Geoff Ryman - Air (or Have Not Have)

Mae stopped. She knew what this sensation was. This was the sensation of truth coming from unexpected sources.

'We see on TV. We don't want to look like peasants; we don't want to look like fashion people. This is what we want to look like.'

Sezen had a school notebook tied with string to a post. She opened it and pressed it so it would stay open. She did this slowly with her eyes on Mae, with an air of presenting something outstanding.

Instead of schoolwork, Sezen had been drawing.

She was drawing who she thought she was. This Sezen had long flowing sculpted black tresses, and wore tight jeans, mutton sleeves, pinched wrists. Mae made to hold the book to see better.

'Ah,' said Sezen, and snatched it back. You will not steal this, fashion expert, she seemed to say.

Mae shook her head. 'So. Jeans and mutton sleeves. These are new ideas? Many girls waste their time with fashion drawing, there is nothing special in that.'

Sezen's eyes rolled. How annoying when blind people cannot see. She held the book out one last time.

Now the drawings had short, slicked hair pasted up into tiny points. They showed a dream Sezen. She looked like a hoodlum. Everything she wore was black. This was evil fashion, for bad young people, and Mae knew, herself, that, yes, given half a chance, this is what they would buy.

'So. Now you begin to see,' said Sezen.

'The Muslim girls would not be allowed.'

'Hah,' said Sezen, scornfully. 'They are the worst. What they wear under their robes is nobody's business. What they don't wear sometimes.'

Mae considered, and on balance this was not what she had planned.

'There is something in what you say, but I don't like to be threatened, and I don't like the way you boss your mother.' Mae shrugged, said goodbye, and walked out.

Mae was out on the street when there was a change in the sound of the air around her and a darkness in the corner of her eye. Sezen had run after her – without giving the impression of having done so.

'I will set up my own business,' said Sezen.

With what, air? Mae blew out air and stopped and looked at her. Mae felt pity for her and dislike at the same time. 'You don't have a bargaining position. Don't you understand that, child?'

Sezen had nothing. Yet she stared back unblinking, determined. That curious wavering of the head. Her mouth was working too, slightly, all the time.

'My mother is useless. My father is useless.'

'Show some respect,' said Mae. Though it was true.

'I have to do everything, my mother just sits there.'

'Not much gets done, does it? Sezen, your house is a disgrace. I would not take credit for that if I were you.'

Sezen suddenly shouted: 'Will you let up on me! All of you! You are always on me.'

'It is because you are rude,' said Mae.

'I hate housework. I will do anything else. I will be very hardworking. And I do know what the young girls want. Look! Look!'

Sezen shook the red book at Mae.

Mae took it from her. Sezen let her. Mae folded it and put it under her arm. Her Kru bubbled in her head. She calculated.

'I will look at these, Sezen, but the problem is that girls your age have no money. Their mothers will spend five riels on a dress. What will the girls spend? One riel? Two?' She shook her head.

'Two riels,' said Sezen. She counted on her fingers. 'You can sell six outfits, and get black denim for them all for five riels in the market. My mother sews them, I sell to the girls, we all make money.'

'I do not count six sales.'

'My boyfriend lives down the hill. He has a motorcycle. There are plenty more modern young people around here than you think. There's one you don't know about.' Sezen waited. 'An.'

That did made Mae pause, and the little minx struck again, hard.

'You see. Your helpful little Talent – An. She wants these clothes.'

'I will think about it, Sezen.'

'So that's six sales for… twelve riels total… So that's seven riels' profit! I get one, my mother gets one, my boyfriend gets one – that leaves four for you!'

'But I get to spend five riels on cloth?' Mae shook her head. 'You will need to do better than that, Sezen. I agreed to nothing, okay. You understand? Nothing! I will see if this fits in with my business plan.'

'It does!' insisted Sezen.

Mae walked off, still shaking her head.

Still.

What Sezen had said about young people wanting something different was true. A new kind of best-dress business was not an entirely bad idea.

Something bubbled up from the Kru. You can either be a general store and stock cheap standard items. Or you specialize. If you specialize you have to spread geographically.

If I can sell best dresses to this village and the next, that's not such a bad idea. Maybe I will need that motorcycle after all.

Sunni's-husband announced to the village: he was bringing in a television as well.

'Well, wife, your friend Kwan has a rival,' Joe exclaimed cheerily. He was back from doing business all day at the Teahouse. 'Business' meant sipping tea and playing chess until suppertime.

Mae was ladling soup into Siao's and Old Mr Chung's waiting bowls. She thought a moment. 'I don't know why you say "rival." '

'Tuh. Don't play innocent with me. You know the Wings and the Haseems are rivals.'

'Rivals for stealing their neighbours' farms,' muttered Siao, into his soup.

As if jabbed, Joe snapped his head around in Siao's direction, and then decided this was support. 'Yes, wife. Your friend Kwan is no better or worse than Faysal Haseem.'

Mae served her husband his soup. 'Except that we don't owe the Wings any money.'

Siao said, 'Haseem has to run it off the Wings' account, for which of course, he will pay rent, like water. So Wing still gets richer, at Haseem's expense. That makes Wing more clever.'

Siao was an odd fish. Somehow he knew more than Joe. Mae had long ago noticed that he did all the work, going off every morning with Old Mr Chung to work on the walls. He kept the household's accounts. So why was he content to sleep in the loft?

There was no doubt that two TVs in the village was news. As Mae and An went about their interviewing, they discussed the situation. What, really, would Mr Haseem get out of having a TV? Position, yes, but how would he use it to make money? His only idea would be to charge people for watching it. Since Wing did not, he couldn't, either.

At midnight, Mae went back to Kwan's to work on her TV. She was learning how to use the accounts package. The TV was fine, she had decided, just so long as you didn't go online.

Mae found Mr Doh, Mr Ali, and Mr Ho watching a police thriller. Drug dealers were being rounded up by computer surveillance. Mae found herself thinking: So, they are still loyal to Wing. Who is watching at Sunni's?

Kwan was thinking the same thing. She was serving tea to them, as guests. She had not done that for days. Mae, to show support, began to gather up used cups, and was rewarded by a beautiful smile. Over the plastic tub that was Kwan's sink, they talked.

'I wonder what horrors Mr Sunni shows on his set?'

'How to take over villages, perhaps,' said Kwan.

'I think he wants to be a strongman. Like in the very old days. He wants us all to work for him. If you had daughters he would try to marry one of his sons to them. To form a political alliance.'

Kwan bent from the middle with a silent laugh.

Mae's eyes were narrow and merry. 'He probably thinks that he has the male TV and you have the female.'

Kwan had to put down a cup in order to laugh. 'You have become like a thornbush lately!'

'I hate Mr Sunni's-man,' Mae said with a shrug. 'I wish I had killed him.'

'It will be very interesting when you interview him for your Question Map.'