Jack 1939 (13 page)

Part Two

SPRING

TWENTY-THREE.
CLEMENCY

“JA-A-ACK,” ROSE
called in her grating Boston drawl. “You’ve
arrived
, then.
Darling.
”

She was leaning in the doorway of his hotel room in Rome, arms crossed protectively over her chest.

“Mother,” he said. “You look well. How was Egypt?”

“
Thrilling.
Nothing compared to Jerusalem, of course—the site of Our Lord’s Passion. You simply
must
get there one day.”

Never mind that it had been nine months since they’d met; Rose kept a safe distance. Not for her the joyous embrace, the kisses showered on her boy. When he’d been dying that one winter at Choate, possibly from leukemia but probably from the Mystery Disease, it was the headmaster’s wife who had played gin rummy and gramophone records by his hospital bed in New Haven; the headmaster’s wife who summoned a Catholic priest in the middle of the night. Mrs. St. John had written letter after letter to Rose, detailing Jack’s illness—how worried all his friends were and how he was remembered daily at morning prayers, even though he was Catholic and Choate emphatically was not.

Rose’s secretary replied to the letters on engraved stationery: Mrs. Kennedy was too busy with the younger children to leave Palm Beach. She was sure that with God’s help and the ministrations of the doctors, Jack would pull through.

Jack knew his deteriorating body was a reproach to Rose, a public suggestion she’d failed as a mother. Failure was a judgment from God, and judgment terrified her. She firmly ignored Jack’s disease and Rosie’s vacuity and Eunice’s nightmares and Bobby’s loneliness. As long as her children looked presentable and didn’t embarrass their parents in public, Rose had nothing more to ask. The same rule applied to her husband.

She surveyed Jack critically now. “You’re still too thin. You were supposed to
gain
weight this winter, Jack. Get
stronger
. Have you been eating your ice cream?”

“I have,” he said hurriedly. “I just had a rough crossing, and—well . . . it was hard to keep much down.” Sweet Jesus, he was glad his bruises had finally faded. She’d have suggested he borrow Kick’s face powder, probably, to disguise them.

“Your clothes fit, thank heaven,” she persisted. “Poole’s, I suppose?”

“I’m on a last-name basis with the staff.”

His joke didn’t work with his mother. His humor never did. “That won’t do,” she said swiftly. “It’s bad form to hobnob with the serving class. You know that. The British already despise us because we’re Catholics.” Not to mention American Irish.

Jack tried to change the subject. “I like what you’ve done with your hair,” he offered. “Very Wallis Simpson.”

“It’s the
Duchess of Windsor
, Jack,” she said impatiently. “And don’t
speak
of that dreadful woman again. She’s done more damage to Americans—a divorcée, forcing the King to abdicate! It’s all I can do to hold up my head when she’s mentioned.”

Although Rose held it up fast enough, Jack thought, when the Duchess came to her summer parties in Cannes.

“Dinner’s at eight,” Rose called over her shoulder as she left. “
Evening
dress for the dining room, of course.”

“And morning dress in the morning,” he muttered as she swung down the hall. Just for once he’d like to show up in his underwear and shock Rose silly.

He glanced at his watch. Time to get out while he still could.

* * *

THE HOTEL D’INGHILTERRA
sat in the Via Bocca di Leoni, a few blocks from the Piazza di Spagna. Jack had some idea of strolling along the Via dei Condotti in search of a quick drink, something to calm his rage at being treated like a schoolboy. As he approached the square he glanced up the Spanish Steps: the Swiss-run Hotel Hassler was at the top of them, and half the dignitaries who’d descended for the Pope’s coronation were staying there. The other half were in Jack’s hotel. The steps were a tourist magnet, a wide sweep of stone that twisted and turned up the hillside. It seemed to Jack as though half the city—regular Romans, intimate knots of lovers, the old and young—had found a seat there, sprawled in the kind of carefree abandon his mother deplored. He might as well sit down on the steps, too, and gaze out over Rome.

He picked his way through the crowd, listening to the lilting Italian voices. It was a chewable language; it rolled like wine on the tongue. After dinner, when he’d shaken off his parents, he’d grab Kick and come down here.

He reached the first landing, then the next. The climb was exhilarating after the long ride in the train from Paris, far preferable to sitting, so he kept going, his gaze fixed on the top of the Spanish Steps and the haze of green from the Villa Borghese beyond them.

Then he saw Diana.

She was leaving the Hotel Hassler. He knew that blunt sweep of black hair and porcelain chin beneath the upturned hat. Kick had taught him enough about clothes to recognize Chanel, and he guessed Diana’s had been acquired quite recently in the Place Vendôme. He stopped dead on the paving and stared, trying to convince himself that she was any other woman. A beautiful Italian, intent on a glass of prosecco at Antico Caffè Greco. But he failed; there was only one Diana.

