the cavernous interior. She heard the echo created by the footsteps around her and wondered for a moment what it would be like to sing there.

She slipped her glasses out of her bag so that she could get a sharper view of the dome. Onassis touched her elbow and when she turned round, he looked shocked for a moment. “I’ve never seen you in glasses before.”

Maria didn’t need her glasses to perceive that he preferred her without. “I can hardly see without them.”

“Then it will be my pleasure to guide you.”

Maria took the glasses off and put them back in her bag.

---

After Hagia Sophia, Onassis took them back to the boat, so that they could change before seeing the patriarch.

Maria put on a black linen dress and draped the black mantilla she had bought in Portofino around her head. The lace made her feel like Tosca in the scene where she goes to see her lover in church. She took a breath; she had been waiting for this moment. It was like stepping onstage to sing a new role for the first time.

Meneghini came in as she was wrapping the mantilla around her face, and she saw that he understood that she was preparing for a performance.

“How are you feeling?”

Meneghini had not come on the tour of Istanbul.

“Much better. I have been making some phone calls while you were out. San Francisco want you to do Norma, and Covent Garden are offering Tosca. Deutsche Grammophon want you to record an album of arias as soon as possible. It was a very good morning.”

Maria turned round. “I hope you didn’t make any firm commitments, Tita.”

“I agreed to the recording date—they want it urgently so they can release it for Christmas.”

“I don’t think I want to make a record of arias.”

Meneghini looked wary. “But why not? Everybody does them now, and they sell very well. You have such a broad repertoire; it will be easy for you to prepare eight or ten pieces.”

Maria stared at him as if he were in the back row of the stalls. “I am not everybody, and I don’t care to pander to an audience who can’t be bothered to listen to a whole opera.”

Meneghini sighed. “But they are a very big record company, the best, and I said that you would be happy to do it.”

“Then you will have to tell them that you made a mistake.”

Maria picked up her handbag and made for the door. Meneghini followed her.

Maria saw him behind her on the stairs and hissed in Italian, “What are you doing?”

“Coming with you. As it is obviously important to you, I would like to be there.”

“But you won’t understand a word!”

Meneghini gave a rueful smile. “I am used to that, Maria.”

The party to see the patriarch consisted of Maria and Tita, Onassis and Tina, the Montague Brownes, and the Christina’s captain, Kostas Anastiades, and the first mate.

The boat took them from the Christina to the Fener pier, a short walk from the Patriarchate and the church of St. George.

As Maria walked into the church, she could not shake the feeling of walking onstage. The fact that she, Tina, and Nonie were wearing lace mantillas made it even more like a production. There was a hush in the church that seemed to her like the pause after the conductor picks up his baton before he sets the musicians going. She crossed herself in the Orthodox way, right to left, the way she always did when standing in the wings waiting to go on. She lit a candle in front of the icon of the Virgin and Child and prayed, as ever, for her voice to be strong. Meneghini stood behind her, looking at his surroundings as a tourist might at the end of a long and boring day. Maria could see that he had his cigarette case in his hand. She nudged him sharply and told him to put it away.

“But there is so much incense in here—no one would ever notice.”

When they had finished in the church, one of the priests showed them into the patriarch’s private sanctum, which was lined with cedar wood panelling and bejewelled by icons. Patriarch Athenagoras stood at the other end of the room. He was over six foot and had a long gray beard that reached to his waist. He was dressed in black robes, and on his head was the kalimafki, the tall headdress draped with a long black train. Maria gasped at the majesty of his presence. Unlike the pope, who at the audience she had with him seemed dwarfed by his vestments, the patriarch looked like the voice of God.

“Will Aristotle Onassis and Maria Callas please step forward so that they may be blessed.” His voice was deep and resonant. A basso profundo, like the Commendatore in Don Giovanni.

Maria felt weak as she stepped forward to kneel beside Aristo. The patriarch placed his spade-like hands on their heads, and he began to intone in Greek, “Heavenly Father, please bless these two sinners who have brought great glory to their homeland. One is the finest singer of her time, the other is a modern Odysseus, the most famous mariner of the modern world.”

As he spoke Maria felt his blessing flow through her as if he was pouring warm oil on her head. It spread from his fingers all the way down her body. She felt soft and relaxed as if her insides were melting. Perhaps this was the breath of the Holy Spirit. She glanced over to Onassis, and he moved his little finger so that it touched hers, and Maria felt completely at peace.

