Air (or Have Not Have)

by Geoff Ryman

  Mae needed to tell someone, but who could she tell at three in the morning? Poor Kwan who had nursed her but was now asleep? The Central Man, yes, but that would mean going back to her old house, to Joe, to Mr Ken… Who?

  Mae went to Sezen's house. She knocked on the door. Then, beyond politesse, Mae pummelled it. This was good news.

  There were hissed voices, shuffling, a child's cry, a shushing, slippers on the floor.

  Sezen answered. She wore a little girl's nightdress and the spots on her cheeks had gone blue-black from merciless squeezing.

  May seized her hands. 'I got the money!' she whispered. 'Sezen. It was as you said, the government gave us the cash!'

  'This is a joke. This is madness,' said Sezen.

  'They gave me every last riel of it. I asked for too much!'

  'You mean we are going to do it?'

  'Yes, yes, they loved it!'

  Sezen squealed and hugged her, spun on her heel, and said, 'Let's get drunk. You have any booze?'

  Mae shook her head.

  'Rich woman, you will have whisky. You will have silks.'

  You will build your mother a new house.'

  'Tuh!' said Sezen. 'No. I will buy a motorcycle. Of my own.'

  Mae pronounced her, 'Wild girl.'

  'Look who is calling people wild. Eh? You? Adventuress. Madam Death. The man in her family. All these things people call you.'

  Sezen bundled Mae into her own poor house. She threw cushions in abandon into a heap. In the middle of the night at the end of summer, the fleas were at their hungriest. They nipped about Mae's ankles in a mist.

  Sezen knelt in front of a small keep in the wall. 'Here,' she said, pulling out a bottle. 'This is disgusting, but strong. Father made it. It is the only thing he does well.' Its creator snored behind the curtain, like a boozehouse accordion.

  Rice wine. Amid the filth of Sezen's house, Mae sat and drank, and told Sezen everything about the grant application and the answer.

  'Who needs the village?' Mae said. The rice wine was milky and tasted like chalk, but it seemed to creep up her spine, numbing it vertebra by vertebra.

  'Ptoo! to the village,' said Sezen, and pretended to spit. 'Only their clothing holds them together.'

  'Are we naked, then?' asked Mae.

  'The naked are brave,' said Sezen, and raised her glass.

  'To the naked!' said Mae, and raised her glass.

  'To Mr Ken,' added Sezen. 'Oh! I want to be fucked.'

  Mae was too drunk to be shocked. 'Musa,' she managed to say.

  Sezen held out a graphic little finger. 'All you Chinese…' she said. 'He's a Muslim, but Chinese father.' She shook her head, and then suddenly laughed, and shook her head again. Still laughing, Sezen put down the glass suddenly, as if it were a great weight she could no longer bear.

  'I am a pig and my family are pigs. All the men I meet are pigs and I shall have piggy children.' She picked up the glass and toasted her helplessness, or the house, or her fate.

  The fleas around Mae's ankles rose and fell like flames. Abstracted by the wine, Mae hazily swatted and scratched. She watched helplessly, as she realized Sezen was no longer laughing.

  'You only come to me because you are fallen,' accused Sezen, grumpy.

  'If you want more people to come, just… clean up,' Mae said.

  Sezen looked back at her bleakly. 'This is cleaned up.' She sputtered into laughter. 'I have just cleaned up, this is as clean as it gets! Listen, even the fleas are disgusted with this place.' Laughter ached out of her. A string of sticky spittle clung between her lips. 'I am such a lady, you see, I get bored cleaning. It is beneath me.' Sezen was not really ashamed.

  In the future, there will be no ladies, thought Mae. All of the old channels we pour down will be blocked. Ladies, peasants, men, women, children, rich, poor, clean, dirty, we will all be churned up together. We will be churning clouds in the air, blown by wind, pierced by swallows…

  'I'm drunk,' Mae managed to say.

  'Poisoned, more like,' said Sezen, looking at the milky wine. She poured it onto the beaten-dirt floor. 'Maybe it will kill the fleas.'

  'Welcome to the Mae-Sezen Fashion Emporium,' said Mae.

