Air

by Geoff Ryman

  If you are in trouble, I will help. You know that. Please call on me to help. But please, also tell me: What is this about a baby?

  By all the stars, she hadn’t told him. She had not told Kuei about his child. The room seemed suddenly colder, her cheeks burned. She could hear Siao below in the kitchen, cooking dinner for her. The metal spoon tinged against the work; Siao was humming a song.

  Mae! What are you doing?

  22

  IT WAS CHINESE NEW YEAR AND MAE WAS ALONE.

  Kwan was having a party. After everything that had happened, Mae would not attend. Why should she—to be argued at, cajoled, and entreated?

  Something was up with Siao. He had come back from the Teahouse looking distracted. He tore off the top of his thumbnail with his teeth, kissed Mae on the cheek, and told her not to worry. Then he was gone in young Mr. Pin’s car. Old Mr. Chung shuffled and shrugged and then left early, perhaps embarrassed, for a gathering of old village reprobates like himself.

  Mae had hoped at least to share some warm rice wine at New Year’s with her family, with Siao. Whenever she talked to Siao she always got good sense, she always felt secure.

  She didn’t own him; if he wanted to go off and have fun, okay. He wasn’t married, he must need a woman, and perhaps he hoped to find one.

  And, ah, Mae, that is it. That is why your hands tumble over themselves, round and round. That is why you cannot sit still. You see another woman coming into the house, and that disturbs you, but more than that, you see another woman with Siao.

  Mae? What has happened here? Sit down, Mae, and look at your hands. What do they tell you?

  They tell you want to look into his calm, honest blue-gray eyes. You want to see his smooth lean arms, with the silky skin that mixes Karzistan with China. You want to hear his deep, measured voice. You wish he were here. You wish you were with him.

  Mae put her head into her hands. Oh, Mae Mae, Mae, Mae, what is this?

  Mae stood up from the kitchen table. I want him to work with me. We work well together. He understands the things I understand. He is even better than me at selling, he is better than me at understanding what all this new stuff is for.…

  Yes, Mae, and what else?

  I want to hold him, I want to give him a home, I want to show him the respect his stupid brother never gave him. I want him to know that someone sees how smart he is, how kind, how patient. How wise.

  Oh, Mae. You are in love with your husband’s brother.

  Well, it is traditional. The husband dies, the brother can take over. But when the husband just goes off? When the husband goes off because the wife went with his next-door neighbor?

  And when she is about to have the next-door neighbor’s child?

  Oh, Mae, the knots you tie. If you were scandalous before, what will you be after this? And poor Siao, suppose he feels nothing for you but kindness? What will he feel if you declare yourself? You will be trapped together in the house, you see each other half-naked nearly every day, he has to think of his brother, he has to be neighbors with Mr. Ken … Oh, Mae, nobody needs this!

  Mae, if you go after your husband’s brother, you really will lose everything. Maybe you really have gone mad.

  But once given its proper name, the feeling would not go away.

  I love his little beard, I love the way it makes his teeth shine out when he smiles, I love the slow way he moves, I love the way he turns everything around, stands it on its head, and it makes more sense that way. My god, I love his body, I love his mind.

  When did it change? When did I notice as if in passing that he was also handsome? When did he wake up and start to speak? Or rather, when did I begin listening to him?

  Mae, leave this. You don’t like being alone, that’s all. Being alone at New Year’s is making me jealous. I do not like being the crazy lady of the village. I do not like being where I am. I am not Madam Owl, I am not Mrs. Disruption, and I wish all this would stop. I want peace, I want quiet.

  Mae went up to the loft to work. The moment she woke up the TV, it was invaded. The screen was cleared, and there was Kwan.

  “Mae,” Kwan said, her living room ghostly behind her. Mae reached forward to restart. “Please don’t go. We must talk real-time. Open other channel.”

  The picture was torn in half, and there, on her machine, uninvited and full of concern, was Fatimah, of Yeshiboz Sistemlar. “Hello, Mae,” she said.

  Mae felt herself go cold. “Fatimah, I told you once before that you would find it impossible to do good,” said Mae. “It is nothing to do with who you are. It is your job.”

