PARIS, APRIL 1959
After one last check in the mirror to make sure that her makeup was perfect—this was Paris, after all—Maria picked up Toy and stood at the top of the airplane steps. Her suit was, in a compliment to the city in which she was making her debut, by Dior. The nipped-in waist of the jacket and the slimness of the hobble skirt made it difficult to walk down the steps or indeed to breathe, but she had the consolation of knowing that the line was perfect. She raised a white-gloved hand to wave in the way that she had seen the queen do and smiled without showing her teeth.
As soon as her feet touched the ground, the questions began.
“How does it feel to be making your debut in Paris, Madame Callas?”
Maria swiveled to face the reporter and, with her most gracious smile, she said in her excellent French, “It is a great honor to be here. I shouldn’t have waited so long.”
“Is your suit from Dior, madame?”
“But of course! When in Rome, or rather Paris…”
The French press laughed, and there was another round of flashbulbs exploding. Maria put her hand on her waist and gave them the poses of a catwalk model.
She had nearly made it to the safety of the airport building when an American voice came out of the crowd: “How confident are you that you will actually sing, Madame Callas?”
She knew that the best thing was to let it go, to walk into the terminal, and she was almost there when the American spoke again. “Are you going to disappoint the Parisians like you did the Romans?”
Keep walking, she told herself, but as if pulled by an invisible string she turned her head and glared at the American journalist. “The only thing that would disappoint the Parisians would be if I did them the discourtesy of singing badly.”
“But what do you say to the audiences who have paid for tickets to see Callas and then you cancel?”
“That I am a real nightingale, not a mechanical one.”
Meneghini had caught up with her and, seeing the expression in his wife’s eyes, he took her by the elbow and ushered her into the terminal, giving her no chance to reply to any more questions.
II
“Ve, ve, ve, ve.” Maria pushed the air through her teeth as she warmed up her voice. As she breathed deep into her stomach and pushed her voice further and further up the scale, she felt her muscles relaxing and the notes becoming longer and smoother. She imagined each phrase as a line of ink she was drawing on the page in front of her that needed to start and end without a mark. She had once talked to a ballet teacher about how she got her pupils ready to dance for the day.
“I tell them to imagine that their muscles are made of toffee: when it is cold, you can snap it in two, but when you warm it up, it stretches, becomes pliable, and is impossible to break.”
The same was true for the muscles that supported Maria’s voice: they had to be warm and supple so that the notes would flow like water. The vocal cords themselves, tiny folds of skin the size of a thumbnail, had to be well lubricated otherwise they could not blossom. Careful warm-ups and constant practice were the only ways to keep everything in working order, but no amount of diligence could defend against the rogue virus or the weariness of muscles that had been worked too hard for too long. Every time she pulled the air up from her belly to sing, Maria wondered how many coins were left down there. Just as women were born with all the eggs they would ever have to conceive a child, singers were born with a reservoir of performances, and at the bottom of the pool those performances would lose their resonance and vigor.
When Maria thought now of the miraculous month in Venice right at the beginning of her career where she had sung Wagner and Bellini in the same week, she shuddered at that vainglorious waste of energy.
The soprano who had been engaged for I puritani had been taken sick and Maestro Serafin’s wife had heard Maria singing an aria from Norma and suggested to her husband that the singer who had been engaged to sing Brünnhilde in Wagner’s La Valkyrie could sing Elvira in I puritani. The maestro had thought his wife’s suggestion was absurd—it was like asking a cart horse to win the Derby—but his wife had insisted. Maria was summoned to his office, sight-read the part perfectly, and the conductor had to admit his wife was right.
Maria had been thrilled when Serafin had offered her the part. It had been hard to learn a whole new score while performing Brünnhilde but she had blossomed under Serafin’s confidence in her ability and the almost magical way in which they communicated musically. Here was a world-famous conductor who believed in her and was helping her to become everything she had ever dreamed of.
She had trusted him totally. He had been an ideal musical father, supportive and admiring and able to bring out her talent. Whenever she had asked him about some nuance of a role, he had looked up at her—she was about three inches taller—and, narrowing his eyes, had said, “When one wants to find a gesture, when you want to find how to act onstage, all you have to do is listen to the music.” Serafin had taught her to submerge herself in a score.
