Air (or Have Not Have)

CHAPTER 12

The world stopped, like a truck.

'What is what?' babbled Mae, looking back and forth between the two men. What do I do, what do I say, do I deny it, do I act like I have no idea?

Shen, the serpent, looked at her with eyes that seemed green. He seemed to be made of stained green copper like the statues in town of forgotten generals. She hated him; she knew why he had done it. Shen had decided to destroy her.

'You know, woman,' said Joe, and strode forward and hit Mae in the face.

The flesh of her cheek was like a pond into which a rock is hurled. It rose and rippled and washed about her eyes. Mae felt her nose give, just to the point of breaking.

Mae allowed herself to be knocked backwards. She landed and lay still to buy time for thinking.

'Joe, Joe,' she heard Shen say, gently restraining.

'Wake up, woman!' Joe demanded. He was leaning over her, she could feel his breath. 'You cannot pretend with me!' His voice broke. He shook her. Mae kept her head limp.

'That… uh… That was premature, said Shen. 'She can answer nothing now.'

'She is pretending. I know the vixen,' said Joe.

'Look at that bruise,' said Shen.

Mae's mind raced. Shen had seen only shoes and a shadow through the curtains in her room. Can I undermine his story? He is a feeble man; he will hate it that I have been hit. Can I make him retract through guilt?

And Joe? Joe is weak as well, but he will be full of pain. I bet he's come back with no money.

Mae groaned. She let the broken flesh and its black swelling speak for her. She moaned and started to cry and held her cheek. She sat up, on the cobbles of the yard, streaked with mud, and wept. The two men stood over her, one now constraining the other.

Joe was shouting. 'Well might you weep! Well might you weep!'

She was weeping for the happiness, the happiness that had been hers just a minute before. Mae wept for her marriage, her love of Mr Ken, her business. In the end, Mae wept for death. Many things would now die, little baby possibilities that she had been nursing. It was life. Dog eat dog.

'Joe, she's not up to answering much,' said Shen. He turned and tried to help her up. 'Come on, Mae. This has to be gone through.'

How was she going to play it? She could lie, try to disguise it, play the wounded and confused wife, but there was one problem. Shen had truth on his side and knew it. She saw that in his eyes. Fashion expert that she was, her powers of dissimulation were not up to it. She did not have the heart for it. She felt a gathering presence in her breast, a tension. She had decided to draw power by telling the truth.

She did not take Shen's hand. So, Shen, so you expected my poor farmer of a husband to react like a schoolteacher, did you? Ruin lives, but avoid making a mess. Is that what you thought you could do?

Mae rolled over and sat on the cobbles, near the ground, as if the ground could nurture her. She looked at Shen only. 'What you are doing is very evil,' she told him.

Shen warned her: 'I am not the one who has done harm here.'

'You are doing this because you want to stop the machine.' Mae said it wearily. 'You do not care about Joe. You will destroy him, destroy me.'

So be it.

'It is true, Joe,' she said, turning.

A throb of silence. 'Whore,' whispered Joe.

'Whores do it for money. I did it for love.' She still sat on the ground.

'You are not ashamed?' Joe was failing.

'A bit. Ashamed to be caught. I am the only woman in the village who has been caught.' She nursed her jaw. She would be a sight.

The two men rocked slightly.

She held forth while she still had the chance. 'What do you do when you are away, Joe? Eh? When you are drunk and looking like a comedian. You go with women.'

He looked comic now, hair askew, eyes bugged with both shock and sadness. He would not easily forgive being made to look so foolish. 'No,' he said in a wan voice. 'I… do… not.' His voice became fierce on the last line.

Oh, Joe. It was probably true. You probably did not. More fool, you.

'Who was it?' Joe demanded.

Shen said, 'That does not matter,' restraining Joe again.

Mae spoke. 'Oh no, you don't want the man to get into trouble, do you, Shen? You feel for the man. And more mess would weigh on your conscience.'

'Who is he?' demanded Joe; her foolish Joe going dark, fists clenched.

Shen sighed. 'Does it make a difference?' Which was exactly what Mae was going to say.

'I was so happy.' Joe was weeping. He pushed the palms of his hands into his eye sockets. 'I had looked all over for work, it took weeks, finally I found it, and there was this stupid thing and I had to go home. All I wanted to do was go home!'

'I was happy, too,' whispered Mae.

'Oh, yes,' said Joe, snatching away his hands. 'You were skipping. Back from your cock, you whore!'

The listening lights of the village were on. They reflected on the walls, on the clouds.

