Oswald's Tale (32 page)

WIFE:
We live here, it’s ours.

LHO:
You think it’s mine? I don’t sense that it’s my own . . . I don’t get any feeling it’s mine.

(
pause
)

WIFE:
You torture me . . .

LHO:
I hate it when you’re the way you are now. I say one thing and you say another.

(
pause
)

WIFE:
Sleep peacefully.

LHO:
How can I sleep peacefully if I don’t know what you think? With you, everything depends on your mood. We have to decide one way or the other once and for all . . .

WIFE:
Idiot, you don’t understand anything. (
mimics him
) Property, property.

LHO:
You don’t understand this concept of property. You don’t know yourself what you want.
I want to live there because the standard of living is high.

WIFE:
And did you think that you would come here and you wouldn’t have to work and you’d just live?
Why didn’t you study? You could study, you’re just lazy.

LHO:
You don’t understand anything. People leave this country by the millions. Here are crude people . . .

WIFE:
You look at us through dark glasses.

LHO:
What dark glasses? That’s not true.

WIFE:
I, for instance, don’t say bad things about America. It’s just not decent . . . You have to be a real pig to say bad things about a country which you don’t know. And I don’t do that.

LHO:
Maybe, but there you’ll be living with your husband.
The standard of living there is high.

WIFE:
You don’t get it. It’s not my home. I won’t hear sound of Russian being spoken . . .

LHO:
. . . If you want to go, then go. If not, then don’t . . .

WIFE:
I won’t go . . . I’m afraid . . . Even now when Erich comes over and you speak English, I can’t take it . . .

LHO:
Oy, you’re talking like an old village woman . . .

WIFE:
. . . We’ll never understand each other . . .

LHO:
If you want to, you’ll go!

WIFE:
Don’t yell.

LHO:
You’re the one who’s forcing me to yell. I’m not being coarse with you. You’ve gotten indecent and bad.

WIFE:
You’re the one . . .

LHO:
No, I was decent and good when I met you. But there was a lot in you that was indecent.

WIFE:
I don’t see it that way. I didn’t even kiss Sasha. No one called me indecent. I didn’t act like other girls. I didn’t have a mother to put me on the right path. Once a week, I was very wicked.

LHO:
I understand.

WIFE:
You just have to be moderate in all things. If only I had known!

LHO:
This last month you’ve changed entirely. No tenderness, nothing. If it weren’t for your being pregnant . . . (
doesn’t finish his sentence
) I can’t yell at you in the presence of other people, but you’re always saying things about me around other people . . . And then you tell fairy tales about how I’m going away, how I’m leaving you, that everything’s my fault.
But even so I want you to be with me.
I understand that you are the way you are and that you can’t be any different than you are. (
pause
) Why do you make yourself out to be so wronged? The most wretched girl in the world! You’re talking nonsense.

WIFE:
To hell with you!

LHO:
Ah, you don’t respect me.

WIFE:
Alik, we already fought enough. And now you’re at it again.

LHO:
You weren’t this way before.

WIFE:
Neither were you.

23:35 (
quiet; they’re asleep
)

Marina would say that Alik truly loved Aunt Valya and knew it would be cruel for Valya and Ilya when they went to America, but he had said, “Don’t tell your relatives. Not yet.”

Of course, her uncle found out. Informed by the Organs. Because of his position.

At Valya’s, for dinner, Ilya said, “What is this about leaving Russia?” At his office, Ilya had received a call: “Guess what? Your niece is on her way to America.” What a slap in his face! Marina had always been grateful for nice people, and now she had been put in a position where she had to lie to her family. It felt unclean. She had betrayed them.

Sometimes Marina would wonder if Lee thought it would be harder for Americans to arrest him if he came home with a wife and a child. Maybe his mother had told him to bring his Russian along. Since his mother wrote letters to him in English, how could Marina know? She would apologize to Americans, but she did not really like their language. It was much less beautiful to her than Russian.

9

The Queen of Spades

July 15–August 20

We have found out which blanks and certificates are necessary to apply for a visa—they number about twenty papers: birth certificates, photos, affidavits, etc. On August 20th, we give the papers out. They say it will be three and a half months before we know whether they’ll let us go or not. In the meantime, Marina has had to make four different meetings at the place of work held by her bosses at the direction of “someone” by phone. Young Communist League [Komsomol] headquarters also called about her and she had to go see them for one and a half hours. The purpose (expressed) is to dissuade her from going to the USA. Net effect: makes her more stubborn about wanting to go. Marina is pregnant; we only hope the visas come through soon.

