The old man was old, although hale and hearty. He lived beside a pond, where a large scholar tree bloomed with white flowers at the door to the house, and behind the building, purple perilla and sunchokes grew in a large vegetable plot that didn’t need tending. We often went to steal his sunchokes to pickle and eat. We, Little Camel and I, thought that, anyhow, the old man couldn’t eat so many, and in truth the old man never interfered even when he discovered us stealing his vegetables.
The old man had moved in many years after retirement. The black brick house he lived in had been empty before. When I was six or seven years old, I’d often gone to play there because the door was never locked. Little Camel and I called it the ‘Bird House’. The birds had flown in through the windows without glass in them. They had a surprising crest shaped like a fan on their heads. At first there were two of them making a nest on top of the large, ancient cupboard. Soon they became six. We only stayed in the house briefly and fixed the front door shut with a piece of bamboo when we left. We were afraid other little kids would get in and make a mess. I remember that the nestlings had just grown up when the birds all abandoned the nest. They probably sensed hidden danger.
Little Camel and I were two boys growing up together, our hobbies and interests fundamentally the same. We’d take any excuse to go to the empty house to rest up, chat, and sometimes hide our treasures. We sat on that high-up table for eight, swinging our legs and talking about strange and wonderful things. For years we took the empty house to be our own. Then one day this old man moved into it. I don’t know whether he took the empty house by force, or if the owners of our shipyard let him move in. We’d gone to his house and asked him, but he didn’t answer or even look at us. He appeared to be deaf. That day we saw how he’d already swept the rooms clean, spread tidy blue-patterned sheets on the bed, and hung a fishing rod on the wall. At the time I thought, too bad, he’ll catch all the fish from the pond. But we never saw him fishing there. He always put the fishing rod and bamboo basket on his back at dusk and went to a place called ‘Long Pond’, only returning home the next morning carrying his haul. Little Camel and I both believed the life of this deaf old man to be infinitely happy.
‘Butterfly,’ (this is the name my parents chose for me), Little Camel said, ‘that house is a blessed nest. Just think about how happy we were inside it. How can it have fallen into this old man’s hands? Not even the ghosts or the spirits know. He’s crafty and must have secret plans.’
I felt like Little Camel was making too much of a fuss. A house with no owner, that no one wanted, that by chance someone had taken a liking to. This kind of thing must happen all the time. It didn’t mean we should covet the old man. What’s more, we kept stealing his sunchokes. From the expression on Little Camel’s face, though, it wasn’t so much envying the old man as trying to enter some realm of his.
We frequently have lightning strikes where we live, and sometimes people are scorched by them. I noticed that the old man didn’t care about this kind of natural disaster, which could have been because he was deaf and simply didn’t hear. When it thundered in summer, he sat at the open door to the house with a palm-leaf fan in his hand. No matter the streaks of snow-white lightning cutting across the sky, one thunderclap after another above his roof, his eyes didn’t even blink. He waved the fan and drank his strong tea as usual. Little Camel wanted to copy the old man’s style and chose to stand, hands on hips, under the large scholar tree at the doorway during the thunder and lightning. Tragically, he was struck, and as a result still limps on his left leg.
‘This was my coming-of-age ceremony,’ Little Camel said with a grin. ‘I can’t say how joyful that instant was.’
I thought my friend was exaggerating. Why go looking for trouble where there was none? Had he had enough of life?
My interest was the fishing the old man got up to. I’d heard that there were many stream fish in Long Pond, but the locals didn’t allow outsiders to fish at their riverside. I supposed that he was related to a family from there, so he could count as someone from Long Pond. I thought it would be great if I could pass myself off as his grandson and go there to fish secretly. I thought about this so much that one day I actually did it.
He and I set out at dusk, separated by two or three hundred meters, walking the road in unison. I also had a fishing rod and a fish basket on my back, along with a sleeping bag, because I planned on sleeping by the river at night.
Walking almost fifteen kilometers without stopping didn’t seem tiring when I was so excited and full of expectations. The sky was already dimming by the time we reached Long Pond. I saw the old man walking toward where there were houses, probably to his relatives’ home. As for me, I carefully scouted the riverside, found a fairly comfortable site, then started to put out my fishing pole. My hands shook as I imagined the scene of many fish biting. I heard someone calling to me from the dark:
‘Butterfly – Butterfly!’