Mae's eyes were on the Teacher. 'Who do you think you have made more unhappy, Shen? Me or him?'

Shen did not answer.

'It was me,' said a male voice.

And that was Ken Kuei.

Oh, fine. Oh, good. You come in to take your share, to take your part of the blame. To protect me. Just when it all was quieting down, when Joe and I might have talked.

Why is goodness so stupid?

There he was, her handsome stupid man against her comic sad one, ranged in orange light, like fire, to burn. Joe's face said, in horror (Mae could see his thoughts): My neighbour, Ken Kuei?

Mae could see Joe think: We will meet each other every day.

Shen had covered his mouth in shock. Of course he would not have known who it was.

Mae said, 'Feeling proud, Shen?'

'I am sorry, Joe,' said Kuei. 'I have always loved your wife.'

Oh, even better.

'How long!' yelped Joe. He looked in horror between them. 'How long have you two done this?'

'Not long,' said Mae, shaking her head, in a quiet voice.

'Is Lung my son?' squealed Joe.

Oh, best yet! – better than anything she could have dreamed. The one thing right in Joe's life was his boy.

'Of course,' she said, but she could not speak loudly. She had begun to tremble, deeply, inside. She felt like being sick again. 'Lung is your son,' she tried to say again.

'You pig,' wailed Joe, and launched himself at Mr Ken.

'No!' said Shen, and tried to stop Joe, and, to Mae's immense pleasure, Joe hit Shen full in the face with his fist. Shen spun, holding his nose, blood spurting from it.

Mae found that part of her wanted to laugh.

There will be news enough in this night to keep the village going for a year. We will be destroyed, will all lose station, dignity, voice.

Joe tried to hit Mr Ken. Kuei caught his fist.

'I don't want to fight you, Joe.' Oh, don't you? thought Mae. You will not have much choice.

Joe swung again, and connected.

'Joe, we could not help…' Mr Ken did not finish as a second blow was struck.

It is like a toy that you let go, and watch whizzing off until its batteries run down.

Joe wanted to fight. Joe wanted to die. Mr Ken wanted to talk. The two agendas were not compatible.

Joe swung again, and this time Kuei swung back.

'You're good at hitting women,' said Kuei, and swung again.

Joe was going to get beaten up.

Oh well, thought Mae, here we go.

Mae started to scream. She did it quite deliberately, almost without emotion, to rouse the village to the point of being desperate to see what was happening. They would stop the fight. The scandal would be immense.

'Stop it, you're killing him!' she wailed, choosing her words carefully.

That truly did it. Beyond her gates, doors bashed open, footsteps clattered, men shouted, women cried aloud. Old Mrs Ken came running out of her house, clutching at her bathrobe. Mr Oz came running out hopping into his trousers, panic-stricken. He trampolined towards his golden van to make sure it was safe. The gate boomed back against the wall, and there stood Mr Kemal, with a pitchfork.

'What is going on here!' Mr Kemal demanded.

There was Shen, bloodied, Kuei and Joe fighting, and a beaten woman on the ground.

'What is this brawl?' demanded Mr Kemal. 'Teacher Shen, I am surprised to see you involved in this!'

The dismayed expression on Shen's face almost made it worthwhile. Almost.

You should have stayed unconscious, advised Old Mrs Tung.

Mae had to leave her house and go to live with Kwan.

It would have been impossible to stay with Joe and even more impossible that she move in with Mr Ken. Joe would have murdered them in their bed.

Mae's brother arrived about a half hour after the fight, demanding she move in with him. 'I do not wish to do that,' said Mae. She was flinging her clothes into a bag as Joe was comforted by Young Mr Doh.

'You have no choice,' said her brother. Ju-mei followed her all the way up the hill, making demands. He did not even offer to help Mae with her bags. 'It is all right, brother, I got myself into this mess, I certainly did not expect any help from my family!' She turned and left him standing openmouthed.

'My god,' whispered Kwan, when she saw Mae's bruised face.

Kwan let her sleep late. About midday she came up to Mae's attic room with tea, and sat with her.

'Will you leave the village?' Kwan asked.

Normally, that would have been the answer. Mae and Ken would have packed up and gone away, to live in the city. Balshang, probably. God, what a fate, to bake in those sweltering tower blocks, with no money, no air, no friends. Until they ended up hating each other, as was normal.

Mae shook her head. 'I have to help here.'

Kwan held her hand. 'You are not in a good position to help.'

Mae shrugged. 'I will still have my school.'

