The Fish Spirit

Old Shen had kept fish by the river for the better part of his life.

His pond was small: a stretch of water, a few rows of bamboo fencing, and an old water wheel. When his wife was alive, the two of them would go down to the pond before dawn—she worked the wheel, he cast the nets. After she was gone, the wheel turned empty for a few years. Now his son had settled in the city and came back only two or three times a year. In the thatched hut by the water, Shen kept the pond alone.

Shen was a quiet man. By day he fed the fish, cleared the pond, mended his nets; by night he lit an oil lamp and ate facing the water. He talked to the fish, not quite as one talks to another person, more as if speaking to himself. "The wind is strong today; the fry will be frightened." "Enough rain—the rice should be heading soon." The fish flicked their tails in the water, and he took it as an answer.

That year the spring flood came hard. Before dawn Shen went to haul in his net; it was heavy, and he dragged it ashore with great effort. Parting the mesh, he found inside a silver fish, its whole body touched with a blue-grey light, a dark red line down its back as if someone had brushed it with cinnabar. What was strange was this: other fish thrash the moment they leave the water, but this one only looked at him calmly, its eyes black and bright, as if it knew him.

Something stirred in Shen. He loosened the net and let it back into the water. The silver fish circled once along his bamboo fence, then sank into the heart of the pond.

In the days that followed, Shen felt there were eyes in the pond. At dusk, when he sat on the stone step to wash his feet, a patch of silver-grey would surface, near enough to see, far enough to be respectful, moving with him. Soon he knew it—that silver fish came every evening to hear him talk. He spoke more freely then, telling of how his wife had loved the crucian from the pond, of how his son had once fallen by the bank as a child, of how the river ran less clear with every year.

Once, mending his net at the pond's edge, Shen let slip his wife's silver bracelet into the water. He groped half the day, but the water was muddy and he could not find it, and sat there gloomy until dark. The next morning the silver fish rose to the shallows with the bracelet in its mouth and set it gently on the stone. Shen stared a long while before he reached out; the fish did not flee, only flicked its tail and sank again. For the first time he felt that something in this water perhaps could not be explained.

Summer brought storms. One night thunder rolled over, and Shen's old boat began to take on water at the pond's mouth, tipping toward capsizing. He went with a lamp to save it and slipped—before he knew it, a force in the water shoved him toward the bank, and the boat leaned in and settled. He looked back: through the rain a silver-grey shape held steady against the waves before the boat. In the curtain of rain he could not tell if it was a fish, or something else.

After that Shen treated the silver fish differently. He never thought of it for the pot; he kept a ladle of fresh water for it, and when the pond rose he opened another gap so it would not be stifled. The fish, for its part, was considerate—never troubling the nets where he released the fry, only coming at dusk to listen, then swimming slowly away.

Deep autumn came. One clear morning Shen went as usual to the pond; the water lay still, and the silver-grey was gone. He searched the bank and found, in the mud not far from shore, a clay fish the size of a palm, shaped with care, its scales distinct—as if someone had taken river-bed clay, pinched it wet, and let it dry through. He weighed it in his hand, then set it on the windowsill to catch the sun.

When his son came home for the new year and saw the clay fish on the sill, he laughed that his father had taken to children's playthings in his old age. Shen said nothing of it, only that he kept it for the memory.

The next spring the ice broke on the pond. At dusk Shen sat again on the old stone step to wash his feet, and a patch of silver-grey surfaced on the water, near enough to see, far enough to be respectful, moving with him. He looked at the shadow and gave a soft "ah," as if greeting an old acquaintance.

The wind passed over the pond, and the ripples spread in rings; no one answered, and no one left.