The Fox and the Crane

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My parents didn’t tell me this fairy tale — we studied it at school. Everyone did, around second grade. It’s a very short story. The plot is as follows:

The Fox and the Crane became friends. The Crane visits the Fox. The Fox prepares a treat: she spreads porridge in a thin layer on a flat plate. The Crane can’t really peck at it, while the Fox licks it all up with her tongue. Later, the Fox visits the Crane. In revenge, the Crane serves the food in a jug with a narrow neck. The Fox can’t reach it with her tongue, and the Crane drinks it all up with his long beak.

To me, this story is perfectly clear. But to my daughter — it isn’t.

My five years old daughter barely speaks Russian. She was born in America and didn’t speak Russian with anyone but us. She still understands it somewhat, but can’t express her thoughts clearly — no vocabulary, no grammar.

That’s why I only tell her Russian fairy tales, so she doesn’t forget her native language or where she’s from.

“The Fox and the Crane,” it seems, is a very old tale. Someone retold it in beautiful Russian; someone else illustrated it memorably. To me, it’s a true Russian fairy tale because it was in the second-grade Russian language textbook. I remember clearly an illustration in it: a Fox in a traditional dress, deftly licking a plate, with a bewildered Crane standing beside her. The colors were in the style of those old transfer prints. Anyone else remember those?

Secondly, the images in this tale feel native, familiar. In the USSR, kids in my kindergarten often licked their porridge plates. It was forbidden, of course, but easily ignored. I don’t remember ever being truly hungry, but in every kindergarten group photo, all the kids are skinny. Then again, so were the adults. I also remember that asking for seconds wasn’t encouraged at all — it was considered improper. Yet I vividly remember a time, at the end of lunch, when a chubby cook came in with a pot and triumphantly offered more to everyone. I must have remembered it for a reason — it was a real event! We all preferred the heels of the bread loaves — I loved them too, but never managed to get one. Everyone grabbed them before me. And then, twenty years later, I noticed the heels were suddenly left untouched on cafeteria trays. They’d fallen out of fashion.

I found the reason in someone's memoirs from the concentration camps: the heel is more filling. When times became plentiful, no one wanted them anymore — too burnt, too tough.

On my sixth birthday, at kindergarten lunch, I was gifted a soup bone. I immediately felt the admiring, envious gazes of the others. Were they envying my sudden fame, or was it the sight of a tender chunk of meat clinging to the rib bone that made everyone’s mouths water?

I also knew full well how people don’t always want to share food. There were countless examples of this, among both children and adults. There were even canonical refusals.

For example, when someone saw another enjoying a sandwich, they’d ask, swallowing hard:

“Let me take a bite…”

And get the reply:

“Forty-one,
I eat alone.”

Or, later on:

“Wait for communism. For now — go buy your own.”

Of course, not everyone answered that way — some shared. I, for example, never responded like that. And I never asked anyone for anything. Why that was, I don’t remember. Most likely my mother taught me that way. As an adult, the fear of appearing like someone who’s asking for something became almost a phobia.

What I’m saying is, this tale — it’s familiar to those who never had anything of their own, who were always hungry, who were mistreated by unfair handouts. And who dreamed of revenge.

In other words, it’s about us — the nobodies. Therefore, this is very much a Russian folk tale.

It’s beautifully written, but short. I was afraid my daughter wouldn’t have time to grasp it before it ended — and that’s what happened. So I explained every turn in detail. After all, I had to clarify why they used a single plate or jug between the two of them. Why the Fox licked and the Crane pecked. Why it had to be that way.

Why didn’t they eat with spoons or forks? Well, maybe when this tale was created, spoons hadn’t been invented yet, which is why they’re not in the story. In the 1950s, we didn’t need this explained — many essential things were just not present in our lives. That’s just how it was. For example... well, anything could serve as an example: school notebooks, or stove needles for the Primus...

There were countless instances of shared dishes in Russian households when I was a child.

But my daughter doesn’t understand any of this — after all, here, everything has a dedicated tool or method. For example, women sometimes shave too — and their razors are different from men’s, even though the function is the same.

My daughter didn’t even know how to relieve herself under a bush — she’d never needed to, and probably never will. She simply doesn’t know how it’s done. Here, there’s always a clean toilet with a roll of toilet paper. That caused us some problems on long trips.

