Air

by Geoff Ryman

  “If you only have two or three people building. We have one hundred men, with nothing to do.”

  “Tuh. Most of them unskilled,” said Mr. Atakoloo, brushing flakes of village bread into his cupped palm.

  In the end, they had to build with both metal and stone. The cold came back. Ruined houses like the Dohs’ or Mae’s had small shelters built against whatever walls were still sound. For this, the stones of the ruined terraces and houses served better than tidy sheets of aluminum. The men and the women carried rocks, in wheelbarrows or in gloved hands. The aluminum sheets formed the roofs. Concrete was poured on top of that to stop them radiating out all the warmth of the fires.

  Fifteen families had bought Mr. Wang’s insurance. Ju-mei, his city clothes gone in the Flood, made a point of giving them their cash himself. He passed them wads of bills to replace their houses, folds, and flocks. They gaped at him in wonder.

  So it was that Mae’s computer was seen even to provide money. The village people were related to each other and showed solidarity. They shared their payouts, and so the village had money to restore itself.

  The TV brought other things. News, for example, that the Office of Discipline and Education had reinstated Shen in his job. The e-mail wished him a productive partnership with Mrs. Chung. The Office seemed unaware that there had been a flood.

  People temporarily shared their houses. The Kemals and the Ozdemirs found shelter in Ju-mei’s house. Mr. Wing put up the whole tribe of Pins. The Alis stayed with the Haseems in what was left of their house.

  Faysal Haseem had awakened late on the day after New Year, to find much of his house missing. It looked, he said, rather like his own skull felt, broken open and washed away. His garage, his white van, all his tools were gone! He thought there had been thieves. He thought that Chung Mae had finally gone crazy and driven a tractor into his house. It had its funny side, waking up hungover, having slept through disaster. He had to laugh. He told the story over and over. He did not look at his wife as he laughed. Sunni looked down at her hands.

  Food was dropped from the air: bags of flour or rice, paid for partly by money donated by the Nouvelles magpie. On cold, clear days, the village could hear the rumble of machinery, up from the valley. The road to their village was being repaired.

  Kwan thanked Bugsy, thanked the world. She still had requests by voicemail for Mae’s last narrowcast. Kwan always referred to the Nouvelles address. She could not bear to listen to it herself.

  At times Kwan stood looking out of that same window, to see how the village was healing, and to think of Mae.

  The wind had a different sound now. Kwan was sure she was not making that up. Some of the wind spirits had left them: The invader wind had frightened them away. Some of the spirits would never come back; the air itself would sound forever different.

  That, at least, is what her mother would have said. Her mother, Mrs. Kowoloia, would have said many things.

  Kwan’s mother would have said, There are four principal spirits, called Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. In times of change they become unbalanced. The Eloi despised the Chinese with their paltry system of opposition: yin and yang. The Eloi had layers of struggle and synthesis.

  Earth was female and solid, and nourishing and dark and fertile as the womb. It was the lowest layer.

  Water was the force of time that carried everything forward. It flowed, making the earth turn, the air spin. Water was the engine of the world. Water was change.

  Air was the spirit, high in heaven. Between Earth and Air was Fire.

  Fire was people. Fire was their desires, the things that made them move. Fire and Water were change; Air and Earth were what continued.

  Oh, Mrs. Kowoloia would have had no trouble telling them what had happened. Air had usurped the place of time and desire. The world of the spirits had come to earth, like ghosts, and the fire-demon Erjdha had blown across the hills.

  Old Mrs. Kowoloia would have had no difficulty knowing what Chung Mae was, either.

  Some people bore the weight of the world. It was not their fault. They could not be blamed. Air and Fire and Earth and Water churned within them exactly as they churned without. They did extraordinary things and were to be avoided, for they were maelstroms; and they were to be watched, for whatever happened to them, happened to the world.

  Such people became oracles to be read like yarrow stalks.

  So Kwan would sit and ponder the meaning of the oracle.

  What the oracle told her was simple and final, and all that Mae had been saying since the beginning.

