The idea came while watching the movie this afternoon. Got me thinking of what the Russian peasants might have been thinking when the Jews had to leave Anatevka, and what if a Russian kid were friends with a Jewish kid. And then that got me thinking about this old Russian folk tale called The Stone Flower. There was a movie made of it in 1946, which I saw a few years back and have been trying to find on DVD ever since. Very good, but unfortunately very obscure.

People Don't Make Sense

They said that he was a Christ-killer, and that I shouldn't play with him. Of course, they also said that he had horns and a tail. We'd gone swimming together, so I knew that he didn't, which made me wonder if he had really killed Christ. Privately, I thought he was too young to have killed Him. Didn't Christ die almost two thousand years ago? And Moishe was ten, the same as me. But people don't always make sense, I've found.

Like when Mama said that if I didn't tease Katya she'd make better jam. Katya is my older sister, and her jam is always terrible because she doesn't put enough sugar in. I don't see how me not teasing her would make the jam better. Besides, she's always out kissing Sasha behind the barn, even though he looks funny.

But back to Moishe. He left with his family a year ago, when the edict came that all the Jews had to leave Anatevka. I didn't want him to go, since we were friends.

"Tell you what, Leonka," he said. "When I get to America, I'll write to you, and we'll be able to write back and forth. Maybe you could even come to visit."

"Moishe, you forgot again," I told him. "I can't read." He was always forgetting.

"Well, hurry up and learn!" Moishe said, a little bit impatient.

I shook my head. "No money."

"The priest won't teach you?"

"Papa doesn't like him. And you'd be writing in Yiddish, anyway."

Then his mother came and noticed me hanging around.

"Shoo," she said. "Go away."

So I shooed, and that was the last time that I ever saw Moishe. I don't have very many other friends because I was friends with him, and the other boys make fun of me, and a few times they even beat me up. "Christ-killer! Christ-killer!" they yell, even though I'm not Jewish, and Moishe was too young to be a Christ-killer. They said that he was a blood drinker too. That makes even less sense. I cut my finger once, and tasted the blood that came out. It was nasty, all metallic and salty. I don't understand why anyone would want to drink blood, least of all funny, forgetful Moishe. Although he did like Katya's jam, so who knows.

Constable Petrovic said it was for the best that the Jews left. "Just look what happened to your brother Fyedka," he said. "Good Christian boy, got himself bewitched by that girl and next thing you know he's off to Krakow doing who-knows-what." That was when Mama was standing nearby. Later, when Mama and Katya had gone off to do laundry, he said something quite different.

"I know it's difficult," he half-whispered. "I was friends with Chava's father, Tevye. Then the orders came from St. Petersburg, and I think you know what happened. But no one was hurt, or would have been if it weren't for that crazy student, and if I hadn't obeyed, they'd have had me executed."

It reminded me of the time that me and Moishe were playing soldiers, and Sasha grabbed my hair and wouldn't let go until I'd called Moishe a dirty cheating liar. I didn't want to, but Sasha kept pulling my hair until I was standing on tiptoes and it felt like all my hair was going to get ripped out. I told the constable about it, and he smiled sort of sadly.

"It's exactly the same, only you're a boy and I'm a man. The stakes get higher as we get older."

I gave him a hug. He looked like he needed one.

I think about Moishe sometimes, wonder if he's alright over in America. I think sometimes about whether I could run away from home and follow him. I wouldn't have to eat any more of Katya's jam, and stupid Sasha wouldn't be able to pick on me. Or maybe I could go to Krakow and find Fyedka, and he could teach me to read and write. I could live with him and Chava.

But it wouldn't work. I've never been more than a mile or so from Anatevka, and I wouldn't know how to get to Krakow or America or anywhere. I'll probably die here, and be buried in the cemetary near the church, and be one more poor peasant who never left the town he was born in. It's pretty depressing.

I miss Fyedka a lot. He used to read to me, and tell stories like the one about Danila and the stone flower. People say that Fyedka was bewitched by Chava just like Danila was bewitched by the Queen of Copper Hill, but I don't believe it. Chava loves Fyedka, and she's nice-pretty. The Queen of Copper Hill was more mysterious-creepy-beautiful, and she only wanted Danila to make the stone flower for her.

But then, people don't seem to make very much sense anyway.