He had looked for her everywhere two days ago on the streets of Paris while his father wasted an afternoon with Bill Bullitt. There were women enough to rivet Jack’s eye—blondes in stilettos and pencil skirts, girls with perfect complexions and slanting black eyeliner, red mouths begging to be kissed. He’d bought a champagne cocktail for a great pair of fishnet stockings in the Ritz Bar, but his French had always been lousy and the girl spoke not a word of English. Diana was not in the Ritz Bar. She was in Rome. He hadn’t expected that.

A black-shirted Fascist was standing with a gun not ten yards away, a self-appointed guard of public decency. Such thugs were everywhere in Mussolini’s capital, but Jack had seen their kind before. Besides, he carried a diplomatic passport.

He continued climbing, intending to intercept Diana, but halfway down the top section of the Spanish Steps she turned fluidly into the archway of a neighboring building, and vanished.

He took the risers two at a time, dodging tourists and loiterers lounging on the stone. There was a shout behind him. The Blackshirt with the gun. Apparently it was no longer permitted to run in public; that kind of haste suggested violence, fear, the vulnerabilities Fascisti tracked like bloodhounds. Jack ignored the shout and ducked into the passage Diana had taken. It was an ancient little alleyway of the kind that riddled Rome, called a
vicolo
, the buildings on either side leaning toward one another from age and inclination. He could just glimpse her hat ahead, descending another flight of stairs.

A clatter of feet behind him; the man with the gun. Jack spun around to face him. He could whip his passport from his pocket but the Blackshirt was just as likely to keep it as not, and then he’d be at a standstill; he was supposed to have left it at the hotel’s front desk, and Dad would be furious if he lost it. Jack let the guy pound up to him, a belligerent look on his face and a torrent of Italian on his lips. A short man, but solid, in his midthirties. A cut to the chin might knock him backward, but it wouldn’t deck him. Jack went for his stomach, a powerful Harvard right the Blackshirt never saw coming. He doubled over with a
whoof
, completely winded, and dropped to his knees. Shaking his fingers painfully, Jack took off.

The stairs at the far end of the alley curved left and ended in another narrow passage. He skittered past two people, craning for a glimpse of Diana—and saw her step into a taxi. He sprinted the last hundred yards and emerged onto the Via dei Condotti, hand raised and eyes searching for another cab.

* * *

SHE LED HIM SOUTH AND WEST
at the racketing pace of Rome, which suited Jack fine. He hung on to the edge of the open car window, his progress heralded by a snarl of horns and shouted curses, exhilaration flooding his veins, and urged the cabbie repeatedly in his lousy French not to lose her. They roared through the Piazza Navona and sailed by the Palazzo Farnese. The Tiber was very close, and St. Peter’s dome loomed across the river.

Diana’s car dove left into Via Giulia and pulled up before an ancient building—one of many—in the quiet street. The only entrance was through massive double doors, barred to the world, with a smaller door cut into them.

“Arrêtez,”
Jack said, and tossed the cabbie some lire. The clear note of a bell split the evening air.

Diana stood before the entrance, waiting. She looked remarkably composed, her gloved hands folded on the strap of her purse. It was she who’d rung the bell; it was still vibrating in its bracket. Jack hesitated, just looking at her. The Chanel was demure and in excellent taste but her long legs betrayed her—there was a dancer, a siren, an intoxicating power beneath that black and petal-pink sheath.

She was still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen and yes, the word was an insult when applied to Diana. Jack had grabbed
things
all his life; he used and discarded them as soon as he was bored. He wanted Diana now as he’d never wanted any woman before, but he knew the danger of boredom, and he feared the eventual discarding. She had Willi and sleek Denys and her house in Mayfair. She did not give a damn about him anyway.

The smaller door cut into the massive gates opened.

A nun stepped out, hand extended.

To Jack’s shock, Diana bowed her head like a supplicant.

The nun drew her inside. The door closed.

He left the cab and walked slowly toward the barred gates. A small bronze plaque was mounted on the wall, just below the bell, which still trembled from the pleasure of Diana’s touch.

Piccole Sorelle di Clemenza
, it read.

The Little Sisters of Clemency.

TWENTY-FOUR.
THE CLOISTER

IT WAS NEARLY AN HOUR
before Diana emerged from the convent, and Jack had burned through three cigarettes as he strolled the length of the Via Giulia, trying to look like an indolent tourist interested in ancient buildings. He was a good two hundred yards away when the small door in the gate creaked open, and the slim figure slipped through it.

She led him on foot to the Campo dei Fiori, a dusty little square given over to the flower sellers and a single café where nobody fashionable drank. When the waiter had brought her Campari and Diana had drawn her cigarette case from her handbag, Jack sauntered over. He grabbed a chair and straddled it backward, ever the casual American.

