Air (or Have Not Have)

CHAPTER 26

Mae, Siao, Mr Ken and his children all strolled together towards the celebration.

They were a new kind of family. Mr Ken walked on ahead, cajoling and calming his two daughters who were beside themselves with impatience to get to the square to join their friends.

Mr Ken's arms were full of little paper boats. Each one had a birthday-cake candle balanced in it. The girls kept jumping up and trying to snatch them, as if they were full of bonbons.

'Careful, careful!' said Mr Ken. 'The candles are only held by a little wax, and these are for Auntie Mae and Siao as well.'

'Let me have mine,' said the eldest, trying to look more mature. She delicately peeled a boat from her father's grasp. She looked at it with experienced eyes. 'What happens if the candle falls over and the boat catches fire?'

'Oh, that is very good luck: That means your wish gets to Heaven even faster.'

Mae thought, I think Kuei has just made that up.

But, oh, he was handsome, his hair combed, his broad shoulders in a nice new shirt, his round legs in beautiful new slacks.

Mae and Siao strolled slightly behind them, holding hands.

Siao had caught her glance and grinned. 'I have found you out,' he said, teasing. 'I know you have a lover. But I am not sure who it could be.'

'Ah, now I am undone,' said Mae. She played along, but she could still be taken aback by Siao's unexpected habit of turning the most painful things into jokes.

'People even say that once you had a crush on my brother Joe,' said Siao.

'Joe? Don't be silly. Maybe when he was younger and more fashionable. I only like fashionable men.'

'Ah,' said Siao, who even on this big night wore his stonemason's grey sweatsuit. ' That is what you see in me.'

He grinned at her with his beautiful catlike face. That was the village face when it was beautiful, like Mrs Tung's, I love both of my men, thought Mae.

She walked, ponderous with contentment and pregnancy. I feel like a ewe on the pastures at lambing time.

'Mrs Chung-ma'am!' someone called. Mrs Hoiyoo, Kwan's sister, was waving from a high window. 'Your special dress is so beautiful!'

It was airy and embroidered. 'Shen Suloi made it for me!' Mae called back.

'The girls look excited.'

'They are beside themselves. See you there!'

The village square was already full of people. Mr Ken's daughters saw friends, squealed and ran off, clutching their boats of wishes.

The village square was newly paved with honey-coloured stone. Their once wayward little river was now firmly disciplined in a decorative zigzag channel. The bridge which had conveniently dropped down from Upper to Lower Street was now firmly mortared in place, and hung with lights.

Once, the lights would have hung from the One Tree, and the children would have been in the swings soaring higher and higher over the heads of the festival. The children did not even miss the tree now.

'Dad! We'll need more duct tape!'

Genghiz Atakoloo shouted down from scaffolding at the edge of the drop. It would hold all the village TVs, for everyone to see. His father, Enver Atakoloo, bristled his white moustache. Mae remembered that her first real crush had been for Mr Atakoloo, who in those days had been strong and bull-like with his black eyes and black stubble. On the terrible day that he killed Mr Pin and was carried off to prison, Mae had wept. Joe came up behind her and said that she must get used to that, because one day, he, Joe, was going to kill someone and go to prison, too.

'I miss Joe,' Mae said to Siao.

'I know,' said Siao, and gave her hand a shake.

Mae coughed up bile, and moved her handkerchief over her mouth.

Dawn came bouncing up, pulling her mother, Mrs Ling.

'My mother says you are no longer pretty,' giggled Dawn.

'Oh!' exclaimed her mother.

'She says that you are an Imam instead.' Dawn dissolved into giggles. 'Where is your white turban?' She kept chuckling.

'Mae,' said Ling, in apology.

'It is nice to be called an Imam,' Mae said with a shrug.

And suddenly Kwan was there with Sunni, and the women gave each other a quick hug. And Ken and Siao and the girls were all hugged in turn.

'Well!' sighed Kwan. 'We're all here.'

'Not all of us,' said Mae.

She thought of Sezen, Kai-hui, Mrs Tung, Old Mrs Kowoloia. Someone's car radio was pumping out Balshang Lectro.

'Ah,' Kwan said. 'Indeed.' The song faded away and a Talent raved over and over the Air was coming, it was Airday, and the air was 27 Air degrees.

Food came up on legs – the Pin children brought Mae plates of food. People straightened her collar for her.

Young Miss Doh approached, still yearning for love. 'This is your day,' she said to Mae.

'We are all so lucky!' said Mae.

'Lucky? Kizuldah?' said Young Miss Doh.

'We are high up, so we have rain and do not live in a desert. Our people had to fight to stay here, you know. This was the most valuable place.' Mae looked up at the ruined hills. 'We were cut off from all the madness until the very end.'

Mae looked at Miss Doh and saw that she did not feel lucky, cut off high in the hills, but it was important that she acknowledge. 'We are the last, you see,' said Mae. 'The last human beings. After tonight, everywhere, we will be different.'

