Chapter nine
Chapter nine in which Uncle Stan’s defection leads to unlooked-for popularity ...
The show started with a lot of grinning when Uncle Stan announced that he was out of the refugee camp
and that he found a cleaning job. Mother, mindful of who might be listening, acknowledged the news by
grunting noncommittally into the receiver. (To us she gave the thumbs up gesture and mouthed the word job.)
Encouraged by this show of support, Uncle Stan revealed that he’d managed to rent a room somewhere
reasonable and that his German language examinations went well. Snorting like a pig in clover, Mother gave
him to understand that we were pleased. Then Uncle Stan started telling her about some people, a bunch of
ex-pats he’d met, who were willing to help him get on his feet, when the connection was suddenly terminated.
As usual nobody bat an eyelid; we fully expected the phone to die everytime Uncle Stan had something positive
to say. It all had to do with the secret police.
As was the fashion of the day, following Uncle Stan’s untimely departure, we became persons of interest,
the sort whose daily goings on are deemed worthy of monitoring, and so it came as no surprise that a highly
secret covert operation was set up to keep tabs on us. Yes, the house of Zhvuk & Dribbler was officially bugged.
Click, click, the phone went everytime you picked up the receiver. It was great fun. We felt special and told
everyone how pleased we were to be the focus of such interest, how flattering all this attention was and we
asked everyone to help spread the word, which indeed they did and we soon became the talk of the town.
I kid you not; for a while there, we couldn’t set foot out the door without being pointed at and whispered about.
It goes without saying that we loved it. Deda Anton especially basked in the attention, praising the
vigilance of those dear comrades entrusted with this Very Important Job, and telling everyone all sorts of
fantastic tales and fables designed to perpetuate his newfound celebrity. Indeed, he was very grateful; at
home he never failed to mention to all those vigilant comrades listening in, how much he appreciated their
determination to defend law and order against the likes of us.
A knowledgeable and imaginative speaker on all matters of politics and philosophy, his formidable mind
was never short of a topic so deda was generally found wedged in the pantry doors, ventilating opinions to
the comrades assigned to our ‘case’. He was clearly having the time of his life. Night after night he stood in
the pantry, mopping up lard with a slice of bread while he shouted into the phone. What did he talk about?
Everything. You name it deda talked about it, making things up along the way. It was a riot, listening to him,
especially when he started on his favourite subject, the Soviet stock exchange, which was a purely theoretical
concept the Soviets insisted was practically running the world. The very idea of this struck deda as quaint,
downright fanciful, and he was not afraid to say so.
Sometimes, as the evening wore on, food ran out. When this happened, deda turned philosophic and
pondered the meaning of life, posing rhetorical questions or singing proletarian songs (delightfully off-key).
Other times, when the pantry was full, deda’s mood markedly improved and conversation tended towards more
earthly delights; during such an evening, spicy anecdotes involving lady Marxists & Leninists and the
Karma Sutra flowed through the room like vodka at a party congress. To finish, deda would burst into the
Internationale.
With time, deda grew bolder. Abandoning all subtleties, he boasted of Uncle Stan’s generosity,
mentioning a food parcel that had mysteriously appeared on the doorstep one sunny morning containing some
chocolates, tinned olives and a jar of powdered milk! ‘Yes, powdered milk!’ deda shouted down the line,
audaciously bragging about his good fortune. This time though he went too far. The good comrades,
offended by such blatant flaunting of vulgar affluence, disconnected the phone for three days, leaving deda bored
and Vendula nigh hysterical.
When the connection was finally restored, the fun continued. After all they’d been through, deda now regarded
the comrades with a degree of affection and even trust, and it was in this spirit of easy cameraderie that deda
decided, one slivka-soaked evening, to unveil his vision of A Truly Communist Future. It was a world
without queues or empty shop fronts, a world where justice, collective ownership and equal distribution for all
reflected in the daily lives of all those who toiled for the Common Good, deda purred seductively down the line
at the end of which he imagined the good comrades were listening with bated breath and a palpitating heart.
‘Cheese will be plentiful and wine will flow like water!’ deda suddenly shouted, nearly busting a poor
bugger’s eardrum. At this point babka Zlatka intervened, ordering deda to shut it. Babka, you see, worried about
consequences, worried about where all this was leading to, and she wasn’t taking any chances. Naturally, deda
took no notice; as a result a scuffle broke out, utensils were thrown and unmentionable language was used.
Eventually, babka managed to unplug the phone and drag deda out of the pantry.
Of course, the party didn’t end there. Usually, this sort of engagement was just a prelude to a domestic in
which the whole family took part; the adults shouting and the kids sitting there mute, listening to things
that shouldn’t have been uttered in their presence. Yes, unsavoury details were aired about Uncle Stan’s
marriage, the mother-in-law, the cat, and Uncle’s wife Peg getting Uncle’s things - Not as stupid as she looks,
Mother ground teeth at the thought of Peg profitting from the situation - eventually the theater would end and
we’d all go to bed.
Poor Peg. The poor thing could not have imagined the trouble she was getting into when she agreed to
accompany Uncle Stan on the trip to Yugoslavia where she hoped to walk on the beach and get a nice tan.
But she got a lot more than she bargained for when Uncle Stan told her he was defecting to the ‘Other Side’!
He had made up his mind to cross the border to Italy and from there travel to West Germany where he planned
to live along with the rest of the capitalists. It was a decision that was to change her life and it was mentioned to
her very casually, over a bowl of soup. No wonder Peg was such a mess.
