Chapter nine

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  Chapter nine in which Uncle Stan’s defection leads to unlooked-for popularity ... Uncle Stan called. Had a bit of luck and was all keyed up to tell us about it so Mother got everyone together to hear the news. As usual, Mother was in charge of the phone, standing by to interpret Uncle Stan’s words to us by means of grimacing, gesturing and eloquently lifting her eyebrows. She had sound effects too, so it was with a great deal of pleasure that we anticipated Uncle Stan’s fortnightly call.      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...
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Chapter three

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Chapter three in which Uncle Stan’s foreign correspondence comes under scrutiny, and Cousin Alice ends up writhing on the tiles

 Predictably, after the festivities died down, things turned a bit more serious. Before the week was out, Mother and Dad and the old folk had some interviews at the police station regarding Uncle Stan’s departure. As customary in those circumstances, everyone was just devastated.

     ‘We’d never have guessed he could do such a thing!’ Mother, suitably appalled at Uncle Stan’s behaviour, 

clutched her head theatrically for the benefit of the interrogators. Bemoaning Uncle Stan’s weak moral fiber, 

Mother declared his conduct at odds with the strong communist tradition we’ve apparently nurtured.

     ‘Utterly incomprehensible!’ Mother wailed, proposing diminished mental capacity and citing numerous 

cases of it in the family. At this point, babka Zlatka, bless 'er, inadvertently advanced the argument when she 

piped up about Uncle Stan's foreign correspondence.

     ‘What correspondence?’ Special Agent Sharp perked up, taking out his notebook.

     ‘You know,’ babka nodded to the bewildered crowd, ‘the Bulgarians.’

Interrogations that followed eventually revealed that, when in junior high, Uncle Stan exchanged letters with 

a Bulgarian schoolgirl, whom he met at an asthmatic children's summer camp. Despite Mother's protestations...

'But they're our, the Bulgarians are on our side...' Special Agent Sharp wrote everything down. Promising to look 

into it, he terminated the interview. For now.























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Chapter nine

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Image
  Chapter nine in which Uncle Stan’s defection leads to unlooked-for popularity ... Uncle Stan called. Had a bit of luck and was all keyed up to tell us about it so Mother got everyone together to hear the news. As usual, Mother was in charge of the phone, standing by to interpret Uncle Stan’s words to us by means of grimacing, gesturing and eloquently lifting her eyebrows. She had sound effects too, so it was with a great deal of pleasure that we anticipated Uncle Stan’s fortnightly call.      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...
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Chapter one

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Chapter ten

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Chapter ten in which an ugly twist of fate gets Eugene a coal-burning job  Predictably, Mother and Dad told all their friends about Uncle Stan and everything else we were going through on account of his defection, namely the work interrogations, the phone bugging and Peg doing the rounds with her relatives, badmouthing the Dribblers and sucking up sympathy wherever she set foot, and of course, everyone understood.      ‘We know how it is,’ everyone nodded. ‘We all have a cross to bear.’      Looking at them spread around the living room, I envisaged quite a number of crosses for each of them.       Take Drystool, for example, blacklisted by the communist party.      ‘Ouch! It hurts!’ Drystool, grimacing, would cry just for a lark when conversation ebbed, and of course  everybody always laughed and so did Vendula although she didn’t quite grasp why. All she knew was that  Drystool was a ...
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