  Their old and beloved world had died. It was right to mourn it. But they could not resist the movement, either. Water, spurred by Air, had changed its course. Water was time. Time had moved, very swiftly, and so must they.

  And Old Mrs. Kowoloia, long since burned by funeral fire to join the world of the spirits, would also say: Do not fear for your friend. The Water in Mae has responded to the usurping Air. The Water has swept her away.

  Mae lives in the future.

  Thinking this, looking out over their darkened village, Kwan let hot water fall from her eyes. And her mother would have said to Kwan: Cry, daughter. Tears are good for people who grieve. Tears are time. The tears help bear you away beyond the time of grief.

  Why does it work, Mother? This old stuff. Why does it work? When you tell me it is dead. Why does it help me understand?

  Kwan had wanted her son to be modern and scientific. The Eloi had to be, to live in this world, and to fight the Karz if the time ever came again. But her son knew none of his people’s wisdom. And he would go away, like Mae’s son did, and come back a stranger.

  Look to oracles, they live out the future.

  Kwan wiped her eyes and went down to the diwan, still crowded with people. Her son’s name was Luk. He was big, quiet, kind, and part of a group, not its leader. Was now the time? She saw his face. It was a university face; he might not become a soldier. He could become something even worse than a soldier.

  See the water? See the tears? See the candle burning in our little boat of wishes? He is going away, daughter. This is his last winter in Kizuldah.

  So Kwan made herself smile, and collected the stone mugs and murmured to friends, not wanting to disturb their viewing.

  They were watching a program about Mat Unrolling.

  Kwan was glad to see Suloi there. Suloi would understand. Two Eloi sets of eyes caught each other’s glances.

  Kwan said, “Remember Mae? She talked about her Mat all the time.”

  Very solemnly, Suloi nodded downward, once—yes. Mae was our oracle.

  Kwan came to Luk. “Son? When this is through, could you and I go for a walk?”

  He glanced at his friends, two of the Pin brothers, all bucktoothed and sweet. Kwan was glad he had such good friends.

  It was unusual for her to ask. He looked at his friends and said, “I can go now if you like.” Mat Unrolling bored him, maybe.

  Kwan was careful not to tell him how to dress; he did not want to hear his mother telling him to bundle up. And she promised herself as she slipped on boots that she would not let her worries run away with the night. She Would not worrit him about studying, about not spending, about writing her. Nothing he could do would fill the gap that would be left behind when he went. Nothing she could do would make his life better if he failed to fly by himself.

  We must meet as equals, she thought.

  So they trudged out together, and her son had bundled himself up in sheepskin coat, scarf, and gloves, almost too carefully.

  And this made Kwan think: Where is the swagger in him? Is Luk a bit too quiet, even a bit dull?

  Don’t worrit, Kwan.

  They walked out into the courtyard.

  Kwan asked her son, “What do you make of Chung Mae?”

  That surprised him. If he had been dreading a motherly discussion, that would have reassured him.

  “I don’t really know,” Luk said, finally. “She is your good friend. I’m sor
ry she is not well.”

  “That’s what I think, too, of course. But what do you think she is?”

  Luk looked back at her askance. Was this a trick question? Adults asked questions when they knew the answers.

  Kwan did not want to play a guessing game. “The Eloi in me thinks she is something very mysterious.” Kwan found herself smiling and wiggling her eyebrows, almost making fun of it. They both stood in the courtyard light.

  Luk grinned. He understood. “She is a bit spooky,” he said.

  “Your grandmother would have said she was oiya,” said Kwan. “That means ‘disturbed,’ which means the elements are out of balance.”

  “Many people would have called her disturbed,” said Luk. “Only, she turned out to be right.”

  Kwan stepped out of the courtyard, and began to walk out of the village, up the hill. It was so cold that the stars seemed to be made of frost—as if her own wreathing, white breath blew up into heaven to freeze there. Stars and breath, it’s too big, she thought. You can’t cram all of the Eloi world into someone all at once.

  “The Elois said that stars are solid places in the air, for spirits to rest,” she said. “They are like frozen air.”

  “Well, they’re fire instead,” said Luk.

