Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery

by Norman Mailer

  As you were notified previously, three photographs of your daughter and a copy of her birth certificate will also be necessary for the Consular Report of Birth and the amendment to your passport . . .

  Please notify the Embassy when to expect you.5

  10

  Farewell to Ella

  It may be recalled that Max Prokhorchik was the fellow who had a fight with Oswald when the settings were changed on Max’s drill. That had been back in the early days of January 1960, just after they both started to work at Horizon. Afterward, Max had been interested in Ella, since there was a sort of mystery about her. She had seen so much of that American. Later, Max and a fellow named Arkady went out in a threesome with Ella until she chose Max, and then soon after he proposed, and Ella’s mother said, “Let it be. Let her be your wife.” So they were married on May 4, 1962. A very small ceremony. Fifteen months had gone by since she stopped seeing Lee, and not once in all that time had Lee spoken to Ella. In fact, he now pretended not to know her. But one day, most suddenly, toward the end of May, he came up to her workbench just as Ella was getting ready to go home and have lunch with her new husband. Lee came in, walked straight up to her, and said, “Can we meet today? There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  Ella lost her head. If she’d been married a little longer she might have said yes, but she’d only been living with Max a couple of weeks, and he was so close to her that he was following her around, watching her every step, so she thought she probably couldn’t, probably shouldn’t, not after that fight between Max and Lee over two years ago. She shook her head. She said, “I just got married,” and Lee said, “Did you marry somebody I know?” She looked at him and said, “Yes.” He turned his back and walked out through the same door by which he had walked in. Some days later, someone told her that he had left for America. If only she had known he was going away.

  She remembers that Lee certainly seemed to want to tell her something, but once he turned away, she didn’t have time to react. And she didn’t feel like running after him.

  She thinks Lee must have seen her with Max. In the weeks before their marriage, she and Max had always been together. Lee would have seen that not only did she leave Horizon with Max each evening, but she would walk to work with him each morning. Lee certainly wouldn’t like the idea that she had married Max.

  Ella was very surprised, however, that Lee was going back to America. She even started to contradict people about it. Someone would say, “Do you know Lee Oswald is in America?” and she’d answer, “No, I can just bet it’s not America he’s going to.” She was so sure of herself that she was very surprised later to find out she was wrong.

  11

  Leave-taking

  FROM KGB TRANSCRIPT

  FOR OBJECT: OLH-2983

  FOR PERIOD: 19 MAY 1962

  LHO:

  How could you! You were off from work somewhere for three hours.

  (baby is crying)

  WIFE:

  You idiot! I’m not going anywhere with you. You can take the baby and go. Take her and go.

  LHO:

  Shut up. Take your baby.

  (baby is crying)

  WIFE:

  Leave me alone. Do whatever you want, I’m not going with you. You never do anything to help me out. Go, feed the baby. You can kill me, but I’m not going to get milk. I’m just going to sit here and watch. You’ll create these scandals until two in the morning. I don’t just take off from work somewhere—I have to sleep at that clinic. These doctors seem to make a point of not waiting for me.

  (cries)

  What, I have to run home [from my clinic]?

  LHO:

  Exactly.

  (they go into kitchen)

  12:50

  (they come back in)

  WIFE:

  (sobbing) Out of my sight, you dog! You scoundrel! Don’t look at me that way—nobody is afraid of you. Go to hell, you bastard!

  LHO:

  You’re very good.

  WIFE:

  You can go to your America without me, and I hope you die on the way.

  (LHO leaves)

  (quiet in the apartment)

  That dialogue was in the afternoon. By evening of the same day, Pavel has arrived, and then a man and woman come to visit. Given the nature of their conversation, they have to be Mr. and Mrs. Ziger, and so they appear here with their names rather than—as in the documents—Unidentified Man 3 and Unidentified Woman 2. Having taken this much liberty with our KGB transcript, “Wife” will now be changed to Marina, and “LHO” can appear as Lee.

  21:30

  MRS. ZIGER: We knocked and knocked!

  MARINA: We were on our balcony; we didn’t hear anything.

