As I did, though I couldn’t consume wine to put myself to sleep like they did.
My lemon sundress occasioned some attention when we walked in, which it was designed to do. The Brits gulped almost audibly. Probably figured I was some aging Italian movie star. Hardly a Chicago Mick.
They were frantically concocting strategies in which their man, Cardinal Hume, would win as a compromise candidate. My husband muttered to me, “Compromise has passed from England to the second and third world. If they need a compromise they’ll go for a Pole or a South American.”
“Let them dream,” I said.
The deflation of the enthusiasm in the Piazza after the smoke turned black had depressed my poor dear husband.
“No matter who’s elected, he won’t get rid of our madman.”
These days Chucky tended to obsess about the small stuff. What difference did it make to us or our family if our sociopath Cardinal remained in office?
Our family is kind of complicated. I’m Chuck’s wife, thanks be to God. I’m also his kind of unofficial foster sister. We were, as the Irish would say, half raised together. He had never quite been a foster brother, but his sister Peg (nee Margaret Mary after whom our Moire Meg was named) was the sister I always wanted but never had, closer to me and I to her than any sister could possibly be.
It was in second grade when she found me sitting on a step in the old St. Ursula school weeping. She had stayed after school to help the nun clean the erasers.
“Why are you crying, Rose?” she asked me gently.
The nuns didn’t accept such names as Rosemarie in those days.
“No one loves me,” I sobbed. “My mommy doesn’t. My daddy doesn’t. S’ter doesn’t. The other kids don’t.”
Peg sat down next to me and put her arm around my shoulder.
“I love you, Rose.”
“You do not, Margaret.”
“Yes I do. Call me Peg.”
“Will you be my sister, Peg?”
She didn’t miss a beat. Peg never missed a beat.
“I’d love to.”
I was dragged home to the O’Malley house and introduced as Peg’s new sister.
Later, Peg and I had our first periods on the same day.
You can imagine what most families would do under such circumstances.
Not the Crazy O’Malleys. I was solemnly and seriously welcomed as their new sister. Later I would learn that her mother and father had known my parents and already felt sorry for me.
Chuck was an obnoxious ten-year-old and did not seem too happy at the addition to his family. Yet his blue eyes were so kind. I figured that I’d judge him by his eyes. I still do. I fell in love with him on the spot and have never recovered. I’ll never forget the day he kissed me at our cottage in Lake Geneva. I knew then that we would never escape each other.
I spent most of my free hours at the O’Malley flat, a half block south of our home at Thomas and Menard. My shrinks told me years later that my instinct to seek out a family which would welcome and love me had been the decisive turning point in my life. I wouldn’t have said it that way in second grade, but somehow I knew it even then. I clung to them for dear life, like a drowning swimmer to a raft.
Later, after the war, when they moved to their new home in Oak Park, there was an extra guest bedroom which was always called Rosie’s room. I slept there often. I never was brave enough to tell April O’Malley what my father did to me.
When my mother, incoherently drunk, tried to kill me with a poker from our fireplace, Peg saved my life. She pushed her away and then Mom fell down the stairs into the basement. Father Raven and Mr. O’Malley advised us how to explain it to the police. Chuck was away in Germany then, but eventually he figured it out.
He says that when we were young Peg was like a sleek mountain cougar and I like a prowling timber wolf. We were both flattered. Later he said, “When your cougars and timber wolves have young to protect, they’re even more dangerous.”
So I was the soprano voice to match Chucky’s tenor at all the O’Malley family concerts. They were my only real family, yet I was never quite part of them. My fault, not theirs.
“Pardon me, sir,” one of the Brits said to my husband, “may we ask if you are a journalist?”
“Nope.” Chucky held up his Nikon. “I take pictures.”
“You wouldn’t happen to be Charles O’Malley, would you?”
“You look too young to have created so much impressive work …”
“Charles Cronin O’Malley,” I said. “He was born at a very early age, you see.”
Chuck loved an audience, especially of admirers. He needed to perform this drab August day for an audience. He would say the same of me, but that’s not true. Well, not altogether true. The music shows we’d put on at Petersen’s ice cream store on Chicago Avenue near Harlem were his ideas. Mostly.
They introduced themselves. I was presented as “my first wife, Rosemarie.”
We were invited to join them. I accepted before Chuck had a chance to decline.
“You’re here to cover the conclave, sir?” the youngest Brit asked.
“More or less,” Chuck admitted. “They want me to do a portrait of the new Pope.”
“You have any idea who that will be and when he’ll be chosen?”
“Albino Luciani,” Chuck replied confidently. “This afternoon. Patriarch of Venice. Wanders about the streets of that city talking to people. Parish priest type. Charming, smiles a lot. Nice little man. Not an intellectual but who needs an intellectual? First bishop Pope John appointed. A coalition of moderate curialists led by Benelli and Europeans whom Leo Suenens has organized tested this morning whether they had the votes. They’ll call in their markers this afternoon. Don’t expect white smoke, however. Like most everything else, the Vatican can’t make the smoke work. Doesn’t have good health. If he dies soon, they’ll have to go with a Pole or a South American.”
