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Marina: “Da, da, always you must have the toys.”
(Splashing, loud. The door to the bathroom must be all the way open now.)
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. Russian speaker, Al had noted in
a laconic style not much like his earlier notes. Met at party, 2(??)/63. Marina separated from Lee and
living with the Paine woman at the time of the Kennedy assassination. And then, as if it were no more than
an afterthought: Lee stored M-C in Paine garage. Wrapped in blanket.
By M-C, he meant the mail-order Mannlicher-Carcano rifle with which Lee planned to kill General
Walker.
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?”
“Da,” Marina said. “Yes.” Then she added something in Russian. Ruth replied in the same
language . . . although haltingly.