"I tell them he is careful of my well-being. He hits very lightly. It's only my fair skin that makes it look so bad."

He came over and started pummeling her on both arms. She turned off the tap. He hit her high on the arms, using open hands.

"I tell them it isn't his fault if I bruise so easily."

She put her hands to the sides of her head for protection. He kept hitting her on the upper arms like some kid's game of slap-the-arm. He hit in rhythm, hitting with the right hand, then the left. He worked quietly behind her, one and a-two, breathing through his nose. She could feel the labor of his concentration.

She lay in the dark and thought of the paper she'd crumpled and thrown. It was lesson number seven. An elderly man in the Russian colony sent her pages in the mail to improve her English. At the top of the first page he wrote in large, large letters, in Russian, My name is Marina. She was supposed to write the English words below. Lesson number two, / live in Fort Worth. Lesson number three, We buy groceries on Tuesday. Each lesson had its own page. She mailed him the finished pages and he corrected them and mailed them back, with new lessons for her to work on. Now lesson seven was crumpled and he would wonder how it happened.

Lee came out of the bathroom and got into bed, She felt how he carefully eased into bed so he wouldn't disturb her if she was asleep. She was facing away from him, of course.

She thought of Holland again. This was a recent thing, out of nowhere, thinking of Holland, of their train journey across Europe and her surprise at seeing Dutch villages and hearing church bells ring. It is the cleanest country in the world, unbelievably clean, with cozy houses and spotless streets and fences in the meadows that are perfectly straight.

She didn't want her baby sucking nervous milk.

She thought they would have a life that was not unusual in any way. Simple moments adding up. They had matching scars on the arm, which meant they were marked by fate to meet and fall in love.

She thought of walking the aisles of Montgomery Ward. She went in out of the heat to piped-in music and little ringing bells. The floors were polished. The aisles were immensely long, bordered with cosmetics in display cases and counters full of shiny handbags, with dresses spreading into other rooms. Fragrances drifting everywhere.

He wanted to go to college at night and take courses in politics and economics. But there was the need to make a living which interfered.

She saw him from a distance even when he was hitting her. He was never fully there.

Mamochka bought her modest shorts, pleated, with deep pockets. This was a difference of opinion.

She knew he was trying to sense if she was awake. He was on the verge of saying something or leaning over to touch. He would probably touch, rise on an elbow and touch her on the hip with his hand curled soft. She felt his desire like an airstream in the dark. It was absolutely there. He was wait'ng, thinking if this was the time. His own wife and he had to think.

She thought of Holland again.

She thought of landing in New York. One night in a hotel in the middle of cascading neon. Rivers and lakes of neon.

He is someone you see from a distance,

Fragrances. The floors remarkably clean. She stood in an area with TVs stacked everywhere. She watched TV half the morning, five different programs side by side. She walked the aisles. It was cool and peaceful. Nobody talked to you unless you asked a question or made a purchase and she didn't have the means of doing either.

He went out to find food and she was alone with the baby in New York, an old hotel, and she took a washcloth and cleaned the grime off the Venetian blinds.

She sensed he was going to touch, he was making up his mind to touch, after the beating, after everything they'd said.

They were brought together by fate but she wasn't sure who he really was. Sharing the bathroom she wasn't sure. Making love she didn't know who he was.

When she learned English he would be less distant. It was absolutely true.

We buy groceries on Tuesday.

They made love, when they did, in a tender way, full of honest forgiving.

There is a broadsheet plastered crookedly to a wall near their bungalow.

THE VATICAN IS THE WHORE OF REVELATION.

Lee translates for Marina.

Marguerite was calm. She stood at the ironing board running the iron over her uniform blouse. She faced the living room, which had a sofa with a mound of bright pillows, two comfortable chairs, a writing desk and TV set and a decorative stand with ivy twisting out of a long pot. She ironed the uniform every chance, keeping it crisp and fresh. She worked in other people's homes, by word of mouth, some of the best homes in Fort Worth, taking care of babies of the rich.

And I mentioned to the woman that it is two weeks to Lee's birthday and he doesn't have work clothes, so she said, "Mrs. Oswald, what build is he?" And I told her. And he was about the same build as her husband. And she got out the work clothes her husband didn't want, some worn-out pairs of pants, she wanted me to pay, for ten dollars. Here is a woman, she knows I make a hard living, she knows they are a young couple starting a home in a new country. This is being rich in Fort Worth, asking payment from a nurse for used clothing. I am calm about it today, your honor, but this to me is very strong in my mind, that here is another instance of a troubled situation. Because from the very first day I looked in his face and saw a different boy. And I was like, What have they done to my boy over there? Because his skin was not fair and smooth as previous. Because his face was drawn, a tint of sand to a tint of ash gray. Because his hair was kinky out of nowhere. Because his hair was coming out, which he says himself, from a full head of hair to badly thinning in front that you could practically see his scalp. We had him bend his head down, Robert and I, to where we could actually look at the top of his head in a bright light. Judge, this is a family where the men have always displayed full heads of hair and he is still a boy. He said it is the cold of Russia. I thought to myself it is shock treatments. This is my conclusion, his being an agent of our government and lost for a year. There are many ways this figures out, remembering the incident where we sat watching the television in my apartment on West Seventh Street after she came home with a cancan petticoat and some hose that Lee bought with a few dollars from Robert and me, and we sat watching the television and she said to me, "Mama, it is Gregory Peck," and I looked at the movie and it was Gregory Peck sitting on a horse. Now, about my suspicions does a foreign girl know movie stars? I think it is frankly something to examine. I know I have not traveled abroad but when I think of Minsk and the frozen cold, where are the movie magazines in this city? Where are the theaters that show our American West? I am a person who plunges straight into things and this is an incident that shows the character of what I am trying to bring out. Who is this girl and what is she doing here? Is this girl trained to know more than she lets on? I try to talk to Lee about is he happy, does she run a proper household, because there are a lot of Russian friends who are established, with cars and homes, that have publicly interfered. They could not see this Russian girl do without. She pictured America in her mind and these people seem to think she should not be disappointed. I am calm about it today but I am the one who bought her a little longer shorts. The Lord would know me for a liar if I said I stopped bringing things after he told me to stop, but it was only the shorts and the parakeet, and the parakeet was just to give a touch of color because it was bright green, to color up a home in a new country.