Air

by Geoff Ryman

  “I’m not saying necessarily, only fifty-fifty.”

  Suloi looked sad. “Are you going to everyone in the village with this?”

  “Of course,” said Mae. “What do you think, that I would leave anyone out?”

  “I know you mean well, Mae.” Suloi sighed. “Mae, you know what people used to do to eldritch women?”

  “Cast them out,” said Mae.

  “Into the snow,” said Suloi.

  “Unless they told the truth,” said Mae. “I must go.”

  “Happy New Year,” Suloi said quietly, and went back to her snoring husband.

  Mae trooped down the hill to the first house on Upper Street.

  The Okans were an old couple, all their children and grandchildren had moved to town. They were delighted to receive company. “Happy New Year,” they chorused, and hobbled forward with the warm wine they were not sharing with anyone.

  “This is so kind,” Madam Okan said toothlessly, under her best colored headscarf.

  Mae did not have the heart to make them feel deserted at the New Year, so she sat with them and sipped the warm wine and itched to be away throughout, sitting up straight on the diwan.

  “She sits so prettily,” said Mrs. Okan.

  “Relax, sit back, drink with us!” said Mr. Okan. “Allah forgives on this day, and besides, it is not made from grape, eh?” He winked, his skin like old stained leather shrunk onto bones.

  They began to talk about children, grandchildren, even great-grandchildren. Photographs, a tumble of babies, and babies who now sat babies of their own on their laps.

  “If…” began Mae, “if you hear a funny noise tonight—”

  “Oh! New Year’s. We don’t mind the noise.”

  “There could be a Flood,” Mae said. “If there is a Flood, you need to get to Kwan’s.”

  Their smiles faded, they grew confused. Mae tried to explain. Mrs. Okan’s heart plainly sank. Mae had not come to be social; she had come because there was some kind of trouble. It was good when someone came because there was trouble, but even nicer when someone came to have fun. They nodded, and tried to smile. But their little glasses were lowered. Mae felt awful for them.

  “How are we to get to Mr. Wing’s?” said Mr. Okan, smiling with a shrug. “I can only shuffle.” He moved his slippered feet back and forth and his wife of fifty years chuckled and put a hand on his arm.

  How, indeed?

  “I have to go,” said Mae.

  At the door, the Okans chorused, “How nice to see you, Happy New Year!” On impulse, Mae leaned forward and kissed them both.

  “Oh-ho,” Mr. Okan joked. “I have a new girlfriend!”

  Next door was Mr. and Mrs. Ali.

  Mrs. Ali opened the door, looking sour.

  “You know why I have come,” said Mae, and passed one of her papers.

  “I fear I do,” said Mrs. Ali, Sunni’s old ally. “Is that all you have to say to me?”

  “Happy New Year,” said Mae. “Say hello to Sunni for me.”

  Ali will be off to the others like lightning. I know that, but it would be wrong to leave anyone out.

  Next door, the Dohs were having a party.

  “Ah! Madam Owl!” called out Mrs. Doh, red-faced and friendly. “Hello!” She took Mae’s hand and pulled her inside. Her house was full of people—her large family, the Lings, the Soongs, and the Pings.

  “Our favorite madwoman!” said Mrs. Doh, and crumpled a paper hat onto Mae’s head. “Oh, look, another piece of paper from our Mae!”

  “You just stop work and get drunk like us,” said Young Mr. Doh, and thrust some rice wine into her hand.

  The radiocassette was on, and the younger people were dancing. Young Miss Doh wiggled up, took all of Mae’s papers from her, and made her join the dancing circle.

  Mae danced, and calculated. This party had saved her having to visit three other houses. She warned Young Miss Doh, who was pressed next to her in the circle. “The main danger on Upper Street will be rocks falling from the terraces. Houses like yours will take the full force of them. You must leave everything.”

  “Stop!” said Young Miss Doh. “Have fun! Life is short!”

  Mae allowed herself one dance. Then she cut everything off with a nod of her head, got her papers back, and left.

  Mae climbed up and over the steep arch of their bridge. The next house belonged to Hasan Muhammed. Mae swallowed hard and knocked on his door.

  It was answered promptly. Tsang’s deserted husband stood, clean, pressed, and proud. He carried his young son in his arms.

  “Yes?” he asked, his head held back, away, as if from a bad odor.

