Robert didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Perhaps he was remembering a cold day in November of 1960. His mama trotting after him along West Seventh, calling out, “ Stop, Robert, don’t walk so fast, I’m not done with you!” And although Al’s notes said nothing on the subject, I doubted if she was done with Lee, either. After all, Lee was the son she really cared about. The baby of the family. The one who slept in the same bed with her until he was eleven. The one who needed regular checking to see if he’d started getting hair around his balls yet. Those things were in Al’s notes. Next to them, in the margin, were two words you’d not ordinarily expect from a short-order cook: hysterical fixation.
“We got it straight, Lee, but this ain’t a big town. She’ll find you.”
“I’ll send her packing if she does. You can count on that.”
They got into the Bel Air and drove away. The FOR RENT sign was gone from the porch railing. Lee and Marina’s new landlord had taken it with him when he went.
I walked to the hardware store, bought a roll of friction tape, and covered the Tupperware bowl with it, outside and inside. On the whole, I thought it had been a good day, but I had entered the danger zone. And I knew it.
On August 10, around five in the afternoon, the Bel Air reappeared, this time pulling a small wooden trailer. It took Lee and Robert less than ten minutes to carry all of the Oswalds’ worldly goods into the new manse (being careful to avoid the loose porch board, which had still not been fixed). During the moving-in process, Marina stood on the crabgrassy lawn with June in her arms, looking at her new home with an expression of dismay that needed no translation.
This time all three of the jump-rope girls appeared, two walking, the other pushing her scooter. They demanded to see the baby, and Marina complied with a smile.
“What’s her name?” one of the girls asked.
“June,” Marina said.
Then they all jumped in. “How old is she? Can she talk? Why don’t she laugh? Does she have a dolly?”
Marina shook her head. She was still smiling. “Sorry, I no spik.”
The three girls pelted off, yelling “I no spik, I no spik!” One of the surviving Mercedes Street chickens flew out of their way, squawking. Marina watched them go, her smile fading.
Lee came out on the lawn to join her. He was stripped to the waist, sweating hard. His skin was fishbelly white. His arms were thin and slack. He put an arm around her waist, then bent and kissed June. I thought Marina might point at the house and say no like, I no like -she had that much English down-but she only handed Lee the baby and climbed to the porch, tottering for a moment on the loose step, then catching her balance. It occurred to me that Sadie probably would have gone sprawling, then limped on a swollen ankle for the next ten days.
It also occurred to me that Marina was as anxious to get away from Marguerite as her husband was.
The tenth was a Friday. On Monday, about two hours after Lee had left for another day of putting together aluminum screen doors, a mud-colored station wagon pulled up to the curb in front of 2703. Marguerite Oswald was out on the passenger side almost before it stopped rolling. Today the red kerchief had been replaced by a white one with black polka dots, but the nurse’s shoes were the same, and so was the look of dissatisfied pugnacity. She had found them, just as Robert had said she would.
Hound of heaven, I thought. Hound of heaven.
I was looking out through the crack between the drapes, but saw no point in powering up the mike. This was a story that needed no soundtrack.
The friend who had driven her-a portly gal-struggled out from behind the wheel and fanned the neck of her dress. The day was already another scorcher, but Marguerite cared nothing for that. She hustled her chauffeur around to the trunk of the station wagon. Inside was a high chair and a bag of groceries. Marguerite took the former; her friend hoisted the latter.
The jump-rope girl with the scooter came riding up, but Marguerite gave her short shrift. I heard “Scat, child!” and the jump-rope girl rode away with her lower lip pooched out.
Marguerite marched up the bald rut that served as a front walk. While she was eyeing the loose step, Marina came out. She was wearing a smock top and the kind of shorts Mrs. Oswald didn’t approve of for married women. I wasn’t surprised that Marina liked them. She had terrific legs. Her expression was one of startled alarm, and I didn’t need my makeshift amplifier to hear her.
“No, Mamochka-Mamochka, no! Lee say no! Lee say no! Lee say-” Then a quick rattle of Russian as Marina expressed what her husband had said in the only way she could.
Marguerite Oswald was one of those Americans who believe foreigners are sure to understand you if you just speak slowly… and very LOUDLY.