  MRS. ZIGER: Where’s your daughter? Let’s hope she stays healthy. She has her mother’s eyes—they’re big.

  LEE: She has her mother’s eyes, lips, nose. She got everything from her mother, nothing from me.

  MRS. ZIGER: Next time you’ll have a son.

  LEE: We already received all our papers. We’re probably leaving on Tuesday . . .

  MRS. ZIGER: How are you going? By boat or plane?

  LEE: From Moscow either by train or by plane. It depends on what sort of visa they give us . . .

  (they all talk at same time; can’t understand anything)

  MRS. ZIGER: When she grows up, she won’t even know where she was born. Maybe June’ll come to visit sometime.

  MR. ZIGER: Visiting is another matter. She just shouldn’t come here to stay.

  LEE: Have you put on tea?

  MRS. ZIGER: Don’t worry about us, we’re fine.

  LEE: Are there any glasses?

  MARINA: We have two glasses. There’s also my small cup. He already packed everything.

  LEE: Our entire fortune. An empty room.

  MRS. ZIGER: . . . You’re happy, of course?

  LEE: We’re happy.

  MRS. ZIGER: Marinochka, you must be?

  MARINA: I’m not all that happy, of course . . .

  MRS. ZIGER: [The baby] will be blond; she’s going to be pretty.

  LEE: She’s going to have a good life; she’ll have everything . . .

  (they’re all talking at once; difficult to make out)

  (Pavel arrives and all three men move to kitchen)

  MRS. ZIGER: Marinochka, you don’t know how much I envy you, you’re so healthy.

  MARINA: I’ll arrive [in America] with my daughter, I don’t know, maybe it’ll be difficult, maybe he won’t find work.

  MRS. ZIGER: Why won’t he find work? . . . You’ll get settled, everything will be fine, you’ll have lots of everything, you’ll have freedom.

  MARINA: We’ll have money, freedom.

  MRS. ZIGER: God, how I hate living in this city. You don’t have a lot of linen. Do you have a chest? God, and we have so much junk! How much we brought! And how much we gave away! There was our dresser, our bed, our cheval glass, oaken, huge. And dishes! We sold them all.

  MARINA: At first you probably didn’t have all that?

  MRS. ZIGER: Yes, I remember it as if it were yesterday. He was twenty-one, and I was twenty-four; I was older than him.

  MARINA: You look like you’re younger . . .

  MRS. ZIGER: How are you set for money?

  MARINA: We saved . . . Because we’re both that way.

  MRS. ZIGER: How much does it cost?

  MARINA: One ticket costs 440 new rubles. For two.

  MRS. ZIGER: Didn’t your aunt help you a little?

  MARINA: No.

  MRS. ZIGER: Thank God you’re going. It’s fate, you met your beloved American . . .

  MARINA: I’ll tell you one thing, he helps me.

  MRS. ZIGER: Most important thing is that he doesn’t have any other women.

  MARINA: Who knows, maybe I won’t always be good for him. I wouldn’t say that I’m really good.

  MRS. ZIGER: You have a good soul.

  MARINA: At first he was unhappy that she was
a girl and not a boy, but now he doesn’t mind.

  MRS. ZIGER: Oh, not at all, he’ll love her.

  MARINA: He loves her now.

  (they talk about baby, about fact that some husbands are bad, drink or treat their wives badly)

  MRS. ZIGER: Maybe you’ll want to come for a visit here sometime . . .

  MARINA: It’s easier to live there. He’ll be making more money than he makes here. What can he do here? You work and work and you make chicken feed.

  MRS. ZIGER: . . . It’s amazing that your aunt didn’t help you—she could at least have bought you a present.

  MARINA: What are you talking about! She didn’t even buy diapers for June. He and she alone make thousands. They could at least have bought something. I’m not asking for expensive presents, maybe a little hat for 40 kopecks. Now, the pharmacy girls helped—one of them would bring over diapers, another would bring something else. Every little bit helps.

  MRS. ZIGER: Did you already say goodbye to your aunt?

  MARINA: Not yet.

  MRS. ZIGER: When did you tell her?

