Red Terror
03-25-2017, 04:35 PM
Excerpt from Libra by Don DeLillo
Your honor, I cannot state the truth of this case with simple yes and no. I have to tell a story. This is a boy the other children teased. It was torn, torn shirts and a bloody nose. Listen to me. I will write books about the life of Lee Harvey Oswald. I have information pertinent to the case. I am all over the world. I have struggled to raise my boys on mingy sums of money and today I am everywhere, newsreel and foreign press, but where are the funds for a decent burial? There are stories inside stories, judge. Lee collected stamps in a book and practiced chess alone at the kitchen table and they sent him to Russia to infiltrate. I will wear a camera and make a photographic record of Lee's life, getting houses and rooms on the record. I will tell how I worked at many jobs to raise my boys, leading up to practical nurse. I know what sickness looks like. I know low pay. I have worked for nine dollars a day, live-in, twenty-four hours' duty. I wore my nurse's uniform three days, sneaking from hotels with the secret police of different branches, with Life magazine running alongside, and a translator, and a photographer, and the Russian daughter-in-law, and the two sick babies. Marina stands and smokes a cigarette plain as day. I am in my uniform and they bring clothes for her. There are diapers hanging everywhere. TV gave the cue and Lee was shot. They kept it from us, being women, and then in the car to the next hotel something came over the radio and the agent said, "Do not repeat, do not repeat." And I said, "Is that my son?" And he didn't answer. So then I said, "My son is shot, isn't he?" And he said into the mike, "Do not repeat, do not repeat." So then I said, "Answer me, I want to know." "Do not repeat, do not repeat." So then they showed it on television in the room but Marina and I were not shown the sequence. They made us sit behind the television and the agents all crowded around in front and watched. And the back of the television was to us. And fifteen to eighteen men crowded in to watch on the other side. They gave us coffee and they watched.
I am going through a death and it is hard.
I intend to research this case and present my findings. But I cannot pin it down to a simple statement. I came home to find red welts on his legs at the age of two, where Mrs. Roach whipped him on Pauline Street, and then I placed him in a home and he slept with his brothers in a big long dormitory, one hundred little boys in rows and rows of cots. He attended six schools by the age of ten.
They will search out the environmental factors, that we moved from home to home. Judge, I have lived in many places but never filthy dirty, never not neat, never without the personal loving touch, the decorator item. We have moved to be a family. This is the theme of my research.
I arn smiling, judge, as the accused mother who must read the falsehoods they are writing about my boy. Lee was a happy baby. Lee had a dog. This is the boy who spent only one month in attendance at Arlington Heights High School before he entered the Marines when we were living on Collinwood Avenue and there are three pictures of this boy in the school yearbook. Now, why do you pick out this one boy who is in school so briefly, of all the boys and girls there, and make him the subject of three photographs? People say, "Mrs. Oswald, I don't get the point." You don't get the point? The point is how it goes on and on and on and on. That's the point. The point is how far back have they been using him? He used to climb the tops of roofs with binoculars, looking at the stars, and they sent him to Russia on a mission. Lee Harvey Oswald is more than meets the eye. Already there are documents stolen from me. There are newspaper clippings stolen from my home by one of the branches of secret police. I am all over the world and they are rifling my files.
Now, about Marina as Russian or French. It is amazing how her English improved right after Lee is killed. It is amazing how she suddenly has a cigarette in her hand, which I never witnessed when Lee was alive. I will research the picture of Marina to learn if it is true. I have a sixth sense, judge. People have remarked on my ESP. If Lee Harvey Oswald shot the President, why didn't I know it at the time? It is a prevalent feeling every mother has when the phone rings and she knows it is her son. Why didn't I sense he was in a window with a gun when the shots rang out? Even being his gun doesn't mean he did the shooting. I will wear a camera. I will time his movements on the fatal day. I am ready to go round and round on this because there are stories inside stories, that the press is unaware. Marina knows English, Marina knows French. This foreign girl is trained. They brought clothes for Marina. They showed me a story in the paper where a woman has offered her a home. They want Marina to admit to his guilt and they will find her a home. Robert sides constantly with the secret police. Our dispositions do not jell. This is the heartbreak of blood relations. I am forgetting many things, your honor. Lee had a bicycle. Lee had a dog. This boy was shot handcuffed to an officer of the law. Somebody paid to have him shot on cue. TV gave directions and down he went. We have a moral issue all through this that I am fighting for. My mail is opened. There are three letters missing from my desk. Lee wrote to me from Russia, "I am lonesome to read." In this letter he is thanking me for sending books. He is saying please. He asks for news of his homeland. This is a letter that is missing. Our government has been watching him for years.