“Hello, gorgeous.”

She’d ignored his approaching steps as only Diana could, but at his words she glanced up and treated him to her thousand-mile stare. The same one she’d used on the Promenade Deck as the
Queen Mary
pulled out of New York. Then the penny dropped.

“Jack!”

“Mrs. Playfair.” He grinned and saluted. “Fancy meeting you in Rome. But I hear all roads lead to it.”

“You’re here for the Pope’s do, I suppose.”

“With family in tow. Mother, Father, and assorted brats whose names I can never keep straight. The Kennedys have nailed down an entire floor of the Hotel d’Inghilterra. How about you?”

“I’m at the Hassler.”

“I didn’t think you were Catholic.”

“Good Lord—I’m
not
. I’ve no intention of fighting the Vatican crowds tomorrow.” She took a sip of her drink, buying time. “I’m here to see an old friend. We were at school together, ages ago—only I had the stupidity to get married, while she entered a convent.”

Oh, Diana,
he thought,
you’re goddamn brilliant.
Admit the convent and supply a plausible reason for being there. Just in case he’d seen her in the Via Giulia.

“Now, what could you two ever have had in common?” he wondered. “A taste for priests?”

“For stealing cold pudding from the school larder in the dead of night,” she said. “We were both nearly given the boot more times than I like to count. But I daresay the Head needed our school fees. And some sort of piety must have rubbed off—witness Daisy’s pending sainthood. I drop over from time to time in the hope she’ll save my soul. If there’s anything left to save.”

She’d meant it as a joke. Yet Jack heard unintentional bitterness.

“Wind whistling over your grave, Diana?”

“Of course not.” She forced a smile. “It’s just that life is so
bloody
, isn’t it? Particularly now.”

“Talking to a guy you thought you ditched ten days ago?”

She smiled. “
Jack.
I meant all these . . . men in black shirts. Guns at every corner. The sheer ugliness of it all.”

“I thought you liked Fascists.”

She flipped open her gold case and chose a cigarette. He fished in his pocket for his lighter. It was the replaying of a familiar scene; only this time he knew her better. Her face was deliberately blank; she hadn’t liked his barb. He remembered Dobler saying something about Diana and fascism and
cover.
Was she a spy? For us—or them?

He rocked his chair forward, excitement surging in him. He wanted to take Diana’s helmet of hair in his hands and kiss her crimson mouth.

“Fascists dress so much better than Communists,” she offered indifferently.

“Except when they dress in black.”

She expelled a cloud of smoke over his shoulder. “I understand the American ambassador in London is rather keen on them as well.”

Jack went still. When he spoke he tried to match Diana’s tone, but there was an edge to it. “People have been lying about my father for most of his life. He’s used to it.”

“Are you?”

No.
“I happen to know the truth.”

“Which is?”

“That Dad hates war. If talking to the Nazis will buy us some time and some peace—then I guess he’s buying.”

“Yes, I rather imagine that’s how your typical American would see it,” she said thoughtfully. “Hitler as just another nuisance to be bought off. Is that why Mr. Kennedy lunched with Wohlthat in Paris?”

Jack frowned. “Who?”

“Helmuth Wohlthat. Göring’s private banker. I saw him with your father at Tour d’Argent two days ago.”

Göring’s private banker.
Jack’s mind turned like a cornered dog. “Dad lunched with Bullitt at the embassy.”

“Then he ate twice.”

A meeting with Göring’s banker?
One hundred and fifty million dollars . . . we know Göring proposed it and Hitler approved it. . . .

“I wonder what Wohlthat wanted, Jack. Stock tips?” Diana smiled lazily. “It’s unfortunate your father’s such a fool. Given how much of Neville Chamberlain’s ear he’s got. Between the two of them, they’ll
buy
our way right into Hitler’s hands.”

She was being consciously cold. Insulting, even. Because he’d seen her in the Via Giulia? Or because she couldn’t be bothered with a raw and boring kid?

He stood up and righted his chair.

“Sorry I bothered you, Mrs. Playfair. Give my regards to the Little Sisters of Clemency.”

Her cigarette was beautifully balanced in her gloved hand, her dark eyes fixed on his face. But at his final words her fingers trembled a little, and the ash fell into her Campari.

* * *

FOR JACK THE CORONATION BEGAN
at seven-thirty the next morning, with a convoy of cars flying American and papal flags. Seventy thousand people filled the vast St. Peter’s Basilica; Count Ciano, Mussolini’s son-in-law, had reserved places for Joe and Rose directly in front of the altar. Joe grabbed an extra eight seats for his kids. Pushy and ungracious. Typical of an
americano
.