It was vintage Chucky. He had absorbed everything that Adolfo had said and regurgitated it back as his own. I stifled my laugher.
The Brits were impressed, as well they might be. We chatted for a while. They complimented him on his work in Ireland, a subject on which Chuck didn’t generally trust English comments but he would accept praise from whomever it came.
The lunch was delightful. Chuck had two helpings of pasta and a glass of wine, which improved my chances of being ravaged when we were back at the Hassler.
To facilitate that for which my body was already tingling, I called the game on account of darkness. We had to buy a new Hasselblad for the papal portrait. Chuck collected their cards and promised to send them some autographed books, a promise which I would keep.
I paid the bill too, over the Brits’ not completely sincere protests.
“That was quite a show, Charles Cronin O‘Malley,” I told him, as we crossed over from the Borgo to the Conciliazione. “They’re convinced that the great picture taker is also a skilled Vaticanologist.”
“I had to give them something to write home about,” he said airily. “Now that Luciani fellow had better win.”
“I was afraid you would start to sing.”
“Like the good old days at Petersen’s … Good idea. I never thought of it.”
We found a presentable camera shop across the Tiber on the Corso, just as the owner was putting up the shutters for his siesta. I made Chuck stand outside.
“Hasselblad, signor,” I said.
He put the shutters aside. With appropriate gestures he showed me three models. I pointed at the most expensive one. He quoted a price which I guess was too much by half. I shook my head and acted like I was about to leave. We haggled for a while and finally settled on a price, which was probably ten percent too high, but for us worth it and more.
I gave the box to Chuck, who had been leaning disconsolately against a shuttered window. He pounced on it eagerly.
“New model,” he said as he tried to pry open the box. “Better than mine.”
“It can wait till we get back to the Hassler.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And April Rosemary gets this one. Nothing secondhand for our daughter.”
“Certainly not!”
It was stuffy in our suite, so I slipped out of my sundress as I dialed April Rosemary.
Chuck picked up the dress and hung it neatly in a closet. Long ago I had tried to stop such behavior. I gave it up when I realized that it was not a reflection on my neatness but only a manifestation of his peculiar need for order.
“Dr. Nettleton’s house,” our daughter said softly.
“And his wife’s too!”
“Hi, Mom! You and Dad still in Rome?”
“How’s my grandson?”
“Johnny’s such a sweet, quiet little boy,” she sighed. “No trouble at all.”
Still down, poor kid. If the kid was sweet and quiet, it was his mother’s fault that she was depressed.
“And the baby’s galoot of a father?” Chuck asked from the other phone.
“He’s fine. He works so hard.”
“Did he find himself a job?”
“Oh, yes, I should have told you when I picked up the phone. He’s going on the staff at Loyola, so we’ll buy a home in Oak Park I guess.”
Great news, listlessly given.
“So you guys can walk over to Petersen’s when your mother and I give our little shows.”
“That will be fun.”
“April Rosemary, your father’s supposed to do a portrait of the new Pope …”
“If they ever get around to electing him,” Chuck intervened.
“And he left his Hasselblad at home, despite what I told him. So we had to buy a new one today.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“You shouldn’t be, dear, because Dad says he’ll give you the new one when he gets home.”
“That’s wonderful, but they’re too expensive.”
Spoken like her father’s daughter.
“I said give, not sell.”
“Thank you very much, Dad.”
“I’m sure you know whose idea it was,” Chuck said.
“Thank you, Mom.”
“Mope,” I said when I hung up.
I kicked off my sandals. Chuck carried them to the closet.
“Were you ever that way?”
“Sure, after Jimmy was born; of course, I had four kids, not just one.”
“How did I act?”
“You were sensitive and sympathetic and supportive, like you always were.”
“Really?” he seemed surprised.
“It’s all hormones. Women usually get over it.”
He sat on the couch and opened the box with his camera—a little boy with a wonderful little toy for which he did not have to pay.
“She sounds pretty bad.”
“I’m sure Jamie has her on medication.”
“She’ll be all right, won’t she?”
He examined the lens with care like it was a newborn baby.
“Certainly,” I said with more confidence than I felt.
“She’s worried,” I had said to Maggie Ward, “that she’s an addicted personality like her mother.”
“And her mother is worried about her own responsibility for her daughter’s presumed addiction?”
“Well …”
“How many times do I have to tell you, Rosemarie, that you turned to drink because of the trauma of sexual abuse by your father. That doesn’t mean you’re an addicted personality. You don’t overeat. You gave up smoking long ago. You gave up coffee because your husband likes tea …”
“I screw more than most women.”
“Good for you! … Your daughter’s problem is like that of the soldiers who used heroin in Vietnam. They gave it up when they came home. It wasn’t easy but they did it. They weren’t addicted personalities either.”
“She’s worried that she’ll pass it on to her children.”