It was a boy, much smaller than me, who pushed his way out of the bushes.
‘Uncle Feng wanted me to come tell you that you need to go right back home. Otherwise you could die.’
Uncle Feng must be the old man’s name. How’d he know I had followed him?
‘Little brother, why would I die?’
‘There are no fish in this lake, except a fish that eats people,’ he said.
Aha, the child was lying. Everyone knew there were numerous fish in Long Pond. One of my friends had secretly come here and caught fish. Seeing that I wasn’t going to leave, the boy spat on the ground scornfully and went away.
How exactly had deaf Uncle Feng known I was here? I had kept so far from him on the way, and he hadn’t turned back the whole time to look at me. Why was he trying to intimidate me, instead of letting me fulfill my wish? It wouldn’t damage his interests if I caught fish once or twice.
I calmed down and fished. The sky was dark, a sandy wind blew, and there was not a single soul nearby. Before long I caught a fish on the line. I shone my flashlight on it. Ha, it was a koi fish! I am afraid of spirits, but my addiction to fishing took the upper hand. I’d started and might as well finish, satisfying my craving even if it meant being snatched away by ghosts. After a while I caught another koi. Really quite strange that there were so many koi in the river. Where we live koi are precious. Another while passed, and I felt the line go taut. I forcefully pulled it up, and there was another koi, a big one! This time I felt overjoyed.
I decided if I caught ten koi then I would go right back home.
But my good luck seemed to run out. For a long, long time, I sat in the same place.
An unfamiliar voice came from the bushes. My whole body shivered.
‘Butterfly, you bad boy, aren’t you afraid of dying?’
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Uncle Feng. There is a piranha in this river that eats people. It’s already heading toward here.’
‘Good to meet you, Uncle Feng. I’ll stay on the riverbank. How can the piranha be a threat to me?’
‘It’s still dangerous on the riverbank. You’re in peril even if you stay inside a house. This is Long Pond, the home of the piranha.’
I gathered up my fishing rod, intending to go with him. I am afraid of dying. But Uncle Feng told me not to look to him for help, he didn’t have anywhere he could go tonight either and would have to wander around the village. I said I wanted to go home.
‘What an imagination!’ he scoffed. ‘You’ve gone fishing in Long Pond. Do you think you can just leave? I don’t think the consequences for your actions bode well.’
‘Then I’ll go with you and wander around the village.’
Without saying a word, he turned around and left the shore. I stared at the old man’s dark figure, striding after him anxiously at a distance of six or seven meters. There were dogs barking and a rooster crowing, making it seem like daybreak amid a village seething with life. But it was the middle of the night now. I had a sudden impulse, so I shouted:
‘Uncle Feng, I love you! Me and Little Camel, we worship you! Are you listening?’
I don’t know whether he heard me. He didn’t turn his head as he walked. In my flustered state I had left my sleeping bag in the bushes, but I was reluctant to go looking for it. I needed to follow Uncle Feng closely now. I watched him disappear into a haystack up ahead. I hurriedly ran over, shouting ‘Uncle Feng!’, and tunneled into the haystack. There was a space inside, but he wasn’t in this burrow, so I came back out. There were two people with their backs to me.
‘Tonight the river isn’t too peaceful. It’s been a long time since anything happened,’ one of them said.
‘Will there be an uprising? I feel like I’ve been waiting for this day,’ the other said.
Next they also started shouting, ‘Uncle Feng! Uncle Feng!’ He didn’t answer. The one who’d spoken first asked whether they’d been hoodwinked by Uncle Feng, then said the old fellow wanted ‘to raise a flood surge in the Long Pond river’. Talking away the two of them grew panicked and tunneled into the hole inside the haystack. I regretted having given over that refuge in the straw to them, because now I didn’t have anywhere to rest. All around there were no other haystacks, the houses were dark, their doors and windows shut tight. Now I finally felt how tired I was. I put down the fish basket and fishing rod, sitting down right where I was. There was patchy grass growing on the ground, but sparsely, not enough to make myself comfortable. I heard the large koi inside the basket jumping around for its life. The basket jumped along with it. I was reluctant to take care of it, and anyhow it couldn’t jump out, just flop around. I might as well lie down and sleep. I glanced into the dim sky and soon started to dream. That fish basket leapt all the way through my dreams, seeming to grow legs and bound away into the distance. I knew it was a dream and continued to dream.
