Air (or Have Not Have)

by Geoff Ryman

  'Kwan!' Mae called. 'It is my son Lung. He has brought our knitting machine.' She pushed the tear out of her face and smiled, smiled as wide as she could so that Kwan would see everything was all right.

  'Kwan, come out and see my huge, new son! I mean, machine!'

  They all laughed because it was true.

  Lung was a monster. He had left home as a skinny, spotty seventeen-year-old, off to Army College and refusing to admit that he was shy of the future. Army food and training had made him tall and broad and fit. And he was handsome, oh how handsome Lung had become! She stared in wonder at his perfect face, his perfect teeth, his perfect combed jet black hair.

  'Why didn't you tell me?' she said and hit him, lightly on the arm.

  His colleagues chuckled again.

  'I thought Mr Oz would tell you,' he said, coyly, charmingly.

  The skinny one spoke. 'Lung wanted to surprise you.'

  'He surprised me all right, I thought I would die!' Her eyes betrayed her again, she wept again. 'It has been three years since I have seen him!'

  Shaking like fine china on an unsteady shelf, Kwan crept down the stone steps of her house, clutching her coat. Kwan looked as though she had been punched in the belly.

  'Mrs Wing-ma'am,' said Lung, with a practised adult politeness that would have been beyond him when he left home. He bowed, and beamed, and enveloped Kwan's frail hand in his own. 'It is so good to see old friends.' He smiled. He held onto Kwan's hand and said to Mae, 'Come, quick, see your beautiful machine.' He escorted them both to the back of the truck and flung back the tarpaulin with one huge gesture.

  The weaving machine like her son was huge, brown and khaki.

  Lung chuckled. 'Mrs Wing-ma'am,' he asked the owner of the barns. 'Where do you want it?'

  Mae spoke instead. 'Oh not here. I have rented our old house. It needs to go there.'

  Lung's smile faltered; he did not look at her, but he managed not to look sad, or ashamed.

  The beefy one with the dark chin said, 'We better get it there, Lieutenant,' said the Sergeant. 'Before the snow settles too badly.

  'And there's a power failure,' warned Mae.

  Lung barked with laughter. 'Of course! There always is the first snow of winter! Come on, let's get this in!' He bowed again, quickly to Kwan, and was striding back to the cab on legs as thick as prize hams. 'Come on, Mama!'

  'We need to stop at Sunni's.' said Mae. He pulled her into the cab, and for lack of space sat her on his lap. It was strange to be so supported by your baby.

  'I remember when I used to hold you like this,' she said. He looked like a barrel full of apples, all round, red. She knew she was looking with a mother's eyes, but there was no doubt. He was so much better looking than the other two. They were invisible next to him, as if you were blinded from looking at the sun.

  No wonder a Western girl fell in love with you, Mae thought. They must all fall in love with you. She felt herself fall in love with him, all over again. So this is what my son grew up into. Lieutenant Chung.

  Mae realized that her son was the best looking man she had ever seen. Better looking than a movie star. But he smelled different from those pretty boys, there was nothing wispy about him. This was someone, you could tell, who jumped from aeroplanes, who built rope bridges across ravines.

  Mae thought of Joe. No wonder he had been so proud, so amazed at what had stepped out from his own loins. No wonder he wanted to talk about nothing else. Lung was the one good thing he had done.

  'We stop here,' Lung told the skinny driver, and the truck whined to a professional halt, not skidding in the snow.

  Sunni greeted Lung graciously, just as if the family Chung had not been shattered by scandal. Her kitchen still smelled of gas and was lit with a gas lamp.

  Mae murmured to her about housing the machine in the old house. Sunni waved a hand, in a grand ladylike way that was also slightly crabby. Mae suddenly saw how she would be when she was old. Saw that Sunni was already getting old, but that somehow, getting old would be good for her.

  'Oh!' Sunni said. 'I already told that man of mine, I said we will get nothing else for that old place, it's only good for giving to tenants and who needs tenants? They are trouble, you have to give them the house for free with the land. Pshaw! Fifteen riels a month.'

  'Twelve,' said Mae.

  'Twelve,' said Sunni. 'But only because I want to see to see the machine loaded.'

  Both ladies got to sit on Lung's lap, one thigh each.

