I didn’t need electronic assistance to monitor the deteriorating condition of their marriage; Marina continued to wear shorts even after the weather turned cool, as if to taunt him with her bruises. And her sex appeal, of course. June usually sat between them in her stroller. She no longer cried much during their shouting matches, only watched, sucking her thumb or a pacifier.
One day in November of 1962, I came back from the library and observed Lee and Marina on the corner of West Neely and Elsbeth, shouting at each other. Several people (mostly women at that hour of the day) had come out on their porches to watch. June sat in the stroller wrapped in a fuzzy pink blanket, silent and forgotten.
They were arguing in Russian, but the latest bone of contention was clear enough from Lee’s jabbing finger. She was wearing a straight black skirt — I don’t know if they were called pencil skirts back then or not — and the zipper on her left hip was halfway down. Probably it just snagged in the cloth, but listening to him rave, you would’ve thought she was trolling for men.
She brushed back her hair, pointed at June, then waved a hand at the house they were now inhabiting — the broken gutters dripping black water, the trash and beer cans on the bald front lawn — and screamed at him in English: “You say happy lies, then bring wife and baby to this
He flushed all the way to his hairline and clutched his arms across his thin chest, as if to anchor his hands and keep them from doing damage. He might have succeeded — that time, at least — if she hadn’t laughed, then twirled one finger around her ear in a gesture that must be common to all cultures. She started to turn away. He hauled her back, bumping the stroller and almost overturning it. Then he slugged her. She fell down on the cracked sidewalk and covered her face when he bent over her. “No, Lee, no! No more heet me!”
He didn’t hit her. He yanked her to her feet and shook her, instead. Her head snapped and rolled.
“You!” a rusty voice said from my left. It made me jump. “
It was an elderly woman on a walker. She was standing on her porch in a pink flannel nightgown with a quilted jacket over it. Her graying hair stood straight up, making me think of Elsa Lanchester’s twenty-thousand-volt home permanent in
“That man is beating on that woman! Go down there and put a stop to it!”
“No, ma’am,” I said. My voice was unsteady. I thought of adding
“You coward,” she said.
He was dragging her up the front walk with one hand and yanking the stroller with the other. The old woman gave me a final withering glance, then clumped back into her house. The other spectators were doing the same. Show over.
From my living room, I trained my binoculars on the redbrick monstrosity catercorner from me. Two hours later, just as I was about to give up the surveillance, Marina emerged with the small pink suitcase in one hand and the blanket-wrapped baby in the other. She had changed the offending skirt for slacks and what appeared to be two sweaters — the day had turned cold. She hurried down the street, several times looking back over her shoulder for Lee. When I was sure he wasn’t going to follow her, I did.
She went as far as Mister Car Wash four blocks down West Davis, and used the pay telephone there. I sat across the street at the bus stop with a newspaper spread out in front of me. Twenty minutes later, trusty old George Bouhe showed up. She spoke to him earnestly. He led her around to the passenger side of the car and opened the door for her. She smiled and pecked him on the corner of the mouth. I’m sure he treasured both. Then he got in behind the wheel and they drove away.
That night there was another argument in front of the Elsbeth Street house, and once again most of the immediate neighborhood turned out to watch. Feeling there was safety in numbers, I joined them.
Someone — almost certainly Bouhe — had sent George and Jeanne de Mohrenschildt to get the rest of Marina’s things. Bouhe probably figured they were the only ones who’d be able to get in without physical restraints being imposed on Lee.
“Be damned if I’ll hand anything over!” Lee shouted, oblivious of the rapt neighbors taking in every word. Cords stood out on his neck; his face was once more a bright, steaming red. How he must have hated that tendency to blush like a little girl who’s been caught passing love-notes.
