Air (or Have Not Have)

by Geoff Ryman

  'Uh… Mae. Hello.' Her sister-in-law was not an independent person. If there was a surprise, she could take no action without Ju-mei. 'Ju-mei!' she shouted. 'Your sister is here!'

  And still outside in the snow, Mae thought, smiling like a row of tinkling windchimes.

  My family really is as bad as I think they are, she decided.

  The sister-in-law stepped back out of view, leaving the door hanging open and Mae standing outside. Mae heard steps.

  Her brother Ju-mei's voice was dim. 'Why is the door open?'

  Mae was not in a tolerant mood. 'Because your wife does not want to invite me in and does not have the courage to slam it in my face,' said Mae.

  'I had my baby to look after!' said Young Mrs Wang..

  Ju-mei swelled suddenly into the doorway. He needed a shave, his shirt was untucked, and Mae knew: They did not want me to see them as ordinary, scruffy, and so hated answering the door. That is the Wang family way: to be rude in order to preserve good appearances. I am probably the same.

  'I am moving back into my old house,' Mae announced. 'I can afford to rent it from my friend Sunni Haseem.'

  Ju-mei snorted. Friend? Haseem? And yet there was doubt. What if they were friends again?

  'My business will move back there as well.' Mae kept smiling. 'I am sure you will be pleased that it is doing very well. And since the house has so long been in the family Chung, I was wondering if Old Mr Chung and my brother-in-law Mr Chung Siao would not like to occupy it with me.' Mae smiled. 'So. You see, I have not come to trouble you. I really wish to speak to the Chung family.'

  'And not your own family,' growled Ju-mei.

  'My own family does not invite me into their house, even when it is snowing. From that, I conclude I am not welcome. I do not wish to intrude.'

  Ju-mei was very angry with her. 'Very well,' he said – and closed the door in Mae's face.

  Mae heard a singsong wailing from behind the wooden door. That, she realized, would be Mama. She had time to wonder if Ju-mei had actually wished to spare Mae a scene with Mama. Mama presented her life as a continuing tragic opera.

  Then the door was flung open, and Mae's mother, wearing her Quivering Flower face, stood trembling in the doorway. She held her head back with defiant pride.

  'How dare you! How dare you show your face at my doorway!'

  'Mother, you're being silly,' said Mae.

  'You talk to me! You judge me! When you have behaved as no woman should behave. When you brought shame to me – yes, me. What do you think people are saying about me: "There she goes, the woman who cannot control her wild daughter, who brings down respectable life in the village." I cannot believe you would do that to me!'

  'I didn't do it to you, Mother, I did it to myself.'

  'Everything you do, you do to me. When your father was killed…'

  Here we go, sighed Mae.

  You can tell the truth so often that it becomes a lie.

  Mae had not spent a day in her mother's presence without Mama telling yet again the full story of how their brave father was shot by the Communists, and how she was left alone in the world with three young babies. Then followed the sacrifice, the work, and the endless worry, only to be repaid with desertion and coldness. Then – and this was best of all – how she had never complained, was always silent, had left the past behind her, but now… now, because of Mae's behaviour, was forced to speak of what had been left behind.

  'You! You! You have made me cry, you have made me remember, you have broken my triumph over these terrible memories!'

  'I need to speak to Mr Chung,' repeated Mae.

  Her mother by now was wracked with sobs, and Ju-mei was holding her, patting her and glowering at Mae.

  'You see-hee-hee!' her mother sobbed. 'She cannot admit she was wrong!'

  'I was wrong,' said Mae.

  'You see! She has no remorse!'

  'It was a disruptive thing I did.'

  'She has no feeling. She has not been to see me once! She was staying next door, and she would not deign to see me! She does not care that I am old and sick and alone!'

  Suddenly, Siao in his T-shirt had inserted himself sideways past the Wangs, and his steady face was wrinkled in an embarrassed smile. There was no accusation in the face at all. Mae saw at once: He had absolutely had his fill of the Wangs. She also saw his Karz blue-grey eyes, and his fine dark beard, and his slim workman's arms. She found herself thinking: He has grown up.

