Air

by Geoff Ryman

  “I must talk with you. Open this door. I want words!”

  Mae fluttered into her morning robe, her mind clearing, as if a strong wind had blown through it. She snapped the curtains shut around the alcove, and turned on the kitchen light.

  Mae shouted back: “I am coming. Who are you to be shouting so?” The kitchen was covered with unwashed pans, but betrayed no other sign of a male presence. “Patience, patience!”

  She opened the door and something was thrown in her face. It was lightweight, it fluttered, it did not hurt, but it made her turn her head. When she looked back, she was dismayed.

  It was Teacher Shen.

  His lean and handsome face was hard with tension; his eyes were wide with anger.

  Mae was temporarily undone. She had been a friend.

  Shen demanded, “What are you about? What are you trying to do?” He was beside himself.

  “I ask the same question of you. Have you gone mad, Shen, to shout at me? What is this about?”

  “You know what this is about.”

  “The TV.”

  “You. Setting up a school!”

  So that was it. This was going to be tiring, and there would be no resolution.

  “Come in,” she said wearily. Mr. Ken would be trapped in her alcove. “I was in bed, I have been at work all day.”

  “At that school.”

  “I call it a school because that’s what it is, but it is not a school-school. Everyone knows that. It is a way of teaching people.”

  He glowered at her. “Teach them to watch bad movies. Teach them that it is better to live in Beijing or Bombay or any other place than here.”

  I have made a mistake, thought Mae. I should have spoken to him, and got him to agree. This mistake will take time to undo. Her fingers were burrowed into her uncombed hair.

  “Teacher Shen. We have always been friends.”

  “Yes!” he insisted.

  “I am an impulsive person. I see something needs doing, I do it. I should have talked to you first and explained.”

  “You should not set yourself up. You let your rivalry with Sunni carry you too far.”

  Ow. That was true.

  “Teacher Shen. Do you know any thing about Info?”

  He resented that, though his expression did not change.

  “We all need to learn about it. We need to learn about it, because soon we will spend half our lives in Info. And no one, not one of us, knows a thing about it. We will all become like little children again. We will all be lost unless we learn.”

  His expression had not changed, but there was something helpless, frozen, about him. A poor peasant boy who fought and fought to learn, who gave everything to be allowed to be a Teacher.

  And he was her friend—kind Shen, wise Shen, poor Shen. She saw in his face that he feared he had lost everything. He lived in a hovel in a village on a hill; he had given his life to trying to teach the children.

  “You are right about Sunni,” she said softly. “Sunni tries to take my farm, my business. She wants to take everything I have.”

  His chin started to tremble. He knew the feeling well. “They can’t even read most of them,” he said, finally, and looked up at the ceiling. “What did you show them today?”

  “Bay Toh Vang. We heard a part of a symphony, and we had ‘Info’ on him. I knew nothing about Bay Toh Vang.”

  “They do not know their multiplication tables! And you are telling them, everything will be easy, just wish into the machine. You don’t have to work. You don’t have to learn.” Teacher Shen glared at her. “You will make slaves of them.”

  “No,” Mae said quietly. “I will do the reverse of that.”

  “Who puts Air into their heads? Who controls it? Who makes the things they see there? Do they? No. The great, huge, powerful things in the world do. You know how computers work, woman? By numbers. In the end, all those pictures, all those words, are just numbers. And these children cannot even add.”

  Shen got up to go, sick at heart and unable to bear her and what she was bringing. “Do you think any of my children went home and learned their arithmetic last night? Or were they humming the songs that Yu Op Pah wanted them to hum?” He had an old socialist hatred for the West.

  “Tell them that, Shen,” said Mae. “Tell them they must learn their numbers to control the machine.”

  “When you call up Bay Toh Vang by toggling your right ear, by calling yourself ‘Madam Owl’?” He looked hunted, destroyed, and powerless. “You talk about Sunni to get my sympathy. You have done what Sunni would do. That’s what you have done to me, Teacher Owl.”

  Shen stood up. Mae thought: I have lost a good friend.

  “I don’t want us to be enemies,” she called after him.