But—and this was hard to admit—Serafin, her maestro, had not given a thought to what he was doing to her voice.
He had never warned her about the consequences of singing so much so young. He had encouraged her to sing everything because she could, but he had never wondered whether she should. She realized now that the genial white-haired old man, who had studied under Toscanini, had been thinking not of her but of himself. Discovering la Divina had given him something that he could set against the critics who said he was but an echo of his teacher. She was his miracle. And as he encouraged Maria to sing Lucia, Amina from La sonnambula, Norma, all the great bel canto parts in her twenties, he had never once hinted to her that there was a price to be paid for her precocity.
The tragedy was that she was a much greater performer now than she had been ten years ago. If only Serafin, or Tita, had told her to wait a few years until her mind had caught up with her body. But all they had cared about was the miracle of Callas. The only person who had tried to warn her was Elvira; and how could Maria be expected to remember the parable of the golden coins when Maestro Serafin, a god of the opera pantheon, was urging her to sing every role in the repertoire.
“Zh, zh, she.” The voice was warm now and she was ready to sing. Her debut in Paris was a gala in aid of the Légion d’honneur, at the opera house, with a dinner afterward in the foyer. The president of France would be in the audience, and Elsa assured her that le tout Paris would be there: “There will be so many diamonds you won’t need stage lights.”
In the first act Maria had decided to sing some of her favorite arias; in the second part she would perform the whole of act two of Tosca with the baritone Tito Gobbi singing Scarpia, that was without question the most dramatic scene in her repertoire.
She was working her way through the mad scene in Lucia, stopping every now and then to practice the trills that are the vocal manifestation of Lucia’s madness, when Meneghini came in. He leaned against the doorjamb and listened to her sing for a moment, and then he walked over and put his hand on her shoulder.
“You have never sounded better. There is really nothing to worry about.”
Maria looked up at him, annoyed. “After what happened in Rome, of course there is.”
Meneghini sighed. “In Rome you had taken some risks the night before, but here of course that will not happen.”
Maria slammed the piano lid down. “You sound like a journalist, trying to blame me for something that you know perfectly well was not my fault. I had bronchitis, which is not uncommon in the middle of winter.”
Tita stood a step back. “I was thinking that perhaps you shouldn’t sing Lucia in the first half.”
“Why?” Maria’s voice was low and menacing.
“Because it is one of the most difficult parts in your repertoire. Why not something from Carmen. Think what a sensation if you sang the Habanera. No one has heard you sing that, and I know how well you can do it.”
Maria’s eyes began to glitter. “Are you saying that I am not good enough to sing Lucia?”
Meneghini shook his head vehemently. “Of course not! But as this is a concert where you can sing anything you want, I thought perhaps you could show off a different part of your repertoire.”
“Carmen is a mezzo part.”
“Which makes it all the more remarkable that you can sing it so well.”
Maria shook her head. “No, no, no. To sing Carmen would be an admission of defeat. I must sing Lucia to prove that I am still Callas.”
Meneghini took a tentative step toward her. “You will always be Callas.”
Maria shook her head sadly, her long slender hand at the base of her neck. “No, this is Callas”—she clutched her throat—“without it I am only Maria.”
Tita did not react to this; he had heard this statement or something like it many times before.
Bruna came in carrying a bouquet that was almost as big as she was. Maria looked at her in surprise. “Another one?”
There were two equally large arrangements at the other end of the room.
“A secret admirer?” Meneghini asked.
“They have been coming all day. Oh, but this one has a note.”
She opened the tiny envelope, and read the Greek script on the card, which said, “From the other Greek.”
“Onassis.”
Meneghini pursed his lips in disapproval. “Do think about Carmen. It is just a gala and now that you have so”—he winced—“generously waived your fee, why take the risk with Lucia? After all”—he looked pointedly at the flowers—“we are not millionaires.”
Maria stopped smelling the roses and turned to her husband with something like a snarl. “I don’t sing for the money, Tita.”
III
Maria had refused to attend all the little dinners, amusing cocktail parties, and spontaneous picnics in the Bois that Elsa had tried to tempt her with. Lunch at the Ritz was as far as she was prepared to go.
