Oswald's Tale (24 page)

1

Alik

March 17

I and Erich went to a trade union dance, boring, but the last hour I was introduced to a girl with a French hairdo and red dress with white slippers. I dance with her, and ask to show her home. I do, along with five other admirers . . . we like each other right away. She gives me her phone number and departs home with a not-so-new friend in a taxi. I walk home.

MR. RANKIN.
Where did you meet him? . . .

MARINA OSWALD.
¹
In the Palace of Trade Unions.

MR. RANKIN.
What kind of place is that? . . .

MARINA OSWALD.
Sometimes they do have meetings there. Sometimes it is also rented by some institutes . . . for parties . . . I had gone there with my friends from the Medical Institute and one of them introduced me to Lee.

MR. RANKIN.
What was his name?

MARINA OSWALD.
Yuri Merezhinsky . . .

MR. RANKIN.
Did you know that Lee Oswald was an American [and] did that make any difference?

MARINA OSWALD.
It was more interesting, of course. You don’t meet Americans very often.
²

From a narrative on her life prepared by Marina for the FBI:

Anatoly was quite ugly (and in this I think he has something in common with Mel Ferrer). But I was embarrassed to appear with him in public—silly girl. I was afraid that my friends would say, “What an ugly boyfriend Marina has.” For that reason we would talk on the telephone for two or three hours at a time and it was very, very interesting to talk with him . . . He loved his mother very much and talked about her very tenderly. I liked that. I no longer had a mother, and it was very agreeable to see how this big, fully grown man acted like an innocent little child toward his mother. Not everyone can do this so straightforwardly . . .

Anatoly wanted to marry me but I refused, since he was still a student, and . . . to wait five years until he finished seemed too long for a young girl . . .

One day Sasha invited me to a social evening at the Medical Institute, and I knew that Anatoly would be there, too. You see what a frivolous girl I was. Sasha forced me to promise that I would be there and gave me an invitation. Anatoly told me that if I came with Sasha he would not want to see me again, and that we wouldn’t be friends any longer. But I thought I could arrange things somehow so as not to offend either of them . . .

Something detained me at work, and I got home quite late; then I took two hours to get dressed and sat a long time in front of the mirror, then I lost my courage completely and was tired of dressing, so I put on an ordinary house dress. But my uncle . . . started laughing at me: “Was it worth while standing in front of a mirror so long?” And finally something dragged me to that evening, even against my will. I can say this quite sincerely—I felt something quite unusual that evening but did not pay attention to it. To my amazement Sasha was waiting for me. He was standing out in the cold without an overcoat. He ran out every ten minutes to look and see if perhaps I had showed up . . . At the dance I tried to catch sight of Anatoly but I was told that he saw me with Sasha and left—which upset me very much.

Sasha was with his friends from the Institute. One of his friends introduced me to Lee, calling him Alik . . . and when Lee invited me to dance, and we started to talk, I decided he was from one of the Baltic countries, since he talked with an accent. But later that same evening I found out that Lee was an American . . .

I liked Lee immediately. He was very polite and attentive, and I felt that he liked me too . . . Later, when we were married, Lee told me that he noticed me as soon as I came into the dance hall. Don’t think that I have an especially high opinion of myself or am anything unusual, but I can say that . . . I had just come in from the cold [and] by then [other] girls were already tired, whereas I had just taken off my overcoat—so that I had a fresh look . . . I remember having on my favorite dress made of red Chinese brocade (Lee liked this dress afterwards), and my hair was done à la Brigitte Bardot. That evening I even liked myself. You see how I am boasting, but I am writing what I felt . . .

Later . . . we all went in a group to the house of the Yuri whose mother had been in the United States . . . I remember that she quarreled a little with Alik, since Alik . . . spoke very favorably about his country and very interestingly. I was very pleased that he was trying to show the best side of his country. Later, when I asked him if he liked America, he said that he liked it, but not everything in it; for instance, unemployment, discrimination, the fact that it is very difficult and expensive to get educated, the high cost of doctors when one is ill. But he said very proudly that in America the apartments are prettier and not so crowded, and that the stores have things for every taste provided one has money. He also said that in America there is more democracy and that every person can say what he wants in the press, on the radio, or on TV . . .

That evening Sasha and Alik took me home. We were alone in the street for a few moments, when Lee asked when and where he could see me. I told him that perhaps I would come again to the dances at the place where we met but did not make any precise promise. But then, a week later, I went again with a friend to a dance—Lee was there. That evening he came home with me, and I introduced him to my Aunt. My Aunt liked his modesty and politeness, also the fact that he was very neat. She told me with a laugh that only an American was lacking in my collection.
³

In those months before she met Alik and was having several romances at once, she had been scared. Still, she was able to feel power over men. Of course, it was easy to fall in love, and she was looking for love. In love with love. When you’re eighteen, hormones do your thinking. You are a proud young deer, and you meet and fall in love with different people because you are looking. One attracts you because he knows how to open the door, a gallant. Another, because he loves you dearly. She wanted a man to be romantic and a good provider, to be excellent, nice, and love her. But then there was always Anatoly. He made her head spin. With just one kiss. What you learn is that nobody is there to give you everything you need.

She didn’t want to talk about her experiences. Catherine the Great had lots of lovers and was considered okay; that did not mean Marina had lots—she was not saying that. She just didn’t want to talk about sex. Everybody was looking for bad; then they trash you. It wasn’t that she’d done something she was ashamed of, nothing horribly wrong, but she knew when she first came to Minsk that maybe she needed advice. Because she was not that experienced. Maybe men thought she was something that she was not.