Did Lee even know he was being used? This is a question I will research. Listen to me. I have to tell a story. I have to work into this, living in the French part of town. He knew Robert's manual by heart. He liked histories and maps. The recruiting officer said, "Mrs. Oswald, there is less delinquency in Japan and those places than we have here." He sold a bill. He was willing to sneak Lee in at age sixteen, before the legal limit. They were preparing him. They were using him already. Three photos in the yearbook and he was only there a month. People say, "Mrs. Oswald, what is the point?" The point is how far back did it go? When did they start watching him? Did he belong to them for life? The point is what about the boy in the casket? Lee in a suit and nice tie looking completely different from the scarecrow son in the newspapers and TV, a sturdy boy, broad-faced, like a Russian. Is the person they buried the same as the person they killed? Did they really kill him? Is the person who came back from Russia the same as the person who went? I have a right to ask these questions. How tall is Lee? What are his scars? I will bring these questions out in books and appearances.
I wrote to Mr. Khrushchev July 19, 1960, when my boy was lost in Russia. I received no reply. I went to Washington January 21, 1961, to petition President Kennedy to find my boy and bring him home. So-wait now, this is good-they write I am neglectful. I left my boys to shift for themselves. I drove all the way to New York in that old junky Dodge. I pulled up stakes in our Western slang too many times. When the truth is that the mother is neglected. If you research the life of Jesus, you see that Mary mother of Jesus disappears from the record once he is crucified and risen. Where is the mother who raised the boy? When the boy is dead, do they build a box around the mother? I played piano by ear. I was a popular child. I can't give facts point-blank. It takes stories to fill out a life. Only think of Mr. Ekdahl, who cheated me out of a decent divorce and abandoned me to a life of scaring up dimes. Mr. Ekdahl is a story. Marina is a story where the details are lax. I strictly believe in my suspicions. Her statements, her way of life, she smokes, she does not nurse her baby. Marina has a manager. She has offers coming in and where is the mother? I am pictured in Life magazine in my uniform with hose rolled down. I have suffered like my son. We have the same construction.
It was near dusk now, stormlight forming at the edges of low-sailing clouds, dark and mobbed, and there was urgency, a wildness in the sky, everything electric. The minister finished reciting a psalm and the funeral director prepared to lower the coffin. Policemen adjusted their gun belts shyly. The family stood and watched. Robert and Marina had similar looks, soft, lost, pleading. Make it different, make it not happen, give him another chance, another life. Marguerite, holding little Rachel across her folded arms, showed a desolation so total it could be taken as the only thing left, all she had and was, all she'd given returned to her in a suit in a box, all fall arid smash, a soul struck by ruin. She passed the baby to the minister and put her hands to her face, not touching but enclosing only, keeping the moment safe from every woe outside her own.
They lowered her youngest son to the red clay of Texas, burying him for security reasons under another name, the last alias of Lee Harvey Oswald. It was William Bobo.
Now Marina came forward and picked up a handful of dirt. She made the sign of the cross, then extended her arm over the grave, letting the dirt fall. Marguerite and Robert had never seen anything like this. The beauty of the gesture was compelling. It was strange and eloquent and somehow correct. They'd agreed on nothing since Robert was a boy but now they leaned together to the mound of earth and took some dirt and blessed themselves, then held their fists upright over the grave and let the dirt spill out, running through their hands like sand hurrying in an hourglass, lightly falling on the pinewood box.