  “Mae, please listen,” said Kwan. “This woman is a doctor.”

  “Nurse. She kept me prisoner.”

  Fatimah looked so sweet, made-up, groomed. Oh, she’s wearing white, that gives her the right to kill people’s children. “Mrs. Chung. There is no chance of it coming to term. It could kill you.”

  “Oh, so it is by no means certain I will die?”

  Fatimah sighed. “Not if we could get you into a hospital.”

  Kwan’s arms were folded. It was the posture she adopted whenever she struggled against other people’s stupidity. “She is trying to help save both you, Mae.”

  “Mae,” said Fatimah, sounding conciliatory, “Come to us, in a hospital, stay with us.”

  “Okay. Maybe I will go and stay in a hospital in May. Maybe the whole month. Is that good enough for you? Goodbye.”

  Mae unplugged the machine and detached the battery. The screen image collapsed as if punctured. All communication would be broken, and the invasive code disabled. She pushed the battery back in, and a fresh clear screen came up. She downloaded her written mail.

  Her machine was invaded again. The image interlaced in stages.

  “This is rude, crashing in on me like this,” said Mae.

  “You are still distributing paper,” said Kwan, fixing her eye on her. “You are still telling people, ‘No Flood just yet, but more snow and it will come.’ I had Old Mrs. Nan in here yesterday, asking if I could keep her goats in my loft.”

  “It’s the safest place for them,” said Mae. “Since no one is taking any steps to save people, maybe the goats will at least survive the flood.”

  “Why are you having the child?” Kwan demanded.

  “Why did you have yours?”

  “Do you think it’s some kind of magic sign?” Kwan demanded, still beautiful, little aging pouches of loose flesh under the determined mouth.

  Mae thrust out her jaw. “Yes,” she said. Since you phrase it that way.

  Kwan eyes widened momentarily.

  “Look, Kwan. I am doing this weather work. The weather is all tied up together. But not like we think. We think that everything that happens has a cause. That I strike with a knife and that causes a cut. But sometimes a cut happens somewhere else, too, without a cause. Sometimes things happen because the world is held together by patterns. Things that are alike. So there are signs and portents.”

  Kwan chose her words. “You believe your child is a sign.”

  “So is the Flood,” said Mae.

  Kwan looked momentarily defeated. She wilted a little and ran her hand over her forehead. “You really have been working too hard.”

  “My baby is lodged in my stomach, it will be born out of my mouth. You know why Mr. Tunch wants my baby dead? Because he thinks my child is a portent, too.”

  “Mae,” said Kwan in despair. “Listen to yourself. Please. You sound like some superstitious old woman from one hundred years ago.”

  “I am one,” said Mae.

  Kwan shook her head.

  “Everything is changing and my baby is part of everything. You know what Fatimah does? She helps makes intelligent talking dogs. One of them helped me escape. His name was Ling. How is that for Karz people, ah?—they always give their dogs Chinese names. A talking intelligent dog, and it asked, asked to be put back as a dog.”

  Kwan’s face was shaking slightly from side to side. “You really have
gone, Mae,” she sighed.

  “Who has gone? You threaten me, you break into my machine. Are you going to break down my door? Are you going to drag me off into the night?”

  Kwan did not answer. Her face said: Whatever is necessary to help you. Her words said something else. “Mae. You can believe any nonsense that you like. But you must shut up, because your nonsense is stopping the very thing you believe in most. Progress. Mae, I cannot tell people this is a good thing when you are being driven crazy.”

  “Ah, so you are not concerned about me, really.”

  Kwan scratched her hair, delicately. “I am concerned about many things, including you.”

  “So. How are you going to stop me talking? Shen couldn’t. You are so concerned about progress. Is it progress to start bossing people around, like the government? The government thinks you are nonsense, Kwan. Who saved you then?”

  “You.”

  “Then leave me alone.”

  Kwan looked very determined. “I am going to return the favor, Mae. I am not one to give up on a friend.”

  It was Kwan who cut off communication this time.