“So were you. And don’t you say you did, because you know that you didn’t. April Rosemary will be fine once she gets over her postpartum blues.”
All I had wanted was reassurance, but it doesn’t last very long.
I stood behind him in my half-slip, my nipples rock hard.
“That camera must be fascinating.”
Chuck looked up from his adorable new camera. He put it aside and drew me down next to him on the couch.
“Poor Rosemarie, her eldest daughter acts like a mope and so does her husband.”
We clung to each other for a long time, our embrace a rebuke to all the things that can go wrong in life.
Then his fingers slipped under the elastic of my panties and my body was filled with warmth.
“Chucky Ducky, the more I know you and the more I love you”—I sighed—“the more mystery you become. Nice mystery though.”
Chuck
1978
The big TV screen in the Vatican Press Office switched back and forth from a picture of the smokestack above the Sistine to the façade of St. Peter’s. No action in either scene. A few of the press corps were snoozing in the chairs in front of the screen. Others were crowded into the workroom, sending off dispatches for Sunday morning papers without knowing whether the smoke would be black or white. I was glad I was a picture taker.
My wife was milling around outside, picking up local color. Maybe she was thinking about something for the New Yorker.
I was trying to commune with the deity, which is always a good thing to do.
I’m sorry, I told Him. Or Her. Or Whatever. I really am.
You have given me a great wife—beautiful, intelligent, funny, and a great lay, you should excuse the expression. I neglect her. This afternoon I was more interested in my new camera than in her. How much of a goof can a guy be? She’s standing there ready for love and I’m fooling with the lens. Then, when I wake up to the possibilities, I don’t do it very well. I don’t deserve her. I never did. I’m bored and disillusioned and a couple of weeks short of my fiftieth birthday. My life is a lot more than half over and I haven’t done a damn thing with it. I don’t seem to comprehend that Rosemarie is enough and more than enough. How can a man be bored with a woman like her in bed with him every night. Msgr. Raven says that the spouse is like You. Well, if You’re anything like my Rosemarie, You’re a wonderful person. I should have nothing to complain about. So the Church and the country and the archdiocese are run by idiots and madmen. So what.
And I’m almost fifty and I haven’t done any decent work in the last eight years. Maybe I should stop trying.
I have the distinct impression that no one was listening. I don’t blame You.
People were running out of the Press Office. I looked up at the screen. Smoke pouring out of the chimney, apparently black. I don’t have to rush out, I’m not a reporter, just a picture taker. Still, I’d better put in an appearance. Rosemarie will worry about me.
Sure enough it was black smoke, thick, determined black smoke. No doubt about it this time. They’d finally figured out how it worked. The crowd was already dissipating. The poor Brits that I had conned at lunch would know what a faker I was.
Well, I WAS a faker.
There was no problem finding Rosemarie. Her white sleeveless dress with the V neck and the tight skirt would stand out in any crowd. No wonder the nasty nun in the Press Office glared at her. Which may be why Rosemarie had worn it.
“È grigio,” she said to me. “Gray smoke.”
“Looks black to me.”
“Vatican Radio says it’s black. RAI says it’s black. The cops are packing up. I think there are little spurts of white.”
I studied the now fading plume.
“Black. Let’s go have some supper.”
“Wait a few more minutes. I have a hunch.”
I never fight my wife’s hunches.
It was getting cold. I glanced at my watch—7:15. The sun had disappeared behind the Sistine Chapel. It was turning cold. I must have dozed during my prayer in the
Press Office. Catching up on the sleep I had missed last night and earlier in the afternoon. I enjoyed a fleeting image of Rosemarie at the height of joyous sexual abandon. Like I say, I told Whatever, a good lay.
I glanced again at my watch—7:19. I’d give her one more minute. Then we’d go over to the Grand Hotel for supper.
“Attenzione!” A public address system demanded. The door of the balcony of St. Peter’s swung open. A cross bearer and two acolytes emerged. Then a man in red. What was his name? Funny one. Pericle Felici.
Well, they had yet to figure out the smoke thing. What if you had an ancient symbol and couldn’t reproduce it when it had one of its rare moments?
Great way to run a Church which depended on its symbols!
Rosemarie grabbed my arm. She was into this stuff. Great pageantry. Oddly enough my heart was pounding too.
“Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum!”
Loud cheers. My Rosemarie was screaming.
“Habemus Papam!”
Okay. He was announcing great joy, we had a Pope. What the hell else would he be doing out there if he was not announcing the election of a Pope?
“Eminentissimum ac reverendissium dominum …”
Another burst of cheers cut him off.
“Dominum … Albinum Cardinalem Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae … LUCIANI!”
I discovered that I was screaming too.
“Qui imposuit sibi nomen Johannem Paulum Primum!”
Ecstatic cheers.
Combining the names of the last two Popes, nifty political idea. Chicago pols would understand.
“Those Englishmen will certainly be impressed!” Rosemarie enthused. “Chucky the prophet.”
“Chucky with a quick mind and a quicker tongue,” I said, quoting one of my grammar school teachers.
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