Libra - Don Delillo [111]
He freed the parakeet. He opened the cage and let it go. The boy who adored animals, judge.
But about the shorts it is, “No, Mama, I no like.” And I said, “Marina, you are a married woman and it is proper for you to have a little longer shorts than the younger girls.” But it is, “No, Mama, this no good.” And I am strongly saying that this girl was not home. And this man was working. And I saw myself that this man came home and didn’t have any supper in front of him. This couple does not have a maid to give this workingman his supper. We are a family that has struggled to stay together. His daddy collected insurance premiums right up to the moment he went down on the lawn, mowing the lawn in a raging heat. It is Marguerite and Lee ever since.
A family expects you to be one thing when you’re another. They twist you out of shape. You have a brother with a good job and a nice wife and nice kids and they want you to be a person they will recognize. And a mother in a white uniform who grips your arms and weeps. You are trapped in their minds. They shape and hammer you. Going away is what you do to see yourself plain.
It was a Sunday and he stood in the empty lobby of the Republic National Bank Building in Dallas. Tan marble everywhere. He was waiting for George de Mohrenschildt. This was the second time he was meeting George. He wore a clean white shirt and the ready-made trousers of rough material he’d bought at the state-run store in Minsk.
George had a handful of keys. He jiggled them in greeting and walked to the elevators. They rode to sixteen and went down deserted corridors. The air was heavy and dense, with a carpet smell, a closeness. George was in tennis shorts and a shirt with an alligator emblem. He had a nice-size office with diplomas on the wall.
“You’ve been reading about this nut-case general.”
“I know about him since Russia,” Lee said.
“He’s getting involved in Cuba now. Sit down. I have your papers.”
“He’s only reflecting the feelings of what most people think. What Walker says and does, this is white America.”
“There are missiles poised to demolish us all and we have to open the newspaper and see this man.”
“It is Mississippi, it is Cuba, it is wherever he sees the opportunity.”
“He is making a switch to Cuba. He will jump into the Cuba thing. Wait and see.”
“They are asking questions about my mail,” Lee said.
“What do you mean?”
“A postal inspector talked to my landlord about the type mail I get. ”
“What type mail?”
“What some people would say subversive.”
“Why do you read this material? It is totally boring material. I know this material without reading a word. It is the definition of boring.”
“They are coming at me from a number of angles,” Lee said, breathing a little laugh through his nose.
George gave him a copy of the material that had been typed since their last talk. He returned the original handwritten pages, page fragments, random notes, autobiographical notes, notes for