I.
One's first thought is, naturally enough, a certain relief at the thought of these two people, so close to one of the defining cataclysmic events of the latter half of the twentieth century succumbing, something so ordinary as a nice fleshy screw. One imagines them on a king-size bed, gazing into one another's eyes, covers pulled up discreetly over their nipples, half-finished drinks on the nightstand, cigarettes smoldering in adjacent ashtrays, the whole scene set in garish technicolor like one of those bad Rock Hudson romance flicks from the '50s. The sheer naughtiness of it all (affairs with your dead spouse's sibling: fodder for some prurient daytime chat show) humanizes them, and indirectly, Oswald.

She is a fairly well known figure. Marina, the young Russian woman, so beautiful, so naive, whom Oswald the failed revolutionary brought back from behind the iron curtain. Oswald's brother is less well-known (how many people even knew Oswald had a brother?). Robert Oswald has until recently managed to stay safely out of the glare of publicity. The circumstances of their affair spring pretty abundantly to mind: she: scared, confused, alone, he: horny, shallow, opportunistic. In this light, it's easy enough to see why Oswald's brother decided to fade quietly into the backlights of time: the prospect of running through the whole "how could you fuck your dead brother's wife?" inquisition with one earnest asshole reporter after another being enough to send anybody into seclusion.

II.
There is however a way of to interpret this affair as being quite different from some tawdry fuck-and-forget six week fling; a viewpoint that sees this pair occupying an entirely other realm from the rest of us who allow ourselves a messy indiscretion with our friend's boyfriend, our boss, some total stranger, our dead husband's brother.

The situation of finding yourself a footnote to history is pretty unique: the feeling of someone close to you setting off events of global import must be positively vertiginous. Faceless officials from this authority or that barge through your quiet little life, rummaging through every insignificant little corner. The consequences of the monstrous act of this person you thought you knew blare in your face from every radio, tv screen, from the faces of passersby. The knowledge that you will be for a long time noted in one historical record or another as the loved one of this man who upended a nation, the whole plenitude of your existence distilled into a couple of sentences and an endnote, weighs on your mind. To be forever defined by millions of people through the terrible act of some entirely other person: Oswald's wife, Oswald's brother. The immensity of it all, the terrible helplessness: sucked in, chewed up, and shat out by the forces of history like a goose sucked into a jet engine.

Mostly, a person in that position must feel totally alone. Who can empathize with what they are going through? It is a situation visited upon but a handful of poor saps every century: Stalin's daughter, The parents of some deranged high school shooter, Oswald's wife, Oswald's brother. In this light, how could they not seek the comfort of one another's arms, thighs, lips, body fluids? They were, it can be seen, driven together by something as overwhelming and irresistable as destiny. One likes to think, in light of this, that when they were together for that short time, Robert and Marina fucked with a passion, as if indeed they were the only two people on earth.