Geoff Ryman - Air (or Have Not Have)

Stop it, she told herself, you say that to everyone now. You chatter. He is not here for that.

Mae bustled the kettle onto the brazier and rattled out cups for them both. She smelled his breath. Old sour wine. Chinese men could not drink well; the condition was called kizul, 'red' for the flushed cheeks, and the anger. It should also be called 'white,' for afterwards they were pale and shivery, like easily broken ice.

He sighed and dug his fingers into his thick black hair.

You were always so handsome, she thought. Friendship flowed down old familiar channels.

'I didn't sleep last night,' he said.

'I don't wonder at it. You have been removed from a most honoured position, most unjustly.'

'Tub,' he said, looking at her as if she were the TV. His look said: You did it.

'I did nothing, you know,' Mae said, sitting away from him. She found she was calculating how far he could swing if he went to hit her.

Teacher Shen, I would ride in your cart upholstered with hops for the beer factory. That was always my favourite way to go to the city. You, me, and Suloi up early, all the four a.m. birds singing all around us. The dawn would come up on your friendly faces and we would eat buns and you would tell all your old village stories.

Shen said, 'My wife tells me you have been writing letters. You are trying to get me my job back.'

Shen's face shivered, the ice broke, and he was weeping.

'They won't give me my job!' He sounded exactly like a little boy, his face wrung like an old washing-rag. He stared at the table, drawing breath, trying to swallow. 'I am not a farmer, I have very little land. What I am to do for money?'

He patted his pockets. Looking for a cigarette. Then remembering he had none, could not afford them.

Mae leaned forward. 'You studied so hard to be a Teacher. It was not right of them to fire you.'

'Fire me they did,' he said.

'Kwan is trying to make a collection. Trying to get enough money from the village to pay you…'

He shook his head over and over. Who had the money for that in winter? Who became a Teacher to end up living on village charity?

Mae tried to explain. 'I would help collect it but…'

Shen sighed and nodded. 'But no one will talk to you. Hard to lose a job, isn't it?' He looked up at her. 'It is what I did to you.'

She shrugged. 'I was able to do something else. As we all will have to, Teacher. The world will not let any of us stay the same.'

Shen sniffed; he sat up straighter. 'I have been thinking,' he said, 'that there is something I can do to help myself.' He sighed, sniffed, and repaired the damage to his manhood by wiping his cheeks. 'I can learn how to use the monster.'

He pulled in a breath as if smoking self-respect cigarettes. 'If I use it, they will say, "Oh, he is no longer stopping progress."'

Mae paused. Her response must be gentle. 'You are wise, Teacher Shen,' she replied.

'How do I do it?' he said with a snap.

She replied cautiously. 'It will take time, Teacher Shen, and the village needs you to be Teacher now.' Mae considered how to unroll Shen's mat. 'The effect we need to create is that you already know much about Info. And that you are willing to teach it.'

Shen swayed in his chair. He looked trapped. He turned away and looked as if he desperately wanted a lungful of cigarette smoke to blow out.

'Okay,' he said.

'I can tell you what to say to the machine to set up an e-mail address. If you do it vocally, the machine will record that the commands came from you personally and that will be better, yes? The Office of Discipline and Education sees it comes from you. Then, we will send them a videomail. So they see that you don't just know e-mail, you are full Net TV person. So we must spruce you up a bit.'

He almost laughed. 'Fashion expert.'

'No longer,' she replied. 'But I am good at selling things. And make no mistake, Teacher. We are now selling you. Ah? I'm sorry, but we must be clear on what we are trying to do.'

He was dismayed, he was helpless, and his picture of the world no longer worked. He nodded tamely.

'I still have some things of Joe's,' she said, and stood up. 'Oh! The tea!' She quickly poured water into the pot and left him with it. He sat nursing the cup. He wanted to be comforted and to wash away the booze.

By the sink were Joe's things, male things: razor, comb. When Joe left, he had hurled everything about the house. He and Tsang had flung everything about. They must have been drunk. Or very happy.

'Here. You must shave. You must wash your hair.'

Shen seemed frozen. Of course, he would have to take off his shirt. Imagine the scandal if one of the ladies of the Circle came to find him with Madam Owl and his shirt off.

'I will check the machine and be back,' Mae said. She was growing very adept at zipping up and down that ladder.

She unhooked the TV from the beam. It did not take much strength to wheel the machine around and crank it down onto the kitchen floor. 'Tell me when you are ready, Teacher Shen!' she called.

Mae looked out from her skylight. The whole house clicked like knitting needles as water trickled continually down the eaves. The water butts were overflowing. It was cool, her breath was vapour, but only because the air was so wet it could not contain any more moisture; it was the vapour of fog, not of deep chill.

Too warm, too warm, too warm.

Mae broke off the thought. She talked Mrs Tung down. We will go on TV and get Teacher Shen back his job. The weaving machine is making all kinds of things, new things that never existed before. California ladies order bags, women in Japan order embroidered caps. Isn't Info great? Isn't business fun?

Tm ready,' Mr Shen called.

Mae clambered down the ladder. Her heart went out to Shen. He stood up straight, head back, as if to brave the buffeting waves of examination. His hair was black again, from being damp. There were shaving suds around his ears and Joe's old razor had left a rash. But he looked shiny and he sat up straight.

'Oh, you look so professional,' said Mae.

She talked him through setting up an account on her machine. He spoke the words slowly, hesitantly, through a stone face in which even the lips hardly moved.

But the screen did a fan dance of pages, confirming, informing.

I love this stuff, thought Mae. At no other time was her mind as clear. At no other time was Old Mrs Tung farther from her, less in step, more powerless inside her. So joy reinforced joy. Her beautiful TV was like a fount from which she drew something sparkling, wholesome, and clear.

Shen was a double name. If he was Karzistani, and there was a lot of doubt about that, then the name meant 'Happiness.' If it was the Chinese name Shen, then it was too ancient to mean anything. It could even be an Eloi name, if you pushed – Shueng. What nation was he?

Someone called Shen came from a people with too much history. They could be killed for the history embedded in their names. That made them permanently afraid, buffeted by fate. They were a peasant people only wanting to be left alone, and to not have to worry about which continent they belonged to or which tribe. That was all Shen wanted – to be left alone unnoticed.

'Okay. Now you must look like you are going to your daughter's graduation.' She pulled the old coat from him and was grateful that he had worn a black shirt. It was rumpled and of variable colour, but on TV its darkness would be pristine. She wiped the soap from his ears.

'Excuse me, you have a rash,' she said. 'Can I put some makeup on you?'

Finally he smiled. 'I am a Talent,' he said, shuffling his feet even as he sat.

Mae dabbed his chin with her own colourings.

'I will be talking to the Secretary?' he said, something like terror overcoming him.