Air

by Geoff Ryman

  “You won’t believe what Air does. In Air, they don’t just give you TV shows. In Air Krus come and give you their whole head. Their wisdom enters you; you can use it like it was your own brain. In Air, children will become wiser than adults. They will have parts of wise adults in their heads. I know this because I have shared this. I have had a great Kru in my head, telling me about Mat Unrolling.

  “In New York people are already sharing their wisdom, their dreams in one pool. It becomes like another person that everyone can use. They call this Collabo. They have Collabo clubs, where everyone dances to everyone else’s music. All of this, all of this will be on us next year. And half of us have never made a telephone call! That is why we must move. That is why we must learn now!”

  Her hand had become a fist, and she shook it. Mr. Ken sat in his chair as if it were accelerating too quickly.

  Sunni came to Mae’s first afternoon lesson. She wore a black gown with gold leaf, and a floating chiffon scarf, and she was pink and white, and her hair was in a glossy sweep. Her nails were painted, her shoes were white.

  She made Mae look as if she had come direct from the fields. Who was more of a fashion expert now?

  Sunni’s face was a mask of a smile, and she gazed at each of the women, and gave them a nod.

  “I assume it is all right for me to come as well, Mrs. Wing-ma’am.” She did not even look at Mae.

  Kwan smiled and said that all were welcome. “Mae is doing helpful work for all of us.”

  Sunni sauntered among the rows of cushions, nodding gracefully to each of the women. “I will be round later with the fabric I promised you.” She folded herself neatly onto a cushion and sat next to her ally, Mrs. Ali. Elegant, dignified, they gazed about them as if from a great height.

  Sezen showed up with her boyfriend, to whom Mae took an instant dislike. His face was frozen into a sneer and there was a tattoo on his neck. Mae had Sezen’s notebook ready to give back to her. “I’ll talk to you about it later,” said Mae, and Sezen, for no very good reason, turned to her boyfriend with her mouth open as if aghast at bad behavior.

  More women came in clumps of friends, chattering and laughing. Mrs. Mack came alone. All the Pins came together. Mae’s sister Soong Se came with Ju-mei’s wife, who had been born a Soong. As they arrived, misgiving-doubts, overtook Mae. Could she really talk to so many people?

  Mae was torn between different impulses: one towards elegance, one towards directness.

  “Hello. I am very pleased to see you all here.”

  The women murmured hello back. Exactly as if they were in school and Mae was teacher. This surprised her, made her shy, made her retreat into peasant bluntness.

  She tried to start as she had started with Mr. Ken, but it came out muted and flat. “When we go on Air, this is what they all know. So we need to know it too, to keep up with them, okay?”

  The TV would not go on. Mae realized that the TV had always been on when she arrived. Here she was, a teacher, and she could not switch it on.

  “It’s asleep,” said Kwan. The ladies laughed, not knowing that it was an actual word.

  “Wake,” said Mae, shyly.

  Up came the five pens of Air.

  Mae felt Sunni behind her, looking for every mistake. “What the Test did is change everybody’s mind. It made the inside of your head look like the inside of a TV.”

  Mae was taken aback when the women laughed again. “So. You have these five pens inside your head now. Air imitates TV. So learning how to use the TV will help learning how to use the Air.”

  “I use it to breathe,” said Mrs. Ali. She was looking in a conspiratorial way at Mrs. Sunni-ma’am. More chuckles.

  They wanted this to be jolly, like a ladies’ tea party. Mae found she was too shy in front of so many people to be relaxed enough for that. She was exposed to an enemy who had perhaps brought allies.

  “Now you will also use it to think,” Mae said to Mrs. Ali. It sounded like a rebuke. Sezen’s boyfriend gave an ugly squawk, and he whispered something rude that made Sezen giggle and hiss at him to be quiet. Sunni’s eyes were on Mrs. Ali, and very slightly she shook her head.

  Mae pointed to the screen, which was showing the familiar Air Format. “You will see that you already know how Air works.”

  “Oh good, we can go now,” said Sezen’s boyfriend. Sezen hid her mouth and laughed.

