Libra - Don Delillo [71]
Then slash my left wrist.
But why was it funny? Why was he watching himself do it without a moan or cry? The first line of blood came seeping out, droplets running down in sequence from the careful slit. He wasn’t here to escape personal pressures. He wasn’t a guy with a problem marriage. He had solid convictions, practical experience in the world. He flopped his left arm over the rim of the tub.
somewhere, a violin plays, as I watch my life whirl away.
How do they measure cuts here, in centimeters? Hurried calls to Texas. It’s me, Mother, lying in a pool of blood in the Hotel Berlin. He looked at the water going cloudy pink. I taught myself Berlitz. My Russian is still bad but I will work on it harder. I won’t answer questions about my family but I will say this for publication. Emigration isn’t easy. I don’t recommend it to everyone. It means coming to a new country, always being the outsider, always having to adjust. I am not the total idealist. I have had a chance to watch the American military in action. If you’ve ever seen the naval base at Subic Bay, you know what I mean. Machines of war across the whole horizon. Foreign peoples exploited for profit. He closed his eyes after a while, rested his head on the rim of the tub. Go limp. Let them do what they want.
I think to myself, “How easy to die”
I would like to give my side of the story. I would like to give people in the United States something to think about. He knew where he was, could picture himself sitting on the tile floor, but felt a sense of distance from the scene.
and “A sweet death, (to violins)
Felt a sleepiness. A false calm. Something falsehearted. Felt like a child in the white tile world of cuts and Band-Aids and bathwater, a little dizzied by aromas and pungencies, fierce iodine biting in, Mr. Ekdahl’s bay rum. There is a world inside the world. I’ve done all I can. Let others make the choices now. Felt time close down. Felt something mocking in the air as he slipped off the edge of the only known surface we can speak of, as ordinary men, bleeding, in warm water.
Ministry of Health of the USSR
EPICRISIS
Oct. 21 The patient was brought by ambulance into the Admission Ward of the Botkin Hospital and further referred to Bldg. No. 26. Incised wound of the first third of the left forearm with the intention to commit suicide. The wound is of linear character with sharp edges. Primary surgical treatment with 4 stitches and aseptic bandages. The patient arrived from the USA on Oct. 16 as a tourist. He graduated from a technical high school in radio technology and radio electronics. He has no parents. He insists that he does not want to return to the USA.
They put him in with the nut cases. Terrible food, soft eyes peering. Rimma kept him company and then helped get him transferred to the land of the normally ill. She took an unlabeled jar out of her coat and told him to sip the liquid slowly. Vodka with cucumber bits. To your health, she said.
After his discharge she took him to the visa-and-registration department. He talked to four officials about becoming a citizen. They’d never heard of him. They didn’t know about his meetings with other officials. They told him it would be a while before they’d have an answer.
At his new hotel, the Metropole, he spent three days alone. This was the first of the silences Lee H. Oswald would enter during his two and a half years in the Soviet Union.
He walked the corridors past enormous paintings of Heroes of the Soviet. He took his key from the floor clerk, who wore her hair in braids. He smelled the varnish and tobacco.
In his room he sat in a fancy chair under a chandelier. He set his watch to the clock on the mantel. His watch, his ring, his money and his suitcase neatly packed had all been sent from the first hotel. Everything intact. Not a kopeck missing.
He sketched a rough street plan of Moscow in his notebook, Kremlin at the center.
His third day alone he ate only one meal. He stayed by the