Air (or Have Not Have)

by Geoff Ryman

  'My father always made us get out and walk. He would cast lye behind him to kill the grass.'

  Mae turned to tell Sezen. 'You went to the town, oh, only if your father was buying a horse…'

  '… or parts for the tractor…'

  'And we would pile all of us, oh, six or seven children, in the trailer behind. It would take all day to get down. We would sleep in the trailer overnight.'

  'You remember the fires?'

  'Everyone set up camp in the market square.'

  'You would cook soup over the fires.'

  'And the lutes…'

  'The lutes came out, particularly the Horsemen, and they would sing. Remember the Cossacks! So handsome with their moustaches, they would sing…'

  The truck seemed to lurch and sway as if on green grass. Mae turned to warn Mr Oz about his driving, but as she leaned forward, everything lurched, swayed, and suddenly she smelled smoke…

  … and saw the fires.

  The Cossacks wore spotless white shirts, with high collars.

  They smelled of smoke. It clung to their huge moustaches. Like thieves, they had wicked faces but they were lit up with kindly smiles, and the little girl was sitting on the knee of one of them. His face was lit up with love, tender love.

  'I… have… a… little… girl,' the Cossack said, slowly, in Karz. 'She is pretty. Like you.' His truck full of horses sweltered even though it was night. His mates smoked pipes, and her father sat drinking with them, ramrod straight and slightly twitchy. He was frightened of Cossacks.

  It was not Mae's father. The little girl was not Mae.

  The Cossack said, 'I send presents to my little girl. She does not always get them. Things are so bad, the postmen take them.' The Cossack shrugged. 'Oh, I miss my little girl. You are happy to live with your father. You are far from the war.'

  What war?

  The Cossack patted little Miss Hu on her head and let her run back to her father. Her father was plump, smooth-skinned, beardless. He smelled of chives and garlic, not smoke. Miss Hu climbed onto his lap and was covered in kisses as hot and damp as new leaves on tender shoots.

  'Ai-ling,' breathed out Mr Hu.

  World War Two. This would be, say, 1941.

  The town square was dark, except for one streetlight, and there were no tall buildings. Indeed, the square was a terrace of shacks, with men sitting out front, in worn, torn, dusty clothes. Barbershops, bars, spare-parts shops, teahouses. There was a traffic light, and Mae remembered. There was only one traffic light in the whole town.

  The Cossack grinned, picked up his viola: It was tiny, unvarnished, with loose wood holding up the strings. The bow was made of horsetail hairs. 'For pretty little girls,' he said.

  He played something high, sweet, sad, simple.

  'Song says, "Red children, Red children, play.. ."' he explained, and began to sing.

  It was a jolly song that made Ai-ling want to dance, jolly but somehow sad. She thought it was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard. She wanted to remember it forever and ever. She beamed up in delight, wonder, at her father, who smiled down indulgently.

  And little Ai-ling began to dance. She held out her arms, and spun, wearing her best town dress, a stiff froth of lace, her hair in ribbons, so pretty, little princess, spinning and spinning. The Cossacks, as hard as the roads, melted as if in rain. 'Ahhhh!' they sighed, for all things homely and beautiful. The moment came that Miss Hu loved, when she ceased to be shy. Then she could really dance.

  So she really danced, knowing herself to be little and pretty and sweet. All the Cossacks began to sing the song together, enraptured by the sight of a pretty little girl, of home. Some of them came from other fires, with mandolins. The music mounted. Little Ai-ling fell back into shyness, and stopped, and hid her head in her father's trousers. The Horsemen laughed with love.

  Mae was rocked like a little paper boat cast out onto the ocean.

  The music changed. It rattled. It was Balshang music on the radio, with a roar of engine and harsh sunlight.

  Mae was sick again, waves of nausea. She wanted to say: Stop, I need to be sick.

  See? See? said Old Mrs Tung. See what you are destroying?

  A young person was crowded close to her with concern. Mae did not know who she was at first. 'Are you all right?' Sezen asked, an arm on hers.

  'Hmm,' said Mae, not quite saying yes. 'I was sleeping.'

  'You were singing,' corrected Sunni, her eyes hidden in the sunglasses. 'In another language.'

  They roared down into Green Valley City.