The Teahouse had a new awning, and tables and chairs laid out on the new pavements. The men played cards or dominoes; some of the women knitted. Mae felt a constant churning like illness in her belly. Suddenly she felt sick and sagged slightly.

'Let's sit, shall we?' Sunni suggested.

Mr Ali stood up and offered a chair. Mae settled, still holding Siao's hand. Kwan seemed to flicker like a knife being sharpened. She shot a glance at Sunni, and Sunni stood up to fetch something or someone.

'I wonder…' Mae began. There was too much to wonder about: Where Joe was now and what he was doing; what Sezen would have done with Air if she had lived; what would happen to Mae's village after Air.

Suloi pulled up a chair, then Mrs Pin, and Mrs Doh. With a sound of scraping chairs, the Circle was suddenly gathered. Out came the clay pipes and tobacco. Siao leaned back and shared his cigarettes with Kuei.

The chat was light and distant, about Soong Chang, who was to wed one of the Pin boys. Mrs Pin must be excited. Had plans proceeded? Siao stood up and craned his neck, trying to catch someone's eye.

'I shouldn't have had anything to eat,' said Mae. She put down her plate.

The food was simply fire, raw on her ulcerated stomach.

'Ooh. All this excitement,' she said.

Sunni came back with Mrs Kosal. 'The new toilet in my house is now working, Mae, if you should need to use it.'

As if on a signal, Siao, Kuei, and Kwan were on their feet.

'Come on, Mae darling, you should see how Mrs Kosal has been able to restore the house.'

Mae chuckled. 'I just need to use the toilet.'

Mrs Hoiyoo was also there, suddenly. Kwan's sister had become a much better friend since the night of the Flood. For some reason she had a towel.

'We all want to see the new house,' said Sunni. 'Better than sitting around waiting for eleven o clock.'

On the radios all around them, Yulduz was singing about Fate, and the fate of the nation being like the fate of a person.

So they dutifully admired the paint on Mrs Kosal's wall, and agreed that there was no trace of damage now, and Kwan drew Mae off into the loo.

'It's 10:40,' warned Mrs Kosal. Her smile shook.

'Don't be frightened,' Mae said to her.

Kwan and Sunni gasped in mock approval at the modern toilet. 'Oh, they have done so well – look at this!'

'So convenient and hygienic,' said Kwan.

'Hot water,' said Sunni, in approval.

'I'm going to be sick,' Mae said shyly. She wanted them to leave.

'Poor darling,' said Kwan, and would not leave her. She patted Mae's back. She looked at Sunni, and Sunni suddenly darted away.

'I'm all right,' Mae said.

'Is it moving?' asked Mrs Kosal.

Mae flung herself forward and Mrs Pin's delicious fish salad shot whole and glossy out of her mouth.

'There,' said Mae. 'That's it.'

Sunni, smiling, stuck her head around the doorway. 'Can we come in?' she asked brightly. She prised the women apart, and Ken Kuei blundered his way forward and then settled, relieved. Siao stood respectfully behind him.

'Ach,' said Mae, 'all of you. Mrs Kosal's new toilet is not more fascinating than the Air. Come on, all of us, or we will miss the show.' She looked at Kwan. 'I feel better, really.'

This time her two men took hold of her, one on each arm.

Mae asked, 'Kuei, what about the girls?'

'They are fine; they are with their cousins. You just think about yourself for once.'

Outside the house was a crowd of people. They stood in silence, turned away from the screens, the car headlights, the radios and the food. They faced the Kosals' house, waiting for Mae.

'She's fine,' Kwan said to them all, in a singsong voice.

'And Mrs Kosal's toilet is very modern,' said Mae, which brought a bit of a chuckle.

Hatijah came forward with a paper boat. She had started to wear black trousers, like her daughter. 'Mrs Chung-ma'am,' she said. 'Have you made a wish?'

'Oh, no! I've forgotten,' said Mae, and took Mrs Ozdemir's arm in gratitude.

'Hurry up,' said Kwan. It seemed that the entire crowd bustled Mae forward, to their little stream.

Since the Flood, the gully was steeper. Their little stream was walled, channelled to the edge of the square, where it dropped away as a waterfall. Mae was supported as she knelt down beside it. The fire in her belly moved again.

'I want another boat!' Mae exclaimed. 'One for my baby!' She looked back and there they all were, all the villagers. Shen had joined his wife, and all the Pin babes crowded round.

'Have mine,' said Ling Dawn.

Two boats of paper with birthday candles.

'Light the candles first, or the boats will float away first,' said Dawn.

Kwan pushed a cigarette lighter into her hand. Mae lit the first candle and set the boat adrift. The boat was made in the old way. It seemed not to soak up the water. It was stable, and it spun away, bearing fire. Mae lit the second, beginning to feel self-conscious, with all those people watching – and her second boat of wishes was borne away, separate from the first.

'That's it, show is over,' she said, standing up. She turned and saw both little boats drop suddenly over the edge.

Then it moved.

Her whole stomach rose up, crammed like a hard pillow. It caught in her gizzard, and something tore. There was another wave; she could feel her gullet clench, relax, push like a serpent. The thing caught, and her gut began to thrash.

