Progress passed into the hands of the habitual leaders of the village: the Wings, the Muerain, and Mr Atakoloo.
They set about rebuilding Kizuldah. As a blacksmith, Mr Atakoloo was disposed to building shelters of prefabricated metal. Mr Wing knew stone was best. Stone would hold warmth.
'It takes too long to build!' Mr Atakoloo protested, gesturing, puffing out his handsome white moustache.
'If you only have two or three people building. We have one hundred men, with nothing to do.'
' Tub. Most of them unskilled,' said Mr Atakoloo, brushing flakes of village bread into his cupped palm.
In the end, they had to build with both metal and stone. The cold came back. Ruined houses like the Dohs' or Mae's had small shelters built against whatever walls were still sound. For this, the stones of the ruined terraces and houses served better than tidy sheets of aluminum. The men and the women carried rocks, in wheelbarrows or in gloved hands. The aluminum sheets formed the roofs. Concrete was poured on top of that to stop them radiating out all the warmth of the fires.
Fifteen families had bought Mr Wang's insurance. Ju-mei, his city clothes gone in the Flood, made a point of giving them their cash himself. He passed them wads of bills to replace their houses, folds, and flocks. They gaped at him in wonder.
So it was that Mae's computer was seen even to provide money. The village people were related to each other and showed solidarity. They shared their payouts, and so the village had money to restore itself.
The TV brought other things. News, for example, that the Office of Discipline and Education had reinstated Shen in his job. The e-mail wished him a productive partnership with Mrs Chung. The Office seemed unaware that there had been a flood.
People temporarily shared their houses. The Kemals and the Ozdemirs found shelter in Ju-mei's house. Mr Wing put up the whole tribe of Pins. The Alis stayed with the Haseems in what was left of their house.
Faysal Haseem had awakened late on the day after New Year, to find much of his house missing. It looked, he said, rather like his own skull felt, broken open and washed away. His garage, his white van, all his tools were gone! He thought there had been thieves. He thought that Chung Mae had finally gone crazy and driven a tractor into his house. It had its funny side, waking up hungover, having slept through disaster. He had to laugh. He told the story over and over. He did not look at his wife as he laughed. Sunni looked down at her hands.
Food was dropped from the air: bags of flour or rice, paid for partly by money donated by the Nouvelles magpie. On cold, clear days, the village could hear the rumble of machinery, up from the valley. The road to their village was being repaired.
Kwan thanked Bugsy, thanked the world. She still had requests by voicemail for Mae's last narrowcast. Kwan always referred to the Nouvelles address. She could not bear to listen to it herself.
At times Kwan stood looking out of that same window, to see how the village was healing, and to think of Mae.
The wind had a different sound now. Kwan was sure she was not making that up. Some of the wind spirits had left them: The invader wind had frightened them away. Some of the spirits would never come back; the air itself would sound forever different.
That, at least, is what her mother would have said. Her mother, Mrs Kowoloia, would have said many things.
Kwan's mother would have said, There are four principal spirits, called Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. In times of change they become unbalanced. The Eloi despised the Chinese with their paltry system of opposition: yin and yang. The Eloi had layers of struggle and synthesis.
Earth was female and solid, and nourishing and dark and fertile as the womb. It was the lowest layer.
Water was the force of time that carried everything forward. It flowed, making the earth turn, the air spin. Water was the engine of the world. Water was change.
Air was the spirit, high in heaven. Between Earth and Air was Fire.
Fire was people. Fire was their desires, the things that made them move. Fire and Water were change; Air and Earth were what continued.
Oh, Mrs Kowoloia would have had no trouble telling them what had happened. Air had usurped the place of time and desire. The world of the spirits had come to earth, like ghosts, and the fire-demon Erjdha had blown across the hills.
Old Mrs Kowoloia would have had no difficulty knowing what Chung Mae was, either.
Some people bore the weight of the world. It was not their fault. They could not be blamed. Air and Fire and Earth and Water churned within them exactly as they churned without. They did extraordinary things and were to be avoided, for they were maelstroms; and they were to be watched, for whatever happened to them, happened to the world.