  “Mr. Muhammed-sir, I am sorry to intrude. Just in case.” Mae held out a paper towards him.

  He didn’t take it. He pondered her for a moment, and then shifted his child to the other arm. “I already have everything in the loft,” he said, entirely serious. “When it comes, we shall all go directly to the house of Mr. Wing, me and my children.”

  Someone believed her.

  “You are well prepared,” said Mae. She took hold of the little boy’s foot and held it.

  “Bad things happen,” said Mr. Muhammed. “As both of us know too well.”

  “Keep an ear listening. Happy New Year!”

  He merely nodded, and closed the door.

  “Thank you, Mr. Muhammed!” she added, facing the blank door.

  She turned and began to walk up towards the Atakoloos’. As she came around the corner of her brother’s house, she came upon a group of people struggling up Lower Street.

  “There she is,” said Kwan.

  A flashlight darted over Mae’s face, making her squint. The Wings, Sunni, and Mr. Haseem strode towards her.

  “Mae,” said Mr. Wing. “This has got to stop.” They all wore waterproofs. Kwan—neat, slim, and in black—was in front of them, all with papers in hand.

  “We mean it, Mae.”

  “Are those my papers?” Mae demanded. Kwan was nearly up to her. “Are those my papers?”

  “You are not going to make a fool of yourself on New Year’s. Now, give me the rest.”

  Mae felt fury. “You give me that paper. Who said you could have that paper?”

  “We took it from Sezen, if you must know. She spat at us, but I expect no better from her. Give us the paper, Mae.”

  “It is not your paper, it is my paper.”

  Kwan nodded over her shoulder. “I am sorry, Mae, you can’t go around spoiling everyone’s New Year with these fantasies.”

  Sunni, hiding behind Kwan, said over her shoulder, “Mae: You are a traitor to yourself with this foolishness.”

  Wing and Haseem came towards her.

  “You keep your hands off me,” Mae warned.

  Kwan shook her head. “I am sorry it has come to this, Mae, but the madness must stop.”

  “We are friends no longer,” warned Mae again.

  “That is your choice.”

  Mae was hugging her leaflets, the last of her papers, to her breast. Wing already had grasped them. “Come on, Mae, don’t make it worse,” said Wing.

  “Your friendly madwoman,” chuckled Mr. Haseem.

  “Please, Mae,” Sunni wheedled.

  “I have no friends,” said Mae in a small voice, jerking away from Mr. Wing.

  Mr. Haseem took her arms. Mae doubled over, to clench the papers to herself. Fire burned in her belly. Wing reached around her.

  “This really is getting us nowhere,” Mr. Wing said, still neat, still smiling.

  Mae began to yell. “They are stealing from me! They are robbing me! Thieves! Help!”

  The paper was shiny so that messages could be burned cheaply onto it. It was slippery, and it began to slide now.

  “Sezen! Ju-mei! Siao! Help! Ju-mei!”

  Fire shot out of her, fire like Dragon’s Breath, and she turned and let them have it. Fiery juices shot out of her burning stomach and over Mr. Haseem’s face.

  “Ah!” he yelped, and backed
way. “God! She spat at me.”

  “Mae,” said Kwan, rolling her eyes, shaking her head. She looked at Sunni. “She just gets worse.”

  “Her and Sezen,” Sunni shrugged.

  “It burns. It really burns!” yelped Sunni’s husband. The acids gnawed at his skin.

  And Mae froze, for she was indeed beginning to believe in sympathetic magic.

  Dragon’s Breath.

  Oh God, what if I’ve helped it happen?

  Suddenly Wing was shaking her. “Mae! Enough!” He got the papers.

  “There is a fifty-fifty chance,” said Mae, in a weak voice. “I’m not saying it must happen. I’m saying it could. I’m saying we must be prepared.”

  Kwan looked at her with something like sympathy. “I’m sorry, Mae. If you feel like coming to the party later, you will be very welcome.”

  “She must be like a nuclear furnace inside!” said Mr. Haseem, wiping his face with a handkerchief.

  “I’m trying to digest my baby,” said Mae, a little stupid from everything that had happened.

  They left her.

  She listened to the falling snow.

  The front door of the Wangs’ house opened. In the warm light stood her brother Ju-mei. “Mae, what is going on?” he asked.

