Part Five
SONG
1963–1967
31
Maria was not allowed to go to the funeral.
The day after the assassination was a Saturday but, like most White House staff, she went into work, performing her duties in the press office with tears streaming down her face. It was not noticed: half the people there were crying.
She was better off here than at home alone. Work distracted her a little from her grief, and there was no end of work: the world’s press wanted to know every detail of the funeral arrangements.
Everything was on TV. Millions of American families sat in front of their sets all weekend. The three networks cancelled all their regular programmes. The news consisted entirely of stories linked to the assassination, and between bulletins there were documentaries about John F. Kennedy, his life, his family, his career and his presidency. With merciless pathos they re-ran the happy footage of Jack and Jackie greeting the crowds at Love Field on Friday morning, an hour before his death. Maria recalled how she had idly asked herself if she would change places with Jackie. Now both of them had lost him.
At midday on Sunday, in the basement of the Dallas police station, the prime suspect, Lee Harvey Oswald, was himself murdered, live on television, by a minor mobster called Jack Ruby; a sinister mystery piled on top of an insupportable tragedy.
On Sunday afternoon Maria asked Nelly Fordham if they needed tickets for the funeral. ‘Oh, honey, I’m sorry, no one from this office is invited,’ Nelly said gently. ‘Only Pierre Salinger.’
Maria felt panicky. Her heart fluttered. How could she not be there when they lowered the man she loved into his grave? ‘I have to go!’ she said. ‘I’ll speak to Pierre.’
‘Maria, you can’t go,’ Nelly said. ‘You absolutely can’t.’
Something in Nelly’s tone rang an alarm bell. She was not just giving advice. She almost sounded scared.
Maria said: ‘Why not?’
Nelly lowered her voice. ‘Jackie knows about you.’
This was the first time anyone in the office had acknowledged that Maria had a relationship with the President; but in her distress Maria hardly noticed that milestone. ‘She can’t possibly know! I was always careful.’
‘Don’t ask me how, I have no idea.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
Nelly might have been offended, but she just shook her head sadly. ‘From what little I understand of such things, I believe the wife always knows.’
Maria wanted to deny it indignantly, but then she thought of the secretaries Jenny and Jerry, and the socialites Mary Meyer and Judith Campbell, and others. Maria was sure they all had sexual relations with President Kennedy. She had no proof, but when she saw them with him she just sort of knew. And Jackie had feminine intuition too.
Which meant Maria could not go to the funeral. She saw that now. The widow could not be forced to face her husband’s mistress at such a time. Maria understood that with total, miserable certainty.
So she stayed at home on Monday to watch it on TV.
The body had been lying in state in the rotunda at the Capitol. At half past ten the flag-draped coffin was carried out of the building and placed on a caisson, a type of gun carriage, drawn by six white horses. The procession then headed towards the White House.
Two men stood out in the funeral cortege, being inches taller than the rest: French President Charles de Gaulle, and the new American President, Lyndon Johnson.
Maria was all cried out. She had been sobbing for almost three days. Now, when she looked at the television, she just saw a pageant, a show organized for the benefit of the world. For her this was not about drums and flags and uniforms. She had lost a man; a warm, smiling, sexy man; a man with a bad back and faint wrinkles in the corners of his hazel eyes and a set of rubber ducks on the edge of his bathtub. She would never look at him again. Life without him stretched long and empty ahead of her.
When the cameras zoomed in on Jackie, her beautiful face visible despite the veil, Maria thought that she, too, looked numb. ‘I wronged you,’ Maria said to the face on the screen. ‘God forgive me.’
She was startled by a ring at the door. It was George Jakes. He said: ‘You shouldn’t be alone for this.’
She felt a surge of helpless gratitude. When she really needed a friend, George was there. ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I look like a slattern.’ She was wearing a nightdress and an elderly bathrobe.
‘You look fine to me.’ George had seen her worse than shabby.
He had brought a bag of Danish pastries. Maria put them on a plate. She had not had breakfast but, all the same, she did not eat a pastry. She did not feel hungry.
A million people lined the route, according to the television commentary. The coffin was taken from the White House to St Matthew’s Cathedral, where there was a Mass.
At twelve noon there was a five-minute silence, and traffic stopped all over America. The cameras showed crowds standing silent on city streets. It was strange to be in Washington and hear no cars outside. Maria and George stood in front of the TV set in her little apartment. They bowed their heads. George took her hand and held it. She felt a wave of affection for him.
When the five-minute silence ended, Maria made coffee. Her appetite returned, and they ate the pastries. No cameras were allowed in the church, so for a while there was nothing to watch. George talked to distract her, and she appreciated it. He said: ‘Will you stay in the press office?’
She had hardly thought about it, but she knew the answer. ‘No. I’m going to leave the White House.’
‘Good idea.’
‘Apart from everything else, I don’t see a future for myself in the press office. They never promote women, and I’m not going to spend my life as a researcher. I’m in government because I want to get things done.’
‘There’s an opening in the Justice Department that might suit you.’ George spoke as if the thought had just occurred to him, but Maria suspected he had planned to say this. ‘Dealing with corporations that disobey government regulations. They called it compliance. Could be interesting.’
‘Do you think I’d have a chance?’
‘With a degree from Chicago Law and two years’ experience in the White House? Absolutely.’
‘They don’t hire many Negroes, though.’
‘You know something? I think Lyndon may change that.’
‘Really? He’s a Southerner!’
‘Don’t prejudge him. To be honest, our people have treated him badly. Bobby hates him, don’t ask me why. Maybe because he calls his dick Jumbo.’
Maria giggled for the first time in three days. ‘You’re kidding.’
‘Apparently it’s large. If he wants to intimidate someone, he pulls it out and says: “Meet Jumbo.” That’s what people say.’
Men told such stories, Maria knew. It might be true and it might not. She grew serious again. ‘Everyone in the White House thinks Johnson’s behaviour has been callous, especially toward the Kennedys.’
‘I don’t buy that. Look, when the President had just died and no one knew what to do next, America was terribly vulnerable. What if the Soviets had chosen that moment to take over West Berlin? We are the government of the most powerful country in the world, and we have to do our job, without a second’s pause, no matter how deep our sadness. Lyndon picked up the reins immediately, and a darn good thing he did, because no one else was thinking about it.’
‘Not even Bobby?’
‘Least of all Bobby. I love the man, you know that, but he surrendered to his grief. He’s comforting Jackie and he’s organizing his brother’s funeral, and he’s not governing America. Frankly, most of our people are just as bad. They may think Lyndon is being callous. I think he’s being presidential.’
At the end of the Mass, the coffin was brought out of the church and again placed on the caisson for the journey to Arlington National Cemetery. This time the mourners travelled in a long line of black limousines. The procession passed the Lincoln Memorial and crossed the Potomac river.
Maria said: ‘What will Johnson do about the civil rights bill?’
‘That’s the big question. Right now the bill is doomed. It’s with the Rules Committee, whose chairman, Howard Smith, won’t even say when they will begin discussing it.’
Maria thought of the Sunday School bombing. How could anyone side with those Southern racists? ‘Can’t his committee overrule him?’
‘Theoretically yes, but when the Republicans ally with the Southern Democrats, they have a majority, and they always defeat civil rights, no matter what the public think. I don’t know how these people can pretend they believe in democracy.’
On television, Jackie Kennedy lit an eternal flame to burn perpetually over the grave. George took Maria’s hand again, and she saw tears in his eyes. They watched in silence as the casket was slowly lowered into the ground.
Jack Kennedy was gone.
Maria said: ‘Oh, God, what will happen to us all now?’
‘I don’t know,’ said George.