  MARINA: I think they got my letter day before yesterday . . . I told her that I was leaving. “Are you crazy! You’re going to leave after all.”

  MRS. ZIGER: I’m following my husband. Wherever needle goes, thread follows . . .

  (they talk about what Marina will wear for her trip; they talk about furniture: how much, more or less, they’ll get for it; then they talk about her baby)

  MARINA: Alik, come over here; she’s sleeping.

  22:40 (Lee, Pavel, and Mr. Ziger come in from kitchen)

  MRS. ZIGER: So, Alik, are you going to miss us?

  LEE: Of course, we’ll miss you.

  (everyone’s yelling; can’t make out what; Pavel is taking pictures)

  (they all talk at same time; can’t make anything out)

  MRS. ZIGER: You have to promise to teach this baby Russian.

  LEE: I promise.

  MRS. ZIGER: It’s good to know Russian; it never hurts. Isn’t it good you can understand?

  (guys talk about radio; women talk about their problems; can’t understand anything)

  PAVEL: Customs won’t look.

  MARINA: They don’t look at everything, anyway—they do it selectively.

  MRS. ZIGER: When we arrived in Odessa, there was an enormous warehouse; everyone had brought 7 or 8 chests. We brought a piano, a stroller, four enormous chests full of everything—everyone brought half a train car of things. And the Ukrainian women say: “Look at all the stuff they brought with them, and they say that people there are dying of hunger.” And my girls came wearing thin high heels: “Look at those heels!” We were crestfallen, you can’t imagine . . . Things here have changed so much during this last five years!

  PAVEL: For worse?

  MRS. ZIGER: For better. Let’s hope so. I’m tired of living and suffering in a country like Russia, the biggest and richest country.

  PAVEL: In the final analysis, the number of bombs in every country isn’t all that terrible. When there are enough bombs, no one will start a war.

  MR. ZIGER: You’d have to be crazy.

  PAVEL: They say that we’re arming because Americans want war. Americans had their bomb before we did; why didn’t they attack then? They don’t want war. No one wants war.

  MR. ZIGER: I don’t know whether there’ll be a war or not.

  PAVEL: There can’t be two systems for very long.

  MR. ZIGER: If Marxism is really right, then capitalism is dying, expiring, so there’ll only be one system. If it’s not right, then Communism won’t last very long. Communism has changed when you compare it to Communism that was described by Engels and Marx.

  (static; nothing audible)

  MRS. ZIGER: Goodbye.

  MR. ZIGER: We’ll still see each other before you go.

  23:10 (Mr. and Mrs. Ziger leave)

  There was something she had never told anyone before. It seemed irrelevant. Yet, before they left Russia, Lee took her out on the balcony and asked her to try—before she quit her job at the pharmacy; he said, Try to get some narcotics and bring them home. When she told him she couldn’t obtain such items legally—you have to sign for everything—he said, “Can’t you steal it?” She wouldn’t. She couldn’t and she wouldn’t.

  But to this day, she has no idea why he wanted narcotics. He didn’t say morphine or amphetamines, just “narcotics.” It wasn’t as if he was drug-addicted; why, he couldn’t even take much alcohol. Maybe he wanted to sell drugs in Minsk so he could come home to America with more money. But she didn’t understand. He was scared to death even to smuggle his writing papers out. He spent a lot of time worrying about where to put those mysterious pages. He would bring up such a concern now and again on the balcony.

  FROM KGB TRANSCRIPT

  FOR OBJECT: OLH-2983

  FOR PERIOD: 20 MAY 1962

  LEE: . . . You won’t say anything. You’ll answer their questions, you [won’t] talk. You’re going to sit there and keep your mouth shut, got it?

  MARINA: If there’s trouble, you’ll have to deal with it.

  LEE: That’s all there is to it. It’s my responsibility. You just sit tight . . . [At the American Embassy] you should say: No, I’m not a member of a trade union. I’ve never been in any Soviet organization.

  MARINA: So do they persecute you for that in America? Why should I go to a country like that?

  LEE: Just say it.