I stand here on this brokenhearted earth and I look at the stones of the dead, a rolling field of dead, and the chapel on the hill, and the cedar trees leaning in the wind, and I know a funeral is supposed to console the family with the quality of the ceremony and the setting. But I am not consoled.
And this is from olden times, that the men will kill each other and the women will be left to stand at the grave. But I am not content to stand, your honor.
I will time his movements on the fatal day. I will interview every witness. I am not speaking just to be speaking. I know as the accused mother I must have facts. Listen to me. Do you know I took Russian classes at the library? I went and studied once a week on my one day off, hoping in my heart that Lee would contact me someday, that I could talk to Marina in a normal way. Listen to me. Listen. I cannot live on donation dribs and drabs. Marina has a contract and a ghostwriter. She refused to wear the shorts I bought. And this boy on a Sunday in Fort Worth was not packed to go anywhere and the next day was gone with his wife and baby to a job in Dallas, overnight, without notice to his former employer or his mother. A job in photography where the details are not known. You have to wonder. Who arranged the life of Lee Harvey Oswald? It goes on and on and on. Lee had a stamp collection. Lee swam at the Y. I used to see him on Ewing Street with his hair all wet. Hurry home dear heart or you will catch your death. I am not letter-perfect but I have managed, judge. I have worked in many homes for fine families. I have seen a gentleman strike a wife in front of me. There is killing in fine homes on occasion. This boy and his Russian wife did not have a telephone or television in America. So that is another myth cut down. Listen to me. I cannot enumerate cold. I have to tell a story. He came home with a birdcage that had a stand with a planter. It had ivy in the planter, it had the cage, it had the parakeet, it had a complete set of food for the parakeet. This boy bought gifts for his mother. He was lonesome to read.
My only education is my heart. I have to work into this in my own way, starting with the day I took him home from the Old French Hospital in New Orleans. I am reciting a life and I need time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQkiAQeCPJw&list=WL&index=31
Your honor, I cannot state the truth of this case with simple yes and no. I have to tell a story. This is a boy the other children teased. It was torn, torn shirts and a bloody nose. Listen to me. I will write books about the life of Lee Harvey Oswald. I have information pertinent to the case. I am all over the world. I have struggled to raise my boys on mingy sums of money and today I am everywhere, newsreel and foreign press, but where are the funds for a decent burial? There are stories inside stories, judge. Lee collected stamps in a book and practiced chess alone at the kitchen table and they sent him to Russia to infiltrate. I will wear a camera and make a photographic record of Lee's life, getting houses and rooms on the record. I will tell how I worked at many jobs to raise my boys, leading up to practical nurse. I know what sickness looks like. I know low pay. I have worked for nine dollars a day, live-in, twenty-four hours' duty. I wore my nurse's uniform three days, sneaking from hotels with the secret police of different branches, with Life magazine running alongside, and a translator, and a photographer, and the Russian daughter-in-law, and the two sick babies. Marina stands and smokes a cigarette plain as day. I am in my uniform and they bring clothes for her. There are diapers hanging everywhere. TV gave the cue and Lee was shot. They kept it from us, being women, and then in the car to the next hotel something came over the radio and the agent said, "Do not repeat, do not repeat." And I said, "Is that my son?" And he didn't answer. So then I said, "My son is shot, isn't he?" And he said into the mike, "Do not repeat, do not repeat." So then I said, "Answer me, I want to know." "Do not repeat, do not repeat." So then they showed it on television in the room but Marina and I were not shown the sequence. They made us sit behind the television and the agents all crowded around in front and watched. And the back of the television was to us. And fifteen to eighteen men crowded in to watch on the other side. They gave us coffee and they watched.
I am going through a death and it is hard.
I intend to research this case and present my findings. But I cannot pin it down to a simple statement. I came home to find red welts on his legs at the age of two, where Mrs. Roach whipped him on Pauline Street, and then I placed him in a home and he slept with his brothers in a big long dormitory, one hundred little boys in rows and rows of cots. He attended six schools by the age of ten.