‘Put yourself in her shoes,’ Dad, attempting to defend the hapless Peg, had said to Mother on numerous
occasions when this came up in conversation, but Mother wouldn’t have it. Everytime she heard this line
of argument she’d snort and reply that Peg got what she deserved. It wasn’t true, of course, nobody deserves
to face that fear and the interrogations and all that hanging over your head for the rest of your life; everyone was
just so surprised that Peg even had the nerve to return home without Uncle Stan. Certainly, there was her mother
to consider, but still you had to give it to her, Peg had shown some guts. She did the only thing she could do once
Uncle Stan left her at the border; she told the cops that he defected.
Just wanted to cover her back, Mother claimed, telling everyone Peg was a coward but Dad defended Peg,
saying the poor girl just wanted to stay out of trouble. Of course, Mother called him a fool and worse, and then
the whole conversation went somewhere ugly altogether. But never mind that now. Peg was not to blame,
everybody said later when the details became known because Peg had no idea. We know that, Mother rolled her
eyes heavenwards but Dad pretended he didn’t get it. What he meant to say, Dad explained, was that Peg had had
no idea Uncle Stan had planned to cross the border to the West. He only told her on the last day of their holiday.
Apparently they were making their way through Yugoslavia towards Hungary which they would have had to
cross to get back home since going the short way (via that decadent, capitalist Austria) was not allowed, when
Uncle Stan stopped at a truck stop near the border where he informed Peg of his decision.
‘Peg,’ Uncle Stan had said, ‘Peg, I’m not going back. I’m taking the next boat to Italy and then I’m off to
West Germany.’
Peg couldn’t believe it at first but Uncle Stan just kept repeating himself, looking dead serious until it
dawned on her that he wasn’t joking. Then Peg began to cry and plead with him not to be silly but Uncle
wouldn’t budge. Peg was very distressed and started to shake, she told us later and we believed her because she
had that nervy disposition; everybody remembered how Mother never gave her the best crystal to drink from
when we jokingly toasted Brezhnev’s birthday every year because Peg shook so much. She would have looked
like a garden sprinkler, crying and shaking at that truck stop but Uncle Stan didn’t care. Determined to cross over
to the ‘Other Side’, he told her that she’d be welcome to start a new life with him if she wanted to but since there
was her mother and the cat to consider, he wasn’t going to push her one way or the other and was leaving the
decision up to her.
Oh, no! Peg cried; she couldn’t stay, she couldn’t leave Mum like that, Peg sobbed, taking a sip of her tea.
They were eating dumplings and pork and stewed cabbage, and drinking rum tea, and wouldn’t you know it,
Peg dropped the glass. The waiter came and cleaned up the mess and poured Peg another cup gratis, and Peg
just sat there twisting a handkerchief in her lap, looking helplessly at Uncle, wishing he'd never said a word.
She feared there was more bad news.
There was. The waiter eventually left and Uncle Stan asked Peg why was it that she couldn’t leave her mother?
After that there was no going back, he’d done it then; he’d opened a can of worms that didn’t need to be opened
‘cause when he said that everything about their marriage came out right there at the table like a badly digested
meal. Peg couldn’t believe he would even bring it up, what a thing to ask, she and Mum were ever so close and
Uncle Stan knew that when he married her and what was the problem? Peg tearfully asked. In reply, Uncle Stan
sighed saying that if she didn’t know what the trouble was, he didn't know how to explain it to her but when Peg
continued to stare, he pointed out that she (Peg) was a grown woman and so was Mum and really, there had been
no need for Mum to come on their honeymoon with them.
‘Think of it this way, Peg,’ Uncle Stan said, making a noble gesture. ‘Come to Germany with me and we’ll
have a good life, I promise you that. Mum can visit once in a while but most of the time,’ Uncle Stan raised his
brows for emphasis, ‘we will live like other people. We will have an apartment to ourselves.’
Then Peg said she never knew Uncle Stan objected to Mum living with them and he should have said
something sooner, and Uncle Stan replied that he did but she, Peg, was always too busy to listen, sittin’ there
knittin’ with Mum, with the cat on a cushion on the good couch, and now if they went to Germany they could
have their own good couch in a little while, and maybe then he (Uncle Stan) could lie down on it and put his
feet up on the coffee table and watch footy in peace on a Saturdi arvo. He’d even buy her a new cat,
Uncle Stan said, even two cats, because they don’t cost nearly as much as children do.
‘You know, Peg,’ Uncle Stan cleared his throat, ‘uhmm, that’s another thing I’ve been meaning to tell you.
You’re always so careful with money, uhmm, maybe you could loosen up a bit,’ Uncle Stan suggested, saying he
expected to earn a lot more in Germany so maybe they could send the kids (he meant Vendula and Pavel) some
presents from time to time, you know, just to compensate for all those birthdays they’d missed. There he made
a face like Peg should have known what he was talking about and of course, Peg said she didn’t know what
he was talking about. It wasn’t her fault they missed the kids’ parties because she never seemed to have that
much free time and she always meant to give them presents later but you know how it is, Peg shrugged looking
guilty, so Uncle Stan replied he wasn’t there to split hairs to which Peg replied she always told Mother the kids got
too much.
‘It’s not my fault,’ Peg sobbed and she was shaking a lot, I tell you she couldn’t have held up a pair of socks
so Uncle Stan took pity and said he’d get her a new couch and a new cat, and the thing could sleep on the cushions
for all he cared if it made her happy. Nodding at each other, they sat there a while without saying a word, both
knowing the writing was on the wall. Then Uncle Stan asked Peg one more time.
‘Peg, are you comin’?’ he asked. Peg shook everything, then Uncle Stan walked out. End of story.
‘Leaving the sewing circle behind, Our Hero, the Freedom Fighter, walked out for good,’ Dad often joked
to conclude this sorry tale every time it was aired. Of course, everyone laughed but truth be told, people were
impressed. Now that people began to take Uncle Stan seriously, the jokes about Peg and Peg’s mother and the cat,
well, the jokes were still being told but the winking had gone.
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