Air

by Geoff Ryman

  Sezen turned and slowly walked towards the side room.

  Hatijah, the mother, still squatted over the kettle, boiling more water to dilute the stew of leaves. She lived on tea and burnt corn that was more usually fed to cattle. Her cow’s-eyes were averted. Untended, the family goat still made noises like a howling baby.

  Mae sat and blew out air from stress. This week! She looked at Hatijah’s dress. It was a patchwork assembly of her husband’s old shirts, beautifully stitched. Hatijah could sew. Mae could not. With all these changes, Mae was going to have to find something else to do beside sketch photographs of dresses. She had a sudden thought.

  “Would you be interested in working for me?” Mae asked. Hatijah looked fearful and pleased and said she would have to ask her husband. In the end she agreed to do the finishing on three of the dresses.

  Everything is going to have to change, thought Mae, as if to convince herself.

  THAT NIGHT MAE WORKED NEARLY TO DAWN ON THE OTHER THREE DRESSES.

  Her noisy old sewing machine sat silent in the corner. It was fine for rough work, but not for finishing, not for graduation dresses.

  The bare electric light glared down at her like a headache, as Mae’s husband Joe snored. Above them in the loft, Joe’s brother Siao and his father snored, too, as they had done for twenty years. In the morning they would scamper out to the water butt to wash, holding towels over their Y-fronts.

  Mae looked into Joe’s open mouth like a mystery. When he was sixteen, Joe had been handsome—in the context of the village—wild and clever. They’d been married a year when she first went to Yeshibozkent with him, where he worked between harvests building a house. She saw the clever city man, an acupuncturist who had money. She saw her husband bullied, made to look foolish, asked questions for which he had no answer. The acupuncturist made Joe do the work again. In Yeshibozkent, her handsome husband was a dolt.

  Here they were, both of them now middle-aged. Their son Lung was a major in the army. They had sent him to Balshang. He mailed Mae parcels of orange skins for potpourri; he sent cards and matches in picture boxes. He had met some city girl. Lung would not be back. Their daughter Ying had been pulled into Lung’s orbit. She had gone to stay with him, met trainee officers, and eventually married one. She lived in an army housing compound, in a bungalow with a toilet.

  At this hour of the morning, Mae could hear their little river, rushing down the steep slope to the valley. Then a door slammed in the North End. Mae knew who it would be: their Muerain, Mr. Shenyalar. He would be walking across the village to the mosque. A dog started to bark at him; Mrs. Doh’s, by the bridge.

  Mae knew that Kwan would be cradled in her husband’s arms, and that Kwan was beautiful because she was an Eloi tribeswoman. All the Eloi had fine features. Her husband Wing did not mind and no one now mentioned it. But Mae could see Kwan shiver now in her sleep. Kwan had dreams, visions, she had tribal blood, and it made her shift at night as if she had another, tribal life.

  Mae knew that Kwan’s clean and noble athlete son would be breathing like a moist baby in his bed, cradling his younger brother.

  Without seeing them, Mae could imagine the moon and clouds over their village. The moon would be reflected shimmering on the water of the irrigation canals which had once borne their paper boats of wishes. There would be old candles, deep in the mud.

  Then, the slow, sad voice of their Muerain began to sing. Even amplified, his voice was deep and soft, like pillows that allowed the unfaithful to sleep. In the byres, the lonely cows would be stirring. The beasts would walk themselves to the village square, for a lick of salt, and then wait to be herded down to valley pastures. In the evening, they would walk themselves home. Mae heard the first clanking of a cowbell.

  At that moment something came into the room, something she did not want to see, something dark and whole like a black dog with froth around its mouth that sat in her corner and would not go away, nameless yet.

  Mae started sewing faster.

  THE DRESSES WERE FINISHED ON TIME, ALL SIX, EACH A DIFFERENT COLOR.

  Mae ran barefoot in her shift to deliver them. The mothers bowed sleepily in greeting. The daughters were hopping with anxiety like water on a skillet.

  It all went well. Under banners the children stood together, including Kwan’s son Luk, Sezen, all ten children of the village, all smiles, all for a moment looking like an official poster of the future, brave, red-cheeked, with perfect teeth.