Walking into the dining room there, she sensed the wave of recognition that rippled around her. She pulled her chin a little higher and thanked God for Dior. There was no scrutiny more terrifying in civilian life than walking through a room full of Parisians.
La Maxwell, as the Parisian press called her, was sitting on a rose-colored banquette with a coupe of champagne in one hand and a cigarette holder in the other.
She made a great show of extinguishing the cigarette when she caught sight of Maria. “We can’t take any risks with that precious throat of yours!”
She summoned the waiter. “Bring another coupe for Madame Callas.”
But Maria shook her head firmly. “No thank you. Don’t you remember what happened the last time we had a drink together in public, Elsa?”
Elsa waved a beringed paw dismissively. “Oh phooey. You are too sensitive. You are the only singer I know who complains about being on the front page.”
She leaned forward. “Do you know that tickets for your gala are going for ten thousand dollars on the black market?”
“Vultures! They just want to feast on my remains.”
Elsa knocked back her champagne, and the waiter immediately refilled her glass.
“That is nonsense, Madame C., and you know it. People are paying ridiculous amounts of money because they want to hear the greatest singer in the world.”
Maria picked up a piece of melba toast and broke it in two with an audible snap. “I think the Romans would disagree.”
“So you lost your voice one night—that doesn’t mean you have lost your talent.”
Maria narrowed her eyes. “I thought I had to make a choice between my art and my hedonistic lifestyle.”
Elsa laughed. “Who would say such a thing?”
“You did. To a reporter in Rome.”
A gulp of champagne. “Then I was misquoted. I don’t think I even know what ‘hedonistic’ means.”
Maria was silent.
“Darling Maria, you know that I think you are a miracle, and I have no doubt at all that tomorrow will be a triumph.”
“Every performance is a battle that I have to win. You saw what happens when I lose.”
“Tomorrow night will be a famous victory, I promise you. Even Onassis is coming.”
“I thought he didn’t like opera.”
Elsa laughed throatily. “He doesn’t. But he likes you.”
Maria took a sip of water. Elsa rattled on. “I can’t tell you how much he wants you to come on his yacht. It is beyond glamorous, you know. It even has its own operating theater in case of emergency.”
“That doesn’t sound very glamorous.”
“The swimming pool has mosaics copied from the palace at Knossos.”
“I prefer to swim in the sea.”
Elsa pouted. “Mary, Mary, quite contrary. Most people would jump at the chance to go.”
Maria looked at her.
Elsa waved a hand. “Okay, you are not most people. But I really think you would enjoy it.”
Maria nibbled at the melba toast. “Why do you care whether I go or not? Are you on commission?”
Elsa didn’t blink. “Aristotle has been very generous to me, and so naturally I do what I can to make him happy.”
“So, how much do I have to give you to make me happy?”
Elsa ignored the taunt and patted Maria’s hand. “Anything I do for you, I do out of love.”
“But you do expect something in return,” Maria said.
Elsa blew her a kiss. “All I want is to be in your slipstream, darling. At my age one has seen too many imitations, but you, Maria Callas, are the real thing.”
IV
The gown was a dark red silk satin, a strapless sheath that revealed her beautiful neck and shoulders, and there was a matching stole that she would use for dramatic effect when she sang the aria from Trovatore. It was a bit like a striptease, thought Maria, the play with the stole revealing and hiding her shoulders and chest. But, in fact, it was easier to sing when one had something to cling to.
There was a knock at the door and Bruna was there with a man carrying a large briefcase.
“Monsieur Verdoux from Cartier, madame.”
Maria extended her hand and Verdoux kissed it reverently.
He put his briefcase down on the table and opened it with a tiny gold key.
“As you can see, these are yellow diamonds, very special, very rare.”
He took the necklace out of its red velvet bed and Maria gasped as the light hit the stones, immediately filling the ceiling with stars.
“Allow me, madame.”
Verdoux fastened the necklace around her neck with deft fingers.
“And now the earrings.”
Maria looked at herself in the mirror. The diamonds were extraordinary, creating a halo of brilliance around her face. She turned her head this way and that, observing the light that played on her skin.
“There is only one necklace like it in the world,” said Monsieur Verdoux. “And it will be Cartier’s pleasure to lend it to you for the evening.”
Maria nodded. “I am very grateful. The audience tonight won’t be fooled by paste.”
