"Everything I learned at the radio plant plus the whole structure of how they work and live."
A woman picked up June and made the same noises that Marina's relatives used to make, shaking the baby and gabbling at her.
George said, "You know, I am sitting and looking at this wonderful child and I am saying to myself, I can't help it but she looks just like Khrushchev. She is a baby Khrushchev with a big round head, a bald head, little narrow eyes."
"Kennedy would be better, for looks."
"I admire Kennedy. I think this man is very good for the country."
"Jacqueline, for looks."
"And his wife. And Jacqueline too. I knew her on Long Island when she was a girl. Very lovely child. Although he is quite a libertine with the women, this particular President, I understand. Not that I consider this a flaw. I am the last to say. But I'll tell you about some women. They will love you for your weaknesses. They will love you precisely for your flaws. This means trouble, my friend."
Lee found the child back in his arms. He said, "What Kennedy is doing for civil rights is the most important thing. He started off badly with the Bay of Pigs disaster. But I think he learned."
"He changed."
"I saw American Negro athletes get the greatest glory for their country and then they went back home."
"It's a humiliation to me," George said, "that I am sitting in a room with not a single Negro here."
"To face blind hatred and discrimination."
"Kennedy is trying to make the shift. Painfully slow but he's doing it. It's humiliating to me that I can't befriend a Negro without consequences among my friends or in my profession. I live in University Park. We are incorporated, a township. If a Negro family tries to move in, the township buys the house at two or three times its value. The family disappears, goodbye, like magic."
"Look at the anti-Kennedy feeling here."
"Poisonous. Young Dallas matrons tell the most vicious jokes. Their eyes light up in the strangest way. It's clear to me they want him dead."
George went across the room to embrace an elderly man and woman. Lee found himself smiling at the scene. He watched people steer through the room, holding plates of food before them. A man offered Marina a cigarette from a black-and-white case. Lee had his collection. He'd written to an obscure press in New York for a twenty-five-cent booklet called The Teachings of Leon Trotsky. Back comes a letter saying it's out of print. At least they sent a letter. He saved their letters. The point is they are out there and willing to reply. He was starting a collection of documents.
She would never refuse a cigarette.
He planned to write to the Socialist Workers Party for information about their aims and policies. Trotsky is the pure form. It was satisfying to send away and get this obscure stuff in the mail. It was a channel to sympathetic souls, a secret and a power. It gave him a breadth and reach beyond the life of the bungalow and the welding company.
She is the type that doesn't refuse. It is thrilling to her to be given things. She will take your cigarettes, money, paper clips, postage stamps, whatever you want to give her. There is a certain woman that glows at the smallest gift.
Trotsky's name was Bronstein.
Half a bungalow on an unpaved street. He slept next to his Junie, fanning her with a magazine in the middle of the night.
When George came back he did a curious thing. He moved his chair around and sat facing Lee, with his back to the room. He had a hanky folded to a point in his breast pocket. His tie was brown.
"Now, what I am talking about is having you show me these notes of yours, whatever condition they are in, because it is Minsk and I am interested."
"It is also the system. The whole sense of historic ideas being corrupted by the system."
"Good, wonderful, you must let me see."
"It isn't all typed yet," Lee said.
"Typed. I will have it typed. Please, this is the least of your worries."
"It's called The Kollective.' I did serious research. I read journals and analyzed the whole economy."
"Is there anything else? Because I would like to see anything at all from that period. Observations of the most innocent type. What people wear. Show me everything."
"Why?"
"Okay I will tell you why. It is really very simple. In recent years I have been approached a number of times about my travels abroad. It is strictly routine. In other words you went to such-and-such, Mr. de Mohrenschildt, and we'd like to know what did you see, who did you meet, what is the layout of the factory you toured and so on. It is routine intelligence that thousands of travelers every year say okay this is what I saw. It is called the Domestic Contacts Division and there is a man who asked me to talk to you strictly low-key, friendly, of the CIA, and this is what I am doing. He is a good fellow, reasonable fellow, so on. I am always traveling, I am always coming back, and when I come back there is Mr. Collings on my doorstep and we have a chat, low-key, with drinks. I have written things on my trips which I give him willingly and I have given things to the State Department because this is my philosophy, Lee, that I must take on the coloration, let us say, of the place where I am living and earning my income at the particular time. A country is like a business to me. I move from one to another as opportunity dictates. I will learn Croatian in Yugoslavia. I will learn the French patois as the Haitians speak it. This is how I survive as someone who has come through a revolution and a world war and so on. I am always willing to cooperate. I take on the coloration. It is my message to them that I am not the enemy. A necessary gesture. I am not in the market to be persecuted. In other words here is my itinerary, here are my notes, here are my impressions. Let's have a drink and be friends."
"It isn't all typed."
"Please, I have my consulting firm, you know, with paper, pencils and a girl who types. I will give you a copy, of course, plus the original notes."
"You will also give a copy to Mr. Collings."
"This is understood. They collect and analyze. It can be helpful to someone in your position if you cooperate. Let's face it, you are in a cramped position. If I am a Mr. Collings and I see cooperation from an individual who can use and appreciate a better-paying job, then I am inclined to make a call. This happens all the time."
Lee bounced the child on his knee to quiet her down.
"Also, George, I would like to publish 'The Kollective.' "
"I would advise you no. I would say no, this is not right for you at this time. Let us look at the work. Then we discuss publication. You will be compensated one way or another, I guarantee this. These people have a thousand ways. They reach across the world. It's amazing. How do you think you re-entered this country? When a person defects, his name is put on the FBI's watch list. There is a lookout card that is prepared in such cases. But they returned your passport. They let Marina in. They gave you a loan and let you in."
"They were keeping an eye all that time."
"They're still keeping an eye. You're an interesting individual. I'm sure they would very much like to learn about your contacts in the Soviet Union. We'll have a nice talk, you and I, in private somewhere, without the baby listening in."
George laughed. They both laughed.
First Freitag and his partner, now this man Collings. They were swarming all over him like ants on a melon rind.
He looked at Marina. She was standing slightly curled, listening carefully to someone. Even in the heat and smoke she looked wind-scrubbed and fresh. Never love me for my weaknesses, he wanted to say. Never take the blame for me. Never think it is your fault when I am the one. I am always the one.