Teacher Shen cameto call.
Mae opened her door and saw him against the glowing white-grey sky, and her heart thumped. 'Teacher,' she said, greeting him in the formal fashion, with a bow of respect.
Shen looked awful. Disordered wisps of hair were on his chin. They were grey, like an old woman's whiskers. His eyes were encircled with concentric pouches of flesh.
He stared at her.
'It is cold for you; please come in, Teacher,' she said.
He looked poor, he smelled poor. His coat was old, black, held shut. Something had been spilt on it. He had beautiful Eloi mittens, knitted by his wife.
Mae kept talking. 'Oh, such weather to come visit, let me make you tea.'
'It's not cold,' he said. 'It is unseasonably warm.'
'Please – please sit at the table.'
Mae cleared away Siao's breakfast things. 'I know what you mean about warmth. All that snow on the hills, in this warm weather. I fear there will be a Flood.'
Shen's lip curled.
Mae kept smiling, rattling out cups. 'There was one, you know, in 1959, and all the village of Aynalar was washed away. We need to be prepared in case it happens again.'
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.
'No,' she said hurriedly. 'No, no, of course not. What you will do is talk into the TV but the video will be sent like a letter they can open later. They will see that you are a good man, a serious man, and that you are at home with Info. They will see that they are wrong about you. Okay?'
She looked into his eyes. The village hated the government, mistrusted it. He could bolt at any moment.
'I'll tell you what, use the big screen like a mirror. That will show you how you look, and that can help you.'
Shen seemed to wilt. 'I should not do it now. I should write out a speech first. What if I make a mistake?'
'If it is a bad one, we make the movie again, okay? But listen, Shen, don't read a speech. You are a Teacher, you are used to talking all day in front of people. You are a smart man, I promise, you will do this well. Okay? Okay?'
You poor good man.
Mae turned on the camera and went onto record, and swapped the screen so it would show what the camera saw. Shen was suddenly struck by seeing his own face on TV. He opened his mouth and stared. Sweat from the heat trickled down his face, as if he were melting snow.
'I don't know what to say,' he said. His face was slippery with panic.
'Stop. Cancel,' she told the machine.
Mae mopped his face and told him, firmly, 'You know what you need to say. The Secretary knows he is powerful, so don't waste his time grovelling. He knows you are asking for something. Just ask quickly. But make sure also that you say what you need to say.'
He began again, and the Teacher in him emerged.
'Secretary Goongoormush,' he said, and swallowed. 'I am Teacher Shen Yoh of the village of Kizuldah in Yeshibozkent Vilayet. I have recently been removed from my post of Teacher.' He cleared his throat. 'I understand why this has been done. It is my job to teach Info. And it is true that I did stop Madam Chung from teaching this subject. However, the village has no Teacher at all now. In winter, this means that the children receive no schooling. I request that I be reinstated. As you see, I have begun to learn Info from Madam Chung herself.'
He paused and then said, 'We have always been the best of friends, and I am sure she will help me to become a good Teacher. Thank you for your time.' His breath rattled, and then he said: 'Queue message.'
When had he learned that?
'That's it!' she said, to encourage him. 'You've done it!'
'Yes,' he said. 'Thank you.' His eyes were heavy, his whole bearing was weighted. As if lifting rocks, he stood up to go.
It was time for them to be honest. Mae stood up, too. 'What you did to me was a very bad thing,' she said to him.
'Yes,' he said. Still he did not, could not, apologize. He moved towards the door.
'I am only trying to help us, help us all,' she said, finding herself trailing after him. 'We all must learn, to be part of the future!' What did she want from him? Something in return?
He was being pursued, and speeded his progress towards the door. He picked up his stained coat and wrapped his scarf around his throat. His back was towards her. He was at the door, through the door, gone. Nothing else was said.
Not even a thank-you? She went to the window. Shen's shoulders were hunched. He took a hand and mussed his tidy hair. His hands shook as they fought to open the ancient latch of the courtyard gate. Then, as if in a rage Shen flung the doors back so they shuddered against the cobbles and only slowly swung back to close after him. Before they did, Mae saw Shen hide his face in his hands.