Such people became oracles to be read like yarrow stalks.
So Kwan would sit and ponder the meaning of the oracle.
What the oracle told her was simple and final, and all that Mae had been saying since the beginning.
Their old and beloved world had died. It was right to mourn it. But they could not resist the movement, either. Water, spurred by Air, had changed its course. Water was time. Time had moved, very swiftly, and so must they.
And Old Mrs Kowoloia, long since burned by funeral fire to join the world of the spirits, would also say: Do not fear for your friend. The Water in Mae has responded to the usurping Air. The Water has swept her away.
Mae lives in the future.
Thinking this, looking out over their darkened village, Kwan let hot water fall from her eyes. And her mother would have said to Kwan: Cry, daughter. Tears are good for people who grieve. Tears are time. The tears help bear you away beyond the time of grief.
Why does it work, Mother? This old stuff. Why does it work? When you tell me it is dead. Why does it help me understand?
Kwan had wanted her son to be modern and scientific. The Eloi had to be, to live in this world, and to fight the Karz if the time ever came again. But her son knew none of his people's wisdom. And he would go away, like Mae's son did, and come back a stranger.
Look to oracles, they live out the future.
Kwan wiped her eyes and went down to the diwan, still crowded with people. Her son's name was Luk. He was big, quiet, kind, and part of a group, not its leader. Was now the time? She saw his face. It was a university face; he might not become a soldier. He could become something even worse than a soldier.
See the water? See the tears? See the candle burning in our little boat of wishes? He is going away, daughter. This is his last winter in Kizuldah.
So Kwan made herself smile, and collected the stone mugs and murmured to friends, not wanting to disturb their viewing.
They were watching a programme about Mat Unrolling.
Kwan was glad to see Suloi there. Suloi would understand. Two Eloi sets of eyes caught each other's glances.
Kwan said, 'Remember Mae? She talked about her Mat all the time.'
Very solemnly, Suloi nodded downward, once – yes. Mae was our oracle.
Kwan came to Luk. 'Son? When this is through, could you and I go for a walk?'
He glanced at his friends, two of the Pin brothers, all bucktoothed and sweet. Kwan was glad he had such good friends.
It was unusual for her to ask. He looked at his friends and said, 'I can go now if you like.' Mat Unrolling bored him, maybe.
Kwan was careful not to tell him how to dress; he did not want to hear his mother telling him to bundle up. And she promised herself as she slipped on boots that she would not let her worries run away with the night. She would not worrit him about studying, about not spending, about writing her. Nothing he could do would fill the gap that would be left behind when he went. Nothing she could do would make his life better if he failed to fly by himself.
We must meet as equals, she thought.
So they trudged out together, and her son had bundled himself up in sheepskin coat, scarf, and gloves, almost too carefully.
And this made Kwan think: Where is the swagger in him? Is Luk a bit too quiet, even a bit dull?
Don't worrit, Kwan.
They walked out into the courtyard.
Kwan asked her son, 'What do you make of Chung Mae?'
That surprised him. If he had been dreading a motherly discussion, that would have reassured him.
'I don't really know,' Luk said, finally. 'She is your good friend. I'm sorry she is not well.'
'That's what I think, too, of course. But what do you think she is?'
Luk looked back at her askance. Was this a trick question? Adults asked questions when they knew the answers.
Kwan did not want to play a guessing game. 'The Eloi in me thinks she is something very mysterious.' Kwan found herself smiling and wiggling her eyebrows, almost making fun of it. They both stood in the courtyard light.
Luk grinned. He understood. 'She is a bit spooky,' he said.
'Your grandmother would have said she was oiya,' said Kwan. 'That means "disturbed," which means the elements are out of balance.'
'Many people would have called her disturbed,' said Luk. 'Only, she turned out to be right.'
Kwan stepped out of the courtyard, and began to walk out of the village, up the hill. It was so cold that the stars seemed to be made of frost – as if her own wreathing, white breath blew up into heaven to freeze there. Stars and breath, it's too big, she thought. You can't cram all of the Eloi world into someone all at once.
