"But what?"
"It's just... I didn't see this happen with my own eyes..."
"Please, go on."
"Whew—"
"Want another cigarette, sir?"
"Oh, thank you. These are good cigarettes. They're wasted on me..."
"Don't mention it, sir. You can have the whole pack. Take your time."
"Thank you, thank you. Whew—about what I was saying just now, finding the child. Actually, they didn't find just one child. One of the people who went into the water back then was an uncle of mine. He's dead now; it's been several years. He didn't find anyone. It was another person who went in and brought the child up. My uncle swam along the river for a while. The water wasn't clean; there was a lot of sediment. He'd only gone a short way when weeds tangled around his feet. He was a good swimmer, so he pulled them off himself. But when he did, he dragged up a whole string of them. The mud on the riverbed got churned up, too. That's what he told me. Not at the time, though. When he came out of the water, his face was white and his whole body was shaking. He was listless for days afterward, like he'd been scared out of his wits. He was supposed to get married the following year, but it didn't happen. His fiancée pointed at him and gave him an earful. I didn't know why back then. I just knew that before the year was out, he'd run off to the city to work, and then he didn't come back for years—not even for the New Year. His family thought he'd died out there or gone bad. After nine or maybe ten years, he came back. He still wasn't married and didn't have any children. He'd injured his hand