The State University of Odessa. Late 1980-s. Department of Romance and Germanic Languages. And it means that only five or six rooms out of 50 were occupied by males. I should mention, that this ratio 1:10 really interfered with men’s concentration upon their studies.
I shared my room with a guy from Kiev, Ukraine, Semen Binder. The name speaks for itself. But he has now complexes about his ehtnicity and loved telling us and listening to various stories and anecdotes about Jews. By the way, one author complained of his poor fate that made him emigrate from Ukraine to Russia just to study. Bullshit! There were lots of Jews in our university, and as long as the action took place in Odessa, every inhabitant could be automatically called Jewish.
Well. In one of the rooms draught slammed the door, having left girls living there outside and their keys inside. Girls were wearing dressing gowns and slippers. Getting back into the room through the window posed a certain problem, as it was the fifth floor. Although one of the roommates had another key, she had gone to her town and was coming back only the next day. The only way out was to break the door. But how could delicate girls do that?! They turned to us for help, and we delegate Senya to them. First, he’s about 2 meters high and weights about 90 kilos. Second, his wife-to-be was living in that room.
We took our seats in the first row to be able to advise, but… we had no chance.
Senya runs and… having approached the door jumps up. The show is not for the nervous. Just imagine the body, 90 kilos, in its flight crashing with its head into the door jamb. The head rebounds like a billiard ball, while the body continues its movement, finally knocking out the door. Then everything falls to the ground: The door, Senya’s body, and what has left of his head. Anyway that’s what we were thinking at that moment.
But why does one want to laugh in situations like that?! We’re laughing like crazy, understanding though that something serious has happened. Then we hear the sound of another body falling: One of the girl fainted at the sight of blood. As she admitted later she had seen not only blood, but also brains. Whom should we bring round first?
Luckily, everything turned out all right. Senya got off cheap, with a broken head, a big bump and a slight concussion. But the funniest thing was that in 15 minutes there came the roommate who was to go home and brought the second key.
It turned out that she failed to buy a bus ticket and had to come back.