Then she looked to the other side of the courtyard. She saw Mr Ken, glaring after Shen, ready for a fight. She saw Kuei turn towards her window, and she darted back, into the shadows.
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Party of Progress
Today's Events
sunni-ma 'am 's review of good dress high fashion. See how Info makes it possible to select the very dress in your special fabric and colour. Sunni-ma'am's house. Come and have tea at 9:30 after the morning's tasks are done.
EYE OF THE BEHOLDER CIRCLE
begins work every day at 8:00 a.m. See our happy ladies at work as the intelligent machine weaves special clothes for each one of our customers. The ladies make even more special handmade items. These are sold for big bucks to our friends in America. If you come at 10:30, Madam Chung will be pleased to show you the Info she has designed and created for your neighbours' businesses. She will tell you
HOW TO MAKE BIG BUCKS FROM INFO. HAPPY FAMILIES
Both of Kizuldah's TV Houses are open to all every evening. Come in for friendly hello-cakes, tea, and village chat with Sunni-ma 'am, or Wing-sir and Kwan in their own homes, at their own machines.
This is a very good thing that has happened to us: the government says so, and the New York Times says so.
6:00 p.m.-9:30 p.m. every night except when snow is too deep.
INSURANCE PARTY
Ten households in our Happy village are even happier, safe in the knowledge that if misfortune falls, they are protected. Mr Wang ju-mei, our village insurer, will be holding another midwinter Jamboree. Come and be warm with wine, Old Mrs Wang's home-cooking, and a free TV show with a difference. You will be the star… a TV show about you. 7:30 p.m. Friday night. Modern music by our modern girl, Sezen!
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audio file from: Mrs Chung Mae
10 January
Dear Miss Soo. I have taken to heart your kind advice of some months ago. I have given this all the thought of which I am capable, and I see so clearly how wise you are. If Balshang is imitating my native costumes, they will take my business because Americans will not see or care that we are real and Balshang is not. So I think: Our own people see America on TV, and will want to look like America. Your house must be planning to sell good cheap clothes for households. The ladies of my Circle are good and cheap. We will give you great deal on duplicate American houseclothes. Maybe your house or maybe even you yourself would be interested?
Your friend,
Chung Mae
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e-mail from: Office of Meteorological Investigation
14 January
Dear Madam Chung,
We were pleased to receive your unusual offer to take readings for us in the Kizuldah sector of the Yeshibozkent Villayet. It is true that we have no regular records of weather from your locale. However, the standards we apply to data collection are very rigorous. This data must then be interpreted via use of n-constant equations before our own database can make use of the information.
Many thanks for your offer, but we see little point in accepting it, either from your point of view or ours.
Bedri Eyoobogloo
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e-mail from: the Office of Agricultural Development
18 January
Dear Mrs Chung,
We are pleased to be able to offer our local weather prediction system. Combined with our partner Office of Land Surveying modelling package, it offers an all-in-one solution for those seeking to predict weather and its impacts on particular geographies. The licence fee is 100 riels a year. This includes an annual update, full online support and Smart Helper installation. As you are a Taking Wing Initiative Centre of Progress, we are also able to offer ten per cent discount.
We await your answer.
Goksel Kartal
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audio file from: Mr Goksel Kartal, Office of Agricultural Development
20 January
It is true that the system does not offer n-constant interpretation. But it is very unusual for normal agricultural use to require such a sophisticated weather prediction system. Why would the Happy Province need to mesh data from Balshang and Beijing?
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audio file from: Mr Bedri Eyoobogloo, Office of Land Use
22 January
Madam Chung, you are quite correct; the process you describe would meet our rigorous standards for data collection, but are you sure you want to do it? You are talking two hours' work a day, I think. Please understand, I think maybe you have this wrong; the government cannot pay you to do this work. Nor can we give you n-constant software. You only pay the licence fee once, but it is one thousand riels! Why are you doing this?