  Mae was left quaking with rage. Who was Kwan to tell her what to do? To tell her what to say, to tell her to get rid of her baby? Kwan, you have been important in the village too long, you have come to think of yourself as Head Woman.

  She read her mail.

  e-mail from: Mr. Ken Kuei

  20 February

  Dear Mae,

  Happy New Year. E-mail gets easier all the time. It reminds me of when I learned to ride a bicycle. Suddenly for no reason you can do it. I wish, though, that I had learned from you.

  Since these messages can go round the world, I thought I would send one an even greater distance. Across our courtyard.

  audio file from: Lieutenant Chung Lung

  20 February

  Tsang has left Dad. I knew trouble was coming when she started to lose weight and wear black, and took even more trouble with her grooming. She got a job with some crook of an estate developer. She would talk in front of Dad about all the opportunities he was offering her. Dinner with clients. She thought she had become a Balshang Beauty. She was always a very stupid woman. She used to be falsely fond of Dad, but at least she would praise him in front of the officers. Suddenly all that stopped. She started to say things to make Dad look like a fool, and he would sit with that hazy grin of his, looking really foolish. This drove my sister Ying crazy. She said she would not be in the same room with Tsang.

  Tsang was very bitter about me, too: “Oh, but then Asian women are not good enough for you, so you want to leave Kizuldah so far behind.” “Like you?” I said back. “Is this boss of yours married?” So finally she has gone off with her gangster and Dad is alone. He wants to come and live here with me. I can’t have him, Mama. I have to entertain officers here, it really is not possible. He came here two nights ago when the colonel was visiting with us. Dad was drunk and he was weeping and cursing Tsang, and cursing you and cursing life, and looked like a real peasant. I tried to keep him under control. I said he could stay the night if he wanted to. Sarah tried to take him into the kitchen and he threw off her hands and started calling her “a Western whore.” And he started telling me that I thought I was a big man now, but I wouldn’t when my Western wife found out I had a small cock. All this in front of my colonel. Truly awful. I know he was upset, but really, he cannot behave in this way. Neither I nor Ying has heard anything from him for two days. I will try to visit him after work today. I will let you know what happens.

  e-mail from: Mr. Bedri Eyoobogloo

  20 February

  Mae,

  Thanks for data. The attached file shows what happens when we run it against what’s happening here. You are getting more snow because it is warmer. There is more evaporation, which then falls on the higher slopes.

  We get Dragon’s Breath when an inversion over the desert is suddenly pushed south by a cold front coming down from the north. Usually this happens in summer, when the air has baked. It is usually in massive, single movements.

  We have an inversion now—it is 32 degrees Celsius in Balshang! We are getting little Dragons. Mustafa here calls them “Dragon Sneezes”—whirls of cold coming down in spiral patterns, making very hot blasts, very localized. The front itself is not moving nor the inversion. However, this is the foundation situation.

  Your data is going patchy, and that disappoints us. Your assistant Sezen is no substitute for you.

  Mae opened the attached file and entered it into her own database. She stood up and looked through her skylight. It was snowing heavily. It was so warm the flakes seemed to have cohered into lumps, almost as if someone were throwing snowballs or marshmallows.

  She told her machine, “Calculate the chances of a flood.”

  50-50 Chance of Flood

  This is the last warning I can print. I have run out of paper. Please take precautions. The map shows a map of Kizuldah, and where water and avalanches are most likely.

  If it gets hot, day or night, if you feel the Dragon’s Breath on your back, leave the west of the village. Go east and up. It is best around Kwan’s house. Now is the time to get your seed grain up in lofts; don’t wait for the flood to begin. Mrs. Tung says, when it comes, it sounds merry. The water laughs, the rocks applaud.

  If you hear that sound, get yourselves away, get yourselves away, for the love of God.

  Your friendly madwoman,

  Chung Mae

  MAE RAN WITH HER LEAFLETS TO MR. KEN’S HOUSE AND KNOCKED ON HIS DOOR.

  His mother opened it. Old Mrs. Ken glared at Mae. She was a plump, overworked woman in her sixties, sweaty, with hair astray.