August 21–September 21

I make expected trips to the passport and visa office, also to Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Minsk, also to Ministry of Internal Affairs, all of which have a say in the granting of a visa . . .

On September 10, he writes a letter to his older brother, Robert, with whom he has been corresponding since he decided to go back to America.

Dear Robert,

Well, apparently I was too optimistic in my last letter . . .

The Russians are holding me up and are giving me some trouble about the visas, so for now I can only wait. In general, for an ordinary Russian, it’s impossible to leave the USSR simply because he wants to. However, I and my wife have the possibility because of the fact I am still an

American citizen and have the U.S. passport . . .

Robert Lee sounds like he is growing into a fine boy and Cathy is . . . already four years old. It hardly seems possible. I remember when Mother phoned me to say she was born, August 21 or 22. [My outfit was] getting ready to leave for Japan . . . A lot has changed since then!! . . .

Keep writing.

Your brother,
Lee

Enclosed are some views of Minsk.
¹

TO:
The American Embassy

Moscow USSR

Oct. 4, 1961

Dear Sirs:

I am hereby requesting the Offices of the American Embassy and the Ambassador of the United States, Mr. Thompson, to act upon my case in regards to my application to the Soviet authorities for an exit visa.

This application was made on July 20, 1961, and although three months have already elapsed, I have not received this visa . . .

I believe there is justification for an official inquiry, directed to the department of “Internal Affairs, Prospekt Stalin 15, Minsk,” and the offices of the “address and passport office,” Ulitsa Moscova, Colonel Petrakof, Director.

Also, I believe it is doubly important for an official inquiry, since there have been systematic and concerted attempts to intimidate my wife into withdrawing her application for a visa. I have notified the Embassy with regard to these incidents by the local authorities in regard to my wife. These incidents had resulted in my wife’s being hospitalized . . . on September 22, 1961, for serious exhaustion . . .

I think it is within the lawful right, and in the interest of, the United States government, and the American Embassy, Moscow, to look into this case on my behalf.

Yours very truly,
Lee H. Oswald
²

He has instincts on how to set one bureaucracy upon another. Since he can be certain that his letter to the American Embassy will be read first by the “local authorities,” he is allowing them to contemplate the consequences of a complaint by the State Department. Of course, if he is engaging in a war of nerves, it can be said that Marina is one of the first to suffer, and soon she decides to visit an aunt in Kharkhov during her three-week vacation from the pharmacy.

Oct. 14

Dear Marina,

I was very glad to receive your letter today. I was also glad to learn that everything is all right with you at Aunt Polina’s.

I hope you dress well because it is already very cold here.

While you are in Kharkhov, of course I am very lonesome, but I see Erich often and I also go to the movies . . .

Weather here is cold and wind is cold too.

I eat at the automat after work or at the factory dining room.

Well, enough for the present! Please write! (I received your telegram also on Tuesday.)

I kiss you,
Alik
³

His letter of October 14 may not be as cold as the weather but it is certainly lukewarm. On October 18, however, he sees his favorite opera
The Queen of Spades,
and Pushkin and Tchaikovsky succeed in bringing him back to love. He even jots down some Russian fragments of one aria. In the translation offered by the Warren Commission, the words come forth in impassioned bursts:

Act 2 “Queen of Spades”

I love you, love you immeasurably. I cannot imagine life without you. I am ready right now to perform a heroic deed of unprecedented prowess for your sake . . . I am ready to conceal my feelings to please you . . . I am ready to do anything for your sake . . . not only to be a husband but a servant . . . I would like to be your friend and keep on being one for always . . . But what is the matter with me, how little you trust me . . . I am sad with your sadness and I weep with your tears. Oh, I am tormented with this—passionately to you with all my soul I repeat: Oh, my dear! I love you.
⁴

Oct. 18, 1961

Dear Marina

Today I received presents from you. Thanks a lot. They are very, very nice and I shall always remember this day.

Well, are you returning soon? I will be glad to see you again—I will love you so!!

Well, again, thanks for the presents. You selected so well the records and books and frames which I will always hold.

So long,
Your husband,
Alik
⁵

Larissa thinks that out of everyone Alik knew, she was probably that person to whom he related best. In fact, when Marina left to visit her aunt in Kharkhov, she asked Larissa to stop by and take care of Alik a little.