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audio file from: Mrs Chung Mae
22 January
Dear Mr Eyoobogloo, I want to know about the weather. We depend on land here, and water and sun and all those things. N-constant means Chaos theory, right? That means that if I know patterns in Balshang, I know how they affect us, right? This is important because this winter we have high snowfall and warm temperatures. In 1959, this meant a terrible flash flood. It happened with the Erjdha Nefsi, Dragon's Breath, hot wind from the Northern Desert, from Balshang. You see?
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audio file from: Miss Soo Ling
24 January
Your message came at good time, as I am considering setting up my own business. I am replying in haste, and will reply again at leisure. Your friend, Ling.
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audio file from: Mrs Chung Mae
24 January
Mr Tunch, my constant watcher, I finally had the TV read out to me your article. Just to be clear, I cannot read. Which is one great advantage I have over many people. I move by my gut, not my head. But Info has taught me that I have a very good head attached to a very good gut. It gives me such secret pleasure to know that none of you understand Air. Not you, not your Sistemlar, not the UN, not the Gates Format, not all you scientists and Talents and politicians. I know something you do not, something I suspected but hid from you. So I got the better of our deal. So I make another deal with you, Mr Tunch. I will tell you this great thing I know, if you get me the best, most powerful, most accurate software for weather forecasting, with n-constant interpretation. When you have done that for me, I will tell you what Air is and it will blow your world away. Yours with deepest affection, Chung Mae.
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audio file from: Mr Hikmet Tunch
25 January
Mae, Mae, my darling girl, I think you have spent too much time in the hills. You go crazy like an old trapper. I know what you have to tell me. In Air, gravity and thought are the same thing. You know that, because you seized hold of gravity-as-thought and used it to tear my metal fence to shreds when you decided to go home. And you want to tell me that this can be an amazing weapon, that we can use thought-as-gravity to tear whole cities apart. I can tell you that we are already working on that. You are a bright, bright girl. Sorry about the deal, but no deal. Your wise contender, Hikmet.
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audio file from: Mrs Chung Mae
25 January
Ha-ha tee-hee. That is the words of my laughter. I am laughing at you. You are Foolish Gangster. In so many ways. The universe is a diamond of love, and whenever it decides to shine its light on us, you Foolish Gangsters always always try to turn the light that illumines into the light that burns. You take diamonds and turn them into knives to cut. But you have failed, haven't you, Arrogant Child? It has not worked, has it, this great new weapon that works only by thought? I know it will fail, it will go on failing. And since I am Wise Mother, comforting Arrogant Child, I will give away something for free. After all, I am selling Info. There is a thing called Kwan Tom, no? You see, I have other sources of information than you. I knew about eleven dimensions before I met you. Kwan Tom says that the world around us and the things in it are only probable. Atoms go in two directions at once and then suddenly make up their minds. Many realities exist as probabilities, only very, very small. Well, tearing fences is not a probability. It is a miracle. There have always been miracles, Mr Tunch. And they have always been small because they are not at all probable. You try to make your terrible miracles big, and probability will close over you, as if your thoughts were stones thrown into a pond. Your thought will create ripples. Something almost happens. And then the surface of what is probable closes over. Your weapon will never work. I have no words or education. I don't need them. I turn that into freedom, so I fly higher and deeper than you do into reality. I can blow your Foolish Gangster world away and replace it with a better one. Give me n-constant software, or I will keep laughing at you. Ha hee hee ha hee hee hee ha ha hee hee ha ha hee hee…
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audio file from: Hikmet Tunch
26 January
Okay, laugh. The cost of the best n-constant and weather software is nothing to me. I know you only want it to predict the weather, my Weather Talent. You will find the code for it attached to this file with a full licence to use and a Help manual. So come on, then, blow my world away. Your sceptical, very rich friend, Hikmet.