  “Each of these four areas contains different things. The section called ‘Help’ is the one we cover today, because this where information about ‘Info’ is kept. Open ‘Help.’

  Up came a list of options. Mae could not read it, but she knew it by heart. “This shows all the things the television can do, how to make the TV work, how to find things that we want to know, what to do when things do not work.”

  Mae turned to them. “Is there something any of you want to know?” They sat. Sunni sat looking down at her new dress, adjusting the scarf into a perfect position.

  “Mrs. Haseem-ma’am, perhaps you would like to learn how to print a leaflet.”

  “I have already printed a leaflet,” replied Sunni, her face a mask of a Smile.

  “Good, then we need not do that,” said Mae. Her eyes said: That is what I wanted; you will not learn it from me.

  Mae wanted to humiliate Sunni in public. Her gut moved her forward. “There are many things the TV can do. Perhaps I can show you how to use it to design special clothes in a special way. Sezen? May I use your drawings?”

  Sezen sat up and blinked. “Uh. Ah. Okay?” Her boyfriend laughed at her, and she hit him. Mae trotted forward, feeling short-legged, and took the notebook.

  “Scan,” Mae said, and held up the book in front of the little camera eye sitting on top of the TV. It took a moment. “If this was an egg, I would now go and wash the bowls and come back later.” The homely touch made most of her audience laugh.

  Then Mae pulled the camera around. “Now, please scan Mrs. Haseem-ma’am.

  The audience was onscreen, and Mae touched the screen image of Mrs. Haseem, to select her.

  “You see, we live in new ways already. Sezen has been looking at new kinds of clothes for modern people. What the TV can do is show us what such clothes will look like on real people. So they can see themselves if the fashion suits them. We will show modern fashion on Mrs. Haseem.”

  The young people spurted laughter. Mae had seen a department store in Tokyo do this. If they could, she could.

  The machine whirred. Kwan’s face was held still, but its smile was spreading. Slowly.

  “What the machine is doing is building an image of Mrs. Sunni-ma’am. This image will be complete and can do many things. Though it might take some time to make.” She glanced at the screen. The TV whirred to itself.

  Mae was stuck for something to say. “So. Let’s start to make our new clothes for new people.” She murmured to the TV, “Multitask.” The machine did not understand. “Multitask,” Mae said again.

  Sunni raised her voice, very slightly: “Not everybody follows your orders, Mae.”

  “Indeed not, Mrs. Haseem-ma’am. I am not in a position to give orders.”

  A new window opened with the image of Sezen’s jacket. Mae told the machine it was to be a jacket and Sunni’s size, which she knew from ordering her dresses. Mae called up textures, she called up colors.

  “Oh!” gasped Mrs. Pin, as the drawing of the jacket suddenly inflated into something that looked almost real.

  Mae stuck in the knife and twisted. “The advantage is that you do not need to visit the City to see fashion. You do not need to have Talents come and visit to parade clothes that look good on them. You can see what clothes look like on you.”

  “It might have been better manners,” said Sunni, looking pained. “To try it on yourself.”

  Mae sniffed. “I have just come from working in fields. I no longer care what I wear.”

  She started on the jeans. Black jeans with handcuffs at the belt.

  “Every business will have to change.
Even farming, even water, all of it will change because of ‘Info.’ That is why I want you to be ready.”

  The jeans were made, in Sunni’s size.

  “A different hairstyle for you, Mrs. Sunni-ma’am?”

  Beautiful, spiky, cropped, slicked.

  “We can give you a whole new look.”

  Mae went back to the newly computed image of Sunni. You could paste on the designs, and the person could stand up and turn and see the clothes as if they really wore them.

  Mae did not know the command. She knew how to paste images, but the images were flat and dead.

  The command she needed was an English word. Mae could not remember it. She searched her Air-scarred mind. She felt what she called the root, the thing that was reached back into Air. “What is the thing I need?” she demanded.

  The whisper was slight, as slight as the moment when you remember. Mae saw a sign that looked like it was made of red and yellow blocks: 3-D. Mae remembered the funny seesaw sound of English. She really did not know if this was going to work, but if it did, the village would talk about nothing else.

