Geoff Ryman - Air (or Have Not Have)

She jumped up and down, splashing in the mud, not caring about her old paddy clothes. 'Again! Again!' she demanded. The boys lowered the arm and she ascended again. She looked out across the valley.

The terraces were lined with pumps, dipping their heads like graceful marsh birds. Below, on the hillside, there was no schoolhouse, no mosque.

The opposite mountain was striated like an onion in layers of paddies. The terraces climbed in steps, green and lush, to the village of Aynalar. Its main street zigzagged up the narrow pass between high, fine stone houses with whitewashed walls and stained-glass windows. There was a dome and a minaret.

Hu Ai-ling looked at it with yearning. One day, she promised, I will live in Aynalar.

She let go again and Mae lurched out of the past.

She blinked and that same hill was now beige and featureless, a mass of tumbled grey stone. If you focused, you could see traces – traces only – of the walls.

The flood had washed one terrace down onto another, wiping them all away. One whole side of the valley had gone. No one spoke of it now, no one remembered. It was healed scar tissue. The opposite hillside, once layered with fields, stared back at her like an old blind face.

Mae remembered Old Mrs Tung. She had always sat at her attic window, facing out across the valley, wind in her face, blind. She had been looking in the direction of Aynalar as if, for her, it was still there.

This is worrying, thought Mae. No, this is really worrying, the way the world shrugs, and suddenly there is the past, there is the future. Like I have a sickness in my head.

No one said this would happen. They did not say you would visit the past. They did not say dead friends would not leave. They do not understand what Air is. She felt the wind move, chilling her wet arms like fear.

Where is this? Mrs Tung asked.

All Mae wanted when she got home was a chance to think, but waiting in her kitchen was her brother, Wang Ju-mei.

'Afternoon, sister,' Ju-mei said. He wore his cream-coloured summer suit.

'Hello, brother. Thank you for coming to see me,' she beamed.

Thank you for coming when it will be necessary to make you lunch, thank you for coming so that it will be impossible for me to wash. Thank you for trying, as always, to assert that Joe's house is in some way yours.

'Would you like something to drink?'

'Tea would be excellent,' he nodded.

She put on the kettle and thought: no, I will not miss my bath. She snatched up fresh clothes and draped them over her arm. 'You will not mind, brother, if I wash?' she said, in a little-girl voice.

Or would you rather I stank and dripped sweat into your lunch?

Ju-mei waved his hand as if it were nothing, but he was too choked with his own unsorted emotions to speak. If the kettle boils and he wants to make his own tea, let him.

My brother. He wants this house, and cannot accept it will not be his. He is a grain merchant, he sells insurance, he wears suits, he has to cast his shadow over things.

Anger made her snap shut the curtain closing off the narrow alley between the two houses. She scowled as she peeled off the sweaty T-shirt, all pleasure in her bath gone. She needed to think. Absent-mindedly she scooped cold water over herself from the rain butt.

Ju-mei will want to chaperone me, or even have me move back into his house for propriety. Well, that won't happen. But he will also feel he has the right to drop in and out when he pleases. Joe knows what Ju-mei is up to, that is why my brother never does this when Joe is around. But, oh God, he will be here day and night, with his new baby, and his wife will want me to change its diapers. He 11 bring Mother and leave her here and say it's my turn to take care of her.

When I want to sleep in Ken Kuei's arms.

Unless I am so rude that he goes away and doesn't come back.

Necessity in life can have a wonderful, calming effect.

Unless I finally, really tell him what I think is going on. Unless I say it in the way I have always wanted to say it. She began to grin. I am just going to say what I really think. I am a peasant wife used to livestock and hard reality. His little cream suit is no defence against that.

Mae went back into the house, still smiling with anticipation. Ju-mei sat staring at the boiling kettle.

'Ha-ha. Men. You just sit there watching it boil. Can't you make the tea yourself?'

Ju-mei had no answer for that. 'I… I was offered tea.'

'Indeed,' said Mae, toweling her hair. 'There it is.' Her hand indicated the earthenware bin, in which the tea leaves kept dry. Briskly she put away the dirty clothes in the wicker basket.

'I hope, brother, you did not come with thoughts of my cooking you lunch. I have my appointments.' She smiled at him. Her teeth had never felt so big.

He was foxed. Nothing was going as he had pictured it.

'You are bold, Mae,' he said.

'Bold? To visit neighbours I have known all my life, what is bold about that? You are bold to wear so much perfume. Pooh! You smell more like a woman than my customers.'

She pulled the alcove curtain shut around her to put on her Talent clothes. 'I'll tell you what else is bold: to drop into another man's house the moment he is gone and expect to be cooked lunch. Or doesn't your wife cook for you anymore?'

'You are a woman alone.'

'No. I am not. Miss An and I always work together, so I do not need a chaperone. I certainly do not need to be chaperoned in my husband's house.' Mae was decent in the heart-patterned dress, so she pulled the curtain back. She wanted to see his face slack with surprise. She stepped into her Talent shoes. 'And there is no need to try to establish any rights to this house. If Joe dies, Siao inherits; if he dies, Old Mr Chung inherits. Either one of them could marry and then it would never fall to the family Wang.'

He shivered in his chair. 'Mae! You are impossible. This is a brotherly call!'

'I know,' replied Mae, flinging up her husband's jacket to open up its arms. She paused. 'And I know exactly what that means. Whatever I've got, Ju-mei, you want. It's been like that for as long as I can remember. You want Joe's cock, too? You want to inherit this house? Maybe you can inherit it if you let Joe fuck you.' She sniffed and made plain she was about to leave. She muttered, 'Both of you would probably enjoy it.'

All blood drained from her brother's face. Abruptly, like a cripple, he stood up, shambling, shivering, having trouble gathering up the cane.

'I don't know what's come over you! You talk like a peasant. A rough farm girl.' He was at the door.

'I am a rough farming girl.'

'I… I had come to offer to pay the debt!'

And Mae whooped in triumph. 'I know! I know! And that is how you thought you would get the farm!'

Her sneaky little brother. His face fell. Mae had to laugh. She took his arm and led him towards the door. 'Come, come, brother, it's not so bad, all our fights end this way, only this time I have decided to skip the fight.'

Mae remembered the kettle. She swooped back into the kitchen to take it off the ring, and when she came back, he had gone.

For a few weeks, Mae's days settled into a pattern.

She did her housework in the early morning and worked in her fields until noon. At lunch or during the day, she might snatch some time with Mr Ken. In the early evening Mae and An would visit neighbours with their Question Map and drink tea late into the night.

After escorting An home, Mae worked to master the television. She saw there were hundreds of things she might do with the TV. She could use the television to sell or to Market Call. She could use it like a telephone to talk live or leave voicemail. In a year she would be able to use it to make material for Aircasts.