  He was already in the courtyard.

  She went after him. “Shen, Teacher Shen, we are on the same side! We both want the same things.” She ran across the courtyard. “Shen, please. Come to my school, use it yourself. You must find out about it, too!”

  That was of course entirely the wrong thing to say. He spun on his heel and snarled at her like a dog, baring fangs, beyond words.

  Mae stopped, her breath halted by the shock. And suddenly he was gone, down the street.

  Stumbling back into her kitchen, she saw what he had flung at her. Her leaflet, of which she had been so proud.

  Kuei was by the table, towel around his waist.

  “That sounded terrible,” he said.

  “Oh! I should have talked to him. But there wasn’t time. There never seems to be enough time!” She was near to weeping. She went to her Kuei, and leaned against him, and he put an arm around her. Her head turned around and looked at her room.

  Then she saw. She had not pulled the curtain fully shut behind her. Mr. Ken’s shoes were beside the bed, fully visible, and the pillow with two head marks. Mr. Ken had hidden behind the curtain, but the curtain had a gap on either side of it.

  Had he seen? Teacher Shen was both a friend and an enemy. Would he say anything? When and why would he say it?

  LATER THAT NIGHT, ASLEEP IN BED, MAE HEARD APPLAUSE.

  She lifted up her head. The sound came from all around the house, as if the hills were a theater thronged with people. She got up and, half asleep, stepped out her front door.

  Bam.

  Mae was shaking with terror and up to her thighs in mud in her own courtyard. She was wringing with sweat and panic. Mud and water were pouring through the open gate. Part of her had to pause to check: Yes, this is my house, my house in a flood.

  Everything else in her danced—fingers, knees, bladder. For some reason her first thought was for Ken Kuei’s mother.

  Somehow this Mae was carrying a flashlight. She shone light across the courtyard at the battened windows and the closed doorway. Mae had to fight through the mud towards Mr. Ken’s house. The mud was a heavy, slow evil, and there were sharp rocks inside it. What … when?

  Flood, said a voice. It was Old Mrs. Tung.

  Mae could see shelves of water moving over the surface of the mud, each one a millimeter deeper than the last.

  I told you there would be a food.

  “Mrs. Ken!” Mae called again. If there were no one left in the old house, she would run. Where was Mr. Ken? Where was anyone?

  Behind her, outside, she heard the entire hillside move.

  “The terraces are going!” Mae screeched.

  Then she dropped back again, to some version of now. Sweat trickled from her, and she knew she had seen the future.

  The Flood was coming again.

  10

  SUNNI HIRED A MINIBUS WITH ROWS OF SEATS TO TAKE HER CUSTOMERS TO GREEN VALLEY CITY.

  Mae was in her terraces working and saw the van drive out of the village. It stopped on the road below her.

  Mae’s eyes were sharp. So were Sunni’s. Sunni leaned out of the window and stared up at Mae over the top of sunglasses. Sunni’s hair was perfect under a blue scarf. She said something. Inside the van, Mrs. Ali
looked around Sunni to see Madame Owl at work in her fields. Mrs. Nan, Miss Ping … all peered up at her.

  This is stupid, thought Mae. She keeps trying to poop on me in such tiny ways.

  Mae grinned and smiled and waved as if at friends. She felt like turning and pointing her ass at them. Did they really take such delight in knowing that she had to work?

  Mrs. Ali said something and patted Sunni on the shoulder. Having exposed Madam Death as a mere peasant, the van of the other party drove off towards the City.

  Mae found she really didn’t care. She chuckled and went back to work. Her hills were beautiful.

  Her husband had found work; whatever happened, she would have some kind of business; her school was a success. Joe would come home, and then, perhaps like childbirth or mourning, the thing with Mr. Ken would have to end.

  The rice whispered in the wind as it had done for two thousand years. At times the world seemed good and at peace and happy. Mae knew this was only a respite, for life was a constant struggle. Bird eats worm, bird has its eggs, and those eggs are eaten. The rice is beautiful and then cut down. People melt into the earth while yearning for the sky.