  'Come home?' Mae asked him.

  Siao nodded yes, very slightly. 'It would be pleasant to be in my old house,' he said.

  'I am sorry for what happened,' Mae said.

  Siao stayed smiling and calm, while his shoulders equivocated. 'It was a terrible thing you did.'

  Mae nodded. Yes.

  Siao turned back to the doorway. 'Mr Wang…' he began. 'I must speak to my father.'

  'You cannot go back with that woman after what she has done!' roared Mr Ju-mei.

  Siao rocked slightly in place. 'I am so grateful for what you have done for us, but I am aware that we cannot stay as guests for ever. It is a burden for you. Please, I am very cold, we all are, can we not simply ask Mae to come inside?'

  'Never!' wailed her mother.

  Ju-mei stood up straight. 'You heard what my mother said.'

  His wife chipped in: 'The baby is freezing.'

  Siao nodded once, politely, and smiling, stepped inside. 'Just a moment, Mae, I will not be long,' he said, bowing slightly. He closed the door.

  When he opened it again, he had Old Mr Chung with him. The old man looked confused now. He had on a filthy quilted jacket, with his box of tools. 'Is it a job?' he asked, looking eager.

  Still in his T-shirt, Siao stepped outside with his father into the snow and closed the door after him.

  'Your family has been very generous to us,' he said to Mae. Mae saw his bare arms and took off her coat and put it around Siao's shoulders.

  They were all cold. Mae spoke quickly: 'The house is restored to you as long as I can pay rent. The business is now in the barn. How are you, Old Mr Chung-sir?'

  'Ready. Ready,' the old man said, stepping in place as if held back by a harness. 'They are driving me crazy.'

  'Father, that is rude.'

  Old Mr Chung looked at Mae. 'I know they are your family…'

  Mae heard herself say, 'You are my family. Whatever was between me and Joe, I always loved his family.'

  The old man blinked. 'We loved you.'

  The door blurted open like an awkward remark. Ju-mei stood glowering at the door. 'You keep a poor old man outside!' he accused Mae.

  'Then perhaps you can let us inside,' said Mae.

  Mae won. Reluctantly Ju-mei admitted her. Her mother sat enthroned and avoiding her gaze. Young Mrs Wang had taken the baby elsewhere. The inside of the house, as always, was as empty and as clean as an iceberg. The tiny brazier did nothing to warm it. On the wall was the framed photograph of all of them as children, and another photograph of her father, so familiar that it looked nothing like him.

  Mae's mother cowered in black trousers and jacket and a long flowered scarf. She looked tiny and frail and unhappy. There is nothing in her to be frightened of, Mae thought. Then she thought: Frightened?

  Siao said, bowing, 'We have decided to take Mae's kind offer.' Something in the way he said it made Mae realize: Siao is head of the family now. Joe's going has been good for him.

  Ju-mei glowered. 'I cannot believe you will accept any help from that woman.'

  'We have taken much already from her family who owed us nothing and were so kind to make space for us in their home,' said Siao. 'We are impoverished and through our own efforts have lost everything we inherited. At least this way, there may be some small illusion that we live in our own home.'

  Ju-mei glowered at Mae. 'Your sentiments are noble, Siao, and I can only add that I am deeply ashamed that my own sister has left you in such a terrible situation. You have been an ideal guest…'

  Ah,
thought Mae, they've all been driving each other crazy.

  '… and I feel that as a mark of my respect and affection for you that I will assist in carrying your cases and goods.'

  He wants to see what is going on, thought Mae.

  And he did. Ju-mei went into the barn and saw the giant weaver with its lights and display, and its speaking voice. His eyes boggled.

  'You make money from this?'

  Mae used her little formula: five hundred collars at ten dollars each.

  Ju-mei looked so forlorn that part of Mae wanted to hug him. He looked like such a disappointed little boy: he pouted and looked sad and yearning, and hung his head. Ju-mei had always thought that if someone had something, they had got it by stealing it from him.