  “Do you ever think about the Elois?” she asked him.

  She could hear his sheepskin shrug. “Only that I am part Eloi. My first name is Eloi—I think. It doesn’t seem to make any difference in the way people treat me.”

  “You don’t have any sudden urges to stand up and herd sheep on the high hills?”

  She heard the rustle of a smile. “No. No urge to tattoo my legs, either.”

  “You should try it, it looks beautiful.”

  “Ah, but my legs are just a bit too hairy for it.” He was joking, but it was also the truth. His legs were Chinese.

  “And they don’t allow tattoos in the military.”

  He sighed. “Well. That might be a good reason to get one, then.” Then he said, “Okay. Tell me about the Eloi.”

  The air was still.

  “You really want to know?”

  “Not as much you want to tell me. But I don’t know it.”

  Good, said the stars.

  “Okay. I’ll talk. But if a nightjar sings, we have to go back inside, because birds can talk to the air. If a nightjar sings, it is warning you.”

  “About what?”

  “That you are betraying the secrets of the spirits. Or that the spirit inside the body you are talking to is not ready yet. Things like that.”

  “Mom. You don’t really believe this, do you?”

  Kwan had to consider. “Not really. Not with the top part of my head. But, this old stuff—it produces the right words. You just say what the old people would have said, and something is explained. Somehow it’s all easier to bear.”

  Even now, down the hillside, water trickled.

  Luk spoke next: “There’s something about Earth resting underneath, and being the foundation. And Air on top, with Fire and Water as the filling in the sandwich.”

  “Yes, but I think those are the wrong words.”

  “Ah. I am a modern fellow,” he said.

  Kwan said. “There are two kinds of time. There is time in motion, measured by clocks, and there is ‘the Time.’ The Time is the situation you live in. You make it, the world makes it, most of the time it is like a punch you roll with. You make your choices, and do not resent them, and wait for the season to pass. And the season is made of the four elements, all of which have characteristics, powers. They all kind of swirl together.”

  Those are the wrong words, too, Kwan.

  O, Mother Kowoloia, O spirits of the Air, the Water, the Earth, speak for me.

  The nightjar also sings when you are not ready to speak. It sleeps in the road, dazzled by headlights, only because the asphalt is still warm.

  “In Mae, all these forces are gathered together. So Mae is the Time. Do you understand? Mae is like a picture of the Time. Your grandmother would say that Mae has solidified the Time, like water solidifies into ice. And ice breaks—when the season begins to move. You see?”

  Not yet. Luk waited.

  Kwan continued: “So Mae is the Earth, like women are—she derives her power from women, from the Circle, from Bugsy. You see how it works? The old words? So, you have Mae, who is in her character most like the Earth, she is an Earth person: rooted, least-moving of all people. But her head—her head has been filled with Air; this is the Age of Air. And so she is disturbed. Spirit mixing with Earth, swept away by the enraged waters, which are change, which drive change.”

  Luk said, “Mae is Earth moved by Air and moved by Water.”

  “Yes!” Kwan was pleased. Luk understood.

  “What is the fire?”

  She still remembered him at five, all innocent toddling nakedness. She remembered him at sixteen, how soft and troubled he looked back when Tsang had been seducing him.

  “Don’t you know?” She prodded him. “Think. You know. She is disturbance—so what was disturbed?”

  Luk was embarrassed. “Ah. Well. Her husband and things…”

  “Fire is desire, and Fire flared up. Your grandmother would have said that was only to be expected, too. But Fire is not just sex, it is yearning, for everything, here, now, on Earth. It makes us have children, it makes us love them, love our friends. Water carries us, but Fire makes us swim.”

  There were the stars of fire.

  Rather clumsily, her huge son put a sheepskin-muffled arm around her shoulders. She felt how small and frail she must seem to him.

  She pointed to the stars. “You see? In the world of the Air, there is no time. Even Fire is still. Fire becomes permanent.”

  Why was she crying? “Fire becomes love. In Air.”

  He stood beside her and she was not sure what he felt.

  “You see? You see? You see?” Even to herself, Kwan sounded like a bird.