'No one would come to it,' said Kwan. Her eyes were sad, her mouth firm. She held her friend's hand.

So Mae had lost the school, too. She looked at Kwan's hand. The hand was the village, all she had left of it. Mae loved the village.

The fields she had worked in all summer were her husband's. They were not hers to work any longer. The rice she had nurtured, watered with her sweat, was hers no longer.

The house she had cleaned was no longer hers, the pans, the brazier, all the old spoons. That house had seen her through three children. She had stirred the laundry and the soup alike as the babies fought and wailed around her ankles.

Her home.

She nearly lost even the rough old sewing machine. Mr Wing fetched it for her, and had to remind Joe that legally it belonged to Kwan.

The sewing machine now sat in the corner, next to Mae's suitcases. They looked small in the empty loft room. The only furniture was a couch that Kwan and Wing had wrestled into the space. The roof had a window through which sunlight streamed. Wing had taped clear plastic where panes of glass had been. Everything was coated in a fine white dust.

At midday, just under the tiles, it sweltered. In winter, she would freeze. Swallows cried urgently to be fed from nests under the eaves.

'Bloody Shen,' said Mae. 'Joe's come back with no money and who will buy dresses from me now? I don't even have the loan to pay for any cloth.' Mae sighed and shook herself. 'Still – nothing broke. I kept all my teeth.' Such was peasant luck.

'Joe has been getting drunk with Young Mr Doh,' said Kwan. 'People say that he lost his job through drinking. Siao and Old Mr Chung will work on the construction.'

Mae groaned for him. He had come back with nothing, to find nothing. 'What are they saying about Shen?'

'To me? Nothing. My dear, I am your champion. There are people who will walk past me as if I am not there.'

Mae pondered this for a moment. What was her position in this house? She would have to make some kind of contribution, both in money and in attention and gratitude. How long could she stay? She needed to stay, but every friendship can wear out.

'God, I hate being poor,' said Mae. Poverty afflicts everything, in the end, everything that should be sacrosanct. Love, friendship, the chance to dream, how you live, with whom you live.

'You can stay here as long as you like,' said Kwan, quickly, to get it out of the way.

'If I get my business back together, can I run it from here?'

Kwan faltered ever so slightly. She saw cloth, sewing machines, strangers coming into her house.

'I can work from one of the barns. I know it's difficult.'

Kwan fought her way to honesty. 'I have to ask Mr Wing.'

If not… Well, things would be bad if not. Well, things had always been bad and a dishonoured woman in a village had to settle for what she could get.

'Could you tell Joe for me about the TV charges? How I bargained with Sunni? And that the interest on the loan has been waived? That should ease his mind a bit.'

Kwan nodded and worked Mae's fingers in her own.

'You are still fond of Joe.'

'Of course. I lived with him for thirty years.'

'And Mr Ken?'

'The saddest thing of all is that I had decided to end it.'

Kwan sighed, and patted her arm. 'You rest,' she said.

Mae fought her way to honesty as well. 'There is something else,' she said.

Kwan could not help putting her hand on her forehead. What now?

'I think I am pregnant,' said Mae.

Sezen came to call, still blinking, with black hair in her eyes.

Sezen said, 'You sit in bed? You have work to do.'

Mae was not in a position to admonish her for rudeness. Merely visiting Mae had put Sezen in the position of being owed. 'I will start work again, soon,' said Mae.

'Your face is a mess, but no one has to see it,' said Sezen. 'Musa and I can get the cloth for you. No problem.'

'I'm not doing bad-girl clothes,' said Mae.

'Of course not,' said Sezen. 'Just whatever you need the cloth for.'

Mae adjusted to this in silence.

Sezen added, 'Aprons, oven gloves. Things people really use.'

What is it with you, Sezen? Why can't I understand what you want? Why, in a word, are you sticking by me?

Sezen jerked sideways in an angry, harnessed way that was entirely new. 'I have bad news,' she said, and her jerking body expressed impatience with herself for not knowing how to begin. 'Han An has gone off to work for Sunni. I saw the two of them still going around with clipboards, trying to look as if you had not done it first.'

Mae judged the seriousness of the blow. Finally she said, 'That is the least of my worries.'

'She's a traitor,' said Sezen, pouting with scorn.

Mae thought she was going to defend An, but found she could not be bothered. 'Yes.'

'Hmm! She'd better stay clear of me or I will pull out all her hair. Musa and I can go this afternoon to buy your cloth. But we will need the money to do that.'

Her hard brown face, her demanding dark eyes.