  Yeshibozkent was flung like a soiled handkerchief onto the lie of the land. There was much new building now on the outskirts. Raw concrete in irregular frames held panels of barely mortared brick. They would fall in the next earthquake. The air was blue and grey. They were lowered into it, and heat enveloped them like a blanket, smelling of old automobiles.

  Dust and fumes and Toyota jeeps that would not stay in their lanes, and old women that walked right out onto the road.

  Mr Oz did not slow down, but beeped frantically, continually, forcing people to jump back, or taxis to veer out of his way. Mr Wing chuckled at his driving courage. 'I always wondered how you people got through so fast,' he said.

  The city people in sharp clothes walked unconcerned as the van seared the air, passing them by inches. A light turned red and the van lurched to a halt. Pedestrians poured across the intersection.

  Sezen laughed, suddenly raucous, and pointed. 'What is that?'

  A young man walked in front of the windscreen. He wore soiled, fruit-bowl colours and long braided hair, died blond streaks amid his natural black. Some sort of glasses marred his face, like an eye test or camera lenses. He turned almost blind and looked inside the van. Light flicked, inside the lenses, inside his eyes. His skinny, starveling face bared fangs at them. His teeth were bright yellow like a row of embers.

  Sezen rolled down the window. She leaned out and yelled at him, 'What are you?'

  Sunni seemed to melt with shame beside Mae.

  He yelled back, answering another agenda: 'I just took your photograph.' He staggered slightly, for no reason. 'Dih zee toh el.'

  Mr Oz spoke: 'He's an Ay oh het.'

  Mr Wing jerked with a superior grin. 'Or he thinks he is.'

  The man still yelled at them. 'It is a photograph of peasants!' The smile was nasty. 'You are all dead!'

  'It means Airhead,' continued Mr Oz. 'He can't be an Airhead – the Air has not come here yet – but he has read about it in some magazine.'

  'You are a fool,' Sezen shouted back, laughing at him. 'The Air is not here yet.'

  'My eyes are cameras!' he shouted, as the van pulled away.

  Sezen was agog with both scorn and excitement. 'Did you see what he was wearing! What did he have on his eyes?'

  'A computer,' said Mr Oz. 'Part of it is embedded in his head.'

  The two older women hissed in pain.

  'No wonder he was such a mess,' said Sunni, shaking her head.

  'Yah, but imagine if it was someone handsome and clever and not a fool,' said Sezen.

  'Imagine clean streets,' said Mae. The town was richer, but that just generated drifts of crushed tin and old papers in the gutters.

  'Yeshibozkent? Clean?' Sezen was scornful. 'We still think garbage rots. We will never be clean.'

  'We are a very clean people,' said Sunni, in outrage. 'There are only two dirty families in our village!' One of them was Sezen's.

  Sezen just laughed. 'To someone from the West, we all look like pigs.'

  The van beeped furiously. A donkey had suddenly swerved from the side of the road into its path. The van screeched and slid helplessly, shifting sideways as the wheels locked. The van slammed into the animal.

  Mae could feel the donkey's ribs, its fur, the knobby knees, all communicated through the front of the truck.

  'Oh!'

  Mr Wing jumped out. The animal, dazed, kicked itself back up onto its feet and blinked.

&nb
sp; 'Who owns this animal?' Mr Wing demanded of the street. Plump ladies in shiny purple pantsuits looked mildly surprised.

  Sezen was helpless with laughter. 'Does it have cameras for eyes, too? Airhead donkey?'

  Mae was not sure why Sezen found it so funny.

  No one answered. No one claimed the donkey. It twitched its ears and wandered off as if nothing were wrong. Perhaps, like them, it was dead and didn't know.

  The main market square no longer had a public-address system.

  The familiar sound of town-coming had been silenced. The smells were the same; vegetables in sunlight laced with city drains. The gabble of trading seemed strangely muted and the square curiously spacious.

  'There aren't the people,' said Sunni, mystified.

  Mae looked around. 'It is a Saturday. Where are they all?'

  'At the hypermarket,' said Sezen, sniffing, collecting her volumes of lime-yellow cloth.

  'What's that?'

  'The big new store, outside town. "Just-in-Time Rescue.'''