  ' New York… Paris… Singapore… Tokyo… Kizul-duh.' Hazily, Sezen stood up and did a model's turn. Her nightrobe was eaten at the hem and knees. 'Sezen-ma'am displays the fine cut and design features of her latest creation.' Sezen held up the rotten hem. 'Air ventilation for summer wear, illustrates the holes in Miss Ozdemir-ma'am's head through which Air seeps.' She grinned like a tigerish Talent, and batted her eyes. 'This year's fashion adventure.'

  Mae was chuckling. Calmly, she noticed that she had knocked over her glass.

  'That will burn a hole in your heart,' said Sezen, of her father's wine.

  'Holes in the heart are this year's fashion adventure,' said Mae.

  Sezen stopped. 'You're crying,' she accused, suddenly young and let-down.

  Am I? wondered Mae. She felt her cheeks. They were wet. 'Just from laughter,' she promised Sezen, who only wanted escape. 'Just from laughter,' Mae said again, and reached forward and patted Sezen's hand.

  'Uh! We need a radio,' said Sezen. 'Then we could dance.'

  'When the Air comes,' said Mae. 'We will have music whenever we want it. Any kind of music.'

  'When the Air comes!' sighed Sezen, with sudden feeling. 'Oh, when Air comes I shall put the music in my head on Air so everyone can hear it.' Sezen sat and closed her eyes, and Mae realized she was seeing something new.

  Sezen was someone who wanted Air. Mae was afraid of it. She regarded it as Flood, Fire, Avalanche, something to be faced up to and controlled. This was different.

  Sezen sat with her eyes closed and whispered. 'When the Air comes, we can sing to each other, only we will sound like the biggest band in the world.' She swayed, as if to music.

  Mae joined in: 'When the Air comes, we can dress each other in Air clothes.'

  'Light as spiderwebs…'

  'When the Air comes, we can see all the naked men we want…'

  Mae expected Sezen to give a wicked, wild-girl chuckle; instead she whispered, 'So many beautiful men, that it will grow as normal as birds.'

  'When the Air comes…' Mae began.

  'We will all be birds, we will all be naked, all be brave.'

  Sezen said that?

  Sezen kept speaking, in a trance. 'The clothes will drop away, the fleas and the fur, and we'll jump out of our bodies and fly, and the world will all be dream, and dream will be all of the world.'

  Her voice trailed away. She was asleep. Mae felt a curtain descend behind her forehead, a curtain of sadness and exhaustion. I will sleep here amid the fleas, she thought. Because I have just seen a miracle. A miracle comes when someone speaks, really speaks, because when someone does that, you also hear God.

  Air will be wonderful. I didn't know that.

  Mae leaned her head down onto the earthern floor. It smelled of spice and corn, not garbage. Sezen was snoring. Mae took her hand and managed to blow out the candle. Anaesthetized, Mae fell asleep.

  It was still dark when the smells of the filthy house woke her up – stale vegetation, drying shitcakes, and sour old rice in the bins. The voracious fleas were sticking needles into her. There was slippery, queasy stirring below, in addition to a blinding hangover headache.

  Mae was bleeding, below.

  She felt her breath like a candle flame. Blood means I am not pregnant. I can't be pregnant. She needed to check, to be sure. She would not risk feeling her female wound with dirty hands. She could not do that here. She could not sleep here now either, sober. The house did stink.

  Forgive me, Sezen, I did keep you company for a while.

  Sezen stirred, murmuring. 'Good night,' Mae whispered.

  Mae stumbled out onto the cobbles, and looked up at the mountain sky, a river of stars across it as milky as Sezen's father's wine. The air was sweet, it cleared everything. Yes, Sezen was right, the Air was wonderful. She,
Mae, was not pregnant. Good things were still to come, good things to do.

  She listened again to her village – to the far dogs, the wind in reeds, and the sounds of their river leaping over stones.

  Pregnant? demanded a voice in her head.

  The nausea came again, in a wave.

  In the morning, Mae was still nauseous, but told herself it was the wine.

  If she was bleeding, she could not be pregnant. And if she were ill, badly ill, she found, she did not mind.

  All that she asked was that she lived long enough to get the village on Air.

  Downstairs, in the kitchen, Kwan was worried. 'Where did you go?' Kwan asked her.

  'I went drinking with Sezen,' said Mae, abstracted by hangover.

  Kwan looked horrified.

  'She is very bright, brighter than you would think.'

  'She would have to be. Perhaps you could teach her to wash.'

