There was an old man and his wife at the edge of the sea. They were poor. The washtub at their door was their only one, and the iron bands had rusted through; the staves had split. The wife had mended it three times with twine.
One morning the old man cast his net into the sea. The first haul brought weeds. The second brought black mud. The third brought a small golden fish.
The fish spoke, as fish in such tales do.
"What do you need, old man? Ask, and I will grant it."
The old man had not thought about what he needed. He had been mending his net that morning, and walking down to the sea, and casting; he had not been thinking. So he opened his hand, and the fish slid back into the water, and the sea closed over it. He went home with nothing.
He had been asked a question and he had not bothered to answer. Between a wife who could ask and a fish who would grant, he had only to think — and he had not learned to.
When he told his wife, she was quiet for a long time. Then she said:
"Old man, the washtub. Three iron bands, the staves of oak, three fingers wide each. The cooper down the road can fit them in an afternoon. Go and ask the fish for the bands and the staves and the cooper's wages."
The old man walked back down to the sea. He had carried the words as far as the path and then set them down. By the time the water rose he had brought to the sea only the shape of an errand. He stood with his feet in the surf and said, vaguely:
"My wife asks that you mend the washtub."
The fish asked no further. Fish grant what is asked.
When the old man came back to the cottage, there was a new tub at the door — gilded, finely worked, with filigree at the rim and chased silver handles. It was beautiful. Water poured through the seams, because the gold was soft and the joinery was decorative.
The old woman looked at it for a long time.
"I asked for a washtub," she said. "Not a king's bauble."
She sat down with her twine and began to mend the old one again.
The next week she tried with more care, knowing now that the old man could not be trusted to hold details between the cottage and the sea. She knelt in front of him as she spoke.
"The smith will not give us credit. The cooper will not come. No one in the village speaks for us by name. Go and ask the fish that we be known and trusted in the village — that the smith and the cooper know our name, and lend on our word."
The old man walked. He liked his wife's voice when it was even. He turned her words over in his head as he went — known, trusted, name, village. By the time he reached the sea, he had lost by name. He had lost in the village. He had lost the smith and the cooper. He called the fish, and the fish rose, and he said:
"My wife asks that we be respected."
The fish granted.
When he came back, a great house had risen behind the cottage. Strangers filled it: merchants from distant towns who had heard of him, supplicants from other provinces, a tax-collector with a ledger asking who was the master. None of them were from the village. The smith was not there. The cooper was not there. The old woman stood in the hall of her new house and could not find her own kitchen.
"I asked to be known," she said. "Not to be inhabited."
She went out into the yard and sat down at the broken tub — the old one, which she had carried out with her — and began the mending again.
The third time, she did not stand. She was too tired. She sat at the tub, the twine in her hands moving without her watching it, and she said, slowly:
"Old man. I do not know how to explain it to you anymore. Go and ask the fish to make it so that I do not have to."
The old man walked down to the sea. The walk was longer than it had been the other times. For the first time he hesitated at the water, because what his wife had said was not a shape ready-made for him. He had never made one himself. He stood for a moment, then called the fish anyway.
The fish rose.
"What do you need, old man?"
He stood for a moment with the question in front of him, larger than it had been the first time. He repeated, as best he could:
"She says — she says she does not want to ask anymore."
The fish was silent. Then the fish considered. Then the fish granted.
When the old man came back to the cottage, the grand house was gone. The merchants were gone. The cottage stood as it had stood. His wife was at the broken tub with fresh twine in her hands.
She did not speak.
She did not look up.
The old man stood in the doorway for a long time.
The sea behind him was quiet. The cottage in front of him was quiet. His wife worked with her hands, and the tub, slowly, was becoming whole again — not pretty, but it would hold water by evening.
After a long time, the old man said, softly, to no one in particular — to himself, perhaps, or to the doorframe, or to the air between them:
"What do you need, old woman?"
She did not look up. The twine went around the staves once more.
Outside the door, the sea. The fish still in it. Willing.
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