Jackie, page 31
* * *
—
Had we really begun to figure everything out?
* * *
—
I turn away from the Rose Garden. Clint and I continue walking.
…
“We’ll have to keep certain things,” I tell my mother. “I’ve drafted a list. Documents, letters, everything on his desk—notes, doodles, even things that seem like trash.”
My mother nods. “Yes.”
“And the suit,” I say. I see her face shift. “Have it stored just as it is.”
* * *
—
Because when these four days are over, the world will churn on. The world will forget, and I can’t let that happen.
* * *
—
I go to my room and lie down in that place on the bed where he will not be. I lie there and do not sleep. My mind is fire.
* * *
—
Saturday afternoon.
“I am going to walk with the caisson,” I tell Clint. “I’m letting you know now because you are the one Bobby will send to talk me out of it.”
“It might not be safe, Mrs. Kennedy.”
“Well, we can’t all be rushed around in fat black Cadillacs.”
I look for the smile, some lightness again between us.
“If you walk, there will be concern for others as well,” he says.
“Oh, Mr. Hill. They can do what they want. I am going to walk with the president.” A sudden tightness in my throat. It takes me a moment to register it as anger. “I’m going to walk with the president to the church. I’ve told Bobby once already, but he either thinks I don’t mean it or that I’ll forget. I’ll tell him again later today, and he will send you to talk me out of it.”
He almost smiles then. How kind he has been. His cigarettes, my hair loose as we talked and smoked and laughed and drove with the windows unrolled out toward Wexford and the horses waiting in the fields, the chilled air in sheets of mist across the ridge.
* * *
—
They’ve begun to tell me things I do not remember:
That I climbed out of the seat and onto the back of the moving car.
That Clint ran forward, leapt, and pushed me back like some dark angel.
That when we reached Parkland Hospital, I wouldn’t let go of Jack, even as they kept pleading with me, until Clint read my face and understood. He took off his coat and wrapped Jack’s head and torso carefully, and only then was I willing to let go.
I don’t remember any of this.
I remember the roses, the hospital corridor, the folding metal chair.
* * *
…
Sunday, November 24
* * *
—
I wake with a start and call out. His name in the echo. My eyes adjust. The room feels tight and empty. A room like a fist. I turn on the lamp so the light can push the dark out of my mind.
* * *
—
A soft knock. Bobby. He comes in and closes the door. He sits on the edge of the bed, holding my hand. He is drunk. It’s after midnight. He starts to tell me about dinner—the jokes they made, how they were all laughing, then crying, how Ethel’s wig got tossed like a Frisbee and landed on Pierre Salinger’s head. I tell him about the conversation I had with Bunny earlier that evening, when Mr. West couldn’t find the veil I wanted. Bunny found him frantic in the basement, almost in tears. She told him not to worry, she’d have one of the girls make a new veil for the morning.
“We call them girls,” I say. “Why do we do that? They’re women.” Bobby nods, and I realize how drunk he is. He looks at me blankly and the blankness feels like someone stepping on my heart.
I fall asleep in his arms. When I open my eyes again, he’s still awake. Hours have passed. Raw light has begun to sneak in. I wonder if he slept at all or if he’s just been waiting that way, staring at the wall, that set in his jaw that makes him look old.
“You slept,” he says.
* * *
—
I can’t not see it. The crowd and the sun and the dark of the tunnel. That piece of your skull snapping away.
* * *
—
I’ve looked for scars on Clint’s hands. I keep thinking that if it happened as they say it did, that he leapt up and pushed me back into the car, there would be scars from when he held me down and torched bits of me flew like embers through the air.
I don’t tell Bobby this. He’d worry. I don’t tell him how that day is a fractured collage on a screen in my mind.
“I’m going to walk,” I say.
“You can’t do that, Jackie. They’ll all feel they have to walk with you.”
“I don’t care what they do.”
He looks at me, like he’s about to say something else.
“I need to see Jack again, Bobby, before they take him away. Will you go with me?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll come in time so we can do that?”
“Yes.”
There is the sound of someone walking down the hall outside. We wait until the sound is gone. Then he gets up and leaves.
* * *
…
From the doorway of the East Room, I watch as they shift the flag partway down and raise the lid.
I take Bobby’s hand. We walk up and look in.
“Mr. Hill?” I say without turning to look. I know he’s there.
“Yes, Mrs. Kennedy.”
“Will you bring me scissors?”
I put the cuff links into the casket, and the scrimshaw. Bobby puts in his PT 109 tiepin and a silver rosary. I tuck in the letter I wrote, Caroline’s letter, and John’s (Caroline had guided John’s hand). Clint gives me the scissors, then steps back and quietly signals the guards to turn away as I bring the blade against Jack’s cheekbone, above his brow, and cut a lock of hair.