Mae felt her deadened face strain towards a smile. 'There is no money, Sezen,' she said.

The girl blinked.

Mae kept explaining: 'The loan was to my husband. It's his money.'

'We will do something else, then,' Sezen said, her jaw thrusting out.

'We?' wondered Mae.

'That government man, he must be good for money,' said Sezen.

'You mean I should ask the government man for money!' Mae felt outdone in audacity.

Sezen shrugged. 'He keeps saying how advanced we are. Meaning you. So. Ask.' She sniffed and then said, 'I can't have you going soft, like my mother.'

'I won't do that' said Mae. It was a promise.

In the evening, Mr Oz called.

His eyes said: How could you do this to me? 'This is a serious setback to our programme,' he said. He tutted. Light caught his spectacles. 'I was relying on you to be our model.'

'If only I'd known,' replied Mae. 'I would not have fallen in love.'

'I have to write my report.' Mr Oz swayed, as if under a burden. 'I have nothing to say. Except to tell them it is all a mess, everywhere.'

'When hasn't it been?' said Mae, and thought: How could they send a boy like you out on his own?

Down below, on Kwan's landing, the men were gathered around the box. Mae could hear the barking announcer and a sighing crowd: the sound of fut-bol on TV.

'Can you continue your school?' Mr Oz demanded. 'Can you still teach others?'

Mae pondered just how much she needed this young man. She wanted to tell him off. 'My main worry now, Mr Oz, is my own life. I have lost a home and a husband.'

He understood that, and winced and rubbed the back of his neck.

'Mr Oz. Do you want to help?'

He looked up as eagerly as a puppy. 'That's what I'm here to do!'

'Then teach me how to make screens, so I can sell my goods.' Mae sat up on her bed. 'I want to specialize and spread my geography. I want to make things to sell abroad to specialist markets that will express the buyer's interest in Third World issues. I want to sell my goods to New York, Singapore, Tokyo…'

The government man was in love. His pulse had quickened, his eyes gleamed, this was what he yearned to report. 'Yes, yes, I can do that for you… I can set them up, I can show you how. I can show you how to tell people how to find your screens…'

Mae nodded. 'But I am now a poor woman on my own, with no money to invest. You are from the government. Do you have any way the government can help me?'

He paused to think. 'Not by myself. But… But I can help, yes, I can help. I can find forms, yes, I can help you fill them in. But you know, we will have to make a case to get the grant.'

'I have a case,' said Mae.

The Central Man, to his credit, was ready to move. 'Let's go now,' he said, beaming.

He really was fresh from the cradle. 'Mr Oz. I am a fallen woman. I cannot go out to those men, and chase them away from the machine!'

Down below, the crowd sounds roared towards a crescendo. 'No!' shouted one of the men. Their team was losing. They would be in a bad mood.

'That's okay, we can use mine,' said the government man, enthusiastic and oblivious. 'My van has a computer.'

They would have to walk out through the landing. The sound of the men, drunken below, rose up like the odour of a stew.

Mae climbed down the ladder from the loft, to the staircase and from there into the carpeted diwan that led to the landing. Her stomach was a knot of nerves. She felt as if a layer of skin had been stripped from her.

Just past the stone arch, the men were crowded onto the narrow landing. The barking voice finished and there was a swelling of jolly music. The game had just ended.

Allah! Please make them all decide to go home!

The men yawned. Chairs scraped on stone. Mr Oz started to walk. Mae grabbed his sleeve and he looked back at her in surprise. He finally understood that she was afraid.

'Okay, now a movie?' someone said. Chairs scraped again, and suddenly there was Bollywood music. Mae gave in and nodded yes to Mr Oz. She tried to be invisible. She tried to waft forward like a ghost onto the landing.

Men were crowded around the TV. Mae glimpsed among them Mr Ali, Mr Pin, and both Old and Young Mr Dohs. Joe was not there. Mae tried to slip around the backs of the chairs. The air seemed full of thick, half-cooked bread to delay her.

'Tuh,' chortled Mr Doh, in something like disgust. Mae did not look around.

'There's a funny smell,' said Mr Ali. ' Kwan should not keep pigs in her house.'

Mr Pin agreed. 'Ah. You should keep pigs in the basement. They like rolling in shit.'

The men chuckled. Mae was nearly at the head of the stairs. It would be easy to push her down them.

'The heat of their bodies warms the house,' said Mr Ali.

'It seems hot pigs fuck even government men.'

'Hot pigs must be killed,' said Old Mr Doh.