“Please bathe them in the glory of your love and protect them from harm. In the name of the Father.”

As the priest intoned his prayers over the couple, Meneghini, who was standing at the back with Montague Browne, began to sweat. He pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his forehead with it. “Do you understand anything?” he whispered to Montague Browne.

“I’m afraid it’s all Greek to me, old boy,” Anthony whispered back.

“It looks like a wedding,” Meneghini said sadly.

Meneghini knew that Maria had always blamed him for the fact that she did not have a “proper” Orthodox wedding. Whatever was happening in front of him now, he knew could be easily confused with a wedding in Maria’s mind. She was perfectly still, which Meneghini found ominous. He had seen that kind of stillness only onstage, when she was completely submerged in a character. But whom was she playing now?

---

That evening Maria wore the most glamorous dress in her wardrobe, a black chiffon column that left one shoulder bare. Her only jewelry was a pair of emerald earrings that she had bought for herself in Milan.

Peering in the mirror, Maria did not feel the usual disappointment at how far her reflection was from the image in her head. She didn’t want to look like the petite Tina with her perky nose and tiny frame; Tina would never look like a goddess.

As Maria went into the dining room, she saw that Ari, for a change, was wearing a dinner jacket, a white one that made his skin look very brown and his teeth very white. He beckoned to her to come and sit between him and Churchill.

“What a magnificent dress,” he said as the waiter pulled out Maria’s chair. “Don’t you think, Sir Winston?”

Churchill looked at Maria gravely. “I am no expert on women’s clothing, but the general effect is very striking. In fact, you look as if you’re about to perform. Does that mean you are going to sing later?” he said.

“If you would like me to, Sir Winston, I would be honored.”

Churchill put up his hands in protest. “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of asking you, dear lady.”

“Tonight we are going to watch City Lights after dinner,” Tina said sharply from the other end of the table.

“I know it is one of your favorites,” added Onassis.

“Yes, indeed. Do you know that I actually visited the set when he was making that film?” Churchill proceeded to tell an anecdote about his time in Hollywood that everyone listened to reverently.

There was caviar that night, but Maria found that she could not eat more than a mouthful. Onassis looked at her in surprise. “What has happened to your appetite, Maria? I ordered the caviar especially for you as it is your name day.”

Maria shook her head. “I have seen and heard so much today. I think I am too full of experience.”

Onassis muttered in Greek, “With no room for anything more?”

Maria looked at him, her lips parted. Since the blessing all her defenses had crumbled. She knew now why Norma had betrayed her people for a man, why Tosca had murdered Scarpia, why Violetta had chosen to die in poverty. They had been possessed by a feeling that so far she had only been able to imagine.

Onassis saw the look on her face and understood. Deftly he put his hand on her leg and stroked the inside of her thigh through the thin material of her dress. Maria knew how to keep her face impassive, but the touch of his fingers made her shudder.

She forced herself to bring her attention back to Churchill, who was still talking about Chaplin, but his words kept fading in and out as Onassis’s fingers moved up her leg.

The dinner seemed to last forever, though Tina was very strict about keeping meals at no more than an hour. Maria ate almost nothing but found herself gulping down the cold champagne. At the end of the meal, the waiter brought in an ice cream cake and put it in front of Maria.

“For your name day, Maria. I know how much you like ice cream,” Onassis said.

Maria did not trust herself to speak. Onassis handed her the knife.

“Quick! Cut it before it melts.”

“You should make a wish,” said Celia, who was eyeing the cake with interest.

Maria closed her eyes, and for the first time in her life her wish was nothing to do with her voice.

“There.” She opened her eyes, and started to cut the cake.

All the ladies refused it except Celia.

Churchill accepted his slice but made no move to taste it. Maria could see the confection melting on his plate and she took a spoonful and held it up to his mouth.

“Oh, you really must try it, Sir Winston.” Obediently Churchill opened his mouth and Maria fed him the ice cream cake until it had all gone.

“I can never resist a woman with a spoon,” said Churchill when she had finished. “Reminds me of my first love, Nanny Everest.”

---

When Maria got to the cinema, all the seats in the front row were taken. Onassis was sitting between his wife and Churchill. Maria went to sit in the row behind with Celia. Meneghini had gone to bed.

