Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery

by Norman Mailer

  Not his balcony, however. Pavel calculated that it would be difficult to disguise a microphone out on a naked balcony. Moreover, cars would be passing, and there would be wind and interference from birds. From detective stories, you would have believed that the Organs had enough technology to put a miniature microphone in a button on a shirt, but that is very expensive.

  All the same, they were always there. Or so it felt. Pavel, when talking to Lee, would not allow himself to get curious. He didn’t want to gain any information he would have to divulge or else not be serving his Motherland.

  8

  Doing the Floor

  When speaking to the interviewers, Stepan always put his emphasis on the more efficient aspects of security activities. He did not dwell on lapses. Whatever impediments might hinder good transcription were not going to be discussed by him. Reviewing those particular transcripts that the KGB did provide, it is, however, hard to suppose that we are in the presence of advanced technology. As was often indicated by their transcriber, the sound was poor and Oswald’s radio was usually on. Indeed, he often had to yell above it for Marina to hear. Since it was summer, there were frequent visits to their balcony, and from there nothing could be heard, while the sounds of running water are what is picked up most often from the kitchen.

  Add to this that there might be unprofessional fatigue visiting that KGB auditor in the next room, even periods, conceivably, of dozing off: One is left for the most part with a portrait of two young married people who argue with each other so fiercely and—for all we can make out—so pointlessly that an impulse arises to compose a one-act play—Newlyweds.

  INTERVIEWER: Did you ever fight over washing the floors?

  MARINA: No.

  INTERVIEWER: Would he ever complain about the floors?

  MARINA: I don’t remember . . . but I don’t think so.

  INTERVIEWER: Did you ever argue about cleaning the house?

  MARINA: We probably argued about even the cats scratching the roof.

  FROM KGB TRANSCRIPT

  FOR OBJECT: OLH-2658

  FOR PERIOD: 3 AUG. 1961

  18:24 (they enter room)

  WIFE: (yells) I’m tired of everything! And what about you? Can’t you wash? I suppose you want me to wash floors every day?

  LHO: Yes, wash these floors every day!

  WIFE: You don’t do anything and I’m supposed to spend all day cleaning up. A decent man would help. Remember you used to say: I’ll help! You did wash once, and now you talk about it endlessly, and I wash our clothes every time and it doesn’t count for anything . . .

  LHO: You have to make something to eat!

  WIFE: (yells) I can’t. I’m not going to cook.

  LHO: You could make cutlets, put on water for tea. I mean, I bought everything, everything.

  WIFE: I won’t.

  LHO: You haven’t done anything.

  WIFE: Well, what have you done for me?

  LHO: Silence!

  WIFE: I’m not going to live with you.

  LHO: Thank God!

  WIFE: Take a look at yourself! A tidy man! You’re twenty times dirtier than I am. Look at your pillow; you sleep on it once and it’s already dirty.

  LHO: You never do anything!

  WIFE: That’s right, I just carouse. I carouse with my health.

  LHO: You don’t do anything.

  WIFE: Have you ever cleaned up in this apartment—just once? I’ve done it twenty-one times. You’ll do it and then talk about it all day.

  LHO: This house has to be cleaned every day. There’s dirt in our kitchen, dirt everywhere. What good is that? You sleep until ten in the morning and you don’t do anything. You could be cleaning up during that time.

  WIFE: I need my sleep. If you don’t like it, you can go to your America.

  LHO: (calmly) Please, thank you.

  WIFE: You’re always finding fault; nothing’s enough, everything’s bad.

  LHO: You’re ridiculous. Lazy and crude.

  WIFE: I want you to feel what it’s like to be me for one day. (after a silence, she begins to cry)

  LHO: Well, what’s the problem?

  WIFE: Get out! I’m not your housekeeper. Give me proper conditions . . .

  LHO: Don’t cry. I’m just saying that you don’t want to do anything.

  WIFE: So? I never washed our floors?

  LHO: You’re not a good housewife, no, not a good housewife.

  WIFE: You should have married a good one . . .

  (they’re silent)

  WIFE: . . . If you don’t like it, you can go to your America.

  LHO: I’ve told you for a long time that you don’t do anything.

  WIFE: I wash floors every day.

  LHO: It’s dirty.

  WIFE: What’s dirty to you is clean to me. I washed floors yesterday and you walk around in shoes.

  LHO: There’s dirt and dust because you open our balcony doors.

  WIFE: (yells) It was closed all day. You don’t understand anything.

  LHO: Don’t cry.

  WIFE: Don’t you see that I dust each morning?

  LHO: You don’t clean up over there on our table.

  WIFE: Yeah, yeah, I dirty it up. I washed it twice and you never even washed it once.

  LHO: Calm your nerves.

  WIFE: Just say: “Marina, it has to be done.” Don’t yell; it’s hurtful . . . Alka, do you hate me when you yell at me?

  LHO: Yes.

  WIFE: Yes?

  LHO: Yes.

  WIFE: . . . Why are you afraid of people? What scared you?

  LHO: (yells angrily) Shut up, shut up . . . You stand there and blab.

  WIFE: You’re afraid of everybody! . . .

  LHO: Shut up!

  WIFE: Are you afraid that they’ll steal everything from you, a pot of gold that you have? (laughing) At times like this you could kill me. You have to have some kind of strong will.

  LHO: How about some potatoes?

  WIFE: They’re not ready yet, what can I do?