  “Oh, Ju-mei! They have taken the last of my papers! And there is a good chance of a Flood.”

  “Come in—come and get warm,” he said. He gave her rice wine. He had a new little clock of which he was very proud. Mae relented, and toasted the New Year as her brother’s prosperous little clock chimed.

  She ignored the sounds of a party at Kwan’s, and very slightly tipsy went back down Lower Street. Maybe it won’t happen. There’s a good chance it won’t happen, she thought.

  She got home. Siao was still not there. She pulled herself up into her loft and dragged a heavy trunk over the trapdoor. She opened up the connection.

  More mail.

  audio file from: Lieutenant Chung Lung

  21 February

  So what has happened now is even worse. I think Dad has gone back to you. I went to his room, and he was not there. Mum, Balshang is a mess, the place has roads and pipes for a million people, and no one knows how many have come here, between nine and sixteen million. I had not seen his place before. Mum, there was a lagoon of sewage behind it. All his things were gone. There was no sign of breakfast, just one very old dirty plate with hard food on it. That may mean he has been gone some days. He has no money, so must be hitching. He may think he will be able to get back to you through the snow. He is beside himself with despair. I don’t think he even cares about getting through the snow. I think right now he probably wants to die. I thought I should warn you. If he turns up here with me or my sister, I will let you know. Try under the circumstances to have a good New Year.

  What else? thought Mae.

  Her spirits and her body sagged. What else can possibly happen? She turned off her machine. She pulled out the mattress and lay it on the plywood sheet that rested between the slats of her floor. The roof was the thinnest part of the house.

  If the Flood came, she would hear it, and if it did not—thank God. She turned out the light.

  23

  SWEAT WOKE MAE UP.

  She sat up in the dark, suddenly wide-awake and gasping for breath. She had been dreaming of the Flood; she had heard it, the spreading crash of water and stone.

  She listened. Everything was silent and still, but she was soaked with sweat.

  The air! It was hot, hot as summer, as hot as those nights when you have to sleep outside. She heard a rustling in the eaves, like something breathing.

  Erjdha Nefsi.

  Mae threw off the covers and stood up, listening. Very faint under the sound of moving air, was a sound as if the hills were being tickled.

  She switched on the light, and looked at the TV.

  Forty-five degrees Centigrade.

  “Wake up,” Mae told the TV. She threw on old jeans, rubber boots, and a light coat. She strapped herself in a rucksack filled with blankets and tins of food. She jerked the trapdoor out of its socket and dropped the bag down to the kitchen floor below.

  “Siao!” she called. “Siao, are you there?”

  There was no answer. If Siao had gone down the hill, and was in a house or a cafe, he might be all right. If he was on the road when it hit … Mae did not have time for imaginings. She spun back around and sent an audio file.

  “Bedri. It’s forty-five Celsius, the Erjdha is breathing, and I can hear the meltdown. I don’t know if it’s Flood or not, but please tell people: if it is at the worst, we will need help. It’s four-thirty A.M. now, and I need to store battery power, so I’m sending this off, and leaving. Don’t bother replying, I won’t be here. If it’s bad, I’ll be at Kwan’s.”

  Mae pushed the machine off, and lowered herself through the trapdoor, badly scraping her forearm. She could hear her breath rattling like gambler’s dice. She dropped to the floor, and hauled back the curtains to Siao’s alcove.

  Old Mr. Chung slept, quietly smiling. He smelled of rice wine. Mae called him, sand shook him. “Mr. Chung-sir! Mr. Chung!”

  She dragged him blinking out of sleep.

  “It’s here, Mr. Chung, it’s here, the Flood—get up!”

  He had fallen onto the bed fully clothed. Mae knelt and jammed his feet into string shoes. “Come, Mr. Chung, come!”

  She rattled him out of the house, into the courtyard under the stars. The hot wind had blasted the sky clean; everything was hot and clear. She explained to Mr. Chung that Siao was still down the hill, he must get to Mr. Wing’s Big House.

  Then Mae pounded on the door of the Kens.

  “Kuei! Kuei! Old Mrs. Ken. Get up! Get up! Erjdha Nefsi!”

  The window overhead was thrown open, wood clunked against the wall. Silhouetted against the whitewash was Mr. Ken’s mother, hissing.

