Two Jars and a Pair of Neon Fish
by Ovi Catanescu
When Maria and I were students in Bucharest, we had very little income. I received some money from the university because of my good grades, and my mother helped us whenever she could, but we needed another way to support ourselves.
We found that opportunity in something I had loved since childhood: tropical fish.
Every Sunday, there was a large market where people could find almost anything—antiques, fruits and vegetables, household goods, pets, aquariums, and tropical fish. It was the only market of its kind in Bucharest, which was why people traveled there from across the city.
The market was far from where we lived. Reaching it required several changes on public transportation, including buses and a tram. During the week, Maria and I were occupied with school and our other responsibilities, so Sunday was the only practical day for us to make the long journey.
During our early visits, we noticed that many people sold tropical fish, but most offered the same common varieties.
We decided to do something different.
A few experienced fish enthusiasts bred rarer varieties at home and sold them only to people who came directly to their houses. Maria and I bought some of those special fish and learned to breed them ourselves.
Breeding tropical fish was much more complicated than placing a male and female together in an aquarium. Every species required different conditions. We needed special breeding tanks and separate aquariums for eggs, newborn fish, and the young fish as they grew. We called the aquariums where we kept the young fish ready for sale our “nursery.”
We understood these processes very well. In fact, this knowledge was one of the reasons my brother Adi and I had once dreamed of writing a book about tropical fish.
Getting our fish to the Sunday market was a challenge of its own.
We used two enormous glass jars, each with a capacity of approximately five gallons. We filled them with water and placed the fish inside. We covered the openings with plastic secured by rubber bands and then placed the jars inside large, strong carrying bags that resembled duffel bags.
Maria and I carried them together through the different stages of public transportation. The glass, water, and fish made the bags extremely heavy. Whenever the bus or tram braked suddenly or struck a bump, the water surged and splashed against the plastic covers.
During the journey, we used a manual pump to introduce air into the water. At the market, there were no electrical outlets for an aquarium pump, so we developed another solution: we brought an inflated inner tube from a tire and used its stored air to oxygenate the water.
After arriving, we rented a table in the area reserved for tropical-fish sellers. We placed the two large glass jars on the table and prepared ourselves for the customers. The market was filled with people, voices, animals, and activity, but Maria and I were too focused on setting up our table and keeping the fish healthy to pay much attention to anything else.
Our fish attracted attention because we offered varieties that few other sellers had. Customers asked about the different fish, their care, and their prices. Some tried to negotiate, but we were firm. We knew the quality and rarity of what we had bred.
Maria and I both did whatever was necessary. We answered questions, explained how to care for the fish, collected the money, and placed each customer’s purchase into a small clear plastic bag filled with water. We wanted every customer to leave satisfied, return the following Sunday, and perhaps bring friends.
Most of our customers were adults or parents accompanied by children. I do not remember many of them individually, but I have never forgotten one boy.
He wanted some neon tetras—small, delicate fish with a brilliant fluorescent-blue stripe along the body and red coloring near the tail. The stripe appeared to glow like a neon light, which is how the fish received their name.
The boy had very little money. He could not afford the neon tetras; in fact, he did not have enough to purchase almost any of the fish on our table.
Looking at him, I suddenly remembered myself as a boy in Brăila.
I had struggled to save enough money to buy fish for a secondhand aquarium that a neighbor had given me for almost nothing. When my aunt Puica, visited us from Bucharest, she saw how badly I wanted to populate that aquarium. She remembered that a former university colleague of hers from the biology department lived in Brăila and was passionate about tropical fish.
My aunt told me to visit him and say that she had sent me.
I went to his house, delivered her message, and he gave me approximately ten fish. I was extraordinarily happy. Those fish meant much more to me than their monetary value.
Years later, standing behind our table at the Sunday market, I recognized that same longing in the boy’s face.
I gave him two neon tetras and carefully explained how to care for them because they were more sensitive than many of the common varieties. I can still remember how happy he was.
At the end of a typical Sunday, we usually had some unsold fish. We carried them home in the same large jars, returned them to the nursery aquariums, and cared for them until the following market day.
The work was difficult, and the money we earned was not substantial. Still, it was enough to supplement the other assistance we received and help cover food, household and school expenses, clothing, new fish, and aquarium equipment. It also contributed to some of the pleasures of being a young married couple—movies, theatre performances, restaurants, and an occasional new piece of clothing.
But more than fifty years later, I do not remember exactly how much money we earned on any particular Sunday.
I remember the boy’s face.
Someone had once helped a little boy in Brăila fill his nearly empty aquarium. Years later, that boy grew up and found another child standing before him with the same hope and almost no money.
Perhaps those two neon fish were simply making their way from one child to another.
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