'The Elois said that stars are solid places in the air, for spirits to rest,' she said. 'They are like frozen air.'
'Well, they're fire instead,' said Luk.
'Do you ever think about the Elois?' she asked him.
She could hear his sheepskin shrug. 'Only that I am part Eloi. My first name is Eloi – I think. It doesn't seem to make any difference in the way people treat me.'
'You don't have any sudden urges to stand up and herd sheep on the high hills?'
She heard the rustle of a smile. 'No. No urge to tattoo my legs, either.'
'You should try it, it looks beautiful.'
'Ah, but my legs are just a bit too hairy for it.' He was joking, but it was also the truth. His legs were Chinese.
'And they don't allow tattoos in the military.'
He sighed. 'Well. That might be a good reason to get one, then.' Then he said, 'Okay. Tell me about the Eloi.'
The air was still.
'You really want to know?'
'Not as much as you want to tell me. But I don't know it.'
Good, said the stars.
'Okay. I'll talk. But if a nightjar churrs, we have to go back inside, because birds can talk to the air. If a nightjar calls, it is warning you.'
'About what?'
'That you are betraying the secrets of the spirits. Or that the spirit inside the body you are talking to is not ready yet. Things like that.'
'Mom. You don't really believe this, do you?'
Kwan had to consider. 'Not really. Not with the top part of my head. But, this old stuff – it produces the right words. You just say what the old people would have said, and something is explained. Somehow it's all easier to bear.'
Even now, down the hillside, water trickled.
Luk spoke next: 'There's something about Earth resting underneath, and being the foundation. And Air on top, with Fire and Water as the filling in the sandwich.'
'Yes, but I think those are the wrong words.'
'Ah. I am a modern fellow,' he said.
Kwan said. 'There are two kinds of time. There is time in motion, measured by clocks, and there is "the Time." The Time is the situation you live in. You make it, the world makes it, most of the time it is like a punch you roll with. You make your choices, and do not resent them, and wait for the season to pass. And the season is made of the four elements, all of which have characteristics, powers. They all kind of swirl together.'
Those are the wrong words, too, Kwan.
O, Mother Kowoloia, O spirits of the Air, the Water, the Earth, speak for me.
The nightjar also churrs when you are not ready to speak. It sleeps in the road, dazzled by headlights, only because the asphalt is still warm.
'In Mae, all these forces are gathered together. So Mae is the Time. Do you understand? Mae is like a picture of the Time. Your grandmother would say that Mae has solidified the Time, like water solidifies into ice. And ice breaks – when the season begins to move. You see?'
Not yet. Luk waited.
Kwan continued: 'So Mae is the Earth, like women are – she derives her power from women, from the Circle, from Bugsy. You see how it works? The old words? So, you have Mae, who is in her character most like the Earth, she is an Earth person: rooted, least-moving of all people. But her head – her head has been filled with Air; this is the Age of Air. And so she is disturbed. Spirit mixing with Earth, swept away by the enraged waters, which are change, which drive change.'
Luk said, 'Mae is Earth moved by Air and moved by Water.'
'Yes!' Kwan was pleased. Luk understood.
'What is the fire?'
She still remembered him at five, all innocent toddling nakedness. She remembered him at sixteen, how soft and troubled he looked back when Tsang had been seducing him.
'Don't you know?' She prodded him. 'Think. You know. She is disturbance – so what was disturbed?'
Luk was embarrassed. 'Ah. Well. Her husband and things…'
'Fire is desire, and Fire flared up. Your grandmother would have said that was only to be expected, too. But Fire is not just sex, it is yearning, for everything, here, now, on Earth. It makes us have children, it makes us love them, love our friends. Water carries us, but Fire makes us swim.'
There were the stars of fire.
Rather clumsily, her huge son put a sheepskin-muffled arm around her shoulders. She felt how small and frail she must seem to him.
She pointed to the stars. 'You see? In the world of the Air, there is no time. Even Fire is still. Fire becomes permanent.'
Why was she crying? 'Fire becomes love. In Air.'