Verdoux nodded. “Indeed. The Duchess of Windsor and Princess Grace are among our clients.”
Maria sighed. “But they can afford to buy, while I can only borrow.”
Verdoux made the shrug of a man who makes his living from the fact that there is no justice in this world.
“Cartier is delighted you will be wearing these pieces tonight, and I personally am thrilled because it means that I will be able to hear you sing, which is my dearest wish.”
Maria smiled. “I am glad. I hope they have given you a good seat.”
“Under the terms of the insurance, I am not allowed to be more than twenty meters away from the diamonds, so I must stand in the wings. But I consider that a great honor.”
“Then you will see the effort that goes into a performance, Monsieur Verdoux.”
The roads leading to the Paris Opera were clogged with limousines as the guests arrived at the gala. News crews were set up around the red carpet, and there was the usual throng of press. Some of the more enterprising journalists had wandered away from the stream of celebrities like Sophia Loren, Charlie Chaplin, and Marlene Dietrich, to interview the people standing in the line for the cheaper seats, a line that stretched from the opera house nearly to the river.
“How long have you been queuing for?” a reporter asked a thin man wearing a tightly belted raincoat and clutching a bunch of beautiful pink roses.
“Oh, for a day and a night. I don’t remember. I would have queued for a year if it meant that I would be able to see Maria Callas.”
“Are you worried that she might not actually sing? She has a reputation for canceling performances at the last minute.”
The fan shrugged. “Whatever happens there will be drama. It is Callas, after all.”
On the red carpet there was a little frisson as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor arrived at the same time as the president of France, René Coty, and his wife, Germaine. The question of who had precedence, a former king or the current president, was enough to cause a small diplomatic incident, but fortunately the duke was in one of his better moods and graciously held back so that President Coty could walk ahead of him. Those of the audience who understood the significance of such things felt that this was a good omen for the night ahead.
Maria had told Elsa at lunch that she wanted no visitors in her dressing room before the performance, so when the knock came just after the first call for overture and beginners, she frowned. It would be typical of Elsa to ignore her command, but when Bruna opened the door, it was not the stubby form of the gossip columnist but a man holding a bouquet of roses and carnations that filled the doorway.
Monsieur Verdoux, who was standing in the corridor outside Callas’s dressing room, stepped forward to take the flowers from the man and brought them in himself.
“You can’t be too careful, madame.”
Maria looked at the flowers. She could see a card nestling at the top. She knew without reading it whom the flowers were from. The card read in Greek, “I have entered your kingdom.” She smiled.
Meneghini looked up from the accounts he was checking. “Whom are they from?”
Maria said nothing.
“Onassis again? What a show-off. Still, I heard he bought a huge block of tickets for tonight, so I suppose we should be grateful to him, or rather the Légion d’honneur should be grateful.”
Meneghini was still annoyed over Maria’s decision to waive her fee. But she had been quite firm. It was the right gesture to make, and she knew that it would be a fig leaf if anything happened that meant she could not complete the performance. After the Rome debacle she wanted to protect herself at all costs. She needed to distract Tita, though; otherwise she would feel his mood as she went onstage.
“Go and have a look at the audience for me, Tita.”
Tita obeyed and Maria relaxed. She picked up her brush and carefully outlined her eyes in black, flicking the line up in the outer corners with an italic stroke. Close up, her skin was not perfect, and her features were all a little too big for prettiness. But at a distance this was an advantage, as it meant that audiences could catch every facial expression. It was part of the reason for her success. Unlike so many of her contemporaries who would “park and bark,” Maria was so completely within the music that every nuance of its emotion could be read on her face. But this could also be her undoing; she thought of the famous photograph that been taken when she had been served with a writ just as she came offstage after singing Butterfly at the Chicago opera house. It had caught her snarling in rage at the process server in his ten-gallon hat. That photograph had been one of the things that had cemented her reputation as a diva, and it was constantly being reproduced when articles about her were published. Maria did not believe in regrets, but she wished passionately that the camera had not been there at that moment.