  Teacher Shen read out each of their achievements. Sezen had none, except in animal husbandry, but she still collected her certificate to applause. And then Mae’s friend Shen did something special.

  He began to talk about a friend to all of the village, who had spent more time on this ceremony than anyone else, whose only aim was to bring a breath of beauty into this tiny village—the seamstress who worked only to adorn other people …

  He was talking about her.

  … One who was devoted to the daughters and mothers of rich and poor alike and who spread kindness and goodwill.

  The whole village was applauding her, under the white clouds, the blue sky. All were smiling at her. Someone, Kwan perhaps, gave her a push from behind and she stumbled forward.

  And her friend Shen was holding out a certificate for her.

  “In our day, Mrs. Chung-ma’am,” he said, “there were no schools for the likes of us, not after early childhood. So. This is a graduation certificate for you. From all your friends. It is in ‘Fashion Studies.’”

  There was applause. Mae tried to speak, and found that only fluttering sounds came out, and she saw the faces all in smiles, ranged around her, friends and enemies, cousins and non-kin alike.

  “This is unexpected,” she finally said, and they all chuckled. She looked at the high school certificate, surprised by the power it had, surprised that she still cared about her lack of education. She couldn’t read it. “I do not do fashion as a student, you know.”

  They knew well enough that she did it for money and how precariously she balanced things.

  Something stirred, like the wind in the clouds.

  “After tomorrow, you may not need a fashion expert. After tomorrow, everything changes. They will give us TV in our heads, all the knowledge we want. We can talk to the President. We can pretend to order cars from Tokyo. We’ll all be experts,” she looked at her certificate, hand-lettered, so small.

  Mae found she was angry, and her voice seemed to come from her belly, an octave lower.

  “I’m sure that it is a good thing. I am sure the people who do this think they do a good thing. They worry about us, like we were children.” Her eyes were like two hearts, pumping furiously. “We don’t have time for TV or computers. We face sun, rain, wind, sickness, and each other. It is good that they want to help us.” She wanted to shake her certificate; she wished it was one of them, who had upended everything. “But how dare they? How dare they call us have-nots?”

  2

  THE NEXT MORNING WAS THE DAY OF THE TEST.

  Mrs. Tung came calling, on the arm of her grandson Mr. Ken Kuei.

  “Granny Tung!” exclaimed Mae, delighted and alert. She was doing her laundry, and the cauldron was huge and unsteady on the kitchen brazier. Mr. Ken gracefully passed his grandmother across to Mae.

  Mrs. Tung was still in her robe and slippers, hooting to herself like an owl. “I thought I would just pop in, dear,” said Old Mrs. Tung. It was a great adventure for her to go visiting. She laughed at her daring, as Mae eased her onto a chair.

  Mr. Ken was a handsome, orderly man. “I told my grandmother about your certificate, and she wanted to see it.”

  “Oh! It is nothing, but please sit down, Mr. Ken.” Mae wanted Mr. Ken to sit. She liked his calming influence. “I meant to visit you this morning with some graduation cakes. Please have some.”

  Mr. Ken smiled and bowed slightly. “It would be delightful, but my wife is doing the laundry, and I said I would help her.”

  “Oh, perhaps
you could come and help me!” Mae joked. Mae got no help.

  Mr. Ken bowed and left.

  Mrs. Tung ran her hands over the certificate with its frame and glass.

  “It shows how we all love you,” said Old Mrs. Tung. “Read it for me, dear.”

  Mae could not read. This was embarrassing. She recited what she remembered it said:

  TO Chung Mae Wang

  CERTIFICATE OF APPRECIATION FROM THE GRADUATING CLASS OF 2020

  FOR FASHION STUDIES

  Mae had to stop. Something was swimming in her eyes. There was an area out of focus. “I think I need glasses,” said Mae.

  The blur shifted, changing size and shape like a slug. Mae’s fingers began to buzz.

  Mrs. Tung’s head was cocked to one side. “Do you hear something, dear?”

  There was a flash as if someone had taken a photograph. “Oh!” Mae said, and was thrown back onto a chair. Everything tingled—her feet, her hands, even her eyes. Worst of all, her brain tingled; she could feel it dance. The room went dim.

  “Chocolate. I smell chocolate,” cooed Old Mrs. Tung.