  The snow still fell, shooting past the windscreen as the truck moved through it. The snow looked like shooting stars, as if they were travelling through outer space.

  Their old house turned as if to greet them, grey as a ghost.

  'I'll get the gate,' Mae said, and stepped down from the truck. She lifted up the ground bolts, and wondered why she did not feel more. Snow, power failure, Lung, machine, there was too much going on to feel the pain and the loss of what had happened. That was good.

  As the gate opened amid a spangle of illuminated snow, it was more like a festival.

  The huge green van bounced into the courtyard, just missing taking off the lintel from the gate. All Mr Ken's hens were inside out of the cold or surely some of them would have been crushed. The great truck swung around and backed up. Mae saw Mr Ken's house, darkened as if deserted.

  Her washing line was folded, her kitchen door was locked, and the stump for chopping wood lay sideways. Mae went to open up the barn.

  The bolts were cold on her hands; the old doors groaned as if in protest at being awakened. The earthen floor had been beaten flat as polished flagstone.

  The floor sloped down, as did the entire courtyard.

  Lung stepped out of the truck, holding what looked like a remote control. Sunni hung back behind him as if afraid. Mae walked out then.

  'We've got to put it on something first,' she said.

  'Why?'

  'There are floods,' said Mae.

  Mae felt as if elastic braces were drawing in around her heart as she knocked on Mr Ken's door.

  She looked at the old grey wood of the door, and waited unable to breathe, feeling Lung's eyes on her back. She heard footsteps; the door opened.

  There he was. Mr Ken. He looked older than she remembered, more rumpled, but then she had seen Hikmet Tunch, and her son Lung, since. His eyes quickened when he first saw her, widened, darted over her face, then looked behind and saw the truck. He tried to straighten his hair; he looked embarrassed, befuddled.

  'Hello, Mae,' he said. 'What's going on?'

  There was no time for yearning, remembrance, or even any sign of what happened. Not with Joe's son looking on.

  'Hello,' she said with restraint. 'I am sorry to bother you like this. But we are putting a new machine in the barn…'

  'My mother needs to talk to you about this…'

  Mae cut him off. 'It is actually Sunni's barn and I rent it. You once said that you had no use for the stone drinking troughs. Can I have them?'

  He looked at her with an expression that was impossible to read. You and I meet again and we talk about this?

  'I'm moving back in,' she told him. 'I've only just decided.'

  Behind her, Sunni said to Lung, 'I have the keys. Let's get the TV inside.'

  Kuei's hands did a helpless little wave. 'Have them if you want. They are very old. What do want them for?'

  It would not be right not to warn him.

  'There will be a flood. Everything will be washed away. I need to have my machine on a platform, to save it.'

  His whole face was wary. 'This is Grandmother talking,' he said. 'Every winter, she would always warn us about the flood.'

  'This time it's true.' All right, don't believe me, she thought. I have no time to argue. The truck's engine is running and so is Lung's. She glanced behind and saw her TV lowered from the back of the van. 'May I have the use of the troughs? I can pay you for them, whatever you ask.'

  Mr Ken held up a hand. 'Take them, take them
.'

  Mae nodded, smiling, hoping her eyes were also able to jam into such snatched time, a form of remembrance.

  'I'll have them back when the flood does not come,' he said darkly, and shut the door on her.

  Mae blinked, for that had been too sudden. She turned slowly, followed her TV as it was huffed and sighed into her old house.

  'Here, here, into its new home!' enthused Sunni, too bright, too glowing. She was covering for Mae. The house was small and dark and smelled of dust. Noodles had stiffened on plates left on the table. Some of Mae's old dresses still hung from the wall, as if preserved by the cold. Lung glanced down, ashamed.

  'Does it convert to Aircast?' Sunni asked tapping the top of the TV.

  'Oh yes, I expect Sezen will use it to serve Collabo.'

  'Can I rent it?' Sunni asked. Mae hesitated. 'I want to serve high fashion. We can split the market.'

  'It has possibilities,' said Mae. 'We'll talk tomorrow.'

  The two fashion experts nodded, eyes hooded. Then something happened. Listen to us both, they seemed to say, and both burst out laughing at themselves.

  'Captains of industry,' said Lung, but he was smiling.

  The truck roared back into Kwan's courtyard to find it full of preparations for a party.