She pulled herself into the present and painted her mouth a deep red to match the shade of her dress. Bruna brought over the Cartier boxes, and she fastened the necklace around Maria’s neck, and helped her put in the dangling earrings. Once Maria was ready, she put on her glasses so that she could inspect the general effect. It was pleasing. She reached out to touch the little painting of the Madonna that came with her to every dressing room, and she prayed that tonight she would be in control of her voice.
Making her way through the labyrinthine corridors of the opera to the wings, she was conscious of the discreet patter of Verdoux’s footsteps behind her. At least, she thought sourly, Verdoux’s interest was transparent: he was there to protect the jewels.
Tita was waiting in the wings, where he was talking with the head of the Légion d’honneur, who was going to introduce the performance. He turned to her, smiling. “Such an audience, Maria. They are so excited!”
As Maria listened to the president of the Légion d’honneur paying homage, she felt that electric charge that had eluded her in Rome. As she stepped on the stage to rapturous applause, she sensed the stars aligning; and as she opened her mouth to sing the opening bars of “Casta diva,” her voice poured out like molten gold.
In the wings, Monsieur Verdoux watched, enchanted. He had all the records, but nothing could compare with the magic of seeing Callas perform. In an ideal world, a woman like that should always be wearing millions of dollars’ worth of yellow diamonds—she deserved them, unlike the spoiled rich women who would actually own them.
He did not desire Callas, he worshipped her. She was a goddess who demanded reverence. He was standing next to the husband who was shorter and less imposing than Verdoux had imagined. But he too was a worshipper. Verdoux could see him mouthing the words of the aria, completely under the spell that his wife was weaving.
While the audience applauded, Verdoux leaned toward Meneghini and said, “My job is a strange one, but tonight it is a pleasure not to let Madame Callas out of my sight. What a lucky man you are to be married to a woman like that.”
Meneghini turned to him. “The greatest pleasure in my life is to hear her sing.”
Maria came offstage for a moment to drink a glass of water and to mop her brow. She smiled at Verdoux. “Can you see all right?”
“I have never heard such perfection, Madame Callas.”
Maria winked at her husband. “Do you hear that, Tita? Perhaps he can persuade Monsieur Cartier to give us a discount on the necklace.”
And she was gone.
The two men looked at each other a little awkwardly. Meneghini decided to treat his wife’s remark as a joke. “She spends too much time going to parties with millionaires. I don’t think she realizes how much these things cost.”
Verdoux nodded. “This piece is not the sort of jewel a man buys for his wife. It is designed for a man to win over a certain kind of woman, if you understand my meaning.”
Meneghini laughed. “Even if I had the money, it wouldn’t persuade Maria to do anything.”
He gestured toward the stage. Verdoux looked at the profile of the diva, her head thrown back on the long neck, her arms outstretched, her beautiful hands with the tapering fingers reaching out to her audience. He knew that he would keep that image in his head forever.
In the second half when Maria sang Tosca’s famous second act aria “Vissi d’arte” (“I lived for art, I lived for love”), an aria sung by a diva playing a diva, the audience was swooning with delight. She heard the collective gasp as she stabbed Scarpia, and the applause at the end seemed to go on forever. The spectators were enchanted when she picked up a pink rose that had been thrown onto the stage and kissed it. This was not the arrogant diva they had read so much about. All they saw today was perfection. Even the seasoned operagoers felt that they were hearing each aria for the first time; and the philistines, who were at the opera that night only because it was the place to be, found themselves stirred by emotions they hadn’t felt for years, if ever. And, as this was a Parisian audience, they admired the style of la Callas, the impeccable cut of her frock, and the artful way she held her wrap around her shoulders to reveal every so often a glimpse of shoulder or swoop of neck. Even in Paris the opera singers were not always chic—they were there to please the ear not the eye, but la Callas seemed effortlessly to do both.
In his box Onassis looked at the figure on the stage avidly. He borrowed Tina’s tiny mother-of-pearl opera glasses to see her face more clearly and prove his feeling that she was in fact singing to him alone.
As he leaned forward, his elbows on the red plush rim of the balustrade, Tina rolled her eyes at Reinaldo, who was sitting in the adjacent box. He winked at her and mouthed the word “later.”
Up in the gods, the young man who had thrown the pink rose was still reverberating from the moment when she had picked up his offering and kissed it. He was prepared to swear that she had been looking at him when she brought the rose to her lips.