* * *
—
In less than an hour, the children and I will walk down the steps of the North Portico. The guards will bring you out to a caisson drawn by gray horses. We will get into a car with Bobby, Lyndon, and Lady Bird, to follow you to the Capitol, down a gauntlet of people along the cold avenue. The crowd will be silent. No cries, no calls, no ringing of your name, just the rhythmic strike of hooves against pavement, sticks against drums. I will whisper to Caroline, “We’re going to say goodbye now, tell Daddy how much we love him and how much we will miss him, always….” She’ll kneel with me, her little face glancing toward mine. “You just kiss like this,” I will whisper as we lean to kiss the flag that covers you, my eyes half-closed more for her sake than anyone else’s, my lips moving in a prayer that feels weightless. Always. How that word lingers. I can just see her small hand reaching like she wants to lift the flag to peek underneath, to touch you one last time.
* * *
…
Riding back from the Capitol, Bobby tells me Oswald was shot that morning, coming out of the police station basement garage.
“They were moving him to a jail,” Bobby says. “Some man, a nightclub owner, stepped out of the crowd and fired. Point-blank range.”
“He’ll survive?”
Bobby shakes his head.
I feel a chill then, deep, settle in me. I don’t speak for the rest of the ride.
* * *
—
I am aware Jack is gone as soon as I get back to the Residence. His body nowhere near me now.
That afternoon, I step out of the elevator. Onassis is there, waiting, as if materialized out of thin air.
“Thank you for coming,” I say.
“Of course.”
“When did you arrive?”
“An hour ago.”
“You spoke with Lee?”
He nods. “I was in Hamburg when she called. She told me to come, but I waited until I received your note. You were kind to think of me.”
I take his arm, and we walk through the Center Hall.
“I want you to let me know if you need anything,” he says.
“Thank you.”
“Anything.”
“They say it was a silly little communist who did it,” I say. “But I don’t believe that.”
“They will say many things.”
“And now Oswald’s been shot, so we’ll never know for sure.”
“There’s very little we know for sure.”
“That’s true, I suppose.”
“You are a strong woman. Noble and wise and brave. You’ll survive this, as awful as it is.”
I tell him then that I am determined to build something transcendent to outdo this awful thing they did to Jack. I am aware that I use the word they. I don’t correct it. Someone has lied. I’m not quite sure who. Talking to Onassis, I feel more grounded than I’ve felt since it happened. Maybe because he’s a stranger. Not of our world. He knows what it is to be outside.
“How has Johnson been?” he asks. I’m grateful he does not say President Johnson. Onassis will do this, I’ve noticed. Intuit these tiny things that matter.
“He’s been good to me. Though Bobby doesn’t agree.”
“Why?”
“He says Lyndon shouldn’t have forced me to take part in the swearing in. I don’t see it that way. I wasn’t forced. These last few days, Lyndon’s been only generous. ‘Little Lady,’ he said to me yesterday, ‘anything you want in these rooms is yours.’ ”
Onassis laughs. “Always the wonderful mimic.”
“I’ve told Johnson all I want is his promise that the work Jack started will be finished. The civil-rights bill passed and, at least for now, no turnover. Everyone who wants to stay in their jobs should be able to stay.”
“And what about you?” Onassis says. An open-ended question. I am careful as I answer.
“The children and I will live in Georgetown for now, in a loaned house, until I find my own. It is disconcerting watching our life being boxed up, trying to keep track of what will go where.”
He nods. He’s about to ask something else, then his eye is caught, a slight hardness. I turn. Bobby’s walking toward us from the stairs.
“We need you for a few decisions, Jackie,” Bobby says. “We’re in the West Sitting Hall.” He doesn’t say who the we are, but the implication is that Onassis is not.
“Thank you for being here, Ari,” I say.
Onassis holds my hand for a moment, then lets go.
* * *
…
That night, Bobby brings me the Mass card with Jack’s picture. At the rotunda, he says, hundreds of thousands are in line to pay their respects. At a certain point they’ll have to turn people away.
When I wake up, he is gone, the sun rising, curtains rinsed in flame. Today is John’s birthday. He’s turning three.
Getting dressed, I tell Provi, “I can’t let John’s birthday get entirely lost in this day.”
As Kenneth is setting the veil to my hair, Pam comes in to remind me I need to be ready by 9:45. The car will be waiting.
I look at my face in the mirror—swollen eyes, swollen cheeks, like I’ve spent the night underwater. I draw the veil down.
* * *
—
“I’d like you to come, Jackie.” That’s what you said a few weeks before Dallas. Then you added, “You’d be a great help.”
“That’s why you want me to come?” I teased you. “So I can be useful?”
“I want you with me.” It was strangely direct, the way you said it. Then you did that little awkward thing with your hair you used to do when we first met, pushing it back from your face, and I suddenly realized you were nervous. Even after ten years of marriage, it made you nervous to admit you needed me.
