He freed the parakeet. He opened the cage and let it go. The boy who adored animals, judge.

But about the shorts it is, "No, Mama, I no like." And I said, "Marina, you are a married woman and it is proper for you to have a little longer shorts than the younger girls." But it is, "No, Mama, this no good." And I am strongly saying that this girl was not home. And this man was working. And I saw myself that this man came home and didn't have any supper in front of him. This couple does not have a maid to give this workingman his supper. We are a family that has struggled to stay together. His daddy collected insurance premiums right up to the moment he went down on the lawn, mowing the lawn in a raging heat. It is Marguerite and Lee ever since.

A family expects you to be one thing when you're another. They twist you out of shape. You have a brother with a good job and a nice wife and nice kids and they want you to be a person they will recognize. And a mother in a white uniform who grips your arms and weeps. You are trapped in their minds. They shape and hammer you. Going away is what you do to see yourself plain.

It was a Sunday and he stood in the empty lobby of the Republic National Bank Building in Dallas. Tan marble everywhere. He was waiting for George de Mohrenschildt. This was the second time he was meeting George. He wore a clean white shirt and the ready-made trousers of rough material he'd bought at the state-run store in Minsk.

George had a handful of keys. He jiggled them in greeting and walked to the elevators. They rode to sixteen and went down deserted corridors. The air was heavy and dense, with a carpet smell, a closeness. George was in tennis shorts and a shirt with an alligator emblem. He had a nice-size office with diplomas on the wall.

"You've been reading about this nut-case general."

"I know about him since Russia," Lee said.

"He's getting involved in Cuba now. Sit down. I have your papers."

"He's only reflecting the feelings of what most people think. What Walker says and does, this is white America."

"There are missiles poised to demolish us all and we have to open the newspaper and see this man."

"It is Mississippi, it is Cuba, it is wherever he sees the opportunity."

"He is making a switch to Cuba. He will jump into the Cuba thing. Wait and see."

"They are asking questions about my mail," Lee said.

"What do you mean?"

"A postal inspector talked to my landlord about the type mail I get."

"What type mail?"

"What some people would say subversive."

"Why do you read this material? It is totally boring material. I know this material without reading a word. It is the definition of boring."

"They are coming at me from a number of angles," Lee said, breathing a little laugh through his nose.

George gave him a copy of the material that had been typed since their last talk. He returned the original handwritten pages, page fragments, random notes, autobiographical notes, notes for speeches.

"I'm not disappointed, Lee. This is solid work, the main essay in particular. I think it is definitely a prospect that you move here to Dallas with a new job, something more suited. You'll come to my house. You'll be nearby, for easy visits. I'll tell you the most interesting thing about the house where I live. It is less than two miles from the house of General Walker."

George stuck out his index finger and raised his thumb.

The door opened and a tall man with cropped gray hair walked in. He was very tan and wore a tan suit with a blue shirt and he had to be Marion Collings. George introduced them. Collings had the spare build, the leanness and fitness of an older man who wants you to know he is determined to outlive you.

George left.

"This essay you've written," Collings said. "Very impressive, very thorough. I appreciate the fact you've allowed us to see it. -You picked up things only a trained observer ordinarily spots. Many interesting facts about the radio plant and the workers. Well organized, a nice grasp of social interplay. I would say a good beginning. We have something solid to start us out."

"I told George just about everything I remember that I didn't put in 'The {Collective.' '

"Yes, George and I have had our sit-down. I would say the major omission is glaring enough."

"Which is?"

"Lee, if I may, it is not even remotely conceivable that you spent over two and a half years as a defector in the Soviet Union and remained free of contact with the KGB."

"I had an interview with Internal Affairs, MVD, as final clearance for my departure."

"Who cleared your entry? You applied for a visa in Helsinki and had it in two days. Normally a week is what it takes. We happen to know the Soviet consul in Helsinki at that time was a KGB officer."

"You may know it but I didn't. They're all over the place. That doesn't mean I was doing any business. I went there to seek a better life."

"Lee, if I may, once we saw that you wanted out of there, we helped smooth the way. You're an interesting fellow. You've lived in the heart of the USSR for a long period. We want to have a relationship. We're very pragmatic people. We don't care what sort of affair you carried on with the Second Chief Directorate. You had a romance, you broke up. Fine. Happens all the time. Supply some details is all we're looking for. We're not the FBI. We don't pursue with a vengeance, or apprehend and prosecute. We want a relationship. A give-and-take, okay?"

"Is the FBI watching me?"

"I wouldn't know," Collings said. "How would I know a thing like that?"

It was as if he'd been asked the melting point of titanium.

"Look, it's simple. We want to know how you were handled. Who you saw, where you saw them, what they said. We don't have to get into it right this minute. We purposely waited some weeks to debrief you. We want to be careful not to crowd you. We understand defection, disillusionment, mental pressures. This piece of writing you've done shows that you know exactly what kind of material is worth recording. Understand, we're not asking for confessions or apologies. That's not our agenda."

He sat on the edge of George's desk.

"A fact is innocent until someone wants it. Then it becomes intelligence. We're sitting in a forty-story building that has an exterior of lightweight embossed aluminum. So what? Well, these dullish facts can mean a lot to certain individuals at certain times. An old man eating a peach is intelligence if it's August and the place is the Ukraine and you're a tourist with a camera. I can get you a Minox incidentally, any time. There's still a place for human intelligence. George, for example. George gives us material that we promptly analyze and disseminate to other agencies."

Lee said nothing.

"May I call you Lee?"

"All right."

"Lee, you have no high-school diploma, only a so-called equivalency. You have no college degree. You have an undesirable discharge. You have almost three years in the USSR, which is either a gap in your employment record or it is three years in the USSR. Take your pick. Now, all I have to do is make a call and you'll have a job with a firm here in Dallas that does very interesting work, classified work, where you'll start low but have a chance to learn a serious trade."

Marion Ceilings stood by the desk, well tanned, sincerely and correctly tanned, so trim and fit he could snap his fingers and knock a picture off the wall.

"It's a job I guarantee you are suited for and you'll be working there in a matter of days. Okay. Just tell me what to do."

Minox is the world-famous spy camera. Hidell has seen the name in books.

He walked through empty downtown Dallas, empty Sunday in the heat and light. He felt the loneliness he always hated to admit to, a vaster isolation than Russia, stranger dreams, a dead white glare burning down. He wanted to carry himself with a clear sense of role, make a move one time that was not disappointed. He walked in the shadows of insurance towers and bank buildings. He thought the only end to isolation was to reach the point where he was no longer separated from the true struggles that went on around him. The name we give this point is history.