Afterward she wouldn’t have been able to recount a single detail of the film: she was too busy looking at the back of Onassis’s head to have any interest in Chaplin. At one point he put his arm on the back of Tina’s seat and Maria thought for one awful moment that his hand was going to land on his wife’s shoulder. But it remained on the chair.

The focus of Onassis’s attention was Churchill; he was vigilant about filling up his glass and bringing out more cigars. As the lights went up at the end of the film, Churchill could be heard weeping. Clemmie put her hand on his shoulder.

“What would Nanny Everest say, crying your eyes out over a film. Come on, Winnie, let’s get you to bed.”

The Churchills accompanied by Onassis and Tina moved toward the staterooms.

Maria looked at the Montague Brownes. “I think I need some air.”

“It was a bit sickly, wasn’t it,” said Anthony, “but the boss adores it. I expect we will get Henry V tomorrow—very keen on ‘Once more unto the breach’ is the boss.”

Maria looked at him vaguely. As Henry V had never been made into an opera, she had very little idea what he was talking about.

She went to stand on the deck and looked out over the water. She could hear the call of the muezzin across the water and the tinkle of the bells on the local fishing boats and the occasional deep note of the ferry sirens as they went from one side of the Bosphorus to the other. It was a soundtrack of sorts, an overture to the drama ahead. She was alone on the stage, waiting for the man who she knew now would become her lover. Where was the music for that? From a radio in the staff quarters there was a burst of Greek folk song that was quickly silenced.

To keep herself from shaking she began to hum “Vissi d’arte,” allowing the musical memory to flood through her. Maria’s hum was louder than most, so she did not hear the footsteps behind her; it was only when she felt the breath on the back of her neck that she knew he had come for her. Turning around, she could see the gleam of his teeth.

“I’ve been waiting for this for so long.” He put his finger to her lips and traced their outline, then he ran his hand down her throat past her collarbones to the space between her breasts.

“Not just tonight but all my life, Maria,” Onassis said as he kissed the tops of her breasts. He looked up at her. “Plato says that originally we were all two halves of a perfect whole, but then the whole was divided and we were spun off as imperfect beings, constantly looking for our other half to feel complete.”

He put his other hand on the small of her back and pulled her to him.

“You are my other half, Maria, and I have been looking for you all my life.”

He kissed her with his surprisingly soft lips, gently at first and then harder as they both strained against each other. He slipped his fingers down the front of her dress and flicked her nipples, and then, pulling the dress aside, he put them one by one in his mouth. Maria squirmed with pleasure, but then a sudden noise made her start.

“Ari, you must stop. Someone will see us.”

Ari smiled. “I know just the place.”

He took her hand and walked along the deck to where the lifeboat was hanging in its cradle. He climbed up into it, and then he held out his hand to Maria.

“Come here.”

His hands were warm and dry as he undid the zipper of her dress and let it fall to the bottom of the boat. Maria felt as if she were on fire. Reflexively she crossed her hands across her breasts, but he took her arms away gently and said, “Please. Let me look at you, Maria.”

And then he put a tarpaulin on the bottom of the boat and made her lie down as he stroked her all over, kissing her toes, her fingertips, her nipples, her navel, the inside of her thighs, and finally her sex itself.

“Oh, Maria, you taste of caviar,” he said as he parted her legs and began to flick her with his tongue. Maria tensed, this was something that had never happened before, but Ari took her hand and stroked it.

“Trust me, Maria, I know what I am doing.”

Maria closed her eyes, and soon she forgot that she was lying in a lifeboat in the middle of the Bosphorus. She forgot about everything but the sensations that were flooding through her body; she felt as if she was about to sing the highest note she had ever sung, her body shaking with the effort and then suddenly it was over, her body relaxed and she was shuddering with pleasure.

She looked at Ari in wonder. How had he made that happen? He saw the expression on her face and grinned. “Was that your first time?” Maria nodded.

“I am honored,” and he kissed her mouth and began to push inside her, and she clung to him with her long fingers digging into his back, pulling him deeper and deeper.

Afterward as they lay in the bottom of the lifeboat looking at the stars, Maria found herself smiling. Ari stroked her cheek. “What are you smiling about?”

“You, of course. I was thinking that I have spent half my life being possessed by passion onstage, but I never understood what it meant in real life.”