  In the afternoon, Mae taught her school. At sunset, walking home from teaching the children, Mae saw a van come jostling up Lower Street.

  Oh, this is Sunni’s circus, she thought. Well, I can wave just as prettily again.

  The van squealed to a halt at the tight corner. The driver did not know the road. The sunset light made everything look golden, but his van actually was a beautiful flaked metallic gold.

  “Excuse me,” said the driver. Balshang face, Balshang accent. “Can you tell me where lives Mr. Wing?”

  Mae thought quickly. “Yes indeed, but it will be easier if I show you. May I?”

  The man’s face did not change. For a moment, he Was silent, and then said, “Please.” He pushed open the door for her.

  The back of the van was jammed with tools, books, a suitcase, and a hastily rolled-up blue tent. The metal pegs had earth jammed into their grooves.

  He asked her, “How soon to harvest here?” He was young—very young indeed, to own such a fine van. He was incredibly skinny. The biggest thing about him was his hair: young, thick, springy, and forced under a hat. It was a completely useless hat. It was soft and khaki-green and had no brim. It would not keep off the sun, but it would make the head hot. He wore tiny glasses and smiled benignly. There was a gentle air about him that made Mae want to warn him: Be careful where you choose to sleep alone in that tent.

  “It is just under a month,” said Mae. “The men will be back soon.”

  “They try to find work. Ah,” he said. His mouth jerked in a strange downward motion.

  The van revved up the sudden steep slope towards Mr. Wing’s house. “Why—is there a problem with work?” Mae asked.

  “Huh,” said the man. It was a kind of a laugh. “Haven’t you heard?”

  “We get no news up here,” said Mae.

  “Ho. Just that there is none. The entire country is moving, looking for work.”

  He eased the van into Mr. Wing’s courtyard. Dashboard lights flashed and he flipped something off and swung himself out of the van. Mae followed. He stood, hands on hips, regarding the house.

  “These old mountain houses are very fine,” he said. “It is lovely to be so cool. Mr. Wing keeps his television outside?”

  “That is so the village can use it. I teach on it.”

  He turned. He was very young, but with a crease down either side of his mouth that only skinny men get. “What do you teach?”

  “How to use the TV. What Air will be like. I call it Swallow School. So people can fly in the Air.”

  “Hmm,” he said. “What’s your name?”

  “Mae,” she said.

  “No,” he said. “Your full name.” He paused. “I’m from the government.” He seemed to think this would reassure her.

  Mae did not answer. “There is Mrs. Wing.”

  Kwan was coming down her steps, a question on her face.

  “He’s from the government,” warned Mae, wincing.

  “Mrs. Wing? Is your husband here?” the man asked.

  “My husband is visiting his many farms, to see how things progress,” said Kwan.

  “I…” he began and thought better of it. I did not expect an Eloi, is what he wanted to say. “I am from the Central Bureau of Information Technology,” he announced. “We are very concerned to see how the Test went.”

  Kwan maintained a faultless exterior. “That was some months ago.”

  “Yes. There are many villages. I am visiting them all, to inspect the damage, and to help prepare people for what is coming next year.”

  “We are doing that for ourselves,” said Mrs. Kwan. She inclined her head towards Mae. “Mae has been helping us all.”

  “So I hear,” said the Central Man. He beamed and nodded approval. “It is not so in other places.”

  “It is so here,” said Kwan.

  “Good. And your TV. It works well?”

  “Oh, very well,” said Kwan, not sounding like herself at all. Her smile stiffened and her eyes glistened with meaning at Mae. She wants him away from her TV, thought Mae.

  “Good. The Central Bureau of Information Technology gave him a grant, no?”

  Kwan fluttered. “I am afraid I know nothing of my husband’s business.”

  Mae changed the subject as if it were a rug under his feet. “Do you need a place to stay? You see, my neighbor has spare rooms now. You could park your van in my courtyard.”

  Kwan waved another flag of distraction at him. “Oh yes, poor Mr. Ken. You might like to talk to him. It is so sad. His wife was driven mad by the Test and drowned herself, and his grandmother died of shock.”

  The Central Man looked stricken. He shook his head. “Such foolishness,” he said.

