français

to begin the day's review activity, the delicate chinese girl recounted an excursion to carthage, during which her comrade fell and broke and had to be sent to china for repair. our french teacher listened seriously to the rest of the account while the greek and ukrainian women beside the chinese student whispered, then began to bob and convulse with laughter. they covered their faces, shaking. the albino ukrainian across the room started in too.
all the while the teacher looked quite concerned while listening to the story:
-an operation? a reparation? how did your comrade break?

they came up for air occasionally, while the chinese girl continued her story of the broken comarade and carthage and finishing the trip with a delicious chinese dinner in the lake district of tunis. the trip wasn't so bad in the end, she said, apart from the fallen camrade. the teacher didn't know what to say, i could tell. but the laughers couldn't stop. they kept coming up composed and diving back into their hands, unstoppable. they were trying to stop, i thought, becasue, after all, they were grown ups and in french class. all this while the chinese finsihed her story and all in all the trip wasn't so bad. prof. still looking somber:
-camrade? how did your camrade break? what do you mean? is it serious? what kind of operation did your he need?
-no, no, not an operation, really. it's just going back to china to get fixed.
-fixed? did he break his leg? (prof. motions with her hands, like breaking a stick in half)
-uh, no, the chinese hesitated. -it just fell and broke. it's okay now.
-camrade?
no one said anything, but chinese nodded. -camrade?
-do you mean comrade? or camera?

turns out, it was her camera.
at that realization the teacher cried. i couldn't tell if it was laughter or relief, or embarassment or something else, but everyone lost it to tears. and when most of us came to again, we went on with the days' french lesson: -so, how did you pass the weekend?