Jack was bleary-eyed from a late night wandering the streets with Kick. He’d been in raging high spirits, despite the way Diana had treated him. After he’d had a few drinks with Kick at the Antico Caffè Greco, he was ready to breach the Hassler itself—push his way up to Diana’s room and thrust her lovely shoulders against the wall. Force her to tell him the truth. Explain her insinuations. Confess where her loyalties lay and what Dobler meant to her. Why she’d married that sleek Whitehall Denys.

“I think the Chianti went to your head,” Kick muttered as she steered him toward the d’Inghilterra. “It’s not as hard as you think, kid.”

“It’s swell. I’m grand! I’m Black Jack Ken.” He shook off Kick’s hand and lurched determinedly toward the Piazza di Spagna. He would hurtle up the Spanish Steps and dive off the top. Launch himself spectacularly over Roma. Diana would see from her hotel window and be astounded by his strength and vigor. Except that he tripped on an uneven stone and his feet went out from under him. He fell hard, spread-eagled on the steps.

“Jack!”

Kick grasped his shoulders and rolled him over. Her tousled curls hovered above his face; the globe of a streetlamp loomed beyond. A man loitered near it, barrel-chested in the light. Jack sat up so abruptly his forehead bumped Kick’s.

“Hey!” she snorted, her hands on his chest. “Slow down, cowboy. You’ve done enough damage tonight. I’m going to get you home.”

“Home’s a suitcase.” He struggled to his feet, swaying slightly. Tried to focus his swimming vision on the figure beneath the streetlamp. But the Spider—
was
it the Spider?—was gone.

“I’m drunk as a skunk.” He said each word distinctly, to prove he could.

“Nah. You had skunks beat a couple of hours ago.”

“It’s because I’m in love with her.” He swooned toward Kick. “And she thinks I’m a
bug
. Terrible thing, love. Rips the heart right out of your body.”

“She’s not worth it, Jack.”

He shook his head miserably. “Not worthy of
her
.”

“Sure you are, kid. Worth a hundred, remember? Said so yourself.”

Kick wrapped her arm around his waist. They wove slowly back toward the Hotel d’Inghilterra.

The next morning, sober, Jack realized they’d been talking about completely different women.

* * *

HIS LEFT LEG THROBBED NOW,
painful from the cut in his calf where he’d thrust a DOCA pill. He was using one every two days, which George Taylor had estimated was about right, but something—the food or the water or something in Rome—wasn’t agreeing with him. It was a sin to eat before mass so at least his stomach was empty; he’d snuck a little black coffee just to slap himself awake. He was sweating in his morning suit, despite a wave of chills running over his frame. He closed his eyes and gave himself up to the strains of the Sistine Choir.

The Latin mass was endless.

When the kneeling and the standing and the anointing were over, when the thousands upon thousands had shuffled down the aisle to take the Bread of Christ from the ranks of cardinals, when the new pope had been proclaimed again—Pius XII—Jack emerged into the misty gray sunlight of a Roman noon in March with the musk of incense clouding his nostrils. He came to a dead halt as the multitude of people poured past him down the steps—a flood of bodies and smells and heat and oppressive contact, coats and hats brushing his sleeve, crushing his shoulder.
He hated to be touched.
The bodies swam before his eyes. He shuddered convulsively.

“You okay, kid?”

Kick wore a black lace veil over her hair; hung over and without makeup, she looked sorrowful and mourning. As though the Pope had died instead of coming into his Kingdom.

“Ja-a-ack,” his mother said. She was dressed in black, too, only her veil had a diamond tiara underneath. She’d adopted tiaras lately. The ambassador’s wife as Princess Rose.

He bent over and was wretchedly sick.

* * *

“JACK’S LITTLE TUMMY,”
as Rose called it, turned out to be a godsend. He was allowed to skip the official celebratory five-course meal hosted by the American embassy and lie down in his room, with a cup of bouillon on a tray. His morning suit was taken away to be cleaned and pressed. He wore an open-necked shirt and a pullover sweater with his flannels, the most comfortable clothes he’d had on in a week.

He took a spoonful of bouillon. It had cooled, and tasted of kitchens and metal. It smelled vaguely like semen. He tossed back half a glass of water, wondering which ancient sewer it came from.
Wohlthat. Göring’s banker. Hitler just another nuisance he could buy off.
His stomach twisted again.

It was time, Jack decided, to see the Little Sisters of Clemency for himself.

* * *

HE PREPARED WHAT HE’D SAY,
all the way to the Via Giulia. He’d send in his card to Sister Mary Joseph—the name Willi Dobler had given him. If he was lucky, the name was real. If he was lucky, the order wasn’t a cloistered one and they would let a man through the door. Jack wasn’t feeling particularly lucky today, but anything was better than drinking semen-scented soup in his hotel room.

When his cab pulled up before the convent entrance, he saw that the double doors were already thrown wide open to the street.

He paid the cabbie and walked through the gates. The sound of wailing met his ears.