Libra

They were turned away.

Lee prowled the lobby, talking to people who walked in unaware, telling them the story. It's just another business. They make a business out of pain and suffering. No one knew what to say to him and finally he just paced the floor in silence, walking off his anger.

It was an anger that Marina did not try to soothe or wish away because she believed in her heart it was correct.

She pushed the stroller past some shops with large signs out front. She sounded the words in her mind. Washateria. One-hour Martinizing. She saw fewer people as they strayed a little north, a little east.

She wondered how many women had visions and dreams of the President. What must it be like to know you are the object of a thousand longings? It's as though he floats over the landscape at night, entering dreams and fantasies, entering the act of love between husbands and wives. He floats through television screens into bedrooms at night. He floats from the radio into Marina's bed. There were times when she waited for him, actually listened late at night for a few words of a speech or a news conference recorded earlier in the day, waited for the voice of the President, the radio on a table near the bed.

They had matching scars on the arm, Marina and Lee.

This was the basic question that didn't leave her day or night. Would he force her to go back to Russia?

She said to him, "A gloomy spirit rules the house." "I am not receiving happiness," she said.

He talked to June about little Cuba. Do you love little Cuba? Do you have sympathy for Uncle Fidel? There was a photograph of Castro on the wall that he'd clipped from a Soviet magazine. What do you think of Uncle Fidel? Do you love and support little Cuba?

She thought of the President sometimes, in pictures taken near the sea, while Lee was making love to her.

He kept after her to write to the Soviet embassy in Washington, teary-eyed letters, requesting visas, requesting travel expenses. She knew he was confused about the future.

She was a blind kitten who always returned to the person who caressed her, no matter if he also treated her cruelly.

She took Junie out of the stroller now and let her walk alongside. Junie didn't like to walk holding anyone's hand. She walked along on her own, endless joy and endless toil.

Sitting on the porch at 2:00 a.m. with the rifle across his lap.

They walked down many quiet streets. The houses were old and silent and some had cast-iron galleries and white columns.

There was no one else around. The afternoon was heavy and still. She stood on a corner and saw cars going through an intersection about seven blocks away but nothing moved nearby and she wondered if this might be an area closed to normal activity during certain times of day. One-hour Martinizing. They passed homes with carved entrances, with magnolias out front and straight-standing palms. She tried to take Junie's hand. The heat became oppressive. They passed a house with double galleries and she could see frescoes through the living-room window. She put June back in the stroller, forced her in, stuffed her back in. Then she turned in the direction she thought led home, walking quickly now, no longer looking at the graceful, old and silent homes.

She thought carefully in English, Where are all the people?

Bateman told him about a group called the Cuban Student Directorate. It was run out of a clothing store a few doors down from the Habana Bar. Confidential Source S-172 walked in one day and talked to a guy named Carlos, about thirty years old, shiny-haired, wearing dark glasses.

He brought along his old Marine Corps training manual to sort of indicate who he was and where he stood. Inside of a minute they were talking about bridges, blowing up bridges, laying powder charges, making homemade explosives, homemade guns.

Carlos, however, did not seem eager to tell him how he might enter the anti-Castro struggle. He wouldn't accept Lee's offer to join the organization, wouldn't even accept a cash contribution. He was wary of infiltrators. He said it straight out. This was a sensitive time.

They had a nice talk anyway. Lee left his training manual behind as a gesture of good will and said he'd come back soon. They shook hands at the door.

What happens? Four days later Lee is on Canal Street wearing his Viva Fidel sign and handing out pro-Castro leaflets. Along comes Carlos with two friends, Lee watches Carlos do a double-take from out of the archives.

He approached in an attitude of menace, taking off his glasses. Lee crossed his arms on his chest and smiled. He didn't want to fight with Carlos. He liked him. Carlos had that Latin quality of being easy to like.

"Okay, Carlos, if you want to hit me, hit me."

He stood there with his arms crossed, smiling nicely. A small crowd collected, backing Lee toward the entrance of a Walgreen's. One of the men with Carlos grabbed some handbills out of Lee's fist and threw them in the air. This caused some scuffling on the fringe. Then a police car rolled up and then another one and soon they were all walking across the sandy parking lot of the first-district station house on North Rampart.

Lee demanded to see Agent Bateman of the FBI.

Half an hour later Bateman walked into the interview room, hands held out, palms showing, a certain rigid set to his features.

Lee said, "They want to know how many members in my Fair Play chapter."

"What did you tell them?"

"Thirty-five."

"Fine. But why bring me into it?"

"Because what are they liable to do if I don't show I'm linked to law enforcement?"

"It is only disturbing the peace. So-called creating a scene."

"Well get me out."

"I can't get you out."

"This wasn't the deal. Getting me arrested."

"You got yourself arrested. And if I get you out, it exposes everything. Giving them my name is bad enough. Did they ask why you wanted to see me?"

"They asked about Karl Marx. I told them the real Karl Marx was a socialist, not a communist."

"I am deeply disappointed, Lee."

"Well I couldn't just let them bury me. I have a wife and baby."

"One night is all you'll lose."

"I had to show there's someone who knows who I am. A figure of authority."

"It is only disturbing the peace. Tell them as little as possible. Let them think you're just a hometown boy with political ideals."

"I told them I'm a Lutheran."

"First-rate," Bateman said, nice and nasty.

They photographed him front, profile and full figure and then took prints of his fingers and palms. They told him to drop his pants and bend over. Later he sat in a holding cell seeing himself as he would appear in the mug shots, dignified and balding. He listened to the drunks and hysterics. They brought more men in as the night progressed. A howler and a dancer. They brought in a Negro with an aluminum-foil hat, a little religious cap made of Reynolds Wrap, with trinkets dangling from the sides.

Trotsky took his name from a jailer in Odessa and carried it into the pages of a thousand books.

It was Lee who told Marina that Mrs. Ke

Lee went to court. The first thing he noticed was that the room was separated into white and colored. He sat square in the middle of the colored section, waiting for his case to be called. Then he pleaded guilty and paid a ten-dollar fine. He shook hands with Carlos and walked out the door.