  “Go away, you madwoman. My son is asleep. Take your fancies and go.”

  “Feel the wind! Feel the air! It’s hot; it’s nearly fire. It … is … here!” Mae thought: I don’t have time for this, or for you. “Mr. Ken. Ken Kuei! Wake up!”

  It’s come, said a voice. This is what it was like.

  Mae began to feel a kind of panic. “Ken Kuei! You said you would help!”

  The air is like fire and the water moves the earth.

  Mr. Chung suddenly said, “I’ll be back.” The old man trotted away bowlegged towards the barn.

  “Mr. Chung, we have to go!”

  Mr. Chung’s voice had an unexpected edge. “I can’t leave my tools!”

  Oh, no! Mae held her head. She shouted to them all: “We all have to leave here now! Our court is in a very bad position. Both rocks and water will wash here, nobody must stay here!”

  And suddenly, Old Mrs. Tung spoke, calling Mrs. Ken by her childhood name: “Ting! Do as you are told! No more nonsense! Even as a little girl, all you ever wanted to do was stay inside the house. I’ve told you and told you what happened last time. The Flood is here. Darling daughter, you … will … have to leave this house!”

  At the window, Old Mrs. Ken’s face fell. Hot wind buffeted the shutters.

  Someone touched Mae’s arm, bringing her back. “I’m here,” said Mr. Ken.

  Mae gasped, recalled to herself. “She’s with me. She’s using my voice!”

  Mr. Ken put an arm around her and kissed the top of her head. “I will get your father-in-law to safety,” he promised.

  “And your mother and the Okans.” Mae swung her bag higher up her shoulder.

  Mr. Ken smiled, amused. “Is there anything else?” They started to walk towards the gate.

  “Yes. Start yelling.”

  “‘Happy New Year’?”

  Mae saw him smiling, moonlight making him look young and merry. Okay, she admitted. I love him.

  Old Mr. Chung returned with his bag of tools. He bowed and greeted Mr. Ken sweetly. “Happy New Year.”

  Ken swung open the courtyard gate
for her. His smile cracked wider and he started to bellow, as if in a child’s game: “Happy New Year! The Flood is here!”

  Mae joined in. “This is no joke! The snows are melting!”

  He looked up into her face. “You know don’t you?”

  That he loved her.

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, yes I do. Now, let’s go!”

  Mae turned left down Lower Street. “Get everyone up to Mr. Wing’s!” she shouted again to them both, and began to run.

  The air pulsed as if there was something, huge and hot and alive, breathing down the back of her neck. Mae shouted as she ran: “Dragon’s breath! Wake up. Wake up!”

  Already, down the cobbled slope of Lower Street, water ran in a current. Her feet made plashing sounds and her thick boots clunked on the uneven stones. She tripped and knocked her wrist against the side of Mr. Kemal’s house.

  Her plan was to get to the mosque, to use the P.A. to warn everyone. She turned up the slope towards Sezen’s.

  “Inshallah!” gasped Mae.

  In hot starlight she saw: Already the snow from this lower slope was gone.

  Mae ran up the hill, slipping on a glossy surface of mud and moss. The ground creaked with water as if it were an overfull barrel. Where her feet did not shoot backwards out from under her, they sank into mud.

  Mae shuffled sideways to one of the usual runoffs. As she had hoped, it was graveled, swept clean. It was also ankle-deep in racing water. Mae struggled up the slope against the current.

  “Sezen!” she shouted. “Sezen. Flood!”

  Ahead of her on the hillside, a light went on. The wet slope reflected electric light like a field of broken mirrors.

  The door opened. “Madam Chung?” said a hesitant voice. Hatijah leaned out of the doorway, her husband looming behind her.

  Mae stopped and windmilled her arms for balance against the current.

  Hatijah called, “Sezen has already left. She goes to wake the people of the Marsh.”

  “Oh! She is a good girl,” said Mae.

  “She has become one,” said Hatijah.

  “You! What are you doing? Get to Kwan’s! Get moving, now! Those terraces will be full of water, the walls will break!”

  “We wanted to wait for Sezen.”

  Mae felt a familiar stab of exasperation. She struggled up and out of the ditch. “Hatijah! Sezen is not your mother, for heaven’s sake; you have other children, get them out of here, now, now, now! Sezen has packed your bags, I know, just take them and leave!”