So the tale gradually adapted to American life, wrapped in my comments and explanations. Still in fairy-tale form, of course — understandable for a child. But how could I, a freshly arrived immigrant living in a cosmopolitan metropolis, imagine the American setting? What had I seen? Brighton Beach and construction sites full of other poor souls like me. My America was shaped by Mark Twain and Faulkner, O. Henry and Ambrose Bierce.

Finally, after dozens of retellings and additions, pieced together from books, immigrant anecdotes, and my own ideas of beauty formed in my past life, here’s what it turned into:

I tell it in Russian.

- So — once upon a time, in an old forest, lived the Fox and the Crane. In Russian “Zhuravl means The Crane, - I say, - “Zhu-ra-vl. Say: Zhuravl.”

- Zhurav, - says my daughter uncertainly.

- Good job. So, Lisa — that’s The Fox — used to walk by the lakeshore, and always saw the Crane standing knee-deep in water.

In my daughter’s imagination, of course, this isn’t our hungry Russian fox with a sunken belly and desperate eyes — no, she’s a well-groomed lady strolling by the water after lunch, before a cup of tea, like in her picture books about pink ponies.

- She would stop, and they would chat for a long time.

- What did they talk about, Daddy?

What do ladies and gentlemen usually talk about? About the weather, of course, as is customary in English-speaking countries.

- Yes, summer’s cold this year. There will probably be fewer mice than last year.

- You’re right — and the frogs aren’t as fat either.

- Don’t talk about that!” my sweet daughter cries in disgust.

- Okay, fine. So they stood and chatted — about what, we don’t want to know.

One day, the Fox says:

- We have such nice conversations, let’s be friends. Let’s meet at parties, have picnics, visit each other.

- That’s wonderful, - says the Crane. - Tomorrow I’ll come visit you.

But that’s not what the Fox wanted — she wanted to visit him. So she thought: I’ll host him in such a way that he won’t want to come again.

- Unfair, - says my daughter.

- Yep, unfair,- I say. So the Crane comes over. The Fox goes to the other room to get dishes.

- To the pantry, - my daughter suggests.

(Pantry — that’s a special room for dishes.) She sees the Fox as a wealthy lady. Rich homes have pantries. In Russia, they used to be called buffets. My house doesn’t have one, and probably never will.

- So she goes into the pantry.

I pause. Now I have to describe it. What’s usually in a pantry?

- There were shelves with all kinds of dishes: a 96-piece china set,” I say, listing everything I’ve ever wanted but never had, - With a blue pattern — a river, a bridge, a woman with a parasol on the bridge, and a boat with a fisherman. She also had silverware — a creamer, a sugar bowl, spoons, forks, knives, all with monograms, even a little silver bucket to chill champagne. And crystal too — vases, glasses, all faceted. And even regular glassware.

Then I catch myself — this fantasy has gone too far. Where would a deceitful fox get all this?

- Oh, - I say, - she stole it from an old man when she worked as his housekeeper. Not just the dishes — everything, even his money. He didn’t understand much anymore, being so old, - (Well, she certainly didn’t earn it.)

I’d heard lots of such stories from my wife’s friends who worked in homes for the elderly.

- The Fox didn’t take anything fancy. She took an old chipped plate and brought it out.

How will she explain that now?

- Sorry, - she says, - this is the only plate I have. We used to have more. My grandmother was a noble lady, loved nice things — real antiques. But my mom was lazy and wild as a teenager. When she was told to wash the dishes, she’d ‘accidentally’ break them to avoid the chore. So this is the only one left.

- No problem,” says the Crane, - One plate is fine. Where’s your grandmother now?

- She passed away long ago, - says the Fox. But she is lying — she doesn’t remember any grandmother. Her mom came to this forest as a beggar with a baby, - She also had silverware, but my mom threw it all into the river. Nothing’s left. We’ll have to eat like this.

- And your mother?

- Oh, she went out one day and never came back. We searched everywhere.

(In truth, she kicked her out when she got too old.)

- Where did her mother go? - asks my daughter.

- The Fox put her in a nursing home for the poor. The floors have holes, and rats run around.

Then the Fox spread a thin layer of porridge — half an inch at most — on the plate and said:

- Please, help yourself, dear neighbor.