She too recalls that Marina always said she would get married either to a Jew or to a foreigner. One could not eliminate one’s past, but perhaps the difficulties of such a past were less hard to live with when you were married to a foreigner. No matter what had happened, she loved Marina, loved her so much it is difficult to convey it. Marina was so good, so attentive, and she had an outstanding knowledge of literature. They had read so many books together when they were young; Marina was literally interested in everything. Larissa also understood why Marina liked Jews and wanted to marry one. She had seen how, among Jews, a woman was always respected. If, in a few Russian families, you could also find such agreeable treatment of women, it was only among the highest levels of the
intelligentsia,
like her sister Ludmila and Misha. “Today,” said Larissa, “perhaps our level of culture and refinement in Minsk has been raised somewhat among our working class, but Marina lived here nearly thirty years ago. And it is possible that her contact with foreigners in Leningrad had given her a new perspective on how women could be treated.”

When Larissa first met Alik, however, she was puzzled why Marina had chosen him. He seemed a little colorless. Then, she spent some time with him and realized he could change in personality with different people. If you were educated, he sensed that immediately; if you were a worker, he approached more simply.

Of course, Lee was an enigmatic person. Once, Larissa said to Marina in jest, “Is he an American spy?” and Marina just smiled. But when Marina left for Kharkhov and told Larissa to make sure to visit him while she was gone, Larissa would go by sometimes to ring his doorbell and there would be occasions when Lee did not answer for the longest time. Yet she knew he was there. From the street, she had seen a light in the windows. Then, he would come to his door and ask who it was, and only when Larissa identified herself would he open up. She always joked about that. “Are you hiding something in there? Are you broadcasting?” He would smile.

She liked him well enough, but he was strange. Company might be at Lee and Marina’s apartment for an evening, yet at ten o’clock he would say, “I’m tired, I feel like sleeping.” That was not accepted behavior in Minsk. He would get up, and the others would also get up, but he would say, “Lyalya, stay a little longer with us.” After everyone else had left, she and Marina would still be talking. Then, he would say, “Now, we’ll take you home,” and he and Marina would put on their coats and walk Larissa back. But she must say that in company, he always showed respect for Marina; he was devoted. If Lee nagged her to clean up their house better, Larissa never heard that. Besides, their apartment was clean. Everything was clean. Marina went around wiping up with a rag all the time. She was an exceptional mother and a wonderful wife. Lee wanted her to use a brush rather than a rag when she washed dishes, but that was their only other difference.

She thinks he was jealous of his wife because she stood out physically and was so lively and interesting. Of course, he was possessive. It would even bother him if Marina went for a walk alone.

Oct. 22, 1961

My dearest girl!

Today I received your postcard; thank you, dear, only I do not like your talk that you have a feeling that you will lose me. You will never lose me and that’s all!

Today also I received a letter from Mother. She sent me several books. She also tells me that you should learn to speak English.

I wrote back and told her that you do not want to . . . I sent her regards from you.

You can’t tell when you will return. Tell me as early as you can. The weather is here cold and rainy.

And our personal affairs: I went, but they say, “No answer yet.”

But that’s all right. You will be home soon again. It will be so good to be with you. I am glad that the baby is so active; that’s good.

Well, so long, write,
Your husband,
Alik
⁶

While in Kharkhov, Marina could not stop thinking of Valya and of Ilya. They had been trying to persuade her. They did not want her to go to America. Valya even told her that it would be very bad for Ilya. Marina, however, wasn’t sure this was so. Times were changing, and she was only Ilya’s niece. Now, with Nikita Khrushchev, young people were believing in freedom: It was not 1945; it was not Stalin. They weren’t going to prosecute Ilya just because his niece went to America. Of course, they might not promote him in his job. Valya told her that Ilya had worked honestly all his life toward his pension. Maybe he would even be denied that. Valya said, “God forbid, what if they send us to Siberia?”

Ilya’s sister Aunt Lyuba was also disturbed. After all, she was working at MVD as a bookkeeper. Her job might be in jeopardy as well. Yet Valya never scolded Marina—she just opened her cards and spread them out. “You know,” she said, “you hold our lives in your hands. Maybe it is a
kapriz
to go to America.” Marina walked back from such conversations with a heavy burden. What was she to do? She wasn’t ungracious or ungrateful, but they were putting a heavy decision on her shoulders. It was not a
kapriz,
she decided. She was not capricious.

So, yes, thinking about it now in Kharkhov, she would take a chance. Valya and Ilya would be all right. She was not going to destroy her family. Yet even Aunt Polina, in Kharkhov, was advising her not to go to America. Polina said: “Stay in Russia for the good of all.” When Marina would go for a walk with Polina’s son, she was so upset in her movements that he became concerned she might fall down. He was a lovely young boy, and he loved her, and he said, “Marina, don’t pay attention to my mother. Do what’s right in your heart.”

She went back to work after these three weeks in Kharkhov, but things got worse.

November 2

Marina arrives back radiant, with several jars of preserves for me from her aunt in Kharkhov.