He was at his most babyish when he and Junie emerged from the tub. “Wipe my back first,” he would say to Marina in baby talk. Or, “Quick, quick, there are drops of water on my leg!” If Marina did not dry him off quickly enough or refused to mop up the puddles he and the baby made on the floor, he threatened to stay in the bathtub all day. “Stop it, Alka,” Marina pleaded. “I haven’t got time to play.”
“Our mama isn’t good to us,” he said to Junie. “She doesn’t like looking after little children.”
If Marina was busy with something else and was not able to dry him off, he strode naked through the apartment, splattering water everywhere. He knew that Marina hated that; she was afraid to have the neighbors see him naked. “If you won’t dry me off,” Lee said, “then they’ll have the pleasure of seeing me.”
Once in a while the baby was naughty, and Marina gave her a little slap on the behind. “Come to Papa,” Lee would say. “Papa will take pity on you. Mama doesn’t love our Junie. Otherwise she’d be ashamed to hurt such a tiny girl’s feelings. Let’s go and find Mama.” Then he would go to Marina and give her a little slap on the behind.
Marina told him to stop; it undermined her authority. “I’ll never get her to obey.” Lee said the baby was too little to understand. “She understands more than you know,” Marina replied.
Junie was the joy of Lee’s life, his tie to reality, the one person, Marina thinks, with whom he came down from the clouds and behaved like a human being. He was often cruel to Marina, but never to June. “His general mood was one thing,” says Marina. “How he was with babies was another.” She frankly admits that she was jealous.
The three of them seldom went out together.
But there was one expedition they all enjoyed. Although they were living on very little money and spent almost nothing on recreation, Lee loved taking Marina and June to the amusement park at Lake Pontchartrain. There was a horse race game at the park at which he always got lucky. He considered everything he won there pure profit, and nothing made him happier than to spend all his winnings on hamburgers for his “two girls.”
He spent almost nothing else and tried to save every penny. He even starved himself to save money. During the last several weeks in New Orleans, he ate very little and became so thin that his ribs and collarbone stuck out. His face and legs were bony, too. Marina thinks he was starving himself not only to save money but also because he was in a wave of emotional tension. He had lost weight other times—just before he went to the American embassy in Moscow in July 1961, and again the month before his attempt on General Walker—but his last month in New Orleans was the worst.
Marina scolded him for being stingy. And he, in turn, scolded her for the way she spent even the small amount of money that he did give her. Lee, of course, was saving for his trip to Mexico, although neither of them spoke about it much. Marina said nothing when Lee failed to pay the $65 rent due September 9 for the following month, even though she was so ashamed that she did not dare leave the apartment during the day for fear of running into Mr. or Mrs. Garner. But finally she could contain her feelings no longer.
Just before Ruth was due to arrive, they were playing a game of poker. Lee promised Marina he would lend her money to play with, and when she won she started jumping around the room for joy.
“No, no, you didn’t win,” Lee protested. “I loaned you the money to begin with. If you win the next game, you can have the money. If you lose, then you’ll owe me again.”
Furious, Marina threw down the money and the cards and said: “Play by yourself, you greedy pig!”
“Why are you so angry?” He followed her as she stormed out of the room. “It’s only a game.”
“I’m sorry, Alka. I see this game in real life every day. Even in games, even in little things, you’re always greedy for money. You know I don’t have a cent. Supposing I do owe you money, where will I get it? Steal it from you? You know I can’t steal.”
“Then you didn’t have to play by those principles.”
“I’m tired of your principles,” she said. “Even in games I see your petty spirit. I see it in the grocery store. We go in, and you give me thirty cents. Afterward you want to know what I spent it on. I earned thirty dollars teaching Russian and spent all but four of it on you. I wasn’t sorry I spent it on you—I was glad. Lyolya Hall gave me twenty dollars, and I spent every penny of it on you.”
All Marina’s grievances came pouring out. It was as if she had been storing them up like firecrackers in her mouth and Lee had touched a match to them. She exploded.
“On your principles I breast-fed Junie until she was ten months old just to save you money. I’m sick of your principles. Even in a simple game, you can’t change them. I spare nothing to help you. Just what do you think you look like—like a skeleton, that’s what. That’s your principles, too. It’s greed, not principles at all. You save on everything. What for? To buy a dress for your wife? Food or a toy for your child? No. You have money for a gun. You have money for your Mexico. But for your own baby, no! What joy is your Cuba, your Mexico, your Castro, to me? You never even think about our new baby. I have to ask Ruth to help because Papa has got something more important on his mind. I’m tired of your ‘important’ things. When will you start to think the way normal people do? You imagine that you’re a great man. Nobody thought that up but you.”
Marina was so angry, and her words poured out so rapidly, that Lee was silent. Then she started to pack all her clothes in a suitcase. She was going to the Murrets’ until Ruth came.
He pushed her gently on the bed. “My God,” Lee said. “Out of such tiny things she makes such a fight. That’s women for you!”
“Ah, women again,” said Marina. “There’s not a woman who would stay with you more than one day. Any other woman would have run away the day after she married you.”
Lee took Marina’s clothes out of the suitcase and hung them back in the closet. She took them out and packed them again. “I’m the only one who’s fool enough to do it,” she went on. “I try to put up with you. And the whole time you’re giving me hell and saying I never ‘support’ you. What on earth do you mean by that? That I ought to carry you in my arms? With a normal man it would be the other way around. He would carry his wife in his arms.”
“I can carry you in my arms,” Lee said and started to lift her.
She pulled away from him and kept on packing, while Lee tried to soothe her and begged her not to leave.
“Alka,” she said, “what is it, what more do you want from me? Never again say to me that I ‘never support you.’ I can’t even bear to hear those words. I do more for you than I should and more than I can.”
Lee tried to calm her. He apologized. He had not meant to make her angry, he said. He offered to give back the money she had won at cards, but Marina refused to touch it.
“Go choke on your lousy money.”
After she had packed and been unpacked twice, Lee kissed her, and she finally quieted down. She went to bed, and Lee disappeared into the bathroom to read. Later, he stole into the bedroom and asked if he might lie down.
“Unhappily, I have no choice,” she said.
He crept cautiously into bed, afraid to take up an extra inch. Then he got bolder and asked if he might move over a little.
“No,” she said. “Go sleep on the floor.” But after a few minutes she weakened and moved over.