Air (or Have Not Have)

by Geoff Ryman

  Those are the wrong words, too, Kwan.

  O, Mother Kowoloia, O spirits of the Air, the Water, the Earth, speak for me.

  The nightjar also churrs when you are not ready to speak. It sleeps in the road, dazzled by headlights, only because the asphalt is still warm.

  'In Mae, all these forces are gathered together. So Mae is the Time. Do you understand? Mae is like a picture of the Time. Your grandmother would say that Mae has solidified the Time, like water solidifies into ice. And ice breaks – when the season begins to move. You see?'

  Not yet. Luk waited.

  Kwan continued: 'So Mae is the Earth, like women are – she derives her power from women, from the Circle, from Bugsy. You see how it works? The old words? So, you have Mae, who is in her character most like the Earth, she is an Earth person: rooted, least-moving of all people. But her head – her head has been filled with Air; this is the Age of Air. And so she is disturbed. Spirit mixing with Earth, swept away by the enraged waters, which are change, which drive change.'

  Luk said, 'Mae is Earth moved by Air and moved by Water.'

  'Yes!' Kwan was pleased. Luk understood.

  'What is the fire?'

  She still remembered him at five, all innocent toddling nakedness. She remembered him at sixteen, how soft and troubled he looked back when Tsang had been seducing him.

  'Don't you know?' She prodded him. 'Think. You know. She is disturbance – so what was disturbed?'

  Luk was embarrassed. 'Ah. Well. Her husband and things…'

  'Fire is desire, and Fire flared up. Your grandmother would have said that was only to be expected, too. But Fire is not just sex, it is yearning, for everything, here, now, on Earth. It makes us have children, it makes us love them, love our friends. Water carries us, but Fire makes us swim.'

  There were the stars of fire.

  Rather clumsily, her huge son put a sheepskin-muffled arm around her shoulders. She felt how small and frail she must seem to him.

  She pointed to the stars. 'You see? In the world of the Air, there is no time. Even Fire is still. Fire becomes permanent.'

  Why was she crying? 'Fire becomes love. In Air.'

  He stood beside her and she was not sure what he felt.

  'You see? You see? You see?' Even to herself, Kwan sounded like a bird.

  In March the road was finished, and in one of the first cars up, it carried Fatimah from Yeshiboz Sistemlar.

  Fatimah asked where Mae was. Sunni and Kwan greeted her with firm smiles.

  'Mae is gone away,' said Kwan.

  Fatimah looked suspicious and disappointed. Kwan had been her ally.

  'Where? May I see her?'

  'Oh, I think not,' said Sunni.

  'No,' said Kwan, shaking her head. 'No. She went up into the hills, to live with an old aunt. She takes care of her now.'

  'Yes,' said Sunni. 'How lucky is the woman who has family. We did not even know the aunt existed.'

  'Where is the village?' Fatimah nodded, vaguely uphill.

  'There is no road,' said Kwan.

  Fatimah stood just outside the interior of the car, the door open between her and the villagers. Above her, the ruin of terraces was a jumble of stones.

  'I feel it is only polite to point out,' said Sunni, 'that for you, there will never be a road.'

  Fatimah's face went pale, and worked in helplessness. She got back into the car.

  The Circle's weaving machine was replaced by insurance money. There was a celebration when it arrived. The Nouvelles Chung Mae Fund had ordered over four thousand collars, enough to keep even the machine busy. Each Disaster Collar had in honor of chung mae woven into it. Inside the package, in English, was the recipe for a thank-you cake. The huge sums of money from the sale were distributed to those outside the Circle as well as those within.

  The men repaired some of the terraces, only a few, enough to plant some rice, enough to feed the village and generate some more grain.

  A hired bulldozer came and scooped up the last of the ruins of the Chu, Koi, and Han households. Rugs, cups, clothing, came to the surface, but not the missing bodies.

  Finally, halfway down the plain, they found a body which must have been Han Kai-hui. Sezen, Kwan decided, had been carried by the Flood even farther into the future than Mae. She would never be found, except perhaps in a spaceship going to the moon.

  High on the hill where their mosque had been, the villagers gathered for another funeral.

  And Chung Mae was brought out for it.

  Chung Siao came with her, holding her hand, keeping her quiet. And on her other side stood Mr Ken.

