Geoff Ryman - Air (or Have Not Have)

She paused in order to think, but found she did not have to. 'No,' she answered. 'No, I will concentrate on this.'

'On what?' Mr Ken yelped. 'You will concentrate on loneliness, Mae? On an empty house? A room in someone else's house, working like a servant in order to say thank you?'

Mae sucked in air through her nose, in a thin, focused stream that hissed, but was not a sigh. It was a gathering of strength.

'On clearing the floor for work.'

Kuei stared back at her, helpless. 'What work?' he asked again. He really didn't know. She wanted to hug him then, hold him, comfort him, for he was one of the dead. But it would be misinterpreted.

'Teaching us how to use that thing,' she said. Each word was like a brick that she could barely carry.

'You can do both!'

She held up her hands. 'No. I can't. I don't sleep, I hardly eat, I work in the house, I work in the fields, and then I work on that, and there is almost nothing left of me.' Suddenly she was shouting, 'I'm tired!'

The only thing in his face was sympathy for her.

'Maybe when all of this is done,' she said, more quietly, relenting.

'I will be waiting,' Kuei said helplessly. 'I waited before.'

A year from now? Maybe the change would come, and after that a time of calm. After the massacre, stillness?

Mae nodded yes, but said nothing further, to avoid giving him too much hope. He nodded yes as well, and made no move to kiss her, for both of them had agreed to end, not to begin. He turned and went down the stairs to the kitchen. The diwan seemed full of fine white dust.

And she ran up the wooden stairs to look out of a high window through bleached-blue sunlight over bleached-blue rooftops. Mae looked down and saw Kuei as if through a mist. He walked tall, straight, holding his jacket against the heat, the back of his T-shirt stained with sweat and nerves, past the men, who ignored him. They turned, grinning, to look at his back.

There goes my young man, thought Mae.

You only get one, said someone else's voice.

Remember him, remember his broad back, for he is walking into the past, into the Land of the Dead. Even if you meet again, you will both be different again, strangers or friends. Say goodbye now, for you will have no other chance; say goodbye for every moment to come without him. But at least you had him. For once you had him.

And again, that old question: Granny, Teacher, why is love pain? Why such a sweet sad sick hurt, a dragging-down in the belly, an ache, a yearning?

Because it always goes away,

Mr Ken paused at the gate and looked both ways, left and right, as if considering, though he had no choice. Then he walked on. Mae permitted herself to weep.

Mae got her money.

She was working at three a.m., on Kwan's TV, when it announced that she had mail.

' I will read it for you,' the machine said. By now it knew that Mae avoided reading herself.

'The Republic of Karzistan, Ministry of Development, under the terms of the Taking Wing Initiative, is pleased to inform you that it will grant funding in full as requested in your recent application, under the following conditions…'

Mae was numb. The government was talking to her. The government knew who she was. They had just given her the money?

What conditions? Her mind went dark, ready to be hurt.

First, they wanted her to keep records of both sales and replies.

'The Taking Wing Initiative needs to know how successfully you have unrolled your mat. Please save the attached suite of Customer Care software. It will automatically record the data we need…'

It was a Question Map. The same information was recorded over and over – any letters she got, any orders she fulfilled, would be analyzed by country, referral, and type of business.

Mae kept listening for serious conditions. But there were none. No interest? No percentage?

Mae was enraged. What kind of foolish government was that, to arrange its business so badly? How could it prosper? Were they all children, like Mr Oz?

But praise the gods – Luck, Happiness, whatever – for giving them masters who were so naive. She had her money; she had her business back. Oh, could she ride this life like a leaf bobbing up and down on the river in a storm!

Mae needed to tell someone, but who could she tell at three in the morning? Poor Kwan who had nursed her but was now asleep? The Central Man, yes, but that would mean going back to her old house, to Joe, to Mr Ken… Who?

Mae went to Sezen's house. She knocked on the door. Then, beyond politesse, Mae pummelled it. This was good news.

There were hissed voices, shuffling, a child's cry, a shushing, slippers on the floor.

Sezen answered. She wore a little girl's nightdress and the spots on her cheeks had gone blue-black from merciless squeezing.

May seized her hands. 'I got the money!' she whispered. 'Sezen. It was as you said, the government gave us the cash!'

'This is a joke. This is madness,' said Sezen.

'They gave me every last riel of it. I asked for too much!'

'You mean we are going to do it?'

'Yes, yes, they loved it!'

Sezen squealed and hugged her, spun on her heel, and said, 'Let's get drunk. You have any booze?'

Mae shook her head.

'Rich woman, you will have whisky. You will have silks.'

You will build your mother a new house.'

'Tuh!' said Sezen. 'No. I will buy a motorcycle. Of my own.'

Mae pronounced her, 'Wild girl.'

'Look who is calling people wild. Eh? You? Adventuress. Madam Death. The man in her family. All these things people call you.'

Sezen bundled Mae into her own poor house. She threw cushions in abandon into a heap. In the middle of the night at the end of summer, the fleas were at their hungriest. They nipped about Mae's ankles in a mist.

Sezen knelt in front of a small keep in the wall. 'Here,' she said, pulling out a bottle. 'This is disgusting, but strong. Father made it. It is the only thing he does well.' Its creator snored behind the curtain, like a boozehouse accordion.

Rice wine. Amid the filth of Sezen's house, Mae sat and drank, and told Sezen everything about the grant application and the answer.

'Who needs the village?' Mae said. The rice wine was milky and tasted like chalk, but it seemed to creep up her spine, numbing it vertebra by vertebra.

'Ptoo! to the village,' said Sezen, and pretended to spit. 'Only their clothing holds them together.'

'Are we naked, then?' asked Mae.

'The naked are brave,' said Sezen, and raised her glass.

'To the naked!' said Mae, and raised her glass.

'To Mr Ken,' added Sezen. 'Oh! I want to be fucked.'

Mae was too drunk to be shocked. 'Musa,' she managed to say.

Sezen held out a graphic little finger. 'All you Chinese…' she said. 'He's a Muslim, but Chinese father.' She shook her head, and then suddenly laughed, and shook her head again. Still laughing, Sezen put down the glass suddenly, as if it were a great weight she could no longer bear.

'I am a pig and my family are pigs. All the men I meet are pigs and I shall have piggy children.' She picked up the glass and toasted her helplessness, or the house, or her fate.

The fleas around Mae's ankles rose and fell like flames. Abstracted by the wine, Mae hazily swatted and scratched. She watched helplessly, as she realized Sezen was no longer laughing.

'You only come to me because you are fallen,' accused Sezen, grumpy.

'If you want more people to come, just… clean up,' Mae said.

Sezen looked back at her bleakly. 'This is cleaned up.' She sputtered into laughter. 'I have just cleaned up, this is as clean as it gets! Listen, even the fleas are disgusted with this place.' Laughter ached out of her. A string of sticky spittle clung between her lips. 'I am such a lady, you see, I get bored cleaning. It is beneath me.' Sezen was not really ashamed.