She talked to her friend Misha Smolsky, who had never laid a finger on her. They were friendly, just friends. He said, “Come on, I won’t touch you. You’re not Anita Ekberg.” That said it all. He told her: “Marina, there’s a guy spreading gossip around that you’re sleeping with him. Is it true or not?” She told him, “Misha, I’m asking you what can I do if I have nothing to hide? I cannot defend myself door to door if a guy is lying.”

So Misha said, “I cannot punch him in the nose, because it is not my business”—meaning she was not his girl—“but I’m going to tell him it is baloney.”

She did not know why Merezhinsky—if that was the guy, Yuri Merezhinsky—talked about her that way. Maybe it was because he was always drunk and liked to make a fuss. Maybe it was rejection. Was this the person that Misha was talking about? She felt humiliated in front of all the world.

Now her reputation felt like ugly clothing, smelly, that she was condemned to wear. Lee Harvey Oswald, for example. This Alik had tried to be intimate with her when she saw him again at the Trade Union Palace eight days later, Saturday night. That night she took him back alone to meet Valya, since Ilya was away.

He had wanted her to make a bed so he could sleep over. He pretended it was too late for buses, so maybe he could sleep somewhere there? He must have assumed she was a floozy. She sent him home. He could walk home, she told him. But she was not really angry. After all, on that first night, when she was wearing her red dress, she insisted on everybody going over to a bar to have champagne. Maybe Lee assumed she was a type who has to drink, but her only concern was to see Anatoly and prove to him that he was going to talk to her whether she came with Sasha or not. Anatoly, however, ignored her, just as he had told her he would. So her group went back to the Trade Union Palace, and she spent that Friday night dancing with Lee. He was a teaser, kind of. “In America,” he would say, “they dance this way,” and would bring her closer to him. Then, he would dip. She could see it was his way to get closer. But not by grabbing, no, little by little.

All that while, she was thinking, “How am I going to prove to Anatoly that he can’t just brush me away like I am nothing?” Moreover, she was feeling pity for Sasha. He was the victim of her strategy. So, when Anatoly acted like he’d never seen her in his life, it kind of freed her of an obsession with him, for this night, anyway.

She began to flirt with everybody, including Lee. He must have thought she was some floozy! Which may be why he expected so much more than he got eight days later, when she took him home to meet Valya. He even said, “You have so many fellows, I thought you were some kind of . . . you know . . .” And then, she’d been wearing her red dress. Maybe she stood out.

Now, looking all that long way back, she would say that Lee had intrigued her. He looked deeper into life. If he had been a dumb Vanya, just another dumb worker, she would never have gone on a date with him. She would say she respects factory workers very much—“but you are not going to date Vanya. Because what are you going to talk about with such men? They pinch girls openly—nothing but vulgarity. So, you stay away. No factory workers, thank you. You try to associate with a class ahead of yourself. Even if you come from the middle of nowhere.” It wasn’t her desire to go backward. Lee did work in a factory, but he also looked deeper into life. It certainly wasn’t just his interest in politics. Her grandmother had told her about politics: Do not touch—then you won’t stink. All the same, once you grow up, even if you don’t want to belong to political groups, you do become interested in how things happen, and Lee was part of a group of her friends who were interested in how this world was working.

After the night when she made him walk home, he made a date for one week later. But a few days later, Aunt Valya said, “Guess what? Your American called.” He could not make it. He was sick, and stuck in some hospital way out at one end of Minsk. Marina was not too concerned. Even when he rang to tell Valya that he was ill, she had been out with Anatoly. She liked Lee, but she certainly didn’t consider him a serious date. He was something maybe for one free evening.

Now, his ear was infected badly enough for him to be in a hospital. He had had infected ears from childhood, he told her later, and a mastoid operation when a boy.

Valya said, “Why don’t you visit him? He has nobody here from home and this is Russian Easter.” Valya said, “I know for a fact that over in America they celebrate Easter. It’ll be nice and touching.” Valya put some cakes together on a plate and said to Marina, “Show him that Russians have some heart.”

But when she finally got to this hospital—such a long trip by streetcar—he was glad to see her. He hadn’t expected a visit. What a low opinion he must have had of her! But he was so happy she had brought him canned apricots. He told her it was his favorite dessert. Intuition must have let her know.

It was sad, however. He did look ill and his smile was pale. Physically, she couldn’t say she liked him now. A little later that visit, he kissed her (after asking permission), and she didn’t take to this first kiss, either. There was negative feeling. Like a warning to stop. Stop right there. She asked herself: “Do I want this to continue?” She had never thought of it before, but that first kiss could tell you a lot. Did she really want to know him more? Maybe no. Yet, her mind remained curious. And he was so gentle. She remembers that his kiss wasn’t just a peck, thank you for coming—no, it showed expectations. But he didn’t smell like a Russian. He didn’t even smell like he was in the hospital. His skin had some funny odor. There could be a lot of scents on top, but underneath was some basic scent. Kissing him gave her that negative response. He did not smell like fresh air and sunshine.

Later, she would come to accept this scent of his body. Still there, but she accepted it. If you love a man, you accept.

It was funny. After work, every day she would go to visit him. She could get in when no one else could. Visiting days were Sundays only, but she was wearing her white uniform from the pharmacy at Third Clinical, so, no problem.

She did not love him yet, but she certainly felt sorry for him. He was so alone. She could understand that. Loneliness is an everyday companion to a lot of people, but it is certainly not your good companion. And Valya was so sorry for him.