“Because you were waiting for me, Maria.”

He kissed her again, and then he sat up and started fumbling in the pile of clothes in the corner of the boat. Turning around, he dropped something small and shining between Maria’s breasts.

“This is for you, agapi mou.”

Maria picked it up and peered at it in the dim light; it was a bracelet with letters FMWLA picked out in diamonds. There was something familiar about it.

“For Maria with love Ari,” he said, kissing her again.

Maria put it around her wrist, and then she remembered the bracelet that Tina had been wearing on the first day. An unwelcome thought struck her. “When did you have this made?”

Ari smiled down at her. “Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.”

“After we went to Torcello and ate caviar. I have been carrying it around with me ever since.”

Maria gasped. “But how could you be so sure?”

“Because, Maria, you may be the greatest singer in the world, but you are still a woman. And I knew that day that fate had meant us to be together like this.”

She felt the heat in his gaze, but she pulled away in protest. “But I didn’t know, not even when I decided to come on the cruise. It was only today when we knelt in front of the patriarch that I knew.”

Ari laughed. “And who made that happen, Maria? Perhaps I know you better that you know yourself.”

Maria buried her face in the hair on his chest, alive with a mixture of joy and doubt.

He began to kiss her again, his hand sliding across her breasts and down her belly to between her legs and very soon her doubts were forgotten as she realized she had no choice but to surrender.

“I’ve never felt like this before.”

“Because you weren’t with me, agapi mou.”

Maria realized that since they had been in the lifeboat, they had been speaking Greek.

“I feel like I have come home.”

“That’s because we come from the same place.”

IX

She didn’t appear until lunchtime the next day. Her radiant smile and the fact that she and Onassis were careful not look at each other made the union between them as obvious as if she had been wearing a scarlet A on her forehead.

Tina picked up the scent at once. After lunch she made a point of sitting next to Maria on the long sofa under the awning.

“What a charming bracelet. I believe I have one just like it.”

Maria looked back at her defiantly.

Tina continued. “Of course, you have no idea how much these trinkets cost.”

“I am not in the habit of asking the price of gifts.”

Tina raised an eyebrow at the vehemence of Maria’s tone. “Pity. Because you might decide the price is a little too high even for you.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

Tina smiled her well-bred smile. “Not yet, perhaps, but you will. You don’t imagine that you and I are the only two women with bracelets like these? Ari must have some jeweler somewhere churning them out. I don’t really care anymore—Ari can have as many women as he likes, so long as he doesn’t humiliate me and remembers that I am his wife.”

Maria looked at her with contempt. “From what I understand you are not exactly blameless yourself.”

“Why do you think that I allowed Ari to invite you and your poor sap of a husband? As soon as we dock in Monte Carlo, Reinaldo is coming with us and some of my friends to Venice. And I can tell you that Reinaldo is much better company than Aristo”—she paused significantly—“in every way.”

Maria stood up, but Tina caught her hand and made her sit down again. “I don’t like you very much, Maria, and I am sure you feel the same about me, but I want to give you a word of advice. Ari can make you think that you are the most important person in the world. He will convince you that he is the only man who understands you. But as soon as the shine wears off, he gets bored and looks for something else. To put it in terms you will understand, Maria: Aristo is not Alfredo in La traviata, who swears undying love and means it. No, my husband is like the duke in Rigoletto who makes every woman think that they are his one true love.”

Tina stood up to deliver her parting shot. “Remember, Aristo is Greek. The two things he cares about most are family and money. Whatever you think is going to happen, just remember that.”

She walked off, not a hair out of place, her smile wide and welcoming as if she were hosting a reception for the queen of Romania.

Maria looked over to where Onassis was talking to Churchill and felt a glow of warmth steal over her. Tina’s words had simply bounced off the cocoon that surrounded her. She had never felt happier, not even after her first standing ovation at La Scala. Tina was bound to be jealous even if she did have her own lover. Of course, Ari had other women, he was Greek after all, but then he had never met his other half. Until now. Maria knew that she was not some conquest, she was his equal: a Greek of humble origins who had made herself into a world-famous star but who, underneath, was like him—a simple soul.

She caught Aristo’s eye for a moment. She could feel that he was as keenly aware of her presence as he was of hers. Crossing her legs, she wondered when they would be alone together. Now that he had touched her right at the core of her being, she couldn’t wait for him to do it again.