  Mae did not give her a chance to speak. “The government says there is a chance of the Flood, there is cold in Russia; if it decides to move, all the pieces will fall into place, the Dragon will wake up, the snow will melt. Okay. So. If it gets hot, go up to Kwan’s. It is bad for us at this end of the village. See?”

  Mr. Ken’s mother stared at her like a stone. She took the paper Mae offered her and held it out away from her as Mae pointed to the map.

  Saying nothing, Mrs. Ken tore up the paper, calmly, neatly.

  “I will put this where it belongs,” she said.

  “I am carrying your grandchild,” said Mae, and left, having no more time to waste.

  Mae was wrestling with the courtyard gate, and heard footsteps.

  “Don’t mind Mother, she is still upset,” said Mr. Ken. His face was phosphorescent-blue from snowlight, and outlined in gold.

  “I’m used to it,” said Mae. It seemed as if Ken Kuei had stepped out of her life from many years before.

  “Can I help?” he asked.

  Mae paused. “Yes,” she said, and divided her papers in half and passed them to him. “Take these along Lower Street, that will be a big help. I will cover Upper, and I will ask Sezen to cover the Marsh. If the Flood comes, get your mother up to Kwan’s.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “I will go to the mosque, so I can use the Muerain’s speaker. Okay, thanks for helping. You go that way, I head up there.”

  Ken stood his ground. “Is the baby mine?”

  Mae thought: This is what I get for not clearing this up; I am being held up at just the wrong time. “Of course. Who else’s?”

  “Will you marry me? After the Air comes?”

  The snow fell, like fainting in reverse. White flakes, not darkness, closed from the side of her vision. Blue-and-gold light reflected on the cheeks of this beautiful faithful man.

  “Yes,” she said, and then hedged. “Probably.”

  “Probably,” he said, disappointed.

  “Move, please. Please?” Her eyes and her voice were pleading. Of course I need help with this—please help.

  Mr. Ken nodded, serious, solemn, not entirely bright, but good. He stepped out of the gate and turned up Lower Street. Mae found herself gazing at his broad, silent back. Oh God, she thought, I lo
ve him too.

  She turned and walked northeast.

  She climbed up the hill to Sezen’s house. She pounded on the door. “Sezi! Sezi! It’s me, Mae.” Hatijah opened the door, looking nervous but pleased to see her patron at New Year’s. The courtyard goat began to bleat at the disturbance.

  “Hello, Hatijah. Fifty-fifty chance of a Flood, so this is the last of my paper.”

  Sezen hopped in, pulling on a boot. “Mrs. Chung-ma’am. Are you going to Kwan’s party?”

  “No, and neither are you, just yet. You are taking these to Lower Marsh Street, okay? The Macks, the Chus, the Hans.”

  Sezen’s lip curled. “Couldn’t we let An drown?”

  “No time for jokes. I want to be back at my machine before Wing finds out I’m not there.”

  “Oh, Mae. Just one drowned traitor. Please?” Sezen pretended to wheedle like a child. Her no-good boyfriend emerged sleepily. He wore no shirt and his plump, hairless tummy wobbled.

  “Tell your boyfriend he is enough to put people off their food, and to dress himself.”

  Sezen giggled. “We’ve just been fucking.”

  “This is not a joke, Sezen!” Mae’s voice was raised in warning. “Look, the whole point of being wild is to have more style, not less.”

  Sezen swallowed her grin, embarrassed. Yes, Mae was right. “What can you expect, with my home background?”

  “Better,” replied Mae. “Move!”

  Already the warm snow had filled in her footprints. Mae struggled farther up the hill to the school, where Teacher Shen lived. She pounded on the door. Why, why did no one ever answer? She pounded again. “Yes?” inquired Suloi’s voice.

  “Suloi, please open up, just for a moment. I am so sorry to intrude.”

  The little room beside the schoolhouse was full of candlelight and smelled of wine. Suloi was all smiles, but a screen had been pulled across the entrance and behind it her husband snored.

  “Hello, Mae! Happy New Year. Are you going to the party tonight?” She wished everything was normal, she wished everyone could be friends. Mae passed her the paper in silence.

  “Oh,” said Suloi, disappointed. She looked trapped, ashamed.