  Mae smelled wine, perfume, sweat, onions, rain on cobbles, scorched rice, old shoe leather. Colors danced in her eyes; green-yellow red-blue, as if color had become toffee to be stretched and mixed. And there was music—all kinds of music—as if hundreds of radios were being played at once, and a rearing-up of screeching, tinkling sounds like thousands of birds.

  “I don’t feel well,” said Old Mrs. Tung. She raised her hand to her forehead, and for Mae it seemed to open up in stages like a fan.

  “It must be this Test of theirs,” said Mae.

  “Mae, dear,” Mrs. Tung said, “I need to get home.”

  And then Mae had a sense of déjà vu, so strong that the words seemed to echo. It was not as if she had been here once before. It was as if she had always been here, and would go on being here, for ever. It was as if an image of herself had been copied in layers, off into eternity.

  Mae stood up, but the room seemed to be stuffed full of sponges. She had to fight her way forward, giddy with sensation.

  Colors, lights, stars, sounds, smells … Mae’s hand touched a skillet, or so she thought, and she yelped and jumped back. She felt silk on her cheek. A baby kissed her toes. Her fingers were plunged into paddy mud.

  Mrs. Tung rose shuddering to her feet. “Flies,” she said, and began to wave her stick.

  Pork, cheese, tomatoes, oak bark, ginger—all skittered about Mae’s tongue.

  “All these flies!” Old Mrs. Tung’s blind eyes looked wild.

  “I’m here, Granny!” said Mae, trying to sound calm. She waded her way through sight and sound. The world chattered, screeched, stank, glittered, rippled, stroked, soured, sweetened, burned. The air seemed set solid against her. Mae had to push herself from one second into the next. Time was gluing shut.

  Mrs. Tung spun around. “Ugh. Flies!” She stumbled, and tottered sideways into the brazier.

  Granny Tung!

  Everything was slow. The cauldron rolled like a world making up its mind to fall. A wash of boiling water poured over Mrs. Tung’s thighs and legs, and the cauldron toppled against her, ringing like a slow gong and knocking her off her feet. Mrs. Tung fell forward onto the ground and a steaming white sheet poured out with the chalky water and enveloped her, clinging.

  Suddenly, stillness.

  Mae panted for a moment. She had the sensation of having been fired from a gun, shot a great distance to somewhere else—

  Here.

  She jumped forward, and jostled the scalding sheet away from Mrs. Tung. The boiling water had settled into her earthen floor, turning it into steaming mud. Hopping barefoot, Mae grabbed hold of Mrs. Tung’s arms and pulled. The old woman howled. The skin of Mrs. Tung’s hands was rucked-up and red like old tomatoes.

  “I will get your grandson,” Mae said. It seemed as if hundreds of versions of Mae were speaking all at once, and would be stuck saying the same thing for ever.

  Mae ran out into the courtyard.

  A vortex of hens was running round and round in a perfect circle. All the village dogs were barking, their voices echoing from the amphitheater of the surrounding hills. In the far corner, was a lump of what Mae at first thought was Mrs. Ken’s laundry in a heap.

  Mae ran towards Mr. Ken’s kitchen.

  Something tickled the inside of her ear. A mosquito. Go away! Mae tossed her head.

  The buzzing returned, more insistent and louder. Mae remembered that once, a louse had got trapped inside her ear. I don’t need this now!

  The noise mounted to a roar. Mae had to stop, and she dug a finger in her ear, to prize it loose.

  The sound motorboated forward inside her head as if changing gears, whining and roaring at the same time.

  Nothing for it but to push on. The roar deafened Mae. It numbed her hands as she fumbled with the latch on Mr. Ken’s door.

  The Ken family—Mr. Ken, his mother, his two little girls—all sat around the table as if at a séance. They all held hands, and it seemed to Mae, because she could hear nothing, that they were all chanting in unison.

  Mr. Ken rose up at the table and mouthed at her. She began to make out what he was saying.

  “… no need for fear and alarm.”

  “Mr. Ken,” Mae began, and the noise in her head rose to an all-consuming lion’s roar …

  The two girls and Old Mrs. Ken waved her forward, nodding. Join in! they seemed to say. They all stood up and worked their mouths like fish at her.

  “Just listen to the words. Try talking along with them. You will find that will help.”