  IN MARCH THE ROAD WAS FINISHED, AND IN ONE OF THE FIRST CARS UP, IT CARRIED FATIMAH FROM YESHIBOZ SISTEMLAR.

  Fatimah asked where Mae was. Sunni and Kwan greeted her with firm smiles.

  “Mae is gone away,” said Kwan.

  Fatimah looked suspicious and disappointed. Kwan had been her ally.

  “Where? May I see her?”

  “Oh, I think not,” said Sunni.

  “No,” said Kwan, shaking her head. “No. She went up into the hills, to live with an old aunt. She takes of her now.”

  “Yes,” said Sunni. “How lucky is the woman who has family. We did not even know the aunt existed.”

  “Where is the village?” Fatimah nodded, vaguely uphill.

  “There is no road,” said Kwan.

  Fatimah stood just outside the interior of the car, the door open between her and the villagers. Above her, the ruin of terraces was a jumble of stones.

  “I feel it is only polite to point out,” said Sunni, “that for you, there will never be a road.”

  Fatimah’s face went pale, and worked in helplessness. She got back into the car.

  The Circle’s weaving machine was replaced by insurance money. There was a celebration when it arrived. The Nouvelles Chung Mae Fund had ordered over four thousand collars, enough to keep even the machine busy. Each Disaster Collar had IN HONOR OF CHUNG MAE woven into it. Inside the package, in English, was the recipe for a thank-you cake. The huge sums of money from the sale were distributed to those outside the Circle as well as those within.

  The men repaired some of the terraces, only a few, enough to plant some rice, enough to feed the village and generate some more grain.

  A hired bulldozer came and scooped up the last of the ruins of the Chu, Koi, and Han households. Rugs, cups, clothing, came to the surface, but not the missing bodies.

  Finally, halfway down the plain, they found a body which must have been Han Kai-hui. Sezen, Kwan decided, had been carried by the Flood even farther into the future than Mae. She would never be found, except perhaps
in a spaceship going to the moon.

  High on the hill where their mosque had been, the villagers gathered for another funeral.

  And Chung Mae was brought out for it.

  Chung Siao came with her, holding her hand, keeping her quiet. And on her other side stood Mr. Ken.

  “Who is it? Who is it?” Mae demanded, too loudly.

  “Han Kai-hui, Granny,” Mr. Ken said to her. “You remember her. She was Chung Mae’s little childhood friend.”

  Mae’s face looked angry. “She must have died very suddenly! Was it an accident?”

  Pause. “Yes, Granny,” said Ken.

  Mr. Ken struggled to keep the fighting hands still. His face looked worn but enduring. How can he stand it? Kwan wondered.

  “Oh! People should be more careful!” Mae flung the news away with a toss of her head. Old Mrs. Tung could not learn. She looked around the crowd, outraged, like an angry lizard. “And children should show respect! Where is Han An, at her own mother’s funeral? Where is Chung Mae, if it is her friend? Mae should be here!”

  This was beginning to look like a mistake. Kwan moved through the village crowd. They stood in their anoraks or sheepskins, all heads bundled in scarves. The fire was mostly broken furniture and kerosene, with a rug wrapped around the body.

  Maybe Kuei can bear it for the sake of his child inside her.

  Maybe he can bear it because he shares it with Siao. It is strange, the two of them and her. Who can say how they make it work?

  Except through love. Fire in Air.

  Kwan nodded to them both, eyes catching. Then she looked deep inside the eyes of the woman beside them who was no longer Chung Mae.

  Kwan denounced her. “You horrible old woman. You are dead, too. You died, you horrible ghost. We loved you in life, but you should be a spirit now, in the am You are a disease. At least let Mae mourn her friend.”

  The eyes went confused and watery, the young mouth shook like an old one. For just a moment, Kwan thought she saw Mae.

  “Mae. We’re winning. Everyone uses the TV. We love it. Mae, we want you back.”

  “Uh!” said the struggling Mrs. Tung, and pushed Kwan away from her.

  Kwan saw struggle in the helpless confusion of the face, the shuddering and the shaking.