'It's coming,' she managed to gasp.

On the scaffolding, Mr Kwan's TV was lit with the face of the tiger Talent. It is almost here, everyone,' the Talent boomed. 'In just two minutes' time, there will be the second coming of the Air. Are you all counting?'

Her sharp, high little voice began to count.

'One minute and fifty-seven seconds.'

The screen shifted to the crowds outside the National Assembly in Balshang. The President was counting.

Mae vomited and vomited, but nothing moved. Her chest heaved.

In Singapore a dancing dragon moved through the crowd.

Push!

Old Mrs Tung was fighting with her.

The dragon inside her moved. The lump reared up and stuck and Mae could not breathe.

Her whole body heaved and fought. Kwan shouted something. Mae felt hands, hands on her wrists, everything about her was slimy with sweat; no one could hold her, she was hot and wringing wet.

'One minute, thirty-five seconds.'

In New York, people were holding hands and singing: 'I heard the news today, oh boy…"'

In Kizuldah, Mr Wing's fireworks erupted, crackling above the ancient fields. Blue and white fire danced in the air, smoky, trailing down like snow made of light. The light also danced on the water. The irrigated fields were full of little boats made of fire, tracing the pattern of the ancient canals.

Mae heaved to suck in air. It came with a thin popping sound, slithering up and over the thing in her throat. She roared again with the sound of vomit, and bent over.

'Forty-nine seconds.'

In Japan, there was a new building made all of wood to celebrate, and balloons were bobbing, ready to be released.

Fire burned the inside of her nostrils. Everything strained, pushing – her new empty hungry belly, the lacerated gullet – it all shifted, and something stuck just behind her mouth, like everything Mae had ever wanted to say:

And like a bubble something burst.

'Ten seconds to go.'

Mae's knees gave way; out it moved, something encased. She felt it move – move of its own accord – and the envelope tore and something sugary and sweet suddenly poured forth.

Kwan was shouting over all the noise, and stroking Mae's throat. 'It's coming. She's giving birth through her mouth.'

And then the Flood came.

A flash and a falling backwards, and then a waterfall of sound/ taste/images sense, rising up out of the earth, catching fire. A flood of Air roaring into her head with a sound like bells, washing away the breakage of the previous Format.

Mae thought, this time it will be right, this time it will be safe.

The people were imprinted again.

Because of Mae it was still the UN Format. It was not the UN Format that had made her ill, but the mailbox program. There was no need for a different Format. She had wrote and told Bugsy that. Bugsy had written a second, powerful article: 'Do We Want a Company to Own Our Souls?'

There were voices in the air like birds, and they shouted in all languages, Hello! hello! hello!

Mae understood them, understood all the languages; she tasted the tang of New York, the restraint and pride of Japan, the waves of salt from her own people.

And Bay Toh Van.

'Come sing a song of joy!'

Air bloomed as gently as knowledge itself; thing after thing was learned, as ignorance was healed like a suppurated wound. Cars, telephones, the Kings of England, the Japanese yen, the euro, the space shuttle, the iron molecules on old computer disks.

And the joyful ghosts. They came running even as Mae choked and clenched for one last time.

'bugsy@nouvelles: Babe! Honey, did you make it?'

'My baby! I've just had my baby!'

Bay Toh Van boomed, Bugsy did a virtual dance in the air, and Mae looked down, under crackling light.

'tunch@kn: Well, Mae, you won. You beat even me. We all won.'

'chungl@arm: Hiya, Mom, show us Kizuldah. We can see with your eyes, Mom!'

And Mae looked down at the thing that hung out of her mouth. Sunni held one hand, Kwan the other, and Kuei's arm was around her back.

The newborn was tiny, the size of a hand. How could it shrink so small? And it was burned black – black by acids. Its tiny fingers seemed melted together, and its tiny genitals were a blur of ruined flesh and its eyes had been seared shut.

And the child beamed – smiling, joyful, dazed.

The babe had been Formatted.

It was full of Beethoven, the history of Karzistan, the hysterical voices of joy live from Beijing, a new wall of Collab music rolling across the landscape from New York, and a sudden, huge warm hand of love reaching into it. Mae spoke to it through Air.

'My little future. You are blind, but you will not need to see, for we can all see for you, and sights and sounds will pass through to you from us. You have no hands, but you will not need hands, for your mind will control the machines, and they will be as hands. Your ears also burned away, but you will hear more in one hour than we heard in all of our lifetimes.

'I am called your mother.'

And then Mae looked up.

'You're alive,' said Kwan.

'We all are,' said Mae, and she caught up the dangling child and its father reached out for it, held it and cradled it. 'He burns!' Kuei chuckled. 'The child burns.' But he cradled him to his breast.

The light flicked and crackled for one last time; the fireworks of Kizuldah fell away to nothing. Kwan gave her a tug. Mae and Kwan, Sunni, Siao, Kuei and his new son, Old Mrs Tung, all of them, turned and walked together into the future.