Chapter three

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.