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Agricultural Development Weather Predictor
Audio reading, 26 January: 17:57
Location: School Ridge Drop
Wind velocity: 3.7 kph
Direction: north-northeast
Air temperature: 7°C, 7.03, maybe Okay, plug in direct. Oh, this is cold on the feet!
Air temperature: 7.0298°C
Air temperature with chill factor: 5.25°C
Temperature of snow on surface: 2.7°C
Temperature of snow at base: – 1.8°C
Temperature of runoff: 2.9°C
The village is all blue, like a memory. Every morning, I hear voices when I wake up, the children wailing, their mothers crying. It is the Flood. If I am not careful I fall into Air and I am there with it. So it is good to come out here, Weather Talent on my night patrol. The cold roots me in the Now. The Flood will come, this year or next, whatever. Ah!
This is the worst bit, right down into the muck. Maybe I find an onion left behind. Something for the pot. Soil Temperature: -1.7°C
I can really feel these stones, these terraces. They want to roll, they want to roll down and flatten us. At least all this is solid. Info keeps me sane.
There has always been a flood washing us all away.
Indeed, Mrs Tung, my dear, indeed.
The Flood
Look across the valley. On the Mirror hill, you will see what is left of the village of Aynalar (Mirrors). It is a mirror for you.
In 1959, the whole hillside was wiped away in one night by a flash flood when all the snow melted too fast. Once, the terraces of Aynalar were rich and fertile. It was on the sunny slope of the valley and Kizuldah was the poor cousin, in shade. Now Aynalar is a heap of rocks. This happened during a winter of high snowfall and hot temperatures. This winter is another mirror, a mirror of that winter.
You have seen me. Every morning and every evening I go and measure snow. Three times a day I measure many things, temperature and wind and strength of sunlight through cloud. I am in touch with many government offices to calculate Info.
So far we are okay. It will need to be hotter than even 1959 for the flood to come here.
You will know the flood is coming if the Dragon's Breath happens in winter.
See these pictures? They show our village if the water melts. It shows how deep the water will get, and where you should go.
Don't go to the school. Big rocks will roll down from the terraces there and it could get buried. Everyone should get to Mr Wing's house. It is highest on an outcrop of stone. Those in the valley, like you, Mr Han, move your seed grain now; there won't be time when the Flood comes.
Move things into your lofts. If all else fails, if the Flood comes, get onto your roofs.
I will tell you the situation every day.
Madam Chung Mae
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audio file from: Mrs Chung Mae
28 January
Whooooooooooooo, Mr Tunch! That is the sound of my breath, blowing you away. Everything in Air is eternal, no? So I ask myself, How can we make the imprints? How can we change something that is eternal? Nothing new can happen there. So I think if we are in Air at all, we have always been there. These imprints you make of us have always been there. And then I think: So how do I get back to Mrs Tung's life? When I saw the Flood that destroyed the village of Aynalar, I was really there. The water was icy, I swallowed mud, I felt my child – I mean, Mrs Tung's – snatched away from me by the water. I was in Mrs Tung's life. Sometimes I look up over Kizuldah and I see great floating balloons, or hotels that do not exist, and I am not crazy. I am simply seeing the future through my Airself. I nip in and out of time like a mite living in a sponge. I just go through the holes.
Ah, but then, guess what else I have found, with my nipping? Everything lives in Air, Mr Tunch. Everything is in our balloon world and in Air at once. That means stones, flowers, and birds. And floods and funerals. That means everything is eternal, Mr Tunch. That means we have always had Airselves. If we live in Air at all, then we have always lived there, from the beginning. We have always been able to sometimes see the future or the past. We have always been able to make tiny miracles. Any child knows that. Many women do. It seem that only great big gangsters do not. Everything has always been and has always happened all at once. Which means nothing causes anything else. Which means stories only happen in this poor balloon-world of ours. Stories have no meaning. Nothing can be interpreted. Everything just is, without meaning, without needing your philosophy and your science or all our miseries and myths and tales and explanations. It is all just one big smiling Now. Whooooooooooooooooo. That is the sound of Air, blowing.