  'Who is it? Who is it?' Mae demanded, too loudly.

  'Han Kai-hui, Granny,' Mr Ken said to her. 'You remember her. She was Chung Mae's little childhood friend.'

  Mae's face looked angry. 'She must have died very suddenly! Was it an accident?'

  Pause. 'Yes, Granny,' said Ken.

  Mr Ken struggled to keep the fighting hands still. His face looked worn but enduring. How can he stand it? Kwan wondered.

  'Oh! People should be more careful!' Mae flung the news away with a toss of her head. Old Mrs Tung could not learn. She looked around the crowd, outraged, like an angry lizard. 'And children should show respect! Where is Han An, at her own mother's funeral? Where is Chung Mae, if it is her friend? Mae should be here!'

  This was beginning to look like a mistake. Kwan moved through the village crowd. They stood in their anoraks or sheepskins, all heads bundled in scarves. The fire was mostly broken furniture and kerosene, with a rug wrapped around the body.

  Maybe Kuei can bear it for the sake of his child inside her.

  Maybe he can bear it because he shares it with Siao. It is strange, the two of them and her. Who can say how they make it work?

  Except through love. Fire in Air.

  Kwan nodded to them both, eyes catching. Then she looked deep inside the eyes of the woman beside them who was no longer Chung Mae.

  Kwan denounced her. 'You horrible old woman. You are dead, too. You died, you horrible ghost. We loved you in life, but you should be a spirit now, in the air. You are a disease. At least let Mae mourn her friend.'

  The eyes went confused and watery, the young mouth shook like an old one. For just a moment, Kwan thought she saw Mae.

  'Mae. We're winning. Everyone uses the TV. We love it. Mae, we want you back.'

  'Uh!' said the struggling Mrs Tung, and pushed Kwan away from her.

  Kwan saw struggle in the helpless confusion of the face, the shuddering and the shaking.

  'She's fighting, she's there,' said Kwan. She took hold of the hand and kept talking to her. 'Come on, Mae. You can come back. The old witch only has part of your soul. You have the rest. Come back, Mae!'

  Kwan visited Mae most days.

  Siao and Ken Kuei lived together with Mae in the ruin of their houses. The village had decided not to regard this as a scandal. Both men loved her; of course they would stay with her in misfortune.

  Only the barn and the back corner of the house still stood. The wound had a scar of piled stones over it, bandaged with plastic. Daylight peeked through, but the room was warm. There was room for the brazier and the table, and the alcove with the bed. Part of the loft remained, but was unused.

  Kwan would duck through the low doorway and bow with respect to Old Mr Chung, who sat in the only standing corner of his old house. Kwan would lay food on the table – village bread, a few dried vegetables, and at times even a bottle of rice wine saved from the Flood.

  Siao and Mr Ken would both then busy themselves with the cooking. Politely, they would pass each other the knife, the soy. Kwan had once asked Ken Kuei how it was, all three of them living together. 'Oh,' he said. 'There is no problem. I have lived next to Chung Siao all my life. We have always been friends.'

  Kwan felt a quiet pride. Such behaviour is only possible, she thought, among a truly civilized people.

  It was best for Mae to sleep in her own bed. It might help to bring h
er back. Certainly Old Mrs Tung did not like it. The old creature quailed, Why are we in this place? She was confronted with the fact that she did not belong.

  The tiny bedroom alcove was kept as tidy as possible by Mr Ken. Old Mrs Tung would sit disgruntled next to the tiny window. She kept turning out the electric lights; she hated them. She lit candles. Mr Ken put them out. Candles in such a crowded space were dangerous.

  'Hello, Siao,' said Kwan. 'Is she eating?'

  He shook his head no: No, she is not. 'She says her tummy burns.'

  Her stomach ballooned out just under the rib cage like a pigeon breast. You could tell just from looking at her shape that something was terribly wrong. Old Mrs Tung could learn nothing new, so she could not remember that she was pregnant or where the pregnancy was. She felt full so she never ate. Mae's starving face was becoming more and more delicate. Mae was beginning to look like Mrs Tung.

  Kwan said, 'Mae's not fighting.'

  Perhaps there is no more Mae left to fight.

  'I found the onion in my old store. And Mrs Ozdemir, bless her, she still keeps giving me bits of her goat for Mae.'