* * *
—
“I’ve changed my mind,” I tell Miss Shaw. “The children should stay here this morning. They don’t need to go to the Capitol. They can meet us at St. Matthew’s.”
I take the elevator down with Bobby and Teddy. The car comes around to the North Portico. We drive down Pennsylvania Avenue. I’m between Jack’s brothers as we enter the rotunda. We walk to the casket, kneel, rise, and walk back out the same door. A blaze of daylight. I reach for Bobby’s hand. At the base of the steps, we wait as Jack is carried down to us. We wait until he’s lifted onto the gun carriage. Then we climb back into the car.
“Unroll the window, please,” I say. Strains of the Marine Corps band drift as we flow down the road to the White House and a milling sea of world leaders. My mind starts to work through them, cataloging, like I used to do at a state dinner or event. De Gaulle, Prince Philip, the king of Belgium, the mayor of Berlin, Eamon de Valera, Queen Frederica, Haile Selassie.
All morning, Bobby says, there’ve been assassination threats. Dean Rusk has tried to talk Lyndon out of walking. They’ve tried to persuade De Gaulle to take a car, citing the nine attempts on his life so far. Just before we get out of the car, Bobby asks again if I really think it’s wise to walk.
“What does wise mean at this point?”
I take my place with Bobby and Teddy as the procession assembles. The cadets; the Marines; the Scottish Black Watch in their white spats, plumed headdresses, tartan kilts. The bagpipes begin; notes rend the air. I reach for Bobby, but after several steps I drop his hand and walk alone. Rows of people everywhere, along the sidewalk and gathered on the balconies above, children standing with solemn faces on the curb. I keep my eyes fixed on the riderless horse, the sheathed sword, empty saddle, boots reversed in the stirrups. It’s a huge gelding and the young soldier leading him is tall, but he can’t manage that horse. He can’t make it behave. Everything else is in such perfect order, not a beat off—all but that mad, lovely horse and the dissonant tattoo of its hooves on the street, the bright defiant glint of tack.
* * *
—
For you, history was never something bitter old men wrote. History, you told me once, makes us what we are. As we walk, I watch that horse and think of you as a boy in that small bedroom, reading stories of kings and warriors, the Knights of the Round Table, your Buchan and your Marlborough. For you, history was full of heroes. Human, flawed, dazzling.
* * *
—
At St. Matthew’s, I wait for the children. The car pulls up, and they scramble out in their pale-blue coats. I take them by the hand, and together we walk up the steps. I feel stronger when they’re with me. As I bend to kiss Cardinal Cushing’s ring, John starts to cry.
“Where is Daddy?”
“Shhh, darling,” I say, and he bites down gently on his lip, trying to be good, and for a moment I regret it.
During the service, I lose my composure only once, when Luigi Vena sings Ave Maria. Clint Hill leans forward to hand me a handkerchief, and I realize I’m crying. Caroline has edged her small body right up against mine, like she could hold me there, in place. John squirms on his seat, and I feel a stab of panic. I just need to get out, sweep them up in my arms, away from all this.
Mr. Foster picks up John and carries him away as Cardinal Cushing says, “May the angels, dear Jack…” His voice breaks. Caroline is still pressed right against me, and I can feel the riderless horse outside, waiting, the buck of that horse, its dark mad revolt, the weight of absence on its back.
* * *
—
Afterward, on the steps, Mr. Foster brings John to me.
They secure the casket to the caisson. The men salute. I lean down to John and whisper. He raises his hand to his brow.
I tell Clint I’ve changed my mind again. The children will not go to Arlington. He and Agent Foster work to find a car for the children. They’re taking someone’s car, asking the man and his wife to get out of it. They bundle the children in, and I am suddenly alone.
“Mrs. Kennedy,” Clint says. “It’s time to go.”
* * *
—
At the close of the ceremony at Arlington, following the gun salute, “Taps” is played. I take Bobby’s hand. The hill is awash in flowers.
* * *
…
Before heading upstairs to the children, I meet with De Gaulle, Selassie, and others at a reception in the Yellow Oval Room. I spend a few moments with De Gaulle. I show him the chest he’d sent as a gift after our visit to Paris. Daisies in a vase on top of it. I take one and give it to him.
“Souvenez-vous,” I say. Remember.
He puts the flower carefully in his jacket pocket. When he raises his eyes, the expression is not what I expect. Depth, a true sorrow.
He inclines toward me, a slight bow. “You have taught us how to grieve,” he says.
“Jack wanted very much to be a friend of France,” I say, “but it didn’t quite work, did it?” I’m on the verge of adding, You didn’t let him, but Jack would not have wanted me to be bitter, and now it’s too late. De Gaulle knows what he did, and he knows what I wanted to say even without my saying it.
“I am sorry,” he says, and in his eyes, there is shame.
“I have to leave now. You see, it’s my son’s birthday. We are going to try to have a little party upstairs. This is what I have left to do.”