  A tractor ran its engine and its lights, and Mr Wing and Mr Atakoloo were moving tables. Children stuck their heads through the gate and turned to run back home. There always was a party with the first snow, this year it would be at the Big House.

  The forecourt quickly filled with people. Hot wine was left on braziers that smoked as much as most people's mouths steamed.

  Men took cups of warm wine and stood on Mr Wing's steps. Lung strode into their midst, shaking hands, remembering names. Mae, as his mother, accompanied him.

  'Ah, you've grown!' said men snatching hats from heads, out of politeness.

  Mr Ali squared up to Lung. 'Your father tells us much of your doings. You are a lieutenant now, I hear.'

  'Yes, luckily enough, I had early promotion.'

  'Your father is very proud of you,' said Mr Ali, glancing in Mae's direction, the fallen mother.

  'That is good to hear. He lives in Balshang now, so I see him every day.' Lung smiled and plainly moved on.

  'Good evening Mr Ali,' said Mae, deliberately sounding pleased. 'Lung has bought me a huge weaving machine. It is automatic, and intelligent. It will help the Ladies Circle meet all its orders.

  Mr Ali was as heavy as lead. He glowered at her and did not answer. 'And you are looking so well Mr Ali,' said Mae in a little bell-like voice. 'So plump. If you don't mind me saying.' Mr Ali pushed past her as if to go for more red wine.

  Mae saw her own family arrive. Ju-mei, his wife, Mae's mother and, after some deliberation no doubt, Siao and Old Mr Chung.

  'Lung! Lung!' called Ju-mei.

  'Uncle!'

  Mae deliberated too and decided to let Lung greet his uncle without her. The two men hugged, and clapped each other's backs. Ju-mei wore a heavy Russian coat and pork pie hat. He looked like a Party chairman. Lung paused when he saw his Uncle Siao, and blinked in some surprise that the two families were friends. Siao shook his hand and winked. He and Lung hugged too, but the hug was gentler, less showy. Lung had grown up with Siao, who was more of a big brother to him than an uncle. Siao looked up. His eyes caught Mae's, and he gestured for her to come near them.

  Very well, thought Mae. For your sake, Siao. She remembered: Siao has never fought me or called me bad names. She was surprised; she realized that she knew in her heart that Siao would keep things calm and good.

  Mae saw her mother's plump face close up like a purse as she approached. Old Mrs Wang retreated from Mae behind Ju-mei's Russian back. His face looked like polished soapstone. Siao spoke first. 'Mae, how are things with you?'

  'I am happy to say the business goes well.'

  'And happy to see Lung,' said Siao.

  'Indeed!' chuckled Mae.

  Old Mr Chung blinked like an ancient tortoise, and bowed sweetly to Mae, out of respect or mere good form.

  'We are all happy to see you, Lung.' Ju-mei grinned awkwardly and jabbed his upper body up and down like a crow pecking at road kill. He was trying to bow with respect to his officer nephew.

  None of them were comfortable. Mae glanced up and saw a tight little knot of Alis and Dohs, peering at them over their shoulders. They were a spectacle: the family of the deserted husband in company with the adulterous wife and her brother.

  'People are staring,' said Mae's mother miserably.

  Mae felt sorry for her, so small and worried. 'Pay them no mind, Mama.'

  'It is easy for you to say, you are a woman who has no face left to lose,' said her mother. 'You do not even come to call on us.'

  So which is it Mama, are you ashamed of me or mad because I do not call, or are you just looking for another reason to be miserable?

  Siao intervened. 'Perhaps it is because Mae is embarrassed that her husband's family are staying there with you, Mrs Wang-ma'am.'

  'You credit her with delicacy,' said Mae's mother. 'Ju-mei, I cannot bear this. I am on show. I have been an object of show all my life. I thought all that had ended. But there is always something. I so look forward to the first winter party, but I must… I must…' Mama had stared to quaver again.

  'You stay here, Mama,' said Mae. 'I was just going back into the kitchen.'

  Lung looked dismayed. 'I'll be down in a while, Mama,' he said.

  Mae smiled with gratitude at Lung and said goodbye to them all in turn. Standing as straight as she could, Mae turned sideways to slip through the crowd and down the stairs to Kwan's kitchen.

  Kwan was at work, wearing her best dress. The tables were already full of food. 'It's a good thing I guessed the party would be here,' Kwan said. Whenever there was a power failure, there would be a party in someone's courtyard.

