Avuncular Irregularities
MY MOTHER married my uncle. Call me Hamlet. If you don’t like awkward stories, this is not one for you—but I do promise a reduced body count.
Let’s think of this differently. My uncle is my adoptive father’s brother. I call my adoptive father Dad, and the distinction is irrelevant for this story, if you agree. But it does contribute to some distance with a figure such as an uncle, since Lev first met me at the age of six or so, instead of encountering me as a baby.
Uncle Lev is an awkward figure. A year and a half younger than Dad, he’s an imperfect replica. He moves, speaks, thinks just a bit slower. He is heavy-set but not obese, his posture slightly stooped. His face, intelligent, with a high forehead, like Dad’s, seems to lack determination, certainty, agency. It’s softer; it floats in the world rather than forging its fierce path. His voice is shaky, with occasional stuttering and repetitions, his speech punctuated by excessive pauses. His clothes are even more nondescript than the average attire Soviet citizens have access to. His gray eyes look uncertainly on the world.
The two brothers are on good terms but not emotionally close, saving their deeper vulnerabilities for their separate families and friends. I get to see Uncle Lev more in the late Eighties, when my parents finally achieve their dream of many years: the purchase of a dacha, a country house. Location: Roshchino, forty miles from Leningrad via a suburban train. The two families share the expense.
To be exact, the two families purchase two-thirds of a dacha. The remaining third belongs to a friendly