  Mae listened, and the roaring seemed to narrow into something like a line of surf breaking along a beach. She focused and there seemed to be voices, like mermaids in the waves.

  Mae started to repeat them and they suddenly came clear.

  “Imagine that your mind is a courtyard. Assign these words like livestock to a pen. They are instructions. They will be in that pen whenever you need them.”

  The roaring stopped. Mae sighed, “Oh!” with relief. Mae nodded to indicate to Ken that she got it.

  “Try to see the courtyard. You will find that you have a very clear picture of it in your head.”

  Echoing after each word, a great sigh rolled all around their house, rising and falling with Mae’s own voice. Everyone in the village was saying the same thing at once.

  Mae grabbed hold of Mr. Ken’s forearm and started to pull.

  “Can you see it? There are four pens in the courtyard, and they have signs over them. Can you see the signs? Can you read them?”

  “Mr. Ken,” cried Mae. “Your grandmother!”

  The words rocked the room like a ship at sea and Mae was nearly thrown from her feet. The unfocused motorboat sound roared again.

  Mae winced. She rejoined the chanting of the choir.

  “The signs say: ‘Help.’ ‘Information.’ ‘Airmail.’ And ‘That’s Entertainment!’”

  Mr. Ken looked quizzical. Mae signaled desperately towards her house. She saw him remember: Granny! He waved wildly to his mother and his daughter, and then turned and ran with Mae.

  Outside, all the voices of the village tolled around them like a thousand calls to prayer.

  “We call the pens and things inside them the Format.”

  The laundry in the corner of the courtyard had sat up. Mrs. Ken Tui sat with her elbows pressed tightly over her ears. Mr. Ken moved towards her. Mae pulled him and signaled, No, no—in here, in here!

  “Go to ‘Help’ when you need help using Air. ‘Info’ will tell you about everything from weather reports to what’s available in the shops.…”

  Mae dragged Mr. Ken into her kitchen. On the floor Granny Tung lay with her back arched, her hands claws of pain. Mr. Ken ran forward and slipped on the steaming mud floor.

  “‘Airmail’ is where you go to send messages to other people. Anyone, anywhere!”

  Old Mrs. Tung felt her grandson’s hands.
She looked up, her blind eyes staring, her face smeared with trails of tears. She quailed, in a thin voice, “That’s Entertainment’ is full of Air versions of your favorite films.…”

  Mr. Ken tried to pull her out of the steaming water. He touched her and she howled with pain. He winced and looked up at Mae in horror.

  “Let’s rest for just a moment. Take some time to think about the Format … and in a few moments, you’ll see what Air really can do.”

  Like the sound of a rockfall dying away, everything went still. There was the sound of wind moving in the courtyard. Was that it? Was it finished?

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Ken, she stood up and knocked the brazier—”

  “Anything to make a bandage?” Mr. Ken asked.

  “All the sheets were boiling. Everything will still be hot.”

  He nodded. “I must see to my wife. I’ll get a sheet.” He stood and left them.

  Mae knelt. “Do you hear that, Mrs. Tung? Your grandson Ken Kuei is bringing bandages.”

  Mrs. Tung seized Mae’s hand. Mae winced at the ruined flesh. “I can see,” Mrs. Tung whispered. Her blind eyes moved back and forth in unison.

  Blind Mrs. Tung said she could see, and something moved behind the curtain of the world.

  The world had always been a curtain, it seemed—one drawn shut inside Mae’s head. Now it parted.

  “Oh, God … oh, please,” said Mae. “Inshallah!”

  The village dogs began to howl again.

  The world pulled back and suddenly Mae stood in a blue courtyard. Everything was blue, even her own glowing hands. Neon signs glowed over the livestock pens. They were green, red, yellow, and mauve, and the flowing scripts were in the three languages of Karzistan and Mae knew, as if in a dream, what the words meant. In Air, Mae could read: Help, Info, Airmail.

  The voice of Air said, “Perhaps you see the Format more clearly now. This is how Air will look from now on. This is an Aircast, an image we can send out to you. It will be there whenever you need it. Let’s see what an Aircast looks like. Go into the area called ‘That’s Entertainment.’”

  Mae! Mae! said a voice, far too closely, far too intimate, as if someone were whispering in her ear. Mae, Mae—help!