Libra - Don Delillo [70]
He told his Intourist guide, a young woman named Rimma, that he wanted to apply for Soviet citizenship.
She is flabbergassed, but aggrees to help. Asks me about myself and my reasons for doing this. I explaine I am a communist, ect. She is politly sym. but uneasy now. She tries to be a friend to me. She feels sorry for me I am someth. new.
On his twentieth birthday, two days after his arrival, Rimma gave him a Dostoevsky novel, in Russian, and she wrote on a blank page: “Great congratulations! Let all your dreams come true!”
Things happened fast after that. He had no time to work out meanings, fall back on old attitudes and positions. The secret he’d carried through the Marine Corps for over a year, his plan to defect, was the most powerful knowledge in his life up to this point. Now, in the office of some bald-head official, he tried to explain what it meant to him to live in the Soviet Union, at the center of world struggle.
The man looked past Oswald to the closed door of his office.
“USSR is only great in literature,” he said. “Go home, my friend, and take our good wishes with you.”
He wasn’t kidding either.
I am stunned I reiterate, he says he shall check and let me know.
They let him know the same day. The visa of Lee H. Oswald would expire at 8:00 P.M. He had two hours to leave the country. The police official who called with this news did not seem to know Oswald had talked to a passport official earlier in the day. Lee tried to explain that the first official had not given a deadline, had held out hope that his visa might be extended. He could not recall the man’s name or the department he belonged to in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He began to describe the man’s office, his clothing. He felt a rush of desperation. The second official didn’t know what he was talking about.
It was this blankness that caused his terror. No one could distinguish him from anyone else. There was some trick he hadn’t mastered which might easily set things right. Other people knew what it was; he did not. Other people got along; he could not. He’d come so far on his own. Le Havre, Southampton, London, Helsinki—then by train across the Soviet border. He’d made plans, he’d engineered a new life, and now no one would take ten minutes to understand who he was. A zero in the system. He sat near the window looking at the open suitcase on the rack across the room, some of his things still unpacked.
I am shocked!! My dreams!
He was a foreigner here. There was no profit in discontent. He could not apply his bitterness. It was American-made and had no local standing. For the first time he realized what a dangerous thing he’d done, leaving his country. He struggled against this awareness. He hated knowing something he didn’t want to know. He opened the door and looked into the hallway. The woman who handed out room keys sat at a small desk near the elevator. She turned to look at him. He went back inside.
7:00 P.M. I decide to end it. Soak rist in cold water to numb the pain.
He stood at the sink, left shirtsleeve rolled up. He stopped freezing his wrist long enough to prop a clean blade against the razor case. Warm water was running in the tub.
Hidell prepares to make his maker, ha ha.
Was there something funny about this? He didn’t think so. They were always trying to get him to leave places he didn’t want to leave. The cold water would numb the pain. That was step one. The warm water would make the blood flow easily. That was two. He would barely have to nick the skin. Gillette sponsors the World Series on TV—they use a talking parrot. He loosened his tie with his free hand.
My fondes dreams are shattered
He imagined Rimma coming at eight o’clock to find him dead. Hurried calls to officials at their homes. He watched the tub fill. Any reason why it had to be filled? He wasn’t getting in, was he? Only plunging the cut wrist. Soviet officials call American officials. Always being the outsider, always having