  MARINA: I haven’t left yet and the trouble’s already starting, and wait till I get [to America]—aha, you’re a Russian! You’re a member of a trade union!

  LEE: Shut up, your brains are ugly.

  MARINA: . . . I’m a Soviet girl, I’m not about to be afraid of anything. If I’m a member of my trade union, I’m a member and I’m not going to hide!

  LEE: Idiot!

  MARINA: I haven’t got anything to fear.

  LEE: Fool! [Just] say you are a pharmacist . . .

  MARINA: Well, I won’t go to a country where they persecute a person for every word. [bracketed in left margin]

  LEE: (idiotic laughter)

  MARINA: You smug ass! You’ll burst like a soap bubble.

  LEE: You already burst a long time ago . . .

  MARINA: . . . Honest people don’t hide anything, but you’re a deceiver. You’re always deceiving, you deceive everyone.

  10:05 (Lee leaves)

  13:20 (Sonya arrives; they talk about Marina’s baby)

  SONYA: . . . You don’t have a lot of things, just suitcases, right?

  MARINA: Just suitcases.

  SONYA: That’s it?

  MARINA: I have to wash my floor before we leave.

  SONYA: Why should you? Let them do it.

  MARINA: It has to be polished.

  SONYA: It’s not essential. You can get by with just washing it . . .

  Finally, after a year of deciding to leave, and getting ready to leave, after their letters have been written and all their permissions granted, all possessions sold and packed, they are still a day and a half away from departing but will leave the apartment now to spend their last night and last day in Minsk at Pavel’s place. Next day, on the eve of their departure, Stepan interviewed Ilya Prusakov once more.

  FROM KGB REPORT

  On 21 of May 1962 I conducted an interview with “Nalim’s” uncle, Prusakov, I. V., who informed me that on 20th of May he was visited at his apartment by his niece, Marina, and “Nalim.” In their conversation, “Nalim” told Prusakov of their intention to leave for Moscow . . . on the 22nd of May in order to fill out all necessary documents and then go to America.

  As a result of this, Prusakov and his wife, being Marina’s relatives, gave Marina and “Nalim” several pieces of advice. In particular, Prusakov, expressing concern for his own well-being, asked Marina and “Nalim” not to take part in any actions hostile to the Soviet Union after arrival in the United States. Prusakov reminded “Nalim” that he was provided for and always well treated by Soviet
people. “Nalim” assured Prusakov that they would not undertake any actions harmful to the Soviet Union. At the same time, “Nalim” explained that in order to avoid possible meetings and interviews with correspondents, he had decided to go straight to his brother’s residence without stopping in New York.

  Before her departure for Moscow, Marina is supposed to visit Prusakov’s apartment again. Considering that fact, a recommendation was made to Prusakov that he have a conversation with her, which would help to prevent Marina and “Nalim” from taking part in anti-Soviet propaganda abroad. Prusakov’s attention was brought to an understanding that this interview not evoke any suspicion on the part of Marina and “Nalim.”

  Dear Robert,

  . . . This will be the last letter you get from us from the USSR.

  In case you hear about our coming or the newspapers hear about it (I hope they won’t), I want to warn you not to make any comments whatsoever about me. None at all!! I know what was said about me when I left the U.S. as Mother sent me some clippings from the newspapers, however, I realize that it was just the shock of the news which made you say all those things. However, I’ll just remind you again not to make any statements or comments if you are approached by the newspapers between now and the time we actually arrive in the U.S.

  Hope to see you soon. Love to the family.

  Your brother,

  Lee1

  Friends came with flowers to say goodbye, and Marina knew she was leaving Mother Russia, leaving her friends and family behind. So, in a way, it was like a funeral. After all, at a funeral, you see a person for the last time. So, she thought, “Here I am leaving and my relatives might as well be dead.” She had done them so dirty. She didn’t think Valya and Ilya would come, and they didn’t. Only some friends.

  As the train began to pull out of Minsk, the Ziger family and Pavel began to wave, and all the others who had come to say goodbye (except Erich—he didn’t come), and now they were on their way to Moscow.