They will search out the environmental factors, that we moved from home to home. Judge, I have lived in many places but never filthy dirty, never not neat, never without the personal loving touch, the decorator item. We have moved to be a family. This is the theme of my research.
I arn smiling, judge, as the accused mother who must read the falsehoods they are writing about my boy. Lee was a happy baby. Lee had a dog. This is the boy who spent only one month in attendance at Arlington Heights High School before he entered the Marines when we were living on Collinwood Avenue and there are three pictures of this boy in the school yearbook. Now, why do you pick out this one boy who is in school so briefly, of all the boys and girls there, and make him the subject of three photographs? People say, "Mrs. Oswald, I don't get the point." You don't get the point? The point is how it goes on and on and on and on. That's the point. The point is how far back have they been using him? He used to climb the tops of roofs with binoculars, looking at the stars, and they sent him to Russia on a mission. Lee Harvey Oswald is more than meets the eye. Already there are documents stolen from me. There are newspaper clippings stolen from my home by one of the branches of secret police. I am all over the world and they are rifling my files.
Now, about Marina as Russian or French. It is amazing how her English improved right after Lee is killed. It is amazing how she suddenly has a cigarette in her hand, which I never witnessed when Lee was alive. I will research the picture of Marina to learn if it is true. I have a sixth sense, judge. People have remarked on my ESP. If Lee Harvey Oswald shot the President, why didn't I know it at the time? It is a prevalent feeling every mother has when the phone rings and she knows it is her son. Why didn't I sense he was in a window with a gun when the shots rang out? Even being his gun doesn't mean he did the shooting. I will wear a camera. I will time his movements on the fatal day. I am ready to go round and round on this because there are stories inside stories, that the press is unaware. Marina knows English, Marina knows French. This foreign girl is trained. They brought clothes for Marina. They showed me a story in the paper where a woman has offered her a home. They want Marina to admit to his guilt and they will find her a home. Robert sides constantly with the secret police. Our dispositions do not jell. This is the heartbreak of blood relations. I am forgetting many things, your honor. Lee had a bicycle. Lee had a dog. This boy was shot handcuffed to an officer of the law. Somebody paid to have him shot on cue. TV gave directions and down he went. We have a moral issue all through this that I am fighting for. My mail is opened. There are three letters missing from my desk. Lee wrote to me from Russia, "I am lonesome to read." In this letter he is thanking me for sending books. He is saying please. He asks for news of his homeland. This is a letter that is missing. Our government has been watching him for years.
Did Lee even know he was being used? This is a question I will research. Listen to me. I have to tell a story. I have to work into this, living in the French part of town. He knew Robert's manual by heart. He liked histories and maps. The recruiting officer said, "Mrs. Oswald, there is less delinquency in Japan and those places than we have here." He sold a bill. He was willing to sneak Lee in at age sixteen, before the legal limit. They were preparing him. They were using him already. Three photos in the yearbook and he was only there a month. People say, "Mrs. Oswald, what is the point?" The point is how far back did it go? When did they start watching him? Did he belong to them for life? The point is what about the boy in the casket? Lee in a suit and nice tie looking completely different from the scarecrow son in the newspapers and TV, a sturdy boy, broad-faced, like a Russian. Is the person they buried the same as the person they killed? Did they really kill him? Is the person who came back from Russia the same as the person who went? I have a right to ask these questions. How tall is Lee? What are his scars? I will bring these questions out in books and appearances.