The sky was still black even when I woke from my deep sleep. The nights really are long in Long Pond. I looked down at the ground and didn’t see my basket of fish. It really had run away. What strange kind of fish were they? But also, maybe those two people in the haystack had stolen them? Oh, how had I managed to fall dead asleep!
I sensed there was real danger here. I had willfully gone fishing in the Long Pond river, and the fish I’d caught weren’t fish, but seemed instead to be immortal animals. Even stranger things might still happen. The two people inside the haystack were fighting so hard that it rocked severely. After a while, the large pile started moving forward as if it, too, had grown legs. Why were the people and animals here so violent? I needed to leave right away, from this place where anything might happen. I would busy myself looking around, since there was nowhere to stay. Make it until dawn, then go home.
I hadn’t gotten very far when I saw Uncle Feng. He looked troubled, but I was happy.
‘Uncle Feng, you’re here at last! But my fish ran away.’
‘Don’t worry over those couple of fish. They’ve gone back to the river. It’s been too frightening since you came and started fishing.’ Uncle Feng remembered something, then asked me: ‘Was it you who brought him over here?’
I looked in the direction he was pointing, where someone sat beside the river. The closer I went, the more I felt sure that it was Little Camel.
Had he trailed me here? It could be. I should have anticipated this.
Uncle Feng made a gesture for me to be quiet. He walked to the riverbank, bent down, and shifted something. Then I heard an enormous sound as the water in the river splashed over three meters high. An enormous black form rose from the water. Uncle Feng told me in a low voice to run fast. He and I fled from the scene together. When I stopped beside the haystack to catch my breath, I immediately thought of Little Camel, remembering that he was in danger.
‘Where are you going?’ Uncle Feng said sternly. ‘Your friend won’t be in danger. Just now I was giving the piranha a warning. It already went back into the river depths.’
‘Thank you, Uncle Feng!’
‘Hmph, I wasn’t trying to do a good deed! Little Camel wanted to show off being a hero, and I had to disappoint him. Just the same as you. Are you disappointed now?’
Was I disappointed? My fish had run away, and I hadn’t braved a dangerous experience; I’d merely slept on the muddy ground at the side of the road. Should I be disappointed by this? I wasn’t sure. Maybe only Uncle Feng knew about this kind of thing.
I went into the cavernous space inside the haystack to look around. The sky was still dark, so I told Uncle Feng to come inside the haystack with me to rest. He said this was actually a good idea.
But after Uncle Feng went into the burrow he disappeared. Alone, I sat down on the fresh rice straw, which was quite comfortable. After a while, someone else felt their way inside. I knew who it was. I was angry with him.
‘Butterfly, I only followed you because I love you,’ Little Camel said uneasily.
‘Love, what’s love! I think you’re looking for death!’
‘I guess so. But isn’t it the same for you? This place is beautiful! I sat beside the river, the piranha bit my hook – that kind of feeling, that feeling . . .’
Little Camel seemed to be immersed in wild imaginations. Long Pond, what was this place exactly? When I laid down on the straw, I felt that I liked it here. Yet the sky was about to grow light, and once it was bright Little Camel and I must hurry back home. This was Uncle Feng’s rule.
Little Camel was making a noise with something in the dark. I asked him what it was.
‘It’s your fish basket, I picked it up for you. That koi inside tossed the empty basket to me,’ he said.
‘They were all spirit fish. I was rash to go fishing for them.’
Hearing me say this, Little Camel laughed dryly twice. Had he also rashly gone fishing for the fish that ate people? Or had he planned it out ahead? Hadn’t he been imitating Uncle Feng all along?
‘They call him Uncle Feng,’ I added.
‘Oh.’
Little Camel was withdrawn. He didn’t want to share his worries with me, or maybe he thought the excitement he was feeling couldn’t be shared.
