Marina and Lee

by Priscilla Johnson McMillan

  One day in the middle of September, de Mohrenschildt was in Fort Worth with an American friend of Russian descent, Colonel Lawrence Orlov. They decided to pay a call on the couple who had newly arrived from Russia and went to the Oswalds’ Mercedes Street apartment. They were appalled at the “horrible surroundings,” the “slum” in which at first they found only Marina and her baby. To de Mohrenschildt, Marina looked “a lost soul,” and the child unwell. But he quickly established a bantering tone by telling her that little June, with her big, bald head, resembled nothing so much as a miniature Khrushchev. Marina sat her visitors down and gave them sherry. Colonel Orlov found her “very nice.”

  Soon Lee came home from work and, after a few words in English, switched to Russian (confounding Orlov, who, his surname to the contrary, did not speak the language). Right away George spotted Lee as a “semi-educated hillbilly,” a Texan “of the very low category.” But like many an aristocrat, de Mohrenschildt had a perfect democracy of manner. Besides, it struck him that there was “something charming” about the fellow. He drew Lee into conversation and found him “very sympathetic.” Then and there he conceived a liking for him.

  Jeanne for her part had been hearing about the Oswalds from George Bouhe for weeks, but she had not done anything to help them, and she felt ashamed. When Marina came to Dallas for her appointments at the Baylor Dental Clinic, she stayed with George’s daughter and son-in-law, Alix and Gary Taylor, and Jeanne drove her to the clinic. On October 15, when Marina again arrived in Dallas from Fort Worth for a final appointment at the clinic, she and the baby stayed overnight at the de Mohrenschildts’.

  Late that evening, after George had gone to bed, Jeanne sat her guest down with a little wine and a lot of cigarettes and encouraged her to talk. Talk Marina did, about her life and that of other young people in Russia. Anxious to entertain and if possible to shock, she told stories of sexual orgies in Leningrad, leaving it unclear whether she had engaged in them or not.

  Jeanne was taken aback. “Somehow she was not at all what I would picture as a Soviet girl.” To Jeanne, Marina seemed totally lacking in a sense of purpose; she was like a piece of flotsam, rising and falling on the surface of life without any goal whatsoever. It was the reverse of what Jeanne expected. She concluded that Marina represented a “degeneration,” a falling off in the quality of Soviet youth.

  On the other hand, Jeanne had to admit that her visitor had charm. “She impressed me as an honest girl, and not malicious.” Jeanne gave Marina a nightgown with a housecoat to match. Marina was speechless—she sat there simply stroking her gifts with joy. Jeanne was touched by that. She decided that Marina was “a very, very pleasant girl,” a girl who “loved life” and “loved the United States absolutely.” As a matter of fact, Marina’s response to America, one of childish surprise, reminded Jeanne of her own feelings when she first came to this country.16

  But she considered Marina a terrible mother. She could not get over the way Marina snatched the baby’s pacifier off the floor, popped it into her own mouth, which was filled with rotting, infected teeth, then into the baby’s mouth. How the child survived Jeanne did not know. Nor did she understand how Marina, who had grown up in a country where there was supposed to be a high level of medical knowledge and who had been trained as a pharmacist besides, could do such a thing to a child. She also considered Marina “lazy,” noting the late hour at which she rose the next morning.17

  In spite of her mixed feelings for Marina, Jeanne was enthusiastic about continuing to help. George, meanwhile, was doing what he could for Lee. When he appeared in Dallas looking for a job, George urgently recommended him to his friend Samuel B. Ballen, a former New York businessman who was on the boards of several Dallas corporations. De Mohrenschildt told Ballen that Oswald was unusual in that he had “absolutely no hatred” of Russia. He was “very critical, knowingly critical” of both Soviet Russia and the United States, yet he was “outside the cold war on either side.” A compassionate and liberal-minded man, Ballen was intrigued. But after two hours with Oswald, Ballen concluded that rather than having “no hatred” for either side he had, to the contrary, “a little disdain for both.” He seemed “a little too aloof,” as if he knew “all things a little too affirmatively, too dogmatically,” and would too often close off discussion with an uncaring shrug. Ballen was drawn to a stubborn, self-educating, self-improving quality he detected in his visitor but reluctantly came to the conclusion that Oswald “wouldn’t fit in.” He was “too much of a rugged individualist, too hard-headed, too independent, a man who would upset any team operation.” Ballen thought that Oswald was “a humanitarian” and “a truth-seeking decent individual with a bit of Schweitzerian self-sacrifice in him—so much so that I didn’t want him working for me.” Ballen decided he was “too hot to handle.”18