  “We are not educated people,” said Kwan, casting her eyes down.

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said. “I mean it was foolish to have that Test.”

  A Central Man, saying the government was wrong? Either he was young and foolish, or very dangerous. Kwan and Mae exchanged further anxious glances.

  The Central Man looked pained. “Were … I am sorry to have to ask, Mrs. Wing-ma’am: Did anyone else in this village die in the Test?”

  “No, no, those were the only people.”

  “Such a terrible thing, two in one house.”

  Kwan’s eyes were on Mae’s again.

  Child voices sounded outside the gate, whispering with wonder. Mae said, “Sir, the children have seen your van. If you want to drive anywhere, we’d better go now.”

  The truth of it made Kwan and Mae laugh, as water does on a skillet. “She’s right,” said Kwan.

  The Central Man made the same, embarrassed-looking downward jerk of the mouth. He nodded, put on his useless hat again, and said, “May I come back to talk to you tonight?”

  “Of course,” Kwan replied. “But it is Mae you really need to talk to.”

  “Ah,” said Mae. “The rough little monkeys have seen us.” Dawn and Zaynab peered grinning out at them from behind the gate, and the Pins crowded behind them.

  “Oops,” the man said, and broke into an ungainly hobble.

  As the van bumped back down Lower Street, the perfect thing happened.

  Sunni and her busload heaved up over the hill into the little square. The Central Man swerved his golden car to miss them.

  Mae stuck her head out the window and grinned and waved. Ms. Haseem, Mrs. Ali, Miss Ping: Their faces fell to see Chung Mae in a golden car of her own. “Hello! Hello!” she called, smiling and nodding.

  The Central Man was grinning, too.

  “So those are the opposition, are they?”

  Mae felt endangered. “What do you mean?”

  He changed gear and his van inched forward. “Oh. The Test has created much trouble in villages like this one. You’ll have to tell me where to drive.”

  How
about back to Balshang? Mae thought to herself.

  THE GOVERNMENT VAN FIT NEATLY THROUGH THE GATE OF MAE’S COURTYARD.

  Mr. Ken’s hens scattered, the dog started to bark, and his youngest daughter came running out to stare at the golden van.

  Old Mrs. Ken emerged, wiping her hands.

  Mae bowed to her lover’s mother. She exchanged formulaic greetings and then Mae explained: This gentleman needs a spare room. Old Mrs. Ken looked doubtful.

  Then the Central Man said, “I can pay you five riels a night.”

  Mae was dumbfounded. My God, I could have paid back the interest on the loan!

  Mae had to endure Old Mrs. Ken’s sunburst of a smile. She bowed and bowed again to Mae, delighted at receiving such bounty from a neighbor. “It will be an honor and privilege!” she exclaimed. “It will bring happiness into our house again. Dear Mrs. Chung, you think of your neighbors too much, you are too kind. Oh, no, sir, let us carry your things. Kuei! Kuei!” She called her son’s name.

  Ken Kuei emerged, having just bathed. He puts the city man to shame, thought Mae, as Mr. Ken lifted up the Central Man’s case. Kuei was round like ripe fruit; the Central Man was like stricken bushes on a plain.

  The Central Man said, “Mrs. Chung, I must talk to you some more, once I am settled in.”

  “Of course,” said Mae.

  Her house was dark inside. She drank water, ate cold rice, and felt suddenly alone. It was strange having Old Mrs. Ken smile on her. If Kuei’s mother had known the truth, she would have beaten her breast and called down scandal from the village all around.

  The thought was as cold as the rice, as the silence: how am I going to find my way out of all of this?

  And then the government spy came back in.

  “Excuse me,” he said.

  “You are the government,” she said, and shrugged, meaning, How am I to stop the government? His golden vehicle was the color of sunlight through her one tiny window. Poverty was shabby around her shoulders, like a moth-eaten shawl.

  “I’m not the government,” he said. “Well … I come from it, but we are all Karzistanis. We care for our country. May I?”

  He indicated a chair. What would you say, Central Man, if I denied the chair to you? Probably, Mae decided, nothing.