Lee loathed the job, which, like his work in Russia, was heavy manual labor. But he earned $1.25 an hour, worked up to nine hours a day, and took home $45 to $55 a week. He told Marina again and again that he must pay off his debts to Robert and the Department of State as quickly as he could. Living rent-free with his mother helped, a major reason he did it, and he started paying back Robert right away.
With Lee gone all day, Marina stayed at home with Marguerite. Although they could hardly speak to one another, the two got along well at first. Marina was overjoyed to have a home and someone she could look to as a mother. She noted with appreciation that Marguerite was good to the baby, although not as lavishly fond of her as her Russian relatives had been. Above all, Marina was pleased by the sudden lift in her husband’s spirits. Since finding work, he was no longer so irritable and depressed. Marina almost forgot his behavior on the boat and his hitting her at Robert’s.
Marina washed dishes and tended the baby. But she was unfamiliar with the ways of an American household and was not on easy terms with domesticity anyhow. The lion’s share of chores fell on Marguerite, who did all the cooking and the cleaning and claims to have helped with the baby.[8] She got out of the apartment only rarely, to see a movie or a friend, and seems to have felt stirrings of resentment. Of these Marina was at first blissfully unaware. But when Marguerite discovered that her daughter-in-law recognized Gregory Peck on television and could sing a few words of “Santa Lucia,” she began to suspect that Marina, and even Lee, might be a spy. Lee made no effort to include his mother in his conversations with Marina. He huddled over books with her and sat with her at the dining room table by the hour, playing a sort of Russian tic-tac-toe. In the late afternoon or early evening, husband and wife went out walking, leaving Marguerite at home as babysitter. Before long, Marguerite complained.
To Marina’s surprise Lee paid little attention to her complaints. He was cool to his mother and had very few words for her. Marina began to fear that Marguerite might blame her for alienating Lee’s affections. And she was right. After a fortnight or so, Marguerite started scolding her daughter-in-law when they were at home alone. Marina could not understand her words. She thought Marguerite resented having to cook for her, or that somehow she had displeased her mother-in-law. But one day there was a scene with much weeping and screaming and slamming of doors, and Marina was afraid her mother-in-law was going to hit her. This time she caught the words, and she repeated them that evening to Lee—“You took my son away from me!” Mother and son had it out the same night, once again with screaming and slamming of doors. Afterward Lee told Marina to forget it; they would be leaving soon, anyhow.
Marina knew nothing of the relationship between Lee and his mother. She did not know that Marguerite had also fought with her other two sons over their wives. She knew only that Marguerite had three sons, and not one of them wanted to live with her. To Marina Marguerite’s jealousy was natural; it was Lee whose feelings seemed unnatural. Furthermore, she still regretted the way she had treated her own mother, and she did not want Lee to behave as she had done. Toward Marguerite she continued to show deference and a readiness for affection. She felt sorry for her and urged Lee to show more warmth toward his mother. “How will you feel,” she asked, “if Junie won’t speak to you when she grows up?”
“Don’t meddle,” he growled. “You know nothing about it.”
On Saturday, August 10, less than a month after they had moved in with Marguerite, Marina and Lee moved out. Lee had found an apartment. Accustomed as he was to the family ways, Robert was astonished to hear loud sounds of discord when he drove up that morning to help them move. Marguerite was screaming, her hair mussed and her eyes red from crying. Lee was calm, but Marina looked bewildered.[9] There was very little luggage, a few boxes, and a couple of old suitcases, and Lee and Robert quickly carried them to the car. They confronted their mother’s outcries with silence, creating a vacuum into which she poured even louder protestations. When the young people clambered into the car and drove off, Marguerite ran a short way after them.
Pity suddenly broke through the numbness Marina felt. “It’s cruel to leave her that way. She’ll have a heart attack and die.”
Lee was as cool as could be. “She’ll be all right,” he said. “It’s not the first time.”
And that was the beginning of their life on their own in Texas.
The apartment Lee had found was a furnished “duplex,” one-half of a shabby, single-story clapboard bungalow. It was located among other one- and two-family frame houses at 2703 Mercedes Street, Fort Worth, across the street from a Montgomery Ward retail store and down a dusty road from Lee’s job. He had paid a month’s rent in advance of $59.50.
Friends who visited the place later described it as “horrible,” a “slum,” “a shack,” “very poorly furnished,” and “decrepit.” But Marina did not feel that way. There was a bedroom, a living room with a dining area, a kitchen, and a bath, plus a yard and some grass outside. In Russia they could have worked a lifetime and not had so much space. The furniture was cheap, but the place was clean, and that meant a lot to Marina. As content as she had been to live with her mother-in-law, Marina was happier still to be alone with her husband.
They slipped into a new routine. Lee went to work in the morning, and in the afternoon, Marina might leave their supper simmering on the stove, take the baby in her arms, and walk down the road to meet him on his way home. He would spot them a long way off and wave. When he caught up with them, he would take June in one arm, and put his other arm around Marina, and they would slowly saunter home. Other afternoons she might sit on the front steps and wait for him there. The moment he caught sight of her, he would wave and break into a run.
Sometimes, Lee found her inside the house, fixing supper. “Why didn’t you meet me today?” he would ask. Then with a glint of amusement: “I know. You were in Montgomery Ward.”
Marina had, indeed, found a fount of riches, a cornucopia of daydreams, across the street. With June in her arms, she spent hours wandering through Montgomery Ward, a fairyland of treasures that could not be bought in all of Russia no matter how much money you had. Ties, trousers, notions, dresses—Marina did not want to buy them. It made her happy just to look. When they went to the store together, she would visit the toy and dress departments while Lee, with the most obvious enjoyment, made his way to the gun department. For the first week or so, he gave Marina $2 a week spending money, but except for cigarettes she never spent it. Then he stopped giving her any money at all. “I never cared about money,” she remembers. “I don’t know why.”
Marina believed that the best political system was the one that does most for the people. That was the sum total of her political theories. As she saw it, you went into a store in Russia, and there was nothing to buy; you went into a store in America, and there was a lot. It followed that the United States cared more about its people and was a better country. Marina liked America, preferred it, right away. At night she would occasionally dream that she was at home again, telling her Russian friends what a paradise America is. “Alka, do anything,” she started saying to her husband, “but don’t ever, ever make me go back.”