The Window

12 August 1996 

Dear family and friends, 

I just crawled in the window.     

The story:

This evening, as I was making dinner, a person I thought I knew walked by the flat.  I quickly grabbed my keys and ran out the door to see if it was her. 

As I went around the building, I went by four boys.  As I walked by, one of them said, “Amerikanski”.  I turned and said, “DA!!!” but kept walking after the person I thought I knew.

The person I was pursuing was not who I thought.  As I was returning to the flat, I came by the boys again and they were eager to further our “discussion”.  They were greatly disappointed to find out that the most I could say in Russian was that I couldn’t speak Russian. 

I asked them, through body language, if they wanted to play basketball.  They said yes (actually, they said “da").  I said I would go and get the basketball and be right back.  As I neared the flat, I could hear one of them yell, “Yaahoooo!” 

When I got to the flat, the key would not open the newly installed metal door.  I was afraid this might happen since it had opened hard a couple of times before.  After working on it for about 15 minutes the boys came looking for me.  Through body language I explained that I could not get the door open.  They all had to try themselves - a number of times each.  All with no success.

They thought of the windows.  We went outside and looked at the iron works the landlord had just installed on all the windows.  I hoisted the smallest one up to see if he could squeak through any of the openings.  He could not. 

Now these boys, it seems, are well connected in the neighborhood.  They were now stopping just about everyone who came by to see if they could help.  I did not always know what they were saying, but I did hear the word Amerikanski quiet often.  Many stopped to try and help. 

One of the first to help was a little too much help.  He twisted the key off in the lock.

The boys kept finding more people.  The neighbors across the hall came out to see what all the commotion was about.  They lent us a fork.  (?)

I was drawing a crowd.

I was meeting Loasha’s, Aloasha’s, Maxim’s, Pasha’s, Sasha’s, Anton’s, Yuri’s, etc.  They took turns investigating the door and the ironed windows.  At times there were 6 or 7 kids climbing up my walls and hanging on the iron works trying to see if they could pull it apart and squeeze through.

Soon the babushkas (older ladies) got involved.

So much for being inconspicuous.

This was getting very interesting as no one spoke English, except me.

One young mother asked if she should get a saw.  I said sure (da).  There was soon a man with about 3 young assistants up on my windows sawing through the newly installed and just painted ironworks.  I use the word “saw” loosely as this saw, as with most things in Russia, had been used a few too many times for the wrong purposes.  It was more like grinding at the iron until the iron gave up.

Soon they were pulling apart the iron and about 5 Russians slid into my flat.  I had tried to explain earlier that even if they did get in that because the key was twisted off in the lock, they would still not be able to open the door, even from the inside.  This is a very hard concept to explain in body language.  After much trying, now from the inside, they gave up. 

There was now only one way in and out of the flat.  As I scaled the wall and slid in through the mangled iron, there was a round of applause that went up from below.  I yelled back, “Ya doma!” (I home)  and then “Spaceeba, spaceeba, spaceeba!!!” (thank you, thank you, thank you!!!)  It was a crowd pleaser.

Before they left, I made arrangements for basketball at 7 tomorrow night. 

This is definitely one way to attract enough guys for a game. 

Tom