  Despite their disaffection for Lee, the Russians stood ready to help when he did find a job and was able to bring Marina and the baby to Dallas. Both Jeanne de Mohrenschildt and George Bouhe hoped they would settle nearby, and Jeanne even looked for an apartment for them in the University Park section where she and George were living. But Lee disappointed them once again by finding the apartment in Oak Cliff, a neighborhood on the opposite of town from where all of them lived. Then, suddenly, there was Marina, with her baby in her arms, standing on the Mellers’ doorstep. And when she announced that she had left Lee, the Russians, including George and Jeanne de Mohrenschildt, once again came to her rescue.

  — 19 —

  Reconciliation

  Anna Meller was a large, handsome woman with faded blonde hair. Her husband, Teo, was small and dark, with an expression at once winsome and observant. On his arm he had a tattoo acquired in a Nazi concentration camp. A professor of philosophy back in Poland, he was employed at the Sanger-Harris department store. His wife had a full-time job, too, as draftswoman for the Dallas Power and Light Company. Both were gone all day, and they invited Marina to stay in their apartment until she decided what she would do next. Marina was grateful to be alone and to rest. But the apartment was small, she and the baby were sleeping on makeshift beds in the living room, and once again she felt “in the way.”

  The Mellers were anxious about her health. Marina was “skinny and undernourished and had pains all over her body.” Bouhe and Mrs. Meller took her to a gynecologist, Dr. Paul Wolff, who confirmed what they wanted to know, that she was not pregnant, but he added that she was “very undernourished” and needed to gain weight right away.1

  It was soon decided among the Russians, probably after a request from Lee to George de Mohrenschildt, that Lee and Marina should meet and decide for themselves whether their separation would be permanent. Bouhe had given up on Lee. He sensed such “inner resistance” in him that it seemed useless to go on helping. He excoriated his treatment of Marina, considering it “crude and cruel,” and was eager to pry her away from him. But he did not want to be present at the meeting, did not want to confront Lee face to face. “He’s such a wild man,” Bouhe explained to Marina, “that I don’t want to listen to his threats. If he sticks his fists in my ears it will suit neither my age nor my health.” He was frankly afraid of Lee. He and the Mellers spoke of him among themselves as “megalomanic,” “unbalanced,” a “psychopath.”2

  “I am scared of this man,” he said to de Mohrenschildt. “He is a lunatic.”3

  De Mohrenschildt, possessor of a universally admired physique, replied: “Don’t be scared. He is just as small as you are.”4

  Everyone knew that Lee stood in awe of the “size and weight and muscles”—Bouhe’s words—of George de Mohrenschildt. The meeting of husband and wife was accordingly set for Sunday morning, November 11, at the de Mohrenschildts’ apartment. “Don’t worry,” Bouhe reassured Marina as he drove her to the rendezvous. “George will be a good shield for you. He is big and strong. I’m not. He’ll protect you like a wall.” Bouhe escorted Marina inside, conferred a moment with de Mohrenschildt, and quickly left.

&nb
sp; When Lee arrived, he was nervous, pale, and obviously embarrassed to be having such a scene in front of the de Mohrenschildts. George immediately started to lecture him. “Look,” he said, “do you think it’s heroic to beat a woman who is weaker than you? I’ve beaten women myself. I can see it once or twice, for something serious, but not all the time.” Lee was discomfited and did not answer.