After the twenty-first curtain call, the stage manager brought down the safety curtain. Maria walked back to her dressing room, still floating on the adoration of the audience, hardly noticing Verdoux walking exactly two meters behind her.
For the dinner that followed the performance, Maria changed into a peau de soie gown the color of ivory. This too was strapless to better display the necklace with its central stone that was about the size of a newborn’s fist. Maria checked her reflection, and decided to paint her lips a slightly more subdued shade of red. What worked from the orchestra seats could be alarming up close.
Bruna handed her the black satin gloves that came up over her elbows. When Maria was ready, she took Meneghini’s arm and together they walked through the drab backstage corridors into the glittering splendor of the opera foyer, with its graceful marble staircase. It deserved its reputation as the most glamorous opera house in Europe, Maria thought, as she stood at the top of the stairs looking down on the crème de la crème of Parisian society gathered below. She put on her glasses to have a better look at the crowd, but the glitter of the crystal chandeliers made the floor below a dappled sea of light.
She gave the glasses to Meneghini and began her descent to greet her public. By the time she had reached the third step, the applause started and swelled until she got to ground level, where she was greeted by the president of France, who kissed her hand with great enthusiasm.
“May I congratulate you on behalf of the French Republic.”
“It is an honor to sing for such a noble cause,” said Maria.
The president moved on, but Maria was hemmed in by famous faces, wanting to congratulate her. She had sung at many such events, but never had there been such a press of celebrity. Here was Chaplin kissing her hand and saying that she had made him cry. Maria retorted that it was only fitting as he had made her laugh so many times. A feline-looking blonde called Brigitte Bardot purred her appreciation, as did her escort, a film director who said that he wanted to make a film with Callas at its center. Then Elsa appeared, determined, it seemed, to immerse her in a claque of French duchesses who expressed their admiration with aristocratic reserve. At one point Maria thought she saw Onassis hovering behind the ancient aristocrats, but when she looked back, he had gone.
Then she heard a familiar voice. “La Divina!”
Franco looked elegant in white tie, with diamond studs the only nod to his usual sartorial extravagance. He flicked his eyes up and down her outfit. “You look wonderful, carissima. Impeccable, as the French say.”
“I learned from the best.” Maria smiled.
Zeffirelli had been part of her transformation from a great singer who weighed two hundred and twenty pounds to her current incarnation as a great singer who was as photogenic as she was talented.
“And how did I sound?”
“Better than ever.”
Franco clasped her hands in both of his own. “Tell me, darling, who is the adorable young man on the staircase who is watching you like a hawk. He doesn’t look like a guest.”
“Oh, you must mean the man from Cartier who is here to keep an eye on these.” She pointed to the necklace.
Franco gave her a sideways smile. “Would you like me to distract him for you while you run off with the diamonds?”
“I think Monsieur Verdoux takes his job too seriously to be distracted, even by you, Franco. And I don’t think I am really suited to a life of crime.”
Franco smiled. “True. You don’t exactly fade into the background. But, darling, I should leave you to talk to the rich and famous. I don’t think I have ever seen so many stars. Not bad for a girl from the Bronx.”
Maria glared at him in mock horror. “I was born in Manhattan, Franco. There is a big difference.”
At the edge of the crowd, Tina was watching her husband’s maneuvers to get closer to Maria. Reinaldo caught the direction of her gaze. “I didn’t realize your husband was so interested in opera.”
Tina laughed. “Ari is like a magpie. He collects new and shiny things. And I suppose that for now Maria Callas is the shiniest. And besides, I collect too.” She gave Reinaldo a seductive smile.
Together they watched Onassis circling the crowd. He ended up talking to an oddly intense-looking young man on the stairs.
Whatever Onassis said to him surprised the man very much. He looked at the Greek millionaire as if he could hardly believe his ears, but Onassis nodded vehemently; and after a minute’s hesitation, and a longing look at the star of the evening, the intense-looking man walked down the stairs and disappeared into the crowd.
Tina wondered for a moment what Ari was up to, but then Reinaldo put his hand on the small of her back, and she found herself thinking of other things.
Maria was thinking how glad she was that she was wearing gloves, as another scion of the French nobility kissed her hand with lubricious gusto, when she heard a familiar voice in front of her.
“You look magnificent tonight in your kingdom.”