Her reverie was interrupted by Celia, who wanted a makeup lesson. Maria spent an enjoyable half hour showing Celia how to angle the brush so that the line of black along her eyelid would end in a sharp point.

Celia did both eyes to her satisfaction and then turned to Maria and said, “Do you think it suits me?”

“Very much.”

“Do you think it makes me look grown-up?”

“Definitely. But is there a reason why you want to look grown-up?”

Celia blushed. “Takis—you know, the little boy Alexander’s tutor—has been teaching me how to water-ski and I really like him.”

Maria nodded.

“But he thinks I am just a child, so I thought I would show him that I am quite grown-up really. Every time he looks at me, I feel like I am going to melt.”

“Do you know lots of boys at home, Celia?”

“I suppose so, cousins and things, but they are all so English. None of them is like Takis.”

Maria smiled. “Boys become men early in Greece. But be careful that he doesn’t take any liberties.”

“But that’s exactly what I want him to do—take liberties.”

Maria made a disapproving face. “I don’t think your mother would approve.”

“I don’t care. I want to be like you, Madame Callas. Someone who does whatever they want and doesn’t give a damn what other people think.”

Maria looked at her in surprise. “What makes you think that I am like that?”

Celia replied earnestly, “But that’s what everybody says about you, Madame Callas, that you always do whatever you want and you don’t let anyone get in your way.”

Maria shook her head. “And what do you think of me, Celia?”

Celia bent down and kissed her on the cheek. “I think you are the only person on this boat who notices that I exist.”

---

That night they met by the lifeboat again. This time he was inside her at once, and she wrapped herself around him as if she would never let him go. He put everything else out of her head—all she could think of was his body against hers taking her to a new place.

Later when Ari lit a cigarette, she took it from him and put it to her lips.

“But you don’t smoke,” he said.

“It’s different when it’s your cigarette,” she replied, inhaling the smoke and having to use all the muscles in her throat to stop herself coughing.

“Here, give it back to me—you shouldn’t be smoking.”

“I shouldn’t be lying here with you, but here I am. You know, don’t you, that this is the first time I have been unfaithful?”

“I am flattered,” said Onassis, turning his head so that the smoke wouldn’t blow in her face.

“I am surprised I don’t feel guilty. But we didn’t have an Orthodox wedding, so I suppose you could say that we were never married.”

“And the patriarch did give us his blessing,” said Onassis, smiling.

She kissed him. A few minutes later she said, “Tina knows about us. She told me this afternoon that you would play with me and then discard me for someone new.”

Onassis laughed. “Tina is jealous because you are Maria Callas. Don’t take any notice.”

“I would have respected her more if she had scratched my eyes out.”

“They don’t teach that at Swiss finishing schools.”

He leaned over her and looked into her eyes. “Has your husband said anything?”

Maria shook her head.

“Only one more day. And then, we will find somewhere more comfortable.” He gestured at the lifeboat.

“You don’t find this comfortable?” Maria said indignantly. “You are lying on the twentieth century’s most important opera singer.”

“I was thinking of you, agapi mou.” He stroked her hair. “I want to be like Odysseus and build you a bed around an olive tree, as he did for Penelope.”

Maria closed her eyes in pleasure. “Where would you build it?”

“On one of the islands, maybe even Ithaka itself. Have you ever been there? It’s very beautiful. Maybe I will buy it and we can eat spanakopita every night.”

“Can I have a piano on the island?”

“Only if you promise to sing Greek songs.”

“I shall learn some specially for you.”

“I shall expect perfection.”

“And you will have it.”

X

The Christina reached Monte Carlo in the small hours. Maria and Tita left the boat at dawn. Maria decided to skip the goodbyes. But she left a note for Celia along with eyeliner, lipsticks, and powder. The note read: “Never forget how beautiful you are, with love from Maria Callas.”

When the fifteen pieces of luggage had been loaded and they were in the back seat of the car that was taking them to Nice airport, Maria took a deep breath and told Tita that their marriage was over.

“When we get to Milan, you can go to the villa and I will stay in town.”

Tita began to cry, big hiccupping sobs.

“And I no longer want you to manage me. I will make my own arrangements from now on.”

