Marina: (Speaks Russian.)
Lee (pouty little boy’s voice): “Mama, you forgot our rubber ball.”
(Big splash — the baby screams with delight.)
Marina: “There, all toys for preence and preencessa.”
(Laughter from all three — their joy turns me cold.)
Lee: “Mama, bring us a (Russian word). We have water on our ear.”
Marina (laughing): “Oh my God, what next?”
I lay awake a long time that night, thinking of the three of them. Happy for once, and why not? 214 West Neely wasn’t much, but it was still a step up. Maybe they were even sleeping in the same bed, June for once happy instead of scared to death.
And now a fourth in the bed, as well. The one growing in Marina’s belly.
4
Things began to move faster, as they had in Derry, only now time’s arrow was flying toward April 10 instead of Halloween. Al’s notes, which I had depended on to get me this far, became less helpful. Leading up to the attempt on Walker’s life, they concentrated almost solely on Lee’s actions and movements, and that winter there was a lot more to their lives, Marina’s in particular.
For one thing, she had finally made a friend — not a sugar daddy wannabe like George Bouhe, but a woman friend. Her name was Ruth Paine, and she was a Quaker lady.
By
I don’t know who threw the party where Lee and Marina met the Paines. I don’t know who introduced them. De Mohrenschildt? Bouhe? Probably one or the other, because by then the rest of the émigrés were giving the Oswalds a wide berth. Hubby was a sneering know-it-all, wifey a punching bag who’d passed up God knew how many chances to leave him for good.
What I do know is Marina Oswald’s potential escape-hatch arrived behind the wheel of a Chevrolet station wagon — white over red — on a rainy day in the middle of March. She parked at the curb and looked around dubiously, as if not sure she had come to the right address. Ruth Paine was tall (although not as tall as Sadie) and painfully thin. Her brownish hair was banged over a huge expanse of forehead in front and flipped in back, a style that did not flatter her. She wore rimless glasses on a nose splashed with freckles. To me, peering through a crack in the curtains, she looked like the kind of woman who steered clear of meat and marched in Ban the Bomb demonstrations. . and that was pretty much who Ruth Paine was, I think, a woman who was New Age before New Age was cool.
Marina must have been watching for her, because she came clattering down the outside stairs with the baby in her arms, a blanket flipped up over June’s head to protect her from the drifting drizzle. Ruth Paine smiled tentatively and spoke carefully, putting a space between each word. “Hello, Mrs. Oswald, I’m Ruth Paine. Do you remember me?”
Marina invited her in. I waited until I heard the creak of their footsteps above me, then donned the earphones connected to the lamp bug. What I heard was a conversation in mixed English and Russian. Marina corrected Ruth several times, sometimes with laughter. I understood enough to figure out why Ruth Paine had come. Like Paul Gregory, she wanted Russian lessons. I understood something else from their frequent laughter and increasingly easy conversation: they liked each other.
I was glad for Marina. If I killed Oswald after his attempt on General Walker, the New Agey Ruth Paine might take her in. I could hope.
5
Ruth only came twice to Neely Street for her lessons. After that, Marina and June got in the station wagon and Ruth drove them away. Probably to her home in the posh (at least by Oak Cliff standards) suburb of Irving. That address wasn’t in Al’s notes — he seemed to care little about Marina’s relationship with Ruth, probably because he expected to finish Lee long before that rifle ended up in the Paines’ garage — but I found it in the phone directory: 2515 West Fifth Street.
