Geoff Ryman - Air (or Have Not Have)

'Huh,' said the man. It was a kind of a laugh. 'Haven't you heard?'

'We get no news up here,' said Mae.

'Ho. Just that there is none. The entire country is moving, looking for work.'

He eased the van into Mr Wing's courtyard. Dashboard lights flashed and he flipped something off and swung himself out of the van. Mae followed. He stood, hands on hips, regarding the house.

'These old mountain houses are very fine,' he said. 'It is lovely to be so cool. Mr Wing keeps his television outside?'

'That is so the village can use it. I teach on it.'

He turned. He was very young, but with a crease down either side of his mouth that only skinny men get. 'What do you teach?'

'How to use the TV. What Air will be like. I call it Swallow School. So people can fly in the Air.'

'Hmm,' he said. 'What's your name?'

'Mae,' she said.

'No,' he said. 'Your full name.' He paused. 'I'm from the government.' He seemed to think this would reassure her.

Mae did not answer. 'There is Mrs Wing.'

Kwan was coming down her steps, a question on her face.

'He's from the government,' warned Mae, wincing.

'Mrs Wing? Is your husband here?' the man asked.

'My husband is visiting his many farms, to see how things progress,' said Kwan.

'I…' he began and thought better of it. I did not expect an Eloi, is what he wanted to say. 'I am from the Central Bureau of Information Technology,' he announced. 'We are very concerned to see how the Test went.'

Kwan maintained a faultless exterior. 'That was some months ago.'

'Yes. There are many villages. I am visiting them all, to inspect the damage, and to help prepare people for what is coming next year.'

'We are doing that for ourselves,' said Mrs Kwan. She inclined her head towards Mae. 'Mae has been helping us all.'

'So I hear,' said the Central Man. He beamed and nodded approval. 'It is not so in other places.'

'It is so here,' said Kwan.

'Good. And your TV. It works well?'

'Oh, very well,' said Kwan, not sounding like herself at all. Her smile stiffened and her eyes glistened with meaning at Mae. She wants him away from her TV, thought Mae.

'Good. The Central Bureau of Information Technology gave him a grant, no?'

Kwan fluttered. 'I am afraid I know nothing of my husband's business.'

Mae changed the subject as if it were a rug under his feet. 'Do you need a place to stay? You see, my neighbour has spare rooms now. You could park your van in my courtyard.'

Kwan waved another flag of distraction at him. 'Oh yes, poor Mr Ken. You might like to talk to him. It is so sad. His wife was driven mad by the Test and drowned herself, and his grandmother died of shock.'

The Central Man looked stricken. He shook his head. 'Such foolishness,' he said.

'We are not educated people,' said Kwan, casting her eyes down.

'That's not what I meant,' he said. 'I mean it was foolish to have that Test.'

A Central Man, saying the government was wrong? Either he was young and foolish, or very dangerous. Kwan and Mae exchanged further anxious glances.

The Central Man looked pained. 'Were… I am sorry to have to ask, Mrs Wing-ma'am: Did anyone else in this village die in the Test?'

'No, no, those were the only people.'

'Such a terrible thing, two in one house.'

Kwan's eyes were on Mae's again.

Child voices sounded outside the gate, whispering in wonder. Mae said, 'Sir, the children have seen your van. If you want to drive anywhere, we'd better go now.'

The truth of it made Kwan and Mae laugh, as water does on a skillet. 'She's right,' said Kwan.

The Central Man made the same, embarrassed-looking downward jerk of the mouth. He nodded, put on his useless hat again, and said, 'May I come back to talk to you tonight?'

'Of course,' Kwan replied. 'But it is Mae you really need to talk to.'

'Ah,' said Mae. 'The rough little monkeys have seen us.' Dawn and Zaynab peered grinning out at them from behind the gate, and the Pins crowded behind them.

'Oops,' the man said, and broke into an ungainly hobble.

As the van bumped back down Lower Street, the perfect thing happened.

Sunni and her busload heaved up over the hill into the little square. The Central Man swerved his golden car to miss them.

Mae stuck her head out the window and grinned and waved. Ms Haseem, Mrs Ali, Miss Ping: Their faces fell to see Chung Mae in a golden car of her own. 'Hello! Hello!' she called, smiling and nodding.

The Central Man was grinning, too.

'So those are the opposition, are they?'

Mae felt endangered. 'What do you mean?'

He changed gear and his van inched forward. 'Oh. The Test has created much trouble in villages like this one. You'll have to tell me where to drive.'

How about back to Balshang? Mae thought to herself.

The government van fitted neatly through the gate of Mae's courtyard.

Mr Ken's hens scattered, the dog started to bark, and his youngest daughter came running out to stare at the golden van.

Old Mrs Ken emerged, wiping her hands.

Mae bowed to her lover's mother. She exchanged formulaic greetings and then Mae explained: This gentleman needs a spare room. Old Mrs Ken looked doubtful.

Then the Central Man said, 'I can pay you five riels a night.'

Mae was dumbfounded. My God, I could have paid back the interest on the loan!

Mae had to endure Old Mrs Ken's sunburst of a smile. She bowed and bowed again to Mae, delighted at receiving such bounty from a neighbour. 'It will be an honour and privilege!' she exclaimed. 'It will bring happiness into our house again. Dear Mrs Chung, you think of your neighbours too much, you are too kind. Oh, no, sir, let us carry your things. Kuei! Kuei!' She called her son's name.

Ken Kuei emerged, having just bathed. He puts the city man to shame, thought Mae, as Mr Ken lifted up the Central Man's case. Kuei was round like ripe fruit; the Central Man was stricken bushes on a plain.

The Central Man said, 'Mrs Chung, I must talk to you some more, once I am settled in.'

'Of course,' said Mae.

Her house was dark inside. She drank water, ate cold rice, and felt suddenly alone. It was strange having Old Mrs Ken smile on her. If Kuei's mother had known the truth, she would have beaten her breast and called down scandal from the village all around.

The thought was as cold as the rice, as the silence: how am I going to find my way out of all of this?

And then the government spy came back in.

'Excuse me,' he said.

'You are the government,' she said, and shrugged, meaning, How am I to stop the government? His golden vehicle was the colour of sunlight through her one tiny window. Poverty was shabby around her shoulders, like a moth-eaten shawl.

'I'm not the government,' he said. 'Well… I come from it, but we are all Karzistanis. We care for our country. May I?'

He indicated a chair. What would you say, Central Man, if I denied the chair to you? Probably, Mae decided, nothing.

He finally remembered formalities and offered Mae his name. It made Mae close her eyes and smile, embarrassed for him.

His name was Oz Oz.

Last names had been adopted only in the last century. People chose their own for good luck. Oz in the Turkic language of the Karz meant 'real' and 'genuine,' and sometimes, 'naive.' The Central Man's name meant 'Mr Genuinely Sincere.'

Mr Sincere tapped the top of the table. 'The Test was far too soon,' he said. 'And Karzistan is not a powerful enough country to stop it. And,' he sighed, 'it would have been wrong to stop it, because the Test would have come, but it would have been run by big companies.'

She stared back at him.

'Big companies, owned by very rich people. They would have run the Test instead. You have heard of the Yu En? United Nations?'