  Mae felt like a truck on a bad road. There was need of repair. 'We all need to improve in some ways,' she said.

  Kwan rumpled her lips, as if to say: Don't be so mealymouthed and pious.

  'I'm not pregnant,' Mae said.

  Kwan blinked, for a moment. 'That at least is a blessing.'

  'In some ways. Who is to say what is a blessing these days?' Mae sat up. 'I need to see my government man.'

  Things were still too bad for her to walk in daylight through the village. Certainly not to be seen returning to the home of Mr Ken.

  Kwan sighed.

  Mae said, 'I fear I am proving to be a trouble to you.'

  Kwan gave her head a dismissive twitch. 'I will send a child with a message.'

  It was only after Kwan had gone that Mae realized: I did not tell her about the government money. She will think I am hiding it from her. Maybe I was.

  Mae washed. She was still bleeding. The blood smelled of woman. She pushed a clean rag up herself, and went downstairs. She told Kwan about the government money, after giving an apologetic dip at the knees. 'I was more relieved at the other news.'

  'Both are good,' said Kwan, blandly.

  The government man came, Mae told him about the grant. He smiled, but he did not look overjoyed. 'That quick.' He shook his head. 'That means there have been few applications. They have spare funding; they need to use it.' Mae tried to read the hand across his forehead, the distracted look.

  'You are worried?' she asked.

  'It means no one else is finding anything,' he said. 'It's not working.'

  From down below came the sound of the men and the TV. Do women and children ever get to watch it now? They were watching snooker. Of all the pointless things to waste a morning on.

  'Stay here,' Mr Oz told her.

  He turned and went down Kwan's whitewashed steps. Mae listened, hidden behind the doorway. The staircase smiled white in the sunlight.

  Suddenly there were howls from the men, protests.

  'Quiet,' demanded Mr Oz. 'This is more important than sports.'

  A roar of protest from the men.

  Mr Oz continued: 'What do you care about snooker scores in Balshang? Balshang doesn't care that you burn shit for fuel. Balshang doesn't even know you exist!'

  Mae blinked. Fighting words from such a frail boy. Who would have thought it? The men suddenly fell silent. The screen made a trumpeting sound, the sound of government. Humbled, silent, made small by the weight of society above them, the village men waited. Mae could feel them wait.

  Then she heard a spreading mumble.

  They know, she realized. They know about the money. He's shown them on TV.

  'Thank you, gentlemen,' said Mr Oz.

  Naked but brave. A harlot funded by the government to make herself richer than the men. That's what they will call me. I will have to have a face of stone, now. I will have to be as enduring as the mountain. Mountains hold up air.

  Oblivious as always, the Central Man bustled back in with paper. Kwan emerged, concerned, curious, wiping her hands. The paper had printed out all the terms and conditions.

  'Right,' he explained. 'The funding is in the form of bank credits. Do you know what those are?'

  Mae shook her head. 'Believability Card?'

  'Better than that. But I need to go with you to ratify them. That will set up a business account in the bank. We then need to set up a Question Mark account, so that you can use it on the Net. Then… you are in business.'

  'That means going to Green Valley City,' said Mae. Her heart leapt. The City! She had not seen it since spring.

  'Mmm-hmm,' Mr Oz said, oblivious again to what that meant for her. 'And that is good, too, because there is a big seminar there this week. For people in the Taking Wing Initiative. It will be good. The Wings have also been invited.'

  'Can we take Sunni with us?' asked Mae.

  Sunni ran out of her house to the government van.

  She was immaculate in city-woman oatmeal, with a beige scarf on her head. She darted down the hill to the bridge, quickly so that no one would see her. She squashed into the backseat next to Mae, and greeted Mae, Mr Oz, and Mr Wing. Plainly, she wanted to be away.

  'Hello, Mrs Sunni-ma'am.' Sezen beamed at her. Pleased to see me? Sezen's eyes were spiked with merriment like a dog's collar against wolves. Mae gave Sezen a little warning with her eyes.

  'Good morning, Sezen,' Sunni managed. She flinched at Sezen's graduation dress, mounds of shiny lemon-yellow. Sunni put on her sunglasses as if against the glare.

  'Mrs Haseem-ma'am,' Mr Wing replied with dignity from the front seat. Mr Oz nodded and backed the van back into Upper Street.