We heard dogs barking in the village and also the rooster. This place was so lively. Before, when I was at home, every time I had mentioned wanting to go to Long Pond to my parents, I was met with mocking laughter. They said that Long Pond was ‘a poor place where even birds won’t shit’. If I went there the poor people would steal the clothes off me and send me back naked. My parents seemed terrified of Long Pond, but why? What did they think of Uncle Feng? They had never divulged this. Little Camel’s family knew he was copying Uncle Feng, but they didn’t stop him. Now Little Camel and I had both been to Long Pond, I’d had experience with genuine Long Pond people, and they hadn’t done anything sinister to me.
‘Butterfly, what do you think of this place?’ Little Camel finally spoke up.
‘I like it here. Let’s come back again once very week.’
‘I agree. I didn’t tell you just now, I actually touched the piranha before Uncle Feng came.’
‘Wow!’ I cried out in surprise.
‘It got so close to me that its mouth almost reached my face. I could smell its fishy breath. I don’t know why, but I liked the smell. I’ve been remembering that odor, it seems to have incredible magic . . .’
‘Oh, Little Camel,’ I sighed to myself. ‘What’s going on with you?’
The dogs had stopped barking, and the rooster had ceased crowing. How strange. We left the haystack and entered dazzling daylight. Both our fish baskets were empty.
Reaching the road, we walked in the direction of home.
I had been back for three days and was still having nightmares about the fish that ate people. After the third night, I finally couldn’t stand it and went to visit Uncle Feng.
Uncle Feng was cooking in the house, filling the rooms with smoke. I patiently stood outside until he finished. The meal was set on the table, the fumes in the room thinning. His single dish spread the scent of fish, an odor that made me think of Little Camel coming face to face with the piranha.
‘Uncle Feng, what are you eating today?’
‘Something dredged out of Long Pond river – what else could it be?’
He spoke to me; he was no longer silent. This made me really happy. I thought about how he, and also Little Camel, believed this fish odor to be the most beautiful smell in the world. To preserve the flavor, he hadn’t even added purple perilla.
The house grew dark, with only a small oil lamp lit on the dining table, its feeble light illuminating Uncle Feng’s bowl of food. I thought I saw the pieces of fish in the bowl pulsating, so I blinked and leaned in closer.
‘It’s not worth looking. They’re all small fish, no bigger than shrimp,’ Uncle Feng said.
‘Fish that eat people?’ I asked softly.
‘Yes, you’re bright enough.’
Uncle Feng ate quickly, finishing the fish in the bowl. He sat there satisfied, like he was going to take a nap. His right hand waved back and forth. Finally, I made out two words: ‘Little Camel.’
‘What about Little Camel?’ I rapidly asked.
‘Little Camel put the fish hatchlings in the pond at the door,’ he replied in a clear voice. ‘He put them there yesterday.’
‘Oh. Is he experimenting?’
‘No. He wants to give himself a sense of crisis.’
I fell silent. I was remembering Little Camel’s expression. He was already on his way, my friend. This was to say, he no longer had to run to Long Pond every few days. I knew he wouldn’t have been able to resist the allure of the river, if he hadn’t thought up this trick. Ah, the young of the piranha! I imagined what the pond would look like crowded with them.
I ran into Little Camel on the road. I surprised him, because he was worrying to himself.
‘Where are you going?’ I asked.
‘I was looking for you. Butterfly, don’t go home, come sleep by the pond with me. I’ve put two bamboo beds there. We’ll have a lot of fun.’
‘Fun doing what? Listening to the fish sing songs in the pond?’
‘Yes! But how did you know?’
We went to sleep on the bamboo beds. Uncle Feng knew we were out by the pond, but he didn’t come outside.
It was pleasant. Little Camel, what a supernaturally clever child – only he would have thought of this idea. We didn’t talk, because we knew the silence of our surroundings was hiding something.
There was disturbance from the depths of the pond, then there came the faint sound of singing. The singing made my whole body tremble. Then I heard that I was singing.
‘What song is that?’ Little Camel asked in a low voice.
I didn’t answer him. I didn’t know what I was singing, but I couldn’t keep from doing so. My song was somewhat like the song of the piranhas. Yet I also felt that they weren’t singing, that it was just me singing.
‘Butterfly, you sing really well.’ Little Camel’s words were heartfelt. ‘I didn’t know you could sing like this.’
‘No, I’ve never sung before,’ I said. ‘What song do you hear me singing?’