  It was smoked scrag-end. Siao went for the cleavers. 'The famous cleavers,' he said. He added the onion and curry powder to cover the taste of stale meat. They sat and talked of village things. The two men took turns to stir the fry up.

  Kwan looked at Mae's beautiful old dresses hung in an orderly row. 'It's been a long year,' she said.

  'Huh. More like a century,' said Kuei.

  'Remember, last April? She was already beginning to talk to people about graduation dresses, showing them fabric, bustling about the place. She always wore high heels for that, remember?'

  'Oh! Do I!' Kuei rolled his eyes, as if he had never seen anything as beautiful. 'With her hair always up. I would look out, and it was like a dream to see her, like someone from TV had dropped down by mistake into our village.'

  Kwan smiled wryly. 'That was the effect she wanted.'

  'She was a different Mae,' said Mr Ken.

  Which Mae do you love? Kwan wondered.

  Old Mrs Tung shifted with discomfort and frustration. 'Where is Mae?' she demanded. 'And, Kuei, why are we are we eating old goat? Can't you find anything better?'

  Siao made a space near him for Mr Ken to moisten the bread. In the corner, Mae's TV still received voicemail. Kwan considered. It is probably Siao, who loves the Mae she became – Unrolling Mats and TV screens.

  'I will have to get back soon to the girls,' Mr Ken warned Siao. His daughters lived with their cousins at the Teahouse. Siao nodded. The two men were a household.

  And, Kwan considered, it is probably Siao who keeps it together.

  As soon as the shreds of goat were cooked, they offered the food. Kwan leaned forward. 'Mae? Mae, eat something, please.'

  'I am not hungry,' said Old Mrs Tung. 'Kuei! Take me home. We have been here long enough. It is evident that Mae and Joe will not be back.'

  'For your baby. You must eat,' said Kwan.

  'What… what… what…' Mrs Tung shook her head no – no, over and over. 'What are you talking about?' Old Mrs Tung demanded. 'I don't want your food, woman! I want to go home. Why can't we go home?'

  'Sssh, Granny,' said Kuei, coming from the stove.

  'We have been here for hours!' Old Mrs Tung started to weep from frustration.

  'Sssh, Granny. The house is gone; it was washed away in a Flood.'

  'What?' Old Mrs Tung looked up in horror and her eyes shivered with all the despair of fresh discovery.

  Old Mrs Tung could only live in the past.

  Mae lived, fascinated, in air.

  Air was real life – all of life all at once, for it made all times one time. For Mae, time was a breakfast table, with everything in reach. She would stretch across eternity and feel herself expand, out of Air and into any moment of her life.

  Mae would walk to school hand in hand with her brother Ju-mei. She threw acorns at him, and they ran, laughing, round and round the One Tree.

  Joe took her on a date, down the hill to Kurulmushkoy. The Teahouse there catered to young people and had a radio.

  Dazzled, at sixteen, Mae sits in a booth and listens to U2. It is only two years since the Communists have gone; there is all this new stuff. Joe seems to be king of it.

  'U2 are from Ir Lang Do. They are not English, not American. They had a big event, all the big stars sang for poor people. It went round the world. Yah.' Joe looked into his tea. His hair is buzzed short, he wears a chrome necklace. Joe is the future. His eyes are sad. 'We missed it.'

  Mae is entranced. She is moved. 'We will not miss it next time, Joe,' she says. She ventures forth, and puts her hand on top of his. This is simply because she finds she feels the same. 'Next time, we will be part of the future.'

  'We can bet on that,' he says, and pushes his hand into his tight jeans and pulls out a quarter-riel. He slams it on the table.

  'It is a wager!' Mae giggles, at sixteen, and covers her teeth with her hands because she thinks they are huge and make her look like a horse. But her eyes are fixed on Joe.

  And then this time shrinks and folds down into itself. It is the room and the people and the smell of boiled water and cigarettes that collapses, not Mae herself. Mae is always there.

  Mae can do frightening things. She balloons herself back into the womb before she was born. She can feel her mother's terror and misery seething around and inside her. She hears pumping and muffled voices. She sees gentle light. It is like dying, a gentle dying that is not fearful because you know that this is the beginning.

  The unborn infant knows that too, connected in Air to its own future.