  Sunni turned to Mae, and her smile was from the old days. 'It was very kind of you to ask me,' she said to Mae.

  Mae said, 'I felt it would be good for old friends in the party of progress to go together to see what they are doing in the City.'

  'And it is such a beautiful morning!' said Sezen, reaching around Mae to touch Sunni on the shoulder. 'We can stop and wave to all your friends, working in the fields.'

  'If those who are friends of progress are not friends of each other, then disaster awaits,' said Mae, and glared.

  'Indeed,' murmured Sunni. 'Those are my feelings.' Protected by sunglasses, Sunni looked fragile in defeat, uncertain and frightened by the need for trust.

  Impulsively, Mae took her hand. 'It is good to be with friends.'

  'Where is the Lady An?' chirped Sezen.

  Sunni found enough heart to reply. 'An is studying for a qualification in fashion studies. She does this through the Net on my TV. She is enjoying it. Perhaps you should talk to her, Sezen, and see if the course interests you. You could study together.'

  'I would love to do that!' enthused Sezen, so brightly that it was plain she could think of nothing worse. 'She would teach me how to improve my pronunciation.'

  And improve your manners, thought Mae. She gave Sunni's hand a little squeeze. To her surprise, Sunni squeezed back.

  Sunni persisted. 'Such a terrible thing that people do not understand the uses of the TV. To think! There are people who want it turned off!'

  'People who try to destroy others,' said Sezen, her voice now simple, hard and dark.

  'Indeed,' said Sunni, simply. Mae twisted around and her eyes said to Sezen: Enough.

  Sezen's smile was one of contentment. She gave Mae a little salute and looked away, honour satisfied.

  Already their little village was gone. Just alongside Mr Oz's window, there was a brutal falling-away of stone. 'Music?' Mr Wing asked, and turned on the radio.

  Full of echo and sounds of machinery was something like a song for Sezen's generation. She was drawn, silenced by what to her was a mating call, a cry to be joined with the modern. The old folk fell silent.

  Fluttering past like insubstantial scarves went rice fields, misty terraces, fat men riding donkeys, women in broad straw hats considering harvest.

  They went down into the Desiccated Village. Mae was shocked to see grey dishes and wires on most of the houses.

&nb
sp; 'They've had those since summer,' said Sunni, turning. 'Perhaps we are not so advanced in Kizuldah.'

  'Installing sat ho lih tuh,' said Mr Oz, shaking his head, as if they all shared his amusement. 'Still, it's reliable old technology.'

  Mae felt unable to ask: What is a satellite?

  'Look,' said Sunni, suddenly pointing. 'They are already threshing!'

  Going down the hill was like plunging into their future. On the burnished-yellow threshing ground were big rented machines and wagons loaded with chickpeas. The men were pitchforking them raw into the threshers. The jets of straw, the waiting reed baskets to collect the peas, the women and boys bearing them off to plastic matting, the little girls herding the geese away from the mats – it was all as it always had been.

  The vision was withdrawn behind a flurry of fencing and gates. A good harvest.

  'Ah!' sighed Sunni, as if the relief were her own. 'They will have a good party, then.'

  'High feasting,' agreed Mae. 'It is useful that they are so dry compared to us. We grow rice, they grow chickpeas.'

  'Mmm, we can just exchange,' Sunni agreed. It was what they always said.

  Suddenly the road stopped complaining under them. Suddenly it was smooth, humming like a song. The clouds of white dust died away in trails behind them, like the silver tracks of aircraft.

  Sunni and Mae looked at each other in wonder: Paved? Our road is paved?

  Then they both broke out in laughter.

  Sunni held her plump belly. 'Who… Who thought it was worthwhile paving a city road here?'

  'Make it easier for the donkey!' chuckled Mae.

  They thought of all the fat old farmers, their bewildered wives, the barefoot children, the brown-toothed brigands with ancient rifles. Oh, indeed, how they needed a highway.

  'You need it for motorcycles,' said Sezen, sharply. The radio played another Balshang song. 'We will all have motorcycles.'

  Mae placated her. 'I know, Sezen, but it just seems strange.'

  'Remember when grass grew between the wheel tracks?' Sunni said.

  'Yes! I'd forgotten that.'

  'And the first time down each year, there was no track at all.'

  'Yes, yes, the wheels spun on the spring grass, and you were always frightened the tractor would slide off the road!'