Once I asked, it was his turn to be silent. We both heard Uncle Feng coughing with effort from inside the house. The pond became quiet when he coughed. Had the piranhas actually been singing or not? The sound of Uncle Feng’s coughing made me remember something that had happened last year.
Back then he was digging up sunchokes from that piece of land behind the house. I saw him laboring and felt a little ashamed – I thought I should go help him dig. But I also didn’t dare, after all, we’d stolen away the better part of the sunchokes. He’d really seemed not to mind our pilfering. Maybe he actually didn’t like them? But he dug energetically, then suddenly there was a glittering thing turned up by the large lumps of roots. A gold bar. I rapidly fled when he bent over to pick it up. I’d thought, Uncle Feng really has good luck. Then I thought, Maybe he buried the gold bar himself? Why would he bury a gold bar in the ground? What if someone else dug it up and took it? All along the road I thought back and forth about this without understanding. Later Little Camel invited me to the rec room at the shipyard office to play ping-pong.
‘Uncle Feng dug up a gold bar from the ground!’ I couldn’t help saying.
‘Hmm. I saw him bury it,’ Little Camel said.
‘What was he doing burying a gold bar in the dirt?’
‘To give himself a nice surprise. You, you always have to dig to the bottom of things!’
This time I even suspected Little Camel and Uncle Feng were teaming up together. But that couldn’t be. I knew Little Camel too well, he was the same as me and had never spoken with Uncle Feng before. But what had he surmised about Uncle Feng?
Lying in the cool breeze at the edge of the pond, watching the grey-black of the firmament above, I sensed how miniscule I was. This negligible ‘me’ was also anxious. There were so many pleasures that I hadn’t yet enjoyed and that I didn’t know how to find. Little Camel was the one who knew these things; he had many methods. I needed to watch his every move closely and no longer act alone.
‘Little Camel, I want to give myself a nice surprise every day.’
‘Oh, then you should learn from Uncle Feng.’
His words were too vague. How could I imitate Uncle Feng? I didn’t have any idea what he was thinking!
‘You don’t need to speculate about him. Copying how he walks would be enough,’ Little Camel added.
What did Uncle Feng look like when he walked? I regretted not having noticed. I’d believed that all old people looked about the same. Little Camel could see the differences though!
The fish in the pond made ambiguous sounds again, probably because Uncle Feng had stopped coughing. Fish, ah, fish, I said to myself, you are also looking for pleasure. Little Camel brought you here to give himself a nice surprise every day. You and he are like an old cucumber on a vine . . .
‘You’re talking nonsense!’ Little Camel scolded me.
‘How do you know what I’m thinking?’ I asked, astonished.
‘My fish tell me.’
‘No wonder you had me lie down by the pond. You’re as smart as Uncle Feng.’
‘Hee hee.’
I calmed down, no longer thinking about this mess of things. I listened very carefully. But the piranhas weren’t singing, and the sounds they made couldn’t be understood. Only Little Camel could understand them. Just at this instant, the moment when I was listening to the piranhas, I remembered what Uncle Feng looked like when he walked, as a clear image. I was pleased with myself.
The sound of Uncle Feng’s voice reached me when I was about to go to sleep. He seemed to have moved closer, but I couldn’t see him. I tried hard struggling to keep awake.
‘Butterfly, Little Camel, you two bad boys, are you sleeping at my doorway to teach me a lesson? Or are you trying to seize power and take over? I’m warning you, I’m not all that old. I’m like ginger that gets spicier as it ages!’
Was this a threat? My eyelids were stuck together, and it took a lot of energy to open them. Once I got my eyes open, I still didn’t see Uncle Feng. Where was he speaking from? Did Little Camel hear him? To get a clearer idea, I went ahead and sat up. The noise I made disturbed Little Camel.
‘Butterfly, what are you doing? I just went to sleep and you woke me up.’
‘Uncle Feng was here. Do you know where he is?’
‘He always comes. He just sits by the pond, in the shallow part. I want to go to sleep.’
Little Camel turned over and went back to sleep. It seemed like he had a big heart and didn’t care whether there was any threat.
I tiptoed toward the shallow part of the pond, where I saw Uncle Feng sitting in the water and smoking, the ember flashing.
‘Look, they’re here,’ Uncle Feng turned his head and said to me in a friendly way. ‘They all came here for me! I told you I’m not too old. Doesn’t this prove it?’