  Jeanne, who adored her husband, joined him in all his enthusiasms and backed him in everything. Now she was feeling parental. “You have to grow up,” she told Lee and Marina. “You cannot live like that. This is not a country that permits such things to happen. If you love each other, behave. If you cannot live with each other peacefully, without all this awful behavior, maybe you should separate, and see. Maybe you really don’t love each other after all.”5 She was speaking Russian, although, Marina says, she had lived so many lives and knew so many languages that she now used all of them badly, speaking each as if it were English.

  “You seem to love one another,” George added. “What I can’t figure out, God damn it all, is why you can’t find a common language?” Both the de Mohrenschildts used profanity a good deal, but they used it so naturally, it was so much the coin of their personalities (especially Jeanne’s), that it came out sounding like a caress.

  Marina entered the conversation. “I’m tired of his brutality, George,” she said. “I can’t take it any more.”

  “I’m not always in the wrong,” Lee spoke up at last. “Marina has such a long tongue, sometimes I can’t hold myself back.”

  “The two of you talk,” de Mohrenschildt told them. “I don’t want to interfere.” He and Jeanne left them alone.

  Lee was subdued and ready to make up. “I have nobody now,” he said. “I don’t know what I’ll do if you leave me. I don’t want to go on living.”

  “No,” said Marina. “I don’t want to live with you. I want a divorce.” On one hand she was afraid Lee would believe her. On the other she wanted him to, wanted to hurt him for the hurt he had done her.

  He pleaded with her to come back to him.

  “No,” she answered a second time.

  When the de Mohrenschildts returned, she told them that she was not going back and she wanted to take her clothing from the apartment. The de Mohrenschildts agreed that separation for a few months might be best until they could decide whether they really loved each other. As Jeanne said, it was “absolutely useless to continue the way they were.”

  The four of them then drove to the Oswalds’ apartment on Elsbeth Street in George’s big gray convertible. Marina smoked cigarette after cigarette, nervous but triumphant, knowing Lee was powerless to stop her smoking now that she was under George’s protection. Nobody said a word. Lee made a perceptible effort to control himself. But he was unable to contain himself once they reached the apartment. He showed “real nastiness” and became “a little violent,” according to Jeanne; “a little bit uppity,” according to George. They later said that he swore he would “get even” and grew so ugly that de Mohrenschildt threatened to call the police.6 He said, again according to the de Mohrenschildts, he would smash the baby’s toys and tear up all Marina’s dresses if they took her away.

  “And where would that get you?” Jeanne inquired. “Then you lose her forever.” Lee was quiet, but Jeanne later said that he “boiled, and boiled.”7

  Suddenly, to their surprise, he caved in and promised that he would do nothing violent. As George says, “He completely changed his mind.” He trotted obediently after George, who was loading the car, and helped carry out Marina’s and the baby’s belongings. “Lee did not interfere with me,” George said. “He was small, you know, a rather puny individual.”8

  Marina denies that Lee grew violent and made threats. But as they packed up her belongings, his voice quavered and he was holding back tears. Marina was sorry for him, but she was afraid to show it.

  Lee drew her into the kitchen. “I’m asking you one last time to stay.”

  “No,” she answered a third time, feeling such pity that she longed to stay. “I was good to you,” she thought. “Now you can come after me.”

  “Go this minute,” he said in a loud, angry voice. “I don’t want to see you another second.”

  The de Mohrenschildts delivered Marina and her possessions to the Mellers’, and that same day George Bouhe drove her, the baby, and their most needed belongings to the house of Declan and Katya Ford. The Fords had a young baby and a big house. Mr. Ford would be away that week at a geology convention. It would be easier for Katya to have them for a few days than for the Mellers.

  Katya Ford had grown up in Rostov-on-Don and escaped Russia during the war. She married an American GI and came to the United States. Eventually, she was divorced and then married a second time, to Declan Ford, a consulting geologist. Scrupulous and realistic in her relationships, Katya had a devastating eye for character. She had been favorably impressed by Lee at their first meeting, but her impression had quickly changed.

  Marina had been at the Fords’ for two days when Lee went to George de Mohrenschildt and found out where she was staying. Lee then telephoned and, when Katya answered, asked to speak to Marina. Or rather, he refused to hang up until he had spoken to Marina. Marina did not want to talk to him. “You’d better tell him yourself,” said Katya.