He stood beside her and she was not sure what he felt.
'You see? You see? You see?' Even to herself, Kwan sounded like a bird.
In March the road was finished, and in one of the first cars up, it carried Fatimah from Yeshiboz Sistemlar.
Fatimah asked where Mae was. Sunni and Kwan greeted her with firm smiles.
'Mae is gone away,' said Kwan.
Fatimah looked suspicious and disappointed. Kwan had been her ally.
'Where? May I see her?'
'Oh, I think not,' said Sunni.
'No,' said Kwan, shaking her head. 'No. She went up into the hills, to live with an old aunt. She takes care of her now.'
'Yes,' said Sunni. 'How lucky is the woman who has family. We did not even know the aunt existed.'
'Where is the village?' Fatimah nodded, vaguely uphill.
'There is no road,' said Kwan.
Fatimah stood just outside the interior of the car, the door open between her and the villagers. Above her, the ruin of terraces was a jumble of stones.
'I feel it is only polite to point out,' said Sunni, 'that for you, there will never be a road.'
Fatimah's face went pale, and worked in helplessness. She got back into the car.
The Circle's weaving machine was replaced by insurance money. There was a celebration when it arrived. The Nouvelles Chung Mae Fund had ordered over four thousand collars, enough to keep even the machine busy. Each Disaster Collar had in honor of chung mae woven into it. Inside the package, in English, was the recipe for a thank-you cake. The huge sums of money from the sale were distributed to those outside the Circle as well as those within.
The men repaired some of the terraces, only a few, enough to plant some rice, enough to feed the village and generate some more grain.
A hired bulldozer came and scooped up the last of the ruins of the Chu, Koi, and Han households. Rugs, cups, clothing, came to the surface, but not the missing bodies.
Finally, halfway down the plain, they found a body which must have been Han Kai-hui. Sezen, Kwan decided, had been carried by the Flood even farther into the future than Mae. She would never be found, except perhaps in a spaceship going to the moon.
High on the hill where their mosque had been, the villagers gathered for another funeral.
And Chung Mae was brought out for it.
Chung Siao came with her, holding her hand, keeping her quiet. And on her other side stood Mr Ken.
'Who is it? Who is it?' Mae demanded, too loudly.
'Han Kai-hui, Granny,' Mr Ken said to her. 'You remember her. She was Chung Mae's little childhood friend.'
Mae's face looked angry. 'She must have died very suddenly! Was it an accident?'
Pause. 'Yes, Granny,' said Ken.
Mr Ken struggled to keep the fighting hands still. His face looked worn but enduring. How can he stand it? Kwan wondered.
'Oh! People should be more careful!' Mae flung the news away with a toss of her head. Old Mrs Tung could not learn. She looked around the crowd, outraged, like an angry lizard. 'And children should show respect! Where is Han An, at her own mother's funeral? Where is Chung Mae, if it is her friend? Mae should be here!'
This was beginning to look like a mistake. Kwan moved through the village crowd. They stood in their anoraks or sheepskins, all heads bundled in scarves. The fire was mostly broken furniture and kerosene, with a rug wrapped around the body.
Maybe Kuei can bear it for the sake of his child inside her.
Maybe he can bear it because he shares it with Siao. It is strange, the two of them and her. Who can say how they make it work?
Except through love. Fire in Air.
Kwan nodded to them both, eyes catching. Then she looked deep inside the eyes of the woman beside them who was no longer Chung Mae.
Kwan denounced her. 'You horrible old woman. You are dead, too. You died, you horrible ghost. We loved you in life, but you should be a spirit now, in the air. You are a disease. At least let Mae mourn her friend.'
The eyes went confused and watery, the young mouth shook like an old one. For just a moment, Kwan thought she saw Mae.
'Mae. We're winning. Everyone uses the TV. We love it. Mae, we want you back.'
'Uh!' said the struggling Mrs Tung, and pushed Kwan away from her.
Kwan saw struggle in the helpless confusion of the face, the shuddering and the shaking.