He held my arm and asked me to sit in the water, too.
I’d just sat down when my right foot was bitten. I gave a heart-rending cry and almost fainted.
‘Don’t worry, Butterfly, bear it a bit and you’ll be fine. These little guys, they’re finding their relatives. Your blood lets them recognize you. Their welcome ceremony is a little reckless.’
Now Uncle Feng and I sat down on the dry ground beside the pond. Little Camel came over to sit with us. The sole of my foot still hurt a bit, but it seemed the wound wasn’t so deep. I felt ashamed.
Little Camel pled with Uncle Feng to tell us the story of the fish that ate people.
‘Piranhas have never had stories,’ Uncle Feng said simply.
‘Was it there before you went to Long Pond?’ Little Camel asked.
‘No one had seen it before I went to Long Pond.’
‘It appeared once you went there?’ Little Camel said excitedly, his words accelerating.
‘Yes, that’s just it. It recognized me.’
Oh, oh! To my surprise, such things really happened! I trembled again, thinking back on being bitten. Uncle Feng and Little Camel were longing for this! They were making where we were into another Long Pond, so that they wouldn’t need to run along over there. This was Little Camel’s mysterious idea. When had he started to have such affinity with Uncle Feng?
The sky brightened, and the pond was very still. Uncle Feng wanted me and Little Camel to take the bamboo beds away, saying it ‘bothers me to see them’.
We moved them back to Little Camel’s house, where his mom laughed at us and said: ‘It’s like the toad trying to eat the swan.’
Little Camel didn’t want to listen to his mother’s chattering and went out with me.
‘Little Camel, what are you thinking about?’
‘I’m thinking about my hatchlings. Butterfly, if something happens to me, will you help me take care of them?’
‘What could happen?’
‘I don’t know. It’s what my mother said. Because when I do things I’m reckless. Tell me, will you?’ he asked earnestly.
‘Isn’t it just cutting grass to feed them? Of course I will! I promise –’
‘Don’t promise, don’t! Promises are dangerous.’
‘But I don’t understand.’
Little Camel pointed ahead. I saw a boy standing under a pomelo tree. He looked a lot like the child I’d met in Long Pond. I walked closer and asked him whether he was from there. He spat on the ground and ran away swiftly. I heard Little Camel say: ‘Oh no.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘That kid is a spy. He’s discovered that I stole their hatchlings.’ Little Camel frowned.
‘He shouldn’t be able to cause trouble for you. Last time he predicted I would die. Aren’t I fine?’
‘Hmm. But no one knows for sure. He’s relentless, this child. I even like him.’
After saying goodbye to Little Camel, I passed by Uncle Feng’s home again. He was lying under the tree at the entrance smoking, the old deckchair making creaking sounds under him. He looked pleased.
‘There’s a little boy –’
Uncle Feng waved a hand to interrupt me.
‘You’re talking about Little Ox. He’s inside my house, he’ll be staying here. He says he won’t go because he wants to take care of the fish. Oh, this boy changes his mind so easily. Kids today, their minds are so lively. Nothing like in the past.’
I became more carefree than ever before once I thought of how the boy had come to help Little Camel take care of the fish. Now there were four of us. Four people busy at a cause. Every day interesting things would happen, every day would be full – but why did Little Camel worry that something would happen? He’d said that it was because he was reckless, but I was more and more convinced that he was scheming. He was becoming more like Uncle Feng. Oh, I remembered the day of the thunderstorm when he’d stood under the scholar tree at the doorway forging his courage, then being struck by lightning. I really was too far behind in comparison. This Little Camel, he wasn’t reckless after all. He could almost be called a conspirator!
That night I lay in bed thinking about the problem of Little Camel, thinking of our friendship, thinking of our different ways of doing things, thinking so much that I couldn’t get to sleep. I felt that I had realized something, and I was a little happy, because this was what Uncle Feng expected of me. Lately the happenings around the pond had been so thrilling.
Eventually I went to sleep. Everything was dim in my dreams, with only a few shadows in the surroundings. These shadows were familiar to me. The shadows and I squatted beside the pond listening, and I was filled with excitement.
Artwork by Ilmar Torn, Puhkus mere ääres