  Marina was very curt with Lee. She told him it was no use calling any more; she was not going to come back.

  Lee persisted. He started to call once or twice an evening after that Marina was abrupt for a night or two, but the third night she allowed herself to be drawn in. Lee had something on his mind: his brother Robert had invited them to spend Thanksgiving in Fort Worth. “Go by yourself,” Marina told him. It was a prospect that humiliated him, and she knew it. She felt herself weaken, wondered how he would manage without her, wondered what Robert would think of her for running away. She asked Katya whether she ought to go back.

  Katya considered Lee a brute. She felt that there was something strange, something not quite right about him. In her view, hitting Marina was like hitting a frail, skinny kitten, and Katya could not forgive him. But she felt that Marina, too, was to blame. If Lee was unstable, Marina was immature. With a husband as highstrung, as ready to erupt as Lee, Katya thought it foolhardy and provocative to talk back as sharply as Marina did. A wife, the one person who is privy to all a man’s weaknesses, simply has to have tact, Katya believed, and Marina did not have an ounce of it.

  Besides, Katya was practical. Marina was no good at housework. It seemed out of the question for her to find a job and a home as a live-in domestic helper, her best hope until she learned English. Until Marina could stand on her own feet, Katya thought, she had no choice but to go back to Lee. She advised Marina to start studying English right away and equip herself to hold a job. She could break away when the baby was old enough for nursery school.9

  Marina was of two minds. She felt that she could not go on living off other people forever, but she did not see, although her friends were doing their best to make her see, that she actually had a choice and could live alone. She missed Lee, and she missed home. Of their quarrelsome, nearly hungry, existence she thought: “It’s a poor home, but it’s home all the same.” But she would not go back right away. She would hold out a while and teach Lee to value her more.

  George Bouhe had Marina’s promise that she would not go back to Lee. The week of November 12, while she was at Katya’s, he took her to lunch with Mrs. Frank (Valentina, known as “Anna”) Ray. Mrs. Ray was a Russian married to an American, and they had three small children. Immediately, she invited Marina to stay at her house. Mrs. Ray would teach Marina English and put her in night school. Marina would live with the Rays until she could manage on her own. To George Bouhe, it was the answer to a prayer. It was Marina’s chance to break away, and she accepted.

  That weekend Declan Ford delivered Marina and the baby to the Rays’. Marina had told Lee where she was going. Within minutes of her arrival, he telephoned
and begged her to see him. “I’m lonely,” he said. “I want to see Junie and talk to you about Thanksgiving.”

  Marina caved in. “All right,” she said, “come over.”

  Declan Ford and Frank Ray picked him up at the bus stop.

  “I think you know Mr. Ford,” Ray said, starting to introduce them.

  “I believe I do,” Lee answered.

  Ford disliked him for that remark and for the cold way in which it was spoken, when they had, in fact, spent an afternoon at the Mellers’ in September. He made a mental note about Lee: This guy is looking for someone to support him, and it sure as hell isn’t going to be me. Twice, Frank Ray asked Lee where he was working, and twice Lee changed the subject and avoided an answer.10

  Marina’s heart jumped when she saw her husband. They went into a room by themselves.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “I’m sorry. Why do you torture me so? I come home and there’s nobody there. No you, no Junie.”

  “I didn’t chase you out,” Marina said. “You wanted it. You gave me no choice.”

  He loved her, he said. It wasn’t much, he knew, but he loved her the best he know how. He begged her to come back to him. Robert, he added, had invited them for Thanksgiving, and it would be terrible to show up without her.

  Marina realized that Lee needed her. He had no friends, no one to count on but her. Harsh as his treatment was, she knew he loved her. But she brushed him away when he tried to kiss her. He went down on his knees and kissed her ankles and feet. His eyes were filled with tears, and he begged her forgiveness again. He would try to change, he said. He had a “terrible character,” and he could not change overnight. But change he would, bit by bit. He could not go on living without her. And the baby needed a father.

  “Why are you playing Romeo?” Marina said, embarrassed at his being at her feet. “Get up or someone will come in the door.” Her voice was severe, but she felt herself melting inside.