The assessing brown eyes were in front of her.
“I am glad you thought so, but a singer really wants to know how she sounds.”
“Well, as you know, I am not an expert, but my unprofessional opinion is that you were excellent.”
“Luckily for you, I was very good tonight.”
There was a pause as they looked at each other. Maria was the first to speak again. “I should really scold you. Three bouquets in a day … it’s too much.”
“But we just agreed that you were excellent.”
Maria was about to reply, when Onassis leaned forward and said in Greek, “Three hundred bouquets would not be enough for a woman like you.”
Maria inclined her head like a medieval pope. She was no stranger to fulsome compliments. But her poise was interrupted by the next remark.
“Which is why I have bought the necklace you are wearing. As a tribute.”
Maria’s hands went automatically to her throat.
Onassis looked straight into her eyes, and she could smell his cologne and the other scent it only just masked, and she was speechless. Before she had a chance to reply, to tell him that she could not possibly accept, her husband grasped her elbow, turning her away from Onassis.
“Cara, you should not keep royalty waiting.” He lifted his chin to indicate the Duke of Windsor, whose boyish face looked incongruous in the frame of his white tie.
Maria made a graceful diva curtsy. “Your Royal Highness.”
“That was a spectacular performance.”
“You are too kind, sir.”
Looking over Maria’s shoulder, the duke recognized Onassis.
“You really can perform miracles, Madame Callas, if Onassis has come to hear you sing. His wife is always complaining that he won’t take any interest in culture.”
Onassis looked serious. “I appreciate greatness, sir, wherever I find it.”
The bell that heralded the beginning of the dinner sounded, and the president came to lead Maria in.
Elsa, who had been hobnobbing with Rothschilds, suddenly popped up at the duke’s elbow. “What did you think of my dear friend Maria?”
The duke paused and then, as if dispensing a pearl of great wisdom, said, “I daresay Madame Callas and Mr. Onassis are the most famous Greeks in the world.”
Elsa nodded enthusiastically. “Without question, sir.”
But the duke hadn’t finished. “Apart from Plato and Aristotle, of course.” He looked at Elsa expectantly and was rewarded by suitable merriment.
“I must remember to say that to Onassis. I think he will find it most amusing, don’t you?”
Elsa couldn’t have agreed more.
Maria sat in front of her dressing table while Bruna brushed her hair. This was a regular part of her evening ritual.
Litza used to brush her hair when she was little, and it always made her feel cared for. Tita had brushed her hair in the early days of their marriage, but now it was Bruna’s job.
When the maid had finished brushing, she made to unfasten the diamond necklace that was still hanging around Maria’s neck, but Maria shook her head.
“But what about Monsieur Verdoux?” asked Bruna.
“His services are no longer required.”
Bruna understood at once, and smiled. “Good night then, madame.”
Maria was left alone with her glittering reflection. The necklace was breathtaking, a line of graduated yellow diamonds leading to the huge teardrop diamond that hung at the perfect point just above the top of her breasts. She knew that she should have taken the necklace off immediately and given it to Onassis, because now that she was alone with the diamonds, the thrill of ownership was possessing her. Didn’t she deserve to have jewels like this? In the back of her mind, floating as it always did, was her mother’s face.
She saw Tita behind her in the mirror, wearing a dressing gown and the hairnet that he was convinced stopped his few remaining strands of hair from falling out.
“What an evening, cara. Everything was perfect.”
“Almost perfect. I missed the top E-flat in ‘Sempre libera.’”
“Nobody noticed, tesoro. In fact, I don’t think I have ever heard you sing it better. And as for Lucia, it was miraculous.”
Maria smiled triumphantly. “Better than the Habanera?”
“Much better. Every item in the program was—” Tita broke off. He had just registered that Maria was still wearing the necklace.
“Where is Monsieur Verdoux? I hope you aren’t going to make him stand outside in the corridor all night.”
Maria shook her head.
Tita began to look anxious. “But, Maria, it must be worth a fortune.”
Maria turned round. “Don’t you think I deserve it?”
“Of course … but I wish that you had…”
Maria put him out of his misery. “Don’t worry, Tita. I didn’t buy it.”
The relief on her husband’s face was soon overtaken by another thought. “Onassis,” he said. It was not a question.