Well, the Crane taps with his beak — tap-tap — while the Fox keeps licking. For every few grains the Crane gets, the Fox licks ten times more. The plate is empty. The Fox is full, her belly round, and the Crane is still hungry — and angry.

But the Fox isn’t done — she gloats:

- Wasn’t the porridge tasty? So sweet, and with lots of butter.” (I’m sneaking in a cooking lesson here.) - Well? Say something!”

- Yes, it was tasty, - says the Crane, bitterly.

- Now I’ll visit you — wait for me.

“Do come,” thinks the Crane. “I’ll treat you the same.”

The Fox comes over. The Crane goes to his pantry. He had lots of nice things, but especially loved pottery — jugs, plates, mugs, all with patterns and embossed designs. Knives and forks made by designer blacksmiths — rough-looking but stylish and wildly expensive. He didn’t take any of that. He took an old cracked jug with a narrow neck.

- This, - he says, - is all I’ve got. My grandfather was simple — didn’t even know there were such things as plates or forks. He’d just eat frogs from the pond.

(He’s lying — I explain. His grandfather panned for gold in California, liked to drink and fight, lost everything in poker games, and then got rich again.)

- My dad, - continues the Crane, - knew about dishes, but didn’t use them. Then he left our family, abandoned us.

- Bad dad, - says my daughter.

- In reality, his dad was a lawyer. He remarried a younger crane, moved to Texas, bought a 500-acre ranch, but still sent Christmas gifts to his first family — I say this to defend absent fathers. I’m one myself.

- I bought this jug at a garage sale for a dollar. Pretty, right? They had silverware for ten cents a dozen, but I didn’t buy it. Why waste money? We’ll eat just fine, - the Crane continued.

He poured kefir into the jug and crumbled flatbread into it. (Healthy, important, and, above all, Russian foods — I’m subtly teaching her. Not fast food — that’s the key.)

- Help yourself!

The Fox dipped her tongue in three times — just barely touched the kefir. Didn’t reach the bread at all. And the Crane kept pulling out kefir and chunks of bread with his long beak. Ate and drank everything himself. His belly’s round now, and the Fox is hungry.

Now the Crane taunts the Fox:

- So, wasn’t it good? Just as tasty as yours, even though I’m a bachelor cook.

They never visited each other again.

That was our Russian fairy tale. For a moment, I even admired it.

But still, I sensed a flaw in it, despite its polished completeness. I realized I was picturing the Crane as a prim gentleman in a black frock coat, wide tie, top hat — like Abraham Lincoln.

Let’s go further. He probably has a pocket watch, a derringer pistol, and a silver flask of whiskey in his coat. And maybe a pocket Bible too. (Do his neighbors call him “Colonel” or “Judge”?)

And our Fox? Is she a plump, rosy old lady or a skinny young redhead? Either way, she’s dressed in a dark, modest dress with long sleeves and a bonnet with frills. Emily Dickinson’s portrait comes to mind. They go to church on Sundays, sing hymns, and put money in the offering plate.

Would such characters race to lick a plate?

The original story is, frankly, about greed. And in the life where this story thrived, greed was the norm — no questions asked. Everything made sense. But how can greed exist in this life?

And could greedy people build the kind of life described in my version?

In my American retelling, the story lost its driving force: hunger, poverty, alienation, and most of all — the reality where personal pride and dignity not only don’t exist but would actually be harmful.

In Russia, at all times, such people were usually crushed by the greedy majority with great pleasure. I won’t say anything about our time — that’s clich; — but just read the memoirs of rebellious Archpriest Avvakum from the 17th century. The governor constantly tried to humiliate him — even when he was a simple priest. Even his parishioners beat him up multiple times. Why? Because he asked them to be decent, follow the commandments, fear God — in short, do his job. That’s all. And this was even before the Schism — so it wasn’t political, but came from the soul of the people.

“If only you didn’t stick out, Father — if only you were like the rest of us.”

We always try to find rational motives. But what if Russian behavior has no rational motive? What if someone just saw a passerby — and punched him in the face? Why not?

Stylistically, too, my fairy tale is unconvincing: an unnatural fusion of a Soviet schoolbook and Faulkner. How could that even be possible?

Maybe that’s why, whatever the reason, my daughter doesn’t remember this story anymore.


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