Tita’s tears stopped abruptly. “I am your husband, Maria. You can’t just toss me aside.”

Maria looked at Tita’s pasty face and his trembling lip. “But I don’t want to live with you anymore.”

Tita tried to take her hand, but she wrenched it away.

“We should never have gone on that cruise. That … man has turned your head. But you should remember who made you, Maria. Do you really think that you would have any of this”—he gestured at the pile of monogrammed luggage—“if I hadn’t supported you?”

Maria looked at him coldly. “Without me, you would still be making bricks and living with your mother.”

The car pulled up outside the airport, and Maria could see that the photographers were waiting. She checked her reflection in the mirror of her compact and then she turned to Meneghini.

“It would be better if I went out alone. It will give you time to compose yourself.”

Maria got out of the car and smiled politely at the waiting press.

“Madame Callas!”

“Maria!”

“Is it true that Mr. Onassis is going to build an opera house in Monte Carlo for you?”

She turned to the reporter. “I have no idea.”

“Are you going to give up singing for a career in movies?”

“Did you sing ‘God Save the Queen’ for Sir Winston?”

“Are the rumors about you and Sir Winston true?”

Maria laughed in relief. “If the rumor is that I was lucky enough to spend time in the company of the man who saved my country from civil war, then yes.”

“So Churchill isn’t going to leave his wife?”

Maria shrugged. “He says that marrying the right woman was the best decision he ever made, so I think that is highly unlikely.”

A voice came from the back of the press pack. “Do you think that you married the right man, Maria?”

Maria’s smile vanished. “That’s enough questions for now, gentlemen. I have a plane to catch.”

On the airplane steps, as she turned to wave to the photographers, she knew that she should have answered the last question with something anodyne like, “Of course.” But for all her years on the stage, she could not summon the ability to say it with any kind of conviction. She knew that the gossip mill would start to churn but she could no longer say in public that she had married the right man.

---

Bruna was waiting on the steps outside the Milan apartment. When she saw the car drive up, she opened her arms, and Maria fell into them. There was no need for words.

Later when Maria was sitting in front of her dressing table, she declared to Bruna, “Signor Meneghini and I are separating.”

Bruna said nothing; she had guessed as much.

The telephone rang, and Bruna went to answer it, but Maria was there first. When she heard the voice on the other end of the phone, she began to talk in rapid Greek. Bruna looked at the way that Maria was curling a lock of hair around her finger and smiled. She had never seen her mistress look so soft or so happy. The phone call lasted for at least fifteen minutes and when Maria eventually put the phone down, her eyes were shining.

“Pack a small bag, Bruna, I am going back to Monaco for a few days. No public engagements, just private dinners. And make sure you put in something black and my pearls.”

Bruna selected what she considered the most flattering of her mistress’s extensive collection of peignoirs, feeling the satisfaction of knowing that for once these garments designed for seduction would be put to use. Signor Meneghini had only himself to blame for not giving his wife the kind of attention that she deserved. Bruna had not forgiven Meneghini for trying to persuade her the Christmas before that Madame had made a “mistake” in giving her a bonus of a hundred thousand lire.

“You know how she is, Bruna. I believe that she put the nought in the wrong place. She only meant to give you ten thousand lire, which is a perfectly generous gift.”

He had put his hand out for the money. Bruna said that she had cashed the check, but would happily return the money to Madame if she asked her. Tita had lowered his hand. Bruna had never mentioned the incident to Maria.

She picked up a cocktail frock in matte black jersey and packed it together with the pearls and a pair of evening shoes with a low heel discreet enough not to exaggerate Onassis’s lack of height.

The maid put the suitcase in the hall and went to run the bath that she knew that her mistress would remember that she wanted any minute now.

“Bruna, I think I will have a bath now, before I go to the airfield.”

---

Onassis flew to Milan in his Piaggio to fetch her. Maria hated small planes, but with Ari she felt no fear. If the plane crashed at least they would die together.

“Thank you for coming to get me. I don’t think I could have done it on my own.”

“When you meet the love of your life, every minute matters, agapi mou.”

He held her hand as they took off, and then he told her in Greek that he had bought the biggest, most comfortable bed in France and put it in the suite at the Hôtel de Paris.

“And I don’t intend to leave it for two days.”

Maria felt herself trembling. “And what happens after two days?”