  “Tree dee com poo tay shon.”

  Pause.

  The screen went dark. Mae heard, very faintly, a grinding, she heard the sound of wind. Please, wind, please air, please sky, I am of the earth. Help me.

  Pink, said the lines of the screen, awakening.

  Sezen roared. She stood up and covered her mouth and hopped up and down, beset by hilarity, hope, all manner of feelings, including hatred of the rich:

  For, on the screen, Mrs. Haseem-ma’am was sitting on her chair, dressed as Sezen had dreamed. Spiky hair, black leather, black jeans, everything black. Mrs. Haseem looked down in shame, she tried to look up in pity. She saw herself as too old, too plump, squeezed into jeans, and looking like a drug dealer.

  “I use to clothes to flatter friends, not to make fun of people,” Sunni said.

  Bad Girl Sunni said it, too, an echo on the screen. She stood up with maximum dignity.

  Onscreen, the effect was hilarious, for she walked off like a fashion model on a catwalk, as in a video. She looked proud to be Bad Girl Sunni.

  Mrs. Pin and Mrs. Doh grinned, eyes goggling, pleased at her defeat.

  Mrs. Ali stood up suddenly, straight and fierce, and walked off to join Mrs. Haseem. So I know who my friends are, thought Mae.

  And I am somewhat in Sezen s debt.

  “Now,” she said, “for those who are left: Let’s go back to looking at this thing.”

  IN THE AFTERNOON, THE CHILDREN CAME TO THE SWALLOW SCHOOL.

  Their clothes were ragged, their stripy T-shirts brown with age and dust. They clutched notebooks to their chests.

  “We want to see the games!” they chorused.

  Mae remembered Teacher Shen. “I think we had better look at education,” she said.

  She saw a little girl called Dawn wince. “It’s not so bad, Dawn,” said Mae. “‘Education,’” Mae told the machine.

  And an owl flew onto the screen.

  Maybe an owl meant education in America, but in Karzistan owls were birds of death, not of wisdom. This owl wore glasses, which was especially terrifying. The children went silent.

  “Hiya!” It began to parrot and prance.

  Dawn covered her eyes.

  “See? It’s a friendly owl,” Mae said. It began to recite all the options. “It can help you with school work.”

  The children stayed silent, but became accepting. They accepted it might be useful to know this, and none of them had opened up the owl before.

  “Call me ‘Owl,’” said Mae.

  The children giggled, nervously.

  “I am old. I am wise. I am friendly. You call on me, and I will help you.”

  “Ow-ow-ow-owll-1” wheedled Dawn, twisting in her chair, and they all broke into giggles. It was extremely rude to call an adult “Owl.” Mae let them laugh.

  Mae decided to show them a symphony from Paris. There was more than one of them. A list of choices offered things Mae had never heard of. “Explain,” she said.

  The television spoke. They were names of people who had made music.

  “Who is Bay Toh Vang?” she asked.

  And the television told them about the man, his life, and a world that was unfamiliar, strange, gone. The world was a big place, and history made it even bigger, showing different worlds at different times. It was like looking down a huge chasm. Mae even felt a bit dizzy.

  The children wanted to see a nest of singing Talents called the Pink and Gold Girls instead. Up they came, breasts sparkled with sequins, but with positive messages about learning being “the Way” for both boys and girls.

  Mae found Hindu raga, and Indian musical movies; she showed them Muslim music from the Arab league. Half her audience sat forward, for they yearned with all their hearts for a Muslim world.

  She showed them Puccini. A voice explained that opera was about love and action, stabbings and vows and disguises. Mae showed them Collabo from New York, the music from a hundred American minds pouring into one mix. It bounced jagged, strange, brave, bold, stupid, smart.

  The children of Karzistan saw the careless faces of New York and they saw themselves. Dawn leaned forward wide-eyed, the light of the future dancing in her eyes. When they left, they made a sound Mae had not heard before. Thirty children left talking, as loudly and seriously as adults.