The very air seemed to shudder. Mae had to glance back then, in case the time had come to run.

Young Mr Doh had a hand on his father's arm. He looked at Mae in alarm and jerked his head towards the gate: Get out of here quick! Mae thought: You are Joe's best friend, and yet it is you who still treats me like a human being.

Mae scurried forward, her feet bouncing down the steps like a ball.

'Gentlemen,' said Mr Oz, Mr Sincere. 'Good evening. I am glad to see that you make such good use of the TV.'

Mr Oz stood with his legs planted apart and across the top of the stairs. Mae ran.

Mae waited in her old courtyard, trembling in the dark.

She had bolted her gate and crouched behind it. She had to hope that Joe did not come outside. Or Mr Ken.

There was a knock. 'It is me,' murmured Mr Oz.

'Ssh!' said Mae, and lifted the latch more gently than if it had been a blanket over a baby.

They tiptoed to the barn and closed the door.

Inside his van, Mr Oz said, 'I will drive you back home. If those dolts are still there, you can sleep here in the van.'

Mae slumped into the seat. She felt a weakness in her belly and had to hold her head for a moment as nausea passed over her.

She knew the signs. Yes, she was pregnant.

'Are you all right?' Mr Oz asked.

Mae was outraged. This… This youngster had only just noticed that she had been beaten, bruised, and cast out. 'No! I am not all right!' she said, angry.

Oz was used to kindness being returned, and was confused. He scowled.

'Oh, for heaven's sake, stop being such a child and help me if you are going to!'

He jerked somewhere just under his lungs, and leaned forward. He plugged in wires, and something whined to life. There was a tiny box with a flip-up screen, a kind of mini-TV.

'Go to "Info," ask for "Government," ' he said.

Mr Oz took Mae into new provinces of Info. There were rules, regulations, advice, offers of service, all from her own government. Up came a voiceform.

The voiceform kept asking impertinent questions. Are you over forty? How many children do you have? All over twenty years old? Any dependants? What is your annual income? 10,000 riels! 1,000 riels? It offered no figure that was low enough. Mae murmured: 500 riels.

'Is that true?' asked Mr Oz, quietly. 'If you say too much, you may be disqualified for some things.'

So she told the truth: One hundred riels a year. The Central Man looked sad, but his eyes did not catch hers.

'Okay, let me take over here,' he said. 'What do you want the money for?'

And Mae told him: To buy modern oatmeal cloth that rich people like, and to pay others to embroider it with Eloi patterns and then tell the West and the Big East that the cloth was a statement about Third World issues. Mr Oz chuckled at that, and looked around at her face.

Then he spoke into the machine, translating what she had told him into official talk. It sounded to Mae like a news item, terribly important, like the way rich people talked about themselves. But it didn't move or excite her.

'That's boring,' she said.

He shrugged. Mae imagined someone at the other end, listening bored to her answers.

And she reached into the patterns, reached into the new glowing links inside her head, and spoke with the knowledge of the Kru, without being the Kru.

'The proposal is to use the power of the Net to extend the reach of local crafts skills to specialist niche markets, most especially America, Singapore, and Japan.'

Mr Oz turned around and blinked at her.

'This will not be traditional direct marketing. Efforts will be focused on information finders of various types, particularly fashion or craft networks…'

He warned her. 'Don't use the word "Eloi." "Traditional local crafts," that's what these are. Do you have a Horseman?'

Horsemen in Karzistan had traded for centuries in the most mobile currency of all: horseflesh. They used their commodity also to bear news, where there were shortages of horses or any other goods. Other traders paid them for such news.

Horsemen, like fashion experts, had always been in the information business.

Now they were people who were paid to sell and sort Info. They were called something else in English, but in Karz, they were called Info Horsemen.

Mr Oz had names and addresses ready. 'You have to give an address for a Horseman. They don't think you've done your homework otherwise.'

He added an official report to her application. It was a separate file attached to her application. His voice validated his identity.

'This is a core project for the Green Valley/Red Mountain area,' he said. 'Its proponent has taken a lead in instructing the village people on the Net and the coming of the Air. She has founded the Swallow School, a project to train locals in Info skills. She has also used a well-constructed Question Map to determine the views of local people on Air. The proposed scheme will demonstrate to this community the value of the Net. It will be the best possible advancement for the aims of both the Yu En Air project and the Central Bureau of Information Technology/Ministry of Development's Joint Declaration of the Taking Wing Initiative.'

Then he sent the form.