  The name alone made Sunni and Mae chuckle as they stepped out of the van, braving public view and the eyes that dismissed them as peasants.

  'It sounds like a newspaper headline…'

  'A cheap romance…'

  Sezen was not to have her modernity fazed. She shrugged and managed to step down from the van like a princess.

  Sezen belonged.

  'They call it that because they know everything that is bought, and can predict exactly what is needed. They sell out every day.

  'So does a good trader here,' sniffed Sunni.

  Perhaps no longer. There were grannies, some middle-aged women, some potbellied men come to sit on folding deck-chairs and chat with friends who stayed by their unrolled mats. There were few customers to distract them from their open tins of beers. Mae felt disappointment. She had always loved stepping out into the market, the heart of the town.

  No fires or spangled trucks, no drunken Cossacks dancing.

  Around the square a forest of bright new plastic signs danced, opening and closing like flowers.

  Akai. Sony. Yeshiboz Sistemlar…

  A far cry from the dingy restaurants, the boys running with trays bearing glasses of tea.

  You are dead, the Airhead said.

  'Right, what is the plan?' Sunni asked.

  'Mr Oz and I will go to the bank…' began Mae.

  'Me too,' said Sezen, and the hunger in her eyes said: I want to learn about money.

  Sunni adjusted her sunglasses. 'I have some errands.' Fashion work she did not want Mae to know about.

  Fair enough, thought Mae.

  Mae suggested, 'Shall we meet by the van at, oh, two hours from now? For lunch?'

  'That will be lovely!' exclaimed Sunni. 'We can go to the temple gardens.'

  'Ugh,' said Sezen.

  Mr Oz intervened. 'We don't have time, if we are to get to the congress. I'll just order lunch now.'

  He keyed in the address of Just-in-Time Rescue.

  The Central Man escorted Mae to the bank.

  They were welcomed with great politesse. Mae had expected to feel uncomfortable, but found herself immune to feeling inferior. She found that money made her as good as anyone else.

  They sipped tea in the Director's office, and he was friendly and polite in white shirt and tie. He was full-blooded Karz, big, with hairy arms and a moustache like a trimmed broom and he had a full-blooded Karz name: Mr Saatchi Saatchi.

  I am here, thought Mae. I am where I always wanted to be. I am a businesswoman, modern, respected. Sezen sat clenched like a fist with admiration. Mae felt her eyes swell. Don't cry, she warned herself.

  'Madam Chung will need a cellular account. She will be doing business with you always through mobile services.'

  'We have had such facilities for over ten years, so it is good to see them in more general use,' the Director said, determined the government should know how advanced they were. Mr Oz had enough wisdom to nod approval.

  'Under the terms, you will notice that Madam Chung has the full backing of the TW Initiative, with extendable credit. If she verifies any overdrafts are for the Initiative-sponsored business, then the government will made good any losses.' Mr Oz paused. 'The credit is therefore to be extended when she asks.'

  The director's eyes widened slightly, then he nodded. 'Hmm,' he said, the implications sinking in.

  'Uh. This means the government will also have full and regular access to Info on this funded, guaranteed account.'

  'Of course,' said the Director, arms held open.

  'We will need to discuss security and coding.'

  'I have a full report,' replied the Director. He had a copy for Mae.

  He strolled with them to the front door.

  'An honour, Madam,' Mr Saatchi Saatchi said. 'Such enterprise gladdens the hearts of all.' He shook hands with all of them. He smelled of pine, and through the white shirt was the brighter outline of his perfumed vest.

  When he had gone, Sezen seized Mae's hand. 'Oh, Mae,' she said, lost for words.

  Mae felt like chuckling. 'If only he knew who we were!'

  Sezen shrugged. 'Did you notice,' she said, 'the Director was not wearing a wedding ring? Perhaps I can marry him if you cannot.'

  Mr Oz and Mr Wing went off together to admire computers. Mae wanted to get her hair done. She went to Halat's. The little hussy was even busier and ruder than ever. She snapped her fingers and sent Mae and Sezen to her assistants. The young girls showed them on screens how Mae and Sezen would look with their new hair. The young girls looked very smug, expecting Mae to be knocked sideways by science. 'Tuh,' said Mae. 'I do that on the top of Red Mountain.'