  Mae's stomach suddenly felt heavy and she had to sit down. They were alone so Mae said quickly, 'I don't know what else these soldiers know, so it will be good to stay cautious.' In the half-darkness, the two women looked at each other. It was plain where Mae's loyalties lay. From outside there came a swelling of laughter. Lung had finished a story.

  'Can I help?' asked Sunni.

  Without missing a beat, Kwan smiled. 'Sunni! Hello. Yes, I am sure there is much to do.'

  So there they were, the three of them, in Kwan's kitchen, with the ropes of garlic around the wall and the pile of round village bread.

  'Shall I restore the bread for you?' Sunni asked. Village bread was dry and needed to be moistened.

  Mae offered, 'I could string the beans.'

  'Oh, it will be fun with just us three,' said Kwan, kneeling. She hoisted out a bucket of water and a tray for soaking bread.

  'Yes, it will be good to sit and be convivial,' said Sunni, and smiled at Mae. The kitchen smelled of pork and rice. 'Oh! Soy and lard on boiled rice. Oh, that takes me home.' Sunni, though Muslim, had grown up in a liberal household.

  Mae strung and snapped the beans. Sunni took out her corncob pipe and so did Kwan. 'Look at us, we look like old grannies!' said Sunni.

  'We are, nearly,' said Mae.

  'Oh! You talk!' said Sunni.

  'Lung is to be married soon,' said Mae, not quite telling the truth. How could she admit that she had not been asked to the wedding?

  'You bet,' said Sunni, 'He is a prince, and any girl with brains would get him as fast as she could.'

  'She is a Western girl,' said Mae. 'She is very pretty, educated, and says she likes me. This is because of my screens. How can you like someone for their screens?'

  'Oh,' said Sunni and looked sad. 'Then we will lose him?'

  Mae let this sink in. 'Yes,' she said. 'I am sure he will stay in Bal-shang at least. And who knows, he may even go back to Canada with his wife.'

  'Has he talked about what has happened?' Kwan asked. She meant the end of Mae's marriage.

  'Yes.' Mae played with the beans and with th
e truth of the situation. 'Mostly he tells me he forgives me for what has happened. But I don't think he really has.'

  'Ah,' said Sunni, getting down to the meat of it.

  'I don't think he really understands it,' said Mae.

  'I don't think I do,' said Sunni.

  Kwan said nothing. Her back as she worked listened and was tense.

  'It was love,' murmured Mae.

  'Oh I understand that. I understand why you married Joe and I understand why you would tire of him. Speaking frankly.'

  'Indeed,' said Kwan, for Sunni was being very frank.

  'There is no other way to talk about these things. What I don't understand, now that Joe has gone off with the Pincushion, is why you are not with Mr Ken.'

  'Ah,' said Mae. She had no immediate answer.

  Sunni patted Mae's hand. 'Joe has left you. That evens things up. Go live with your Mr Ken. The rest of us will get used to things in the end.'

  'I'm not scared of the village,' said Mae. 'But I do sometimes wonder if I love Mr Ken because his grandmother does.'

  'Ah,' said Sunni, and her hand shuddered.

  'I think I see him sometimes through Old Mrs Tung's eyes.'

  The room seemed to hold its breath with the cold.

  Lung strode in, booming, 'And what good things are you ladies cooking?'

  Back to work.

  The ladies carried out vats of quick-fried beans, swollen wet bread, and pots of rice with tiny chillies burning within it. The army truck played Lectro on its Balshang radio. Its vast army antennae could pull in signals from the capital. Kizuldah heard advertisements for hypermarkets, toilet paper, and clubs that could play Airfiles on giant TV screens.

  The villagers hated the music. A cable was strung from the army van's battery to a cassette player, and more traditional music was played for the adults.

  All four hundred people were crowded into the courtyard and barn despite the snow that was still falling, as if the stars had given up clinging to heaven.

  They chuckled and sipped tea from mugs. The mugs were then filled with rice and beans. Kwan, Sunni, and Mae moved among the people passing out the food.

  The men had to take beans from Mae. The situation allowed no other response. They looked at her, said nothing, were grumpy out of loyalty to Joe. But Joe was not here. And Joe had gone off with Mr Muhammed's wife.