'I think we'll get it,' Mr Oz said. 'I cannot imagine a better case.'

He looked calm, sated, knowing how fine it would look on his own record.

So you get something, too. Just as well.

'How do I become an Info Horseman?' Mae asked.

He looked around at her and for once, his eyes were adult. 'You would need to know very much more than you do now,' he replied.

'Can I learn it?'

He sighed. 'You would need to know how wires work. And money. And banking.'

Mae thrust out her chin. 'I have my Kru.'

'And the people – most of all you need to know the people, the people in those worlds. It is not for me to say that you can learn.'

We are who we are.

'Thank you,' she said. The Central Man had said no in a way that she could understand and accept.

'Right,' she said. 'Now, teach me how to make screens.'

Mr Oz crumpled. 'It is late-'

Mae cut him off: 'And I risked my life to come here, and I cannot do it often. You say you want to help, then fine. Help. Helping people costs; you've got to do it when you're tired. Go on! Do your job!'

Mr Oz paused. The muscles in his face worked like biceps. His face seemed to swim up through anger to the placid surface of a smile. 'This is very good for me,' he said. Then he grinned.

'Right. You make screens with something old called html, xml makes it work on TV and aml will even make it work on Air.'

'That means nothing to me.'

'You'll have to learn the words,' said Mr Oz. In the realm of Info, he could command.

The next day Mr Ken came to ask Mae to live with him.

Mae was sweeping Kwan's diwan, the carpets rolled up. The men were already at the television, already there were sports results. A voice behind her said, 'Shouldn't you rest?'

Mae turned and saw Mr Ken. He looked terrible, abject and sleepless.

'Did they say anything to you?' Mae asked jerking her head down towards the landing. Ken Kuei would have had to walk past all the men.

'Some things,' Kuei said.

'I can imagine,' she said. 'When you leave they will ask if your dick is wet.'

'I have come for a serious discussion,' he said.

Kuei's wonderful good behaviour disguised a lack of intelligence. He was diligent, kind, silent, and sympathetic. Just not very bright. Or were all men stupid? Or only the ones she knew?

His ballooning broad shoulders, his round face like a peach, his lips like something soft and chewable. If he were to start on her now, here in the sun-drenched guest room on the swept flagstones, pulling down her trousers, she would dampen, open, admit him.

But no, he wanted a serious discussion.

Mae sniffed. 'Okay. We talk.'

'It is impossible for us to stay in the village,' he said.

'It is impossible for me to go,' she said, very quietly.

He coughed, gently. 'I… propose,' he said. 'That we leave. Together. Take my children with us. We would go wherever you like. But I would suggest Green Valley City.' He looked helpless, proud. 'I would hate Balshang,' he said.

'I want to stay here,' she repeated.

He nodded. 'Okay. Okay,' he said, trying to absorb what she meant. 'I will need to find us a new house. It would not be possible to live so close to Joe.'

'Which house? Whose, Mr Ken? Is there an empty house here? I thought they were all crowded with too many children, and children's children. And oh, such a difference, Mr Ken, to be two minutes away from one's husband. Passing him every day in the fields. Weeding his fields instead of yours by mistake.'

'I know, I know,' Kuei nodded.

'I want this to stop,' Mae said.

'It has not been good,' he admitted. He looked at her, his eyes that wanted to stay a child and that wanted her. 'But it could be good. If we just say, "Yes, it is true, but now we will live together, open." We could do that, and in a year they will get used to it.'

'You don't understand,' she said. 'That night – huh! The night before last, it seems a year ago. That night, as I walked home, I had made up my mind. That this would stop. I decided then.'

She heard the men and their laughter, the birds in the fields, and the very slight noise of the river that flowed right across the heart of the village. She looked into his dark eyes.

'I have been doing too much. I know what I want to do. I have to do just that, if I am to do it at all. And I cannot bear to give up.'

'Info,' he said, almost in scorn.

'This village,' she answered him. 'What your grandmother showed me is that everything dies. It is not good enough just to live. You have to know that death is certain. Not… Not just of the person, but of whole worlds. Ours is going to die. It is dead now. The only thing I can do is help it be reborn, so we can survive.'

Kuei was picking at something on the windowsill next to her. 'Mother to us all,' he said, in some bitterness.

'If it were a different time…' she said.

'If we were younger…' he said.

'If it were as it should be…'

'If we were as we once were…'

He shook himself like a dog, shivered. ' Urggh,' he said, partly in anger, partly in casting anger off. 'Will you go back to Joe?'

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.