'She's fighting, she's there,' said Kwan. She took hold of the hand and kept talking to her. 'Come on, Mae. You can come back. The old witch only has part of your soul. You have the rest. Come back, Mae!'
Kwan visited Mae mostdays.
Siao and Ken Kuei lived together with Mae in the ruin of their houses. The village had decided not to regard this as a scandal. Both men loved her; of course they would stay with her in misfortune.
Only the barn and the back corner of the house still stood. The wound had a scar of piled stones over it, bandaged with plastic. Daylight peeked through, but the room was warm. There was room for the brazier and the table, and the alcove with the bed. Part of the loft remained, but was unused.
Kwan would duck through the low doorway and bow with respect to Old Mr Chung, who sat in the only standing corner of his old house. Kwan would lay food on the table – village bread, a few dried vegetables, and at times even a bottle of rice wine saved from the Flood.
Siao and Mr Ken would both then busy themselves with the cooking. Politely, they would pass each other the knife, the soy. Kwan had once asked Ken Kuei how it was, all three of them living together. 'Oh,' he said. 'There is no problem. I have lived next to Chung Siao all my life. We have always been friends.'
Kwan felt a quiet pride. Such behaviour is only possible, she thought, among a truly civilized people.
It was best for Mae to sleep in her own bed. It might help to bring her back. Certainly Old Mrs Tung did not like it. The old creature quailed, Why are we in this place? She was confronted with the fact that she did not belong.
The tiny bedroom alcove was kept as tidy as possible by Mr Ken. Old Mrs Tung would sit disgruntled next to the tiny window. She kept turning out the electric lights; she hated them. She lit candles. Mr Ken put them out. Candles in such a crowded space were dangerous.
'Hello, Siao,' said Kwan. 'Is she eating?'
He shook his head no: No, she is not. 'She says her tummy burns.'
Her stomach ballooned out just under the rib cage like a pigeon breast. You could tell just from looking at her shape that something was terribly wrong. Old Mrs Tung could learn nothing new, so she could not remember that she was pregnant or where the pregnancy was. She felt full so she never ate. Mae's starving face was becoming more and more delicate. Mae was beginning to look like Mrs Tung.
Kwan said, 'Mae's not fighting.'
Perhaps there is no more Mae left to fight.
'I found the onion in my old store. And Mrs Ozdemir, bless her, she still keeps giving me bits of her goat for Mae.'
It was smoked scrag-end. Siao went for the cleavers. 'The famous cleavers,' he said. He added the onion and curry powder to cover the taste of stale meat. They sat and talked of village things. The two men took turns to stir the fry up.
Kwan looked at Mae's beautiful old dresses hung in an orderly row. 'It's been a long year,' she said.
'Huh. More like a century,' said Kuei.
'Remember, last April? She was already beginning to talk to people about graduation dresses, showing them fabric, bustling about the place. She always wore high heels for that, remember?'
'Oh! Do I!' Kuei rolled his eyes, as if he had never seen anything as beautiful. 'With her hair always up. I would look out, and it was like a dream to see her, like someone from TV had dropped down by mistake into our village.'
Kwan smiled wryly. 'That was the effect she wanted.'
'She was a different Mae,' said Mr Ken.
Which Mae do you love? Kwan wondered.
Old Mrs Tung shifted with discomfort and frustration. 'Where is Mae?' she demanded. 'And, Kuei, why are we are we eating old goat? Can't you find anything better?'
Siao made a space near him for Mr Ken to moisten the bread. In the corner, Mae's TV still received voicemail. Kwan considered. It is probably Siao, who loves the Mae she became – Unrolling Mats and TV screens.
'I will have to get back soon to the girls,' Mr Ken warned Siao. His daughters lived with their cousins at the Teahouse. Siao nodded. The two men were a household.
And, Kwan considered, it is probably Siao who keeps it together.
As soon as the shreds of goat were cooked, they offered the food. Kwan leaned forward. 'Mae? Mae, eat something, please.'
'I am not hungry,' said Old Mrs Tung. 'Kuei! Take me home. We have been here long enough. It is evident that Mae and Joe will not be back.'
'For your baby. You