  When Mae got back home, she found that Mr. Ken had cooked her a meal. He stood, slim and broad at the same time, wearing an apron and grinning at himself.

  “What are you doing? What? What?” she asked.

  “I cook for you,” he said, pleased. God, he was beautiful.

  “That is my job.” She was chuckling.

  “Oh! And you’ve been working. Sit. Tea is made. Then we eat.”

  Mae looked at her good man. Sometimes life was a miracle. Sometimes you found a good man to love you. Sometimes he lived next door. The only foolishness was to expect it.

  Mae took off her field hat, and gave Ken Kuei a kiss. Looking at his face, Mae thought: No, true foolishness would be not to know it when you got it—and take it.

  “Noodles and pig bowel,” he said, proudly, of his supper.

  The size, the beauty, the miracle of the world. Fields of butterflies, thousand-year-old fields, children’s faces, drifting clouds of life.

  Mae dropped down onto a chair, and took her bowl of tea. Under her arm, she still had Sezen’s notebook. Mae opened it again. She saw the immaculate clothes, the lean hard faces, sheet after sheet, one dream after another.

  All clean, all hard, getting darker, meaner, and angrier.

  Amid all that filth, she dreams of this, with that useless mother, the dirty babies. No wonder she is angry. Angry and hard as nails, and she wants, and she wants. Mae recognized that hunger. It was Info Lust.

  The thought came as simply as the bursting of a bubble. Sezen wants me as a mother. How touching do I find that?

  I am going to have to do something different, now that Sunni takes half my business. Do I say yes to Sezen, and do these bad-girl best clothes?

  The food arrived, borne by beautiful arms, crowned by a beautiful smile.

  Bubbling up from inside her came a chuckle. She pulled him to her and kissed his shirt with its slightly rounded belly. “Where is your mother? Where are your children?”

  “Didn’t you hear? No, you were gone this morning, working as always. They are all visiting the other grandparents.” He smiled. “We are truly alone.”

  “Oh!” Her voice trailed away in delight.

  After supper, in the alley between the houses, Mae stood nude before him.

  Kuei poured cold delicious water over her. He soaped her, washing her back. She poured water over him, and washed him. Then, soapy and nude, they made love. She had never even dreamed of doing this with a man. Kuei knelt and with a gentle, puppy-dog lapping, kissed her mostsecret places. It was animal, doglike. A year before, shame would have overcome her. Instead she
felt as though another layer of clothing had been flung free.

  Mae held herself even more open for him, and soft, warm, wet, he explored her. And she saw the swollen head of his penis, round and the color of a peach, and she knelt then, and ate. “Oh, I am sorry,” he gasped, and the fruit burst in her mouth, and the strongest possible taste of masculinity pumped into her. He pulled her to her feet and most shocking of all, he plunged both of them into a kiss. He poured water over them, cooling, purifying. And it was her turn to crumple in the middle, and she pressed the back of her own hand against herself, as if to quell the trembling. He kissed her cheek, and stepped out to dry himself. She looked down and saw her hand was bloody.

  She was menstruating. She poured water over it.

  She explained she had not known. She was worried; some men were terrified that menstrual blood would weaken them.

  “Then we both have the most each other has to give,” he said, and kissed her again, and she went wet again, and they made love again, this time more conventionally. I have blood and semen inside my belly, she thought. They washed again, the water like a cool, loving tongue of some creature that cared for both of them.

  Dust, stickiness, their everyday selves were all washed away. Both of them tumbled into bed, darkness settling over their minds like night.

  “Kuei,” she whispered. Finally, she had called him by his first name.

  THEY WERE AWAKENED BY A POUNDING ON THE DOOR.

  A man was calling her name in rage.

  “Joe!” gasped Mae.

  Kuei was naked beside her in bed, and his clothes were in the small shed with the drain. Between the drawn curtains it was night.

  “Stay here!” she whispered, pleading.

  “Mae! Chung Mae!” someone bellowed.

  Could it be that it was not Joe? Her heart shuddered. Anyone else would be a relief.