  As the girls cut and trimmed, they looked all the while at the screens for instructions.

  'How can Halat be so foolish?' wondered Mae as they left.

  'How do you mean?' Sezen asked.

  Mae shook her head. 'She makes it too plain that she herself adds nothing.'

  Fashion had shifted again. There was more garish colour, not less, particularly on the young women. Fashion had gone crazy, in all different directions at once.

  But the ice cream shop was there, and the old streaked cinema showing Hong Kong movies, and the tiny shops offering acupuncture, healing herbs, fortune-telling. Lined up outside the tiled wall of a butcher's shop was a row of severed goat's-heads.

  The shop of the disabled seamstress was closed. Mae had wanted to buy her stock of oatmeal cloth. Its green door had a hastily hammered board across it.

  Mae went into the next shop, which sold various sweets, walnuts on thread in dried fruit juice. A rather sour, slumped-looking woman ran it.

  'What happened to Miss Soo?' asked Mae.

  'Oh! She left to be with her boyfriend.'

  Mae was silent. She remembered the girl's staring eyes, the twisted limbs, and she wanted to know: how did she get the money, what did she find when she got there?

  The woman was blunt. 'They didn't stay together, but she found a job anyway and stayed in Balshang. Tuh. I had to board her shop up myself to keep out the vermin.'

  'What happened to her stock?'

  The woman was not that interested. 'I think it was sold at auction.'

  Mae paused. The oatmeal cloth. She saw it now with different eyes. It had been finely woven, with white mixed in, tight warp and weft, and it would hang so well, so well when weighted down with fine embroidery.

  'Was anything left over?'

  'Oh! You will have to ask around. Hold on. Hakan? Hakan?' The woman called her husband, a Karzistani. 'A lady here wants to know if Miss Soo had any stock left over.'

  There was a bellow from behind the curtain, and a murmur from a TV. 'How should I know?'

  The woman did not like to be shown to be lower-class, poor. She felt herself to be showed up by her husband's response. 'You are a man in business, I assumed you knew.'

  Mae was surprised how sorry she was not to see Miss Soo, sorry not to be able to follow her story. She looked at
the boarded-up shop, and its closed and shuttered windows. The plywood was already streaked and cracked. Mae discovered that she had liked Miss Soo very much, and admired her. And it would have been useful to have a friend in the Balshang fashion business.

  'If she ever comes back,' said Mae. 'Do tell her that Mrs Chung sends affectionate regards.'

  Sezen asked as they walked back to the van. 'So what now?'

  Mae sniffed. 'I have credit now. I will order cloth online.'

  Everything ends, said Old Mrs Tung.

  The meeting was held in the Mudharet, the Town Hall, with its cracked tiles and filthy toilets.

  The meeting room was laid out like a theatre, with a stage and rows of seats. It was crowded, unbearably hot, and roaring with sustained talk. On the wall was a blank panel of patterned teak with some twist of black iron pinned to it, like an ugly brooch. Sculpture.

  There were no seats left except in the very front row, as if the participants were schoolchildren wanting to avoid the teacher's gaze.

  Mae walked down the aisle and along the front row and saw faces. A young, sharp eagle of a man sat in a suit that looked expensive and cheap at the same time. He smiled slightly while his eyes glared. He is a shark, thought Mae. He eats people.

  Beside the Shark, a masculine-looking woman with no makeup, short hair, a sleeping-bag jacket, and army boots was talking to herself into some kind of microphone.

  A fat man with pink hair was blowing his nose. The boy next to him provocatively pulled up his T-shirt to display tattoos.

  All these people, Mae realized, have new faces. I can only just read them. She began to feel a tremor again, the tremor of fear.

  The Talent who read the local news walked onto the stage, to a mixture of polite applause and boos. She was immaculate in fire-engine red. She was prettier than she looked on TV, and far more steely. She gave a television smile and welcomed them, but there was no polite silence. If anything, the noise from the crowd got worse.

  'Good afternoon. I am pleased to welcome you to the afternoon session of today's important discussions…' She explained that they had been enlightened and enthralled by the first set of speakers. They were now to usefully discuss and come to some conclusions about the use that the Green Valley should make of new technology.