Ari’s eyes went opaque for a moment. “The Christina is sailing to Venice.”

Maria said nothing. She hated the thought of Ari being with Tina, but what mattered now was that he was here with her.

The bed was as magnificent as Ari had promised, and when they had finished enjoying its splendors, Maria fell asleep as she had as a child, instantly.

For breakfast there was caviar and silky scrambled eggs, and for lunch there were emeralds and rubies from Cartier.

Maria shivered as Onassis fastened the emerald necklace around her neck.

He led her over to the mirror; and as she looked at herself, he took away the towel she had been covering herself with so that she was naked.

“That’s better,” he said, fastening the emerald cuffs around her wrists.

Maria turned her head away, but he forced her to look at herself. The emerald pendant lay exactly below the dip in her collar bone. When she said this, Onassis grinned. “I leave nothing to chance, Maria. Please don’t make me throw this one into the sea.”

Maria turned around to face him. “You can’t give these to me, Ari. It’s too much.”

“Who said anything about a gift? You get paid for singing, don’t you?”

Maria nodded.

“So why shouldn’t you get a few emeralds for fucking?” Maria glared at him. Ari laughed. “What’s the matter? Would you rather have the rubies instead?”

Maria tore a sheet from the bed and furiously wrapped it around herself. “I get paid for doing my job. This”—she pointed to the bed—“is what I do for pleasure.”

Onassis put up his hands in surrender. “Then wear the emeralds to make me happy, Maria. What’s the point of having all this money if I can’t spend it unwisely?”

Maria relented. “Will it really make you happy if I cover myself in emeralds?”

He nodded. “And even happier if that is all you are covered in.”

Maria slowly let the sheet drop, and he pulled her onto the bed.

She was still wearing the necklace when he left to go back to the Christina.

“Will you wait for me here in Monaco?”

Maria shook her head. “I need to go back to Milan. Back to work. I am due to record La gioconda.”

“The cruise won’t take more than a week.”

“Take as long as you like. I will be quite happy with my music.”

“I could get a piano moved in here.”

“And advertise to the whole world that you are sharing a suite with Maria Callas?”

Onassis pointed to where the Christina was anchored.

“If you stand on the balcony this evening, I will be able to see you from the boat.”

Maria laughed. “Well, I won’t be able to see you, unless I wear the glasses that you don’t like.”

He pulled her to him. “I want you to be there, Maria, where I can see you.”

He paused and then said in a voice unlike his usual confident rumble, “My mother died one day when I was at school. My grandmother said goodbye to me on the morning of the day the Turks came to Smyrna and I never saw her again. I don’t want you to disappear like that, not now that I have found you.”

Maria stroked his hair as if he were a child and kissed his eyelids. “I won’t disappear.”

“How do I know that?”

“I told Tita that our marriage was over.”

Ari looked at her in surprise. “Already?”

“I couldn’t pretend anymore.”

Ari looked wary. “How did he take it?”

“He is very upset, but he only has himself to blame. He has never cared for me really, only for my career. We never had this.” Maria pressed herself against Ari.

“Then he is a fool, and deserves to lose you. Fancy being married to a woman like you and not spending every moment in bed.”

He kissed the hollow between her collarbones. Maria arched her body toward him, but then they heard the unmistakable sound of the Christina’s siren. Reluctantly, Onassis pulled away from her.

“I must go. The Rainiers are coming for dinner and even though they are only Hollywood royalty, they get annoyed if they aren’t the last to arrive.”

He straightened the collar of his shirt in the mirror on the dressing table, and kissed Maria goodbye.

“Leave your light on at least, so that I can see you moving around.”

---

After he’d gone, Maria telephoned Bruna and told her that she would be coming back tomorrow. When Maria asked her if she had seen Tita, the maid answered in a voice that sounded strained.

“Yes, madame.”

“Is he there now?”

“Yes, madame.”

“Don’t tell him anything.”

“Of course not.”

“And I don’t want him there when I get back.”

“I understand, madame.”

Maria felt the heaviness of Tita’s resentment pressing on her even at this distance, but she would not let it spoil her mood. She put on the black lace peignoir and ordered room service, with a large order of French fries alongside her steak tartare, and then after one last look at the smudge of glittering lights in the harbor that she had worked out must be the Christina, she got back into the bed that had seen so much use that day and fell into a deep sleep.