  We live and we die in eternity. Our physical bodies occupy the balloon world. The balloon world has space, and we are trapped in one part of it. The balloon expands and we are trapped with that expansion. And that is time.

  But, oh, in Air!

  Air has no time.

  Air is everything that has been and will be, waiting its turn to puff out of its tiny dot into our brief world.

  And Mae's life is hinged with that of another.

  It is the first day of autumn school and Mrs Kowoloia comes with her little daughter Kwan.

  Mrs Tung thinks: My, but the child is solemn. And Mrs Kowoloia, oh, she is so beautiful, ethereal. She floats – and all that embroidery!

  'Mrs Kowoloia, you are as beautiful as the butterfly!' hoots Mrs Tung, seizing her client's hands with gratitude, for this is the first arrival of the school year. The courtyard will soon be full of children.

  Mrs Kowoloia says, 'Mrs Tung, may I say what a benefit this is to all of us. To run a school for us year in and year out. And we all know of your education.'

  'Ah! But all my books were lost,' hoots Mrs Tung, holding up her hands and laughing for the dead.

  The little girl looks seriously ready for work and disgruntled that there is none to do.

  'Kwan, dear, I have some paper and paints.'

  Kwan wrinkles her nose. 'It's all right,' says Kwan. 'I'll read my book.'

  Every time the boys play football together in the white dust of my courtyard, I say, 'Ahmet would have played with them.' When all the little girls sing or skip rope, I close my eyes and imagine I hear Lily chanting with them. My Lily, who I let fall and drown.

  Two little girls slip through the gate all by themselves. One is tall and skinny, and angry. The other is tiny, so small that her chin hits her chest as she scowls.

  I know who this is, thinks Mrs Tung, and she walks forward, bending at the middle.

  'Are you the little girls who lost their daddy?' Mrs Tung asks.

  The oldest looks at her with frightening directness. 'He was shot by Communists.'

  'And what is your name?' Mrs Tung half hopes it will be Lily.

  'I like to be called Missy,' says the elder. 'So that's what everybody calls me.' She looks down at her sister with a mother's pride. 'This is my sister, Mae,' she says, in a way that makes Mrs Tung want to weep, it i
s so full of love and care.

  The little one is shy. She holds up an autumn leaf. 'It's red,' she says. 'I found it on the ground.'

  'Leaves fall. That's because autumn is coming. I'm Mrs Tung.'

  'It's beautiful. It looks like a cushion. All red.'

  'Where is your mother?' Mrs Tung asks.

  'Nowhere,' Missy says coolly.

  Missy coughs, and from deep within her lungs comes the authentic crackle of TB. She coughs again, and passes Mae to Mrs Tung. 'Mae's clever,' says Missy. She ushers Mae forward, arm around her shoulder. Her solemn eyes meet Mrs Tung's. Mrs Tung feels a prickle up her spine, as if Missy is passing Mae to her, to care for.

  Missy coughs again, Mrs Tung is sure.

  Mrs Tung could taste Air.

  'Come, Mae. We have another clever little girl for you to meet. Her name is Kwan.' Mrs Tung moves them forward together. The older one is lean and already grey as a ghost.

  Mrs Tung gazes at the round face of the little girl and to her it is like an egg that will hatch. She can half see who this Mae will be – oh, clever, yes, but not in any way that school can capture. She will turn herself into Missy, to honour her and love her and remember her.

  The children run around her, swirling like dust, and Mrs Tung can see them all hatching, into Shen, into Joe, into Kan-hui. It is her job to warm them, love them into life.

  Mrs Tung sits in her big kitchen, darning wet socks.

  You darn them wet so that they will dry and heal shut. Her smelly, kindly old husband is in the fields. Her young man is off in the hills. Mrs Tung feels heavy and weighted, as if going up a fast escalator. She is pregnant, and she knows the child is not Mr Tung's. She becomes aware that she is hearing gunfire. Has the war moved back here?

  Suddenly, the guns batter so loudly that it is as if the guns are in the kitchen. Mrs Tung jumps. She hears a cry, from nowhere.

  Then everything is still again, just dust turning in rays of light. Suddenly Mrs Tung is certain.

  Kalaf is dead.

  Something that was in the air is there no longer. Like music that is suddenly turned off. Like the sudden smell of burning food. He is dead, she thinks, and I will be getting a telegram.