  22:37 (they go into the kitchen)

  22:40 (Wife makes LHO wash his feet)

  23:00 (it’s quiet in the room; no conversation)

  It was painful for Yuri Merezhinsky to see this marriage. Alik had a good apartment, quite acceptable if you were a single man. No matter if Yuri’s English was good or bad, he was going to tell interviewers everything in English. He had talent for English and he could say that he was there in this apartment before, and after. Before marriage, bright. After marriage, gray.

  He remembers Marina in her living room, and she is bent over. Like a crab. She washes her floor. Her ass is higher than her shoulders, like a crab.

  Yuri is drunk, but he is not out of command of his drinking. He will go on drinking. He will go on telling them what he can. No longer fluent in English, he will say. Once was.

  The interviewers tried to talk to him about Lee and Marina’s wedding. He said: “Nobody who fucked Marina was invited to wedding. If Alik knew she was fucking around, he would never marry. But then, in every family, man is equal to head and woman is equal to neck—neck turns head whichever way it wants.” He, Yuri, could say that he was fucking Marina.

  Before marriage?

  Before marriage, after marriage. No question. Everybody knows.

  In sex, when together, he and Marina—no problem, Yuri would say. They didn’t have any—how do you say?—prejudice; they were not ashamed. Tried to satisfy each other—that’s it.

  He does not remember his conversations with Marina. “We talked nonsense. She was happy with me, otherwise why would she visit? She was not interested in relationship, just sex.”

  How was Alik in bed, he did not know. That could be described only by a woman. But on outside, Alik was never aggressive. Yuri would give examples. Once, in Oswald’s bachelor days, somebody grabbed Alik by his shirt. There, right on the street. Yuri saved him. Alik could not defend himself. Couldn’t even hit somebody. Yuri would defend him many times. On the street, people
came up to them and said, “Give me something to drink. Put a bottle on my table.” They knew Lee had money. In those days, you could buy alcohol until midnight. So, they would come and say, “Alik, buy a drink, put something on our table.” Alik wouldn’t say yes or no. Yuri would respond. Alik couldn’t even raise his hand to defend himself, but Yuri hit this guy who was asking. Straight in his face. At that time, Yuri could say, he was good fighter. Russian word for wimp is sleeznyak, a jelly. Not true for Oswald, said Yuri. Lee was not one to round off a sharp corner, but he was not sleeznyak. It’s just that Yuri was boss of situation such as this. Even now he was not afraid to meet and talk to interviewers. At that time, he was stronger. Because he was young. Strong, but that does not matter. If you don’t have brains, it don’t matter how strong—consider yourself an invalid. But he had brains and he was strong. Behind his shoulders, behind his back, were his mother and his father. KGB and MVD were somewhere far away. Nobody could scare him then. He could hit anybody in their face. But Alik could not afford it. Different situation for Alik.

  He could say that his parents were against this friendship with Lee. They said, “He’s a foreigner. We would prefer that you don’t have meetings with him.” They said it could damage their careers. And they were worried about Yuri’s future, too. His mother might be friends with Khrushchev, but she did not consider herself untouchable. Yuri disagreed. His mother and father worried a lot, but they were so high that they, in fact, were untouchable. His behavior could damage his life, not theirs.

  After Alik’s marriage, changes in this American were like a difference between earth and sky. After marriage, Oswald was zabitiy, which means somebody beats you, beats you, beats you, until you are beaten down. Zabitiy. There’s Marina in middle of her new apartment washing the floor, washing with her ass high like a very low peasant woman. This is how Yuri remembers her after marriage. She turns to Alik and says, “Get out of here; you disturb my washing.”

  But, Yuri was asked, if they both changed so much, what kept them together? “Who,” Yuri replied, “was kept, and who was keeping? This is your question. Answer is that this relationship was saved because she wanted to go to America. But what kind of marriage? They had one fold-up bed. Who can fuck in fold-up bed? No family life inside. No love. It all depends on your woman. If she wanted, she would not have such a bed. She would change it. Such things rely on your wife. Before marriage, Alik’s apartment was bright. After, gray. What else can be said?” said Yuri.

  FROM KGB TRANSCRIPTS

  FOR OBJECT: OLH-2658

  FOR PERIOD: 11 AUGUST 1961

  LHO: If you don’t love me, then how can you live with me? I give and will give you every opportunity . . . What do you want? One minute you say you want to leave, next minute you don’t want to leave.

  WIFE: Sometimes I’m just afraid of going with you . . . I don’t want to try to prove to you that everything here is great, and everything there is bad. But . . . if here I don’t have anything and won’t have anything, it’s home.

  LHO: You’ll never have anything here, but over there you’ll have your husband and everything.

  WIFE: . . . What will I do there? I’ll sit at home the whole time and that’s it.

  LHO: . . . But you’re going to live with me there. You’ll have everything.

  WIFE: I’m not looking for material advantages. Money doesn’t interest me. It’s not important. Most important thing is how you treat me.

  LHO: Ah, well, then everything is in order.

  WIFE: I don’t have any guarantee that you won’t abandon me there. Then what do I do? . . .

  LHO: If you don’t love me, then don’t go.

  WIFE: No, I’m afraid you’re abandoning me . . . You’re leaving, after all.

  LHO: I’m leaving?!

  WIFE: See, you’re already yelling, and what will it be like later? . . .

  LHO: . . . What do you have here? One room. Is that so much? One room, and even that isn’t yours.

  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 u
nclean. 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