  'Tuh. Who will work for a woman like you?'

  'About half the village,' chuckled Siao, 'since it makes them so much money. Your sister has appeared in the New York Times' He even gave his sister-in-law a little hug about the shoulders.

  'Hmm. And you think you can run a business of this size by yourself?'

  'Oh, I do not think that,' said Mae, ringing her little bell voice. 'I know I can. So I will not be needing your help.'

  Mae moved into the attic.

  She wanted it that way, to keep her new TV out of the way of thieves, she said. She did not mention the Flood to Siao.

  'That will be fine,' said Siao. 'I was tired of that attic. But, hoi, Mae! Let me tell you – that attic is cold! Are you sure you want to be up there?'

  'Siao. I am a fallen women. People will be more comfortable coming to your kitchen to offer you work if I am not there.'

  His eyes looked briefly pained and then he nodded yes.

  As if to make it up to her, Siao made a pulley. It had a strong net to carry things and strong wooden wheels and it could hoist her TV up and down from the attic. 'In case you want to take it outside in summer to teach,' he said.

  Siao was plainly overjoyed to be back. He scampered, bringing in charcoal for the braziers, making a new bedspace for his father beside the fire, and screwing hooks into the roofbeam. He ducked and climbed and dangled, as lithe as any monkey.

  Mae warmed whisky, and around their old wooden table, they all toasted the Chung family and its house. 'The new house,' they called it, as if it had been rebuilt.

  And then, alone and wearing every single piece of clothing she possessed to keep warm, Mae sat alone in her attic, in front of a television of her own.

  'Please say hello,' it asked her, to start the process of getting to know her.

  'Hello,' replied Mae. It was like meeting a female cousin for the first time and knowing you were going to become friends.

  She entered a new e-mail address – the one she had told Kwan's machine to forward e-mail to – and at last began to work on her own. She sipped yet more warmed whisky, and went to work.

  ____________________

  audio file from: Mr Hikmet Tunch

  17 December

  I have been looking at a particular site in America about history and have found it very interesting. Perhaps friends of yours would like to know it is available. Strange indeed are the uses to which we all are put. I myself come from a long line of peasant soldiers of the Karz. Throughout history, we have laid down our rakes and picked up our axes to march off to bash the Happy Province into submission. But it is like a walnut that does not break open, but is only driven into the mud, so that it sprouts again. I seem to have been used to help plant it afresh. Once there was a dictator. He drove millions to various kinds of deaths, by war, in prison, or simply in harsh deserts farming their lives away. He destroyed temples, burned books, and ruined the art of calligraphy. He wrote terrible poetry and forced everyone to learn it, so destroying the literary taste of one quarter of humanity. He remained a warrior even as Chairman. He was at his best as a warrior, because as a warrior, he was fighting for his people, dreaming for them. After that, he only ground them down. But I forgive him for saying one beautiful thing:

  'Women hold up half the sky.' -Chairman Mao Tse Tung

  CHAPTER 19

  ____________________

  audio file from: Mrs Chung Mae

  26 December

  Mr Oz

  Kwan has an e-mail saying that Teacher Shen has lost his job and is to be replaced. How? The snows have come. You can't get even a tractor up our road now. So is Teacher Shen supposed to go on teaching unpaid? How will it help our children if there is no school? Look, okay, Teacher Shen gave me a big blow and did the Party of Progress great harm. But this will do no good. Please listen to his wife, our friend Shen Suloi.

