Geoff Ryman - Air (or Have Not Have)

Young Mr Doh was Joe's great friend, and he greeted Mae and An with gusts of hilarity. He tried to pour them rice wine instead of tea, and spoke over his shoulder to his own and his brother's children, who clustered around the door to listen.

Young Mr Doh teased and complimented Mae at the same time. 'Oh! Where are your angel wings? Where are the veils and the bobbles? You are wearing glasses, why did you put on your husband's clothes by mistake?'

The children chorused giggles and hid their mouths.

Mae asked, 'What does Young Mr Doh think of Air?'

'What Air? Where is it? I tell you, it will never happen. How many people died, eh? No one wants it.'

'I want movies,' said his brother, who was a bit simple.

'So do I,' piped up one of the grandsons. 'It is as boring as mud in this village.'

'Fut-bol!' roared all the boys in unison, approximating in their language the name of the great international sport.

Mr Doh said, 'We get all of that on TV already. I tell you, nothing will change.'

The two young Doh wives, of course, worked and had no need of fashion. On the other hand, Young Miss Doh was famous for wearing men's clothes and riding a motorcycle. Outside on the street, An and Mae shrugged to each other.

At home, Joe waited for them in the kitchen, still in his undershirt and work trousers. 'So, wife, did you learn anything?'

An bowed, and Joe grunted. Siao and Old Mr Chung watched. Why suddenly, did it seem to Mae that their gaze was insolent?

Mae found she did not want to talk in front of them. Everything was like an egg that she wanted to warm and protect and hide away.

The two women also sat at the table, under the stares of the men. An looked over their Question Sheets. 'Very few of your questions are answered, ma'am.'

'We will need to talk to wives separately.'

'Why do you need to do that?' said Joe, belligerently.

'Because wives do not talk around their husbands.'

'Oh. And you want to encourage them. Tuh.' Joe looked to his father and brother for support. Siao grunted, and hid his face.

Mae sighed. 'Joe. I try to make us money. To do that, I need to know what women want clothes for.'

'To cover their nakedness, or else they'd all be whores, he said.

'Joe, we have a well-brought-up lady guest.'

Joe looked sullenly at both of them.

Mae looked at An. 'Everyone is pretending that nothing has changed. No one will talk about the Test at all.

An looked a bit tense. 'No one knows what to make of it. Except you.' An hesitated and then decided to push on. 'In your case, ma am, it was like a doctor prescribing deadly poison as a last resort. You have already gone through it, the worst. Every time people see you, they are reminded. That you were driven mad by it. That it changed you, beyond recognition.' An's eyes were saddened.

'Yes!' said Joe, suddenly fierce. 'Yes! You are not the woman I married.'

An persisted, in a quiet, kindly voice: 'People might become frightened of you.'

'I will walk you home,' said Mae.

Joe forbade it. They had a terrible fight, in front of An. Mae was beside herself. She really had had enough. 'Think, you stupid man – though I know you find it difficult to even recognize your own shoes! I cannot let the village beauty walk home unchaperoned. What would her mother say?'

'Oh, so now you quote tradition at me. You, who walk about in men's jackets!'

'I am not staying here to listen to rubbish or to let you make a greater fool of yourself in front of Miss An.'

Mae stormed out.

She said to An, 'This is going to be harder work than I thought.'

'I think of it,' said An, 'as being like childbirth. I find it is already preparing me for many difficult tasks ahead.' She paused. 'I want to thank you for the opportunity.'

'I want to thank you for all your help.'

'We will find who your friends are, Mrs Chung-ma'am.'

Mae safely delivered An to her mother, and climbed back up to the village square. The Teahouse overlooked the hill, growing out of the side of Joe's cousin's house. It was full of light and smoke and bellowing. Mae walked away from it across their little stream, which was allowed to find its own way across the cobbles. She sat in the dark on the bench in front of Mrs Kosal's house under the great oak. Generations of children had swung from its branches. The people of Kizuldah called it 'the One Tree.' It seemed to reach up into the stars.

Away from her husband, away from everyone, Mae settled back down into Air. She did not have to go far before she felt the wisdom of the Kru come to her.

It was so evident then, what she was doing wrong. She was just talking. She had to explain to people what the rules were, and ask them for quick, simple answers. If people left one question unanswered, it was either irrelevant to them, which told you something, or they had something to hide. Ask questions that had simple objective answers, avoid yes or no. Listen carefully and find a way to characterize the replies so they could be compared.

The Kru was not a voice. It was like bubbles full of answers popping in her head. It did not ask stupid questions like, Why don't you get them to write the answers themselves? (They can't write.) It knew what she knew. It was becoming part of her.

Mae knew nothing, really, about making dresses. She knew nothing, really, of Air or the old Net or what money really was, or even how to get things off this mountain. But she knew one thing. Through Air she could add knowledge to herself in a new way.

From somewhere, from the future, she heard the sound of a siren.

The next day Mae and An interviewed Mr and Mrs Mack.

Musa Mack looked like the other village men except that his hair had a reddish tinge and curled. He was a Christian. So was his wife, who was from across the Valley, a world away, on slopes lost in haze.

Mr Mack was the village's token Westerner, even though his family had lived in the Valley for over a century. He could drink whisky and not get drunk. He was gross in his movements, too large. People watched him for corrupt tendencies, He talked too loudly.

Mr Mack shouted them into his house and both Mae and An blanched as if the sheer force of his shouting could hurl them against the wall. Most gross of all, he had recently grown a long red beard. It was incredibly good fortune to have facial hair, he was like an emblem of good luck, but really, who could bear to kiss such a thing?

There was a picture of Isa, the Christians' God, on the wall, and he, too, had a beardful of good fortune. But why would a god be helping with the lambing?

Tea was served, which was a relief. Mr Mack kept bellowing. He was shouting, Mae suddenly saw, because he was so uncomfortable. All his life, he had been seen as compromised. And so he had become what people thought he was.

'It will be a great thing. It will bring the world in right here. Mr Mack said. Marginalized, he had a love of foreign things.

'I am very frightened,' whispered his wife, Mariam. 'I did not like that thing in my head.'

'I was spitting terror!' laughed Mr Mack. 'But I reckon that you get used to it after a while.'

It was said his mattress was often seen in his courtyard, draining urine. It was said that he wet his bed.

His wife, when they examined the responses, did most of the talking. Both were frightened of Air, both wanted to learn how to use it.

Mariam spoke at great, sincere length about fashion. Mae was sorry she had never approached her before. It had been unfair thinking on Mae's part. She had supposed the Macks were dirty and uninterested in fashion.

'I would like to have three good dresses; one in white for funerals, and one full of bright colours for festivals, and one very dignified dress for happy ceremonies and for going to my church, which I can only do once a year.'