I wrote to Mr. Khrushchev July 19, 1960, when my boy was lost in Russia. I received no reply. I went to Washington January 21, 1961, to petition President Kennedy to find my boy and bring him home. So-wait now, this is good-they write I am neglectful. I left my boys to shift for themselves. I drove all the way to New York in that old junky Dodge. I pulled up stakes in our Western slang too many times. When the truth is that the mother is neglected. If you research the life of Jesus, you see that Mary mother of Jesus disappears from the record once he is crucified and risen. Where is the mother who raised the boy? When the boy is dead, do they build a box around the mother? I played piano by ear. I was a popular child. I can't give facts point-blank. It takes stories to fill out a life. Only think of Mr. Ekdahl, who cheated me out of a decent divorce and abandoned me to a life of scaring up dimes. Mr. Ekdahl is a story. Marina is a story where the details are lax. I strictly believe in my suspicions. Her statements, her way of life, she smokes, she does not nurse her baby. Marina has a manager. She has offers coming in and where is the mother? I am pictured in Life magazine in my uniform with hose rolled down. I have suffered like my son. We have the same construction.
It was near dusk now, stormlight forming at the edges of low-sailing clouds, dark and mobbed, and there was urgency, a wildness in the sky, everything electric. The minister finished reciting a psalm and the funeral director prepared to lower the coffin. Policemen adjusted their gun belts shyly. The family stood and watched. Robert and Marina had similar looks, soft, lost, pleading. Make it different, make it not happen, give him another chance, another life. Marguerite, holding little Rachel across her folded arms, showed a desolation so total it could be taken as the only thing left, all she had and was, all she'd given returned to her in a suit in a box, all fall arid smash, a soul struck by ruin. She passed the baby to the minister and put her hands to her face, not touching but enclosing only, keeping the moment safe from every woe outside her own.
They lowered her youngest son to the red clay of Texas, burying him for security reasons under another name, the last alias of Lee Harvey Oswald. It was William Bobo.
Now Marina came forward and picked up a handful of dirt. She made the sign of the cross, then extended her arm over the grave, letting the dirt fall. Marguerite and Robert had never seen anything like this. The beauty of the gesture was compelling. It was strange and eloquent and somehow correct. They'd agreed on nothing since Robert was a boy but now they leaned together to the mound of earth and took some dirt and blessed themselves, then held their fists upright over the grave and let the dirt spill out, running through their hands like sand hurrying in an hourglass, lightly falling on the pinewood box.
I stand here on this brokenhearted earth and I look at the stones of the dead, a rolling field of dead, and the chapel on the hill, and the cedar trees leaning in the wind, and I know a funeral is supposed to console the family with the quality of the ceremony and the setting. But I am not consoled.
And this is from olden times, that the men will kill each other and the women will be left to stand at the grave. But I am not content to stand, your honor.
I will time his movements on the fatal day. I will interview every witness. I am not speaking just to be speaking. I know as the accused mother I must have facts. Listen to me. Do you know I took Russian classes at the library? I went and studied once a week on my one day off, hoping in my heart that Lee would contact me someday, that I could talk to Marina in a normal way. Listen to me. Listen. I cannot live on donation dribs and drabs. Marina has a contract and a ghostwriter. She refused to wear the shorts I bought. And this boy on a Sunday in Fort Worth was not packed to go anywhere and the next day was gone with his wife and baby to a job in Dallas, overnight, without notice to his former employer or his mother. A job in photography where the details are not known. You have to wonder. Who arranged the life of Lee Harvey Oswald? It goes on and on and on. Lee had a stamp collection. Lee swam at the Y. I used to see him on Ewing Street with his hair all wet. Hurry home dear heart or you will catch your death. I am not letter-perfect but I have managed, judge. I have worked in many homes for fine families. I have seen a gentleman strike a wife in front of me. There is killing in fine homes on occasion. This boy and his Russian wife did not have a telephone or television in America. So that is another myth cut down. Listen to me. I cannot enumerate cold. I have to tell a story. He came home with a birdcage that had a stand with a planter. It had ivy in the planter, it had the cage, it had the parakeet, it had a complete set of food for the parakeet. This boy bought gifts for his mother. He was lonesome to read.
My only education is my heart. I have to work into this in my own way, starting with the day I took him home from the Old French Hospital in New Orleans. I am reciting a life and I need time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQkiAQeCPJw&list=WL&index=31