  Mr Oz-sir, I am Mrs Shen Suloi, the wife of Teacher Shen. Gracious friend, you have been all kindness to us and we need your help again. My husband is wrong about the TV and Air, he sees these things as a great flood that will sweep everything away, but he is a good man and he wants the best for the children of our village. Gracious friend, it is a very bad thing that the message he lost his job came through the TV, and came after your visit. This makes many men here think of the TV as an enemy. They think it spies for the government. They think it takes away a man's whole life. Many say they will not let their children go to school if it is taught by a government replacement woman. My husband goes on teaching now for no money, but he is broken-hearted. We are poor people, Mr Oz, okay? That is hard for us to admit – easier perhaps for the women. We have four children ourselves, and no farm. My husband goes to the school with his shoulders hunched. He does not comb his hair. He sits at night by the single candle and weeps. All his life he trained to be Teacher. It was a great accomplishment for a boy from Kizuldah, and now that has gone, and his wife makes more money than he does. So can you talk to the people who did this and explain we have no Teacher? Can you get them to give my husband back his job? This is Mrs Chung. Tell them this mail comes from me, whom he harmed. Winter is when our children traditionally do their lessons. It does no good to have no Teacher here now.

  ____________________

  audio file from: Mr Oz Oz

  27 December

  Mae, I am angry, too. They didn't even tell me. It is like that – you make a report, and they go off and do something and don't even consult with the person who was there. It is typical of the Central Office to work in that way. I don't know why I stay with them. They never listen. They have no management skills. I feel terribly embarrassed but it is not my fault. What can I do?

  ____________________

  audio file from: Mrs Chung Mae

  27 December

  I don't care about all of that – what are you going to DO NOW?

  ____________________

  e-mail from: Mrs Wing Kwan

  29 December

  Dear Secretary Goongoormush,

  I am a partner with Madam Chung Mae. Our business was recently featured in the New York Times. The attached files of access statistics and business turnover shows our venture to be one of the most successful under the Taking Wing Initiative. My husband is manager of Swallow Communications, also funded by the Initiative.

  I say this only to show that I, along with Chung Mae and others, represent what we here call the Party of Progress. Your representative Mr Oz Oz accurately reported that our efforts have been hampered by the local schoolteacher, Mr Shen Yoh.

  However, removing Teacher Shen from his post at this time will slow progress. His replacement will not be able to get up our road in winter. This could leave our children without schooling during this crucial year of Taking Wing.

  Teacher Shen has not seen the benefits of Info. But he is a good man, and we of the Party of Progress request his reinstatement.

  Yours,

  Mrs Wing Kwan

  ____________________

  audio file from: Mr Oz Oz

  30 December

  Mae, are you crazy? A letter from Kwan? She is not the best-regarded person in Kizuldah. I have raised the issue, but my boss tells me it is all down to the Office of Discipline and Education, and their own 2020
Vision campaign. So, you see how I am prevented at every turn from helping.

  ____________________

  audio file from: Mrs Chung Mae

  30 December

  I do indeed see what stops you helping us.

  It was dawn, and in her loft, Mae could hear the weaving machine at work.

  It made a neat whirring sound that reminded Mae of hummingbirds. She could hear it through her walls as she worked. She could imagine it extending a tongue of beautiful new knitware.

  Her new TV was strung in a hammock and held up by Siao's pulley. It was early morning and Mae was building a new site. It was not going well. Well, at least one screen worked.

  ____________________

  OLD CARS NEVER DIE,

  they just go to Mr Pin-sir's

  DYNAMIC CAR SURGERY.

  Also their cousins tractors, trailers and vans.

  All vehicles are charmed by the Car Surgeon s bedside manner and kind,

  skilled hands.

  ____________________

  Mae had written letters telling everyone about her new Net services. Her first customer, Mr Pin, had shown up two days ago.

  Mr Pin did not want to speak to Madam Owl. He sat with Siao, ignoring Mae and twisting the letter in his hand. He had no more idea of what to do with the Net than use it to make himself seem more modern. That meant, more modern than his great and murderous rival, Mr Enver Atakoloo.

  Siao kept trying to defer to Mae, to direct Mr Pin's questions to her. Finally, to relieve everyone's embarrassment, Mae had gone back upstairs into the loft.

  She listened from upstairs, and was surprised at how useful Siao was. Mr Pin was a difficult man to help. He did not understand what the TV was for, and was frightened that the government would see anything about him.

  Siao kept explaining. It took hours and a bottle of warmed rice wine. Siao's idea was to put a list on the machine called, 'Mr Pin's Helpful Service that Answers Your Questions.'