Maria nodded. “I didn’t want to make a scene at the gala, but of course I can’t keep it.” Her voice rose at the end as if it was a question rather than a statement.
Meneghini was silent. He did not care for Onassis, but on the other hand—he tried to calculate the value of the necklace. Onassis would want something in return, but he knew that Maria was not a woman who could be bought. She might act the part of a kept woman to perfection in La traviata, but Maria was not a cocotte. In fact, he thought, with a certain amount of satisfaction, Onassis had just made a very expensive mistake.
He stood behind Maria and looked at her in the mirror, lifting the weight of her hair so that he could see the necklace better. “Your neck is made for diamonds,” he said, and Maria reached for his hand and squeezed it.
“Thank you, Tita.”
Maria took off the necklace and placed it carefully in its red velvet lair.
She told herself that if Tita had objected, she would have sent the diamonds back. But if her husband did not object to the necklace, then surely there was nothing to worry about. For a man as rich as Onassis, such a gift was nothing. Probably a fraction of his daily income. But even as she lay in bed, reassuring herself that the necklace was pocket change to Onassis, the memory of his deep brown eyes hovered in front of her.
The next morning there was a letter on her breakfast tray. The perfect italic hand was unfamiliar, and she opened it to discover that it was from Tina Onassis, inviting her and Tita to come on the Christina for a three-week cruise in August.
I imagine that your schedule is booked up years in advance, but we would so love to have you. The other guests will be Sir Winston and Lady Churchill, and their daughter and granddaughter, plus Sir Winston’s private secretary and his wife. The Christina is very relaxed, and it will be a chance for you to rest and relax in complete privacy.
She put the letter down and took a sip of her black coffee. Onassis had told his wife to write the letter, she thought. But Tina would have refused if she suspected her husband of anything other than hospitality.
When Tita came in, she showed him the letter. To her surprise he smiled.
“You do have some free time in August; if we moved one of the recording dates it might be possible.”
Maria stretched her arms out above her head.
“Three weeks floating around the Mediterranean, swimming every day. I think it might be fun, and if we hate it, we can always leave early.”
Meneghini nodded. “Onassis thinks that you should make films, Maria, and he has offered to advise me.”
“When did he say that?”
“He phoned me this morning—he has lots of ideas, Maria. It could be a new career for you.”
“Do I need one?” asked Maria.
“Of course not, but it might be worth considering. There is a lot of money in movies.”
Maria wrote a formal letter of acceptance to Tina, saying that they would be delighted to accept her kind invitation. Her next call was to Madame Biki.
“I need clothes for a cruise on the Mediterranean. The hostess is very chic, so I want to look casual but elegant.”
She could hear the couturier taking a long drag on her cigarette on the other end of the line. “It will be a pleasure. Can I ask who your hosts are?” Maria told her.
“You’re right. Tina Onassis is very chic in a rather American way. But I am sure Alain and I can come up with something suitable.”
“I am going for three weeks, so I will need at least ten new outfits, with the usual.” The usual meant a collection of sketches that told Maria and Bruna exactly how to wear each outfit and what accessories to wear it with. Biki understood that Callas was putting on a performance and that she needed direction.
As soon she put the receiver down, it started to ring. It was Elsa.
“Are you feeling triumphant, darling? Le tout Paris is talking about last night. The Windsors want me to organize a dinner, the Rothschilds want to host their own gala, and Charlie Chaplin wants you to be in his next film. After all your worries, you are back on top again. Renata will be spitting tacks.”
“Renata and I are not in competition, Elsa,” Maria said primly.
“Because you think you are in a different league. Anyway, I couldn’t be more thrilled, even if you rushed off last night without saying goodbye.”
Maria sighed. “I was exhausted and I knew perfectly well that you would be calling me now.”
“Perhaps I should play harder to get.”
Maria didn’t reply.
“Has the Golden Greek asked you on his yacht yet?” Elsa laughed.
“The letter arrived this morning.”
There was a slight pause, which Maria understood to mean that Elsa had not received a charming handwritten note from Tina.
“And will you go?”
Maria caught the plaintive note in the other woman’s voice. “Why not? You made it sound so enticing, Elsa. How could I resist a yacht with its own operating theater.”