Marina thought that living at Ruth’s house was “wonderful.” It made her realize how hard her life was with Lee—she never had any good times with him, really. Marina enjoyed little things, like sitting and having coffee with the neighbors, visiting, doing favors, treating other people with decency. She had discovered that there was such a thing as suburban, middle-class American life, and she liked it. She knew she would have to give it up when Lee, with his angry and mistrustful nature, took her to live with him in Dallas.
And there was Ruth herself. Marina did not want to lose her. They had a good time together; they confided the details of their marriages to one another and gave each other much-needed moral support. And yet they were not so close that it was a strain for either of them to be with the other all the time. Marina found that Ruth had a way of respecting distances and leaving the other person alone. Her house was an oasis of serenity.
In short, Marina was in no hurry to go back to Lee. She missed him during the week when they were apart, but minutes after he appeared on the weekends there was friction again. Marina knew all too well what living with him was going to mean. He would try to cut her off from everyone. She hoped to prolong her stay at Ruth’s until after the holidays, and in the meantime build up her bargaining power with Lee. Maybe if she stayed away long enough, he would make concessions and not force her to give up her other friends. Marina could not bear to let that happen, to lose touch with what was decent and sane in her life.
And it was a matter of principle. Marina simply would not do to Ruth what Lee had forced her to do her émigré friends the year before—cut her off. She was not going to have that on her conscience. After all that she had done for her, Marina was not going to turn her back on Ruth Paine.
Marina expressed the worry that was nibbling at her in a way that was disconcerting to Ruth. When she moved to Dallas, Marina of course meant to give Ruth her address. But one evening as they were standing at the sink doing dishes, Marina said suddenly: “When we have our apartment, please, Ruth, our address is private. Don’t give it to anyone.”[3]
Ruth failed to connect the remark to Hosty or the FBI. Not knowing Marina’s train of thought, she was surprised by the remark. She was surprised, too, at the hint of asperity in Marina’s tone.
Lee called on Friday, November 15, at lunchtime, to ask if he could come out that day. Marina hesitated. She sensed that he had overstayed the weekend before. “I don’t know, Lee,” she said. “I think it’s inconvenient for Ruth to have you come every time.” Marina added that it was the birthday of Lynn, the Paines’ little girl, and they were going to have a party the next day.
“Will Michael be there?” Lee asked.
Marina said that he would.
“Well, it’s a family celebration. I don’t want to be in the way.”
Marina does not know whether Lee acceded as readily as he did because he no longer liked Michael; whether, to the contrary, he respected the Paines’ privacy and thought they ought to have a chance to be alone; or whether he had other things to do. He simply said: “Fine. There’s plenty for me to do here. I’ll read and I’ll watch TV. Don’t worry about me.”
Marina says that Lee did not get angry or withdrawn, as he did when his feelings were hurt. Lee liked to be alone, and Marina recalls that on an earlier weekend either he had stayed in Dallas until Saturday, giving as a reason, or pretext, that he was looking for a job in photography, or he had mentioned to her that one of these weekends he would be staying in alone on Friday night. This weekend, in any case, he gave none of his familiar signs of feeling rebuffed. He even called again that night.
It was Ruth who spoke to him first. She apologized for being unable to take him to get his learner’s permit the next day. But she told him that he could go back to the Driver’s Station in Oak Cliff and take his test without a car. Lee was surprised that he did not need a car.[4] Then Marina talked to him. She urged him not to stay alone in his room the whole weekend but to get out and take a walk in the park. Their conversation was friendly and warm.
Lee called again the next day, Saturday, November 16, in fine humor. He claimed that he had been to the Driver’s Station, but there was a long line ahead of him and he was informed that his turn would not come before closing time. Lee did not wait. He told Marina that he had taken her advice instead and sat in the park. “Do you remember?” he asked. It was the park they had been to in the spring.
“Only, Papa, be sure and eat better,” Marina begged, worried that if he was alone he would starve himself as usual.
Lee called that night again, this time to ask if the children were enjoying the party. Marina said yes. Was “his” Junie having a good time? She was.
“I ate very well,” he assured Marina. “I found a good place where you can get a fine meal, steak, French fries, salad, and dessert, for only $1.25. Don’t be worried about me.”
Marina missed him. She wanted to ask what he was going to do the next day, but she refrained.
Lee’s landlady said later that he never left his room for more than a few minutes all weekend except to carry his laundry to the Washeteria across the street.[5] Someone else saw him there reading a magazine.
Lee’s reading that weekend is a matter of enduring curiosity, but he almost certainly read a good deal about President Kennedy’s visit, which was to take place the following Friday. The Dallas papers were full of it, and Lee had more newspapers around him, and more time to read them, than if he had been at the Paines’. Although the visit had been announced two months before, the atmosphere in Dallas was so hostile to the president that there had been some question as to whether he ought to come. On October 24 Adlai Stevenson, US ambassador to the United Nations, had been in Dallas for a meeting and had been struck and spat upon by a right-wing crowd armed with placards that had been stored in the home of General Walker. The police had lost control of the crowd, and there was widespread doubt as to whether they could cope with a visit by President Kennedy. Stevenson himself advised the president not to go. In the wake of the Stevenson affair, the mayor called upon the city to redeem itself. The police were stung by all the criticism, and statements by Police Chief Jesse Curry began to appear, claiming that the local police would be in charge of arrangements to protect the president. Reading about the thoroughness of their preparations, Lee may well have laughed that scoffing laugh of his; for he, too, had had nothing but contempt for the Dallas police ever since they missed him by a long mile following his attempt on General Walker.
On Friday, November 15, at about the hour that Lee was leaving work, the Dallas Times-Herald reported that the Dallas Trade Mart might be chosen as the site where the president would have lunch the following Friday. On the next day, Saturday, the Times-Herald reported that the presidential party was likely to “loop through the downtown area, probably on Main Street,” on its way to the Trade Mart. If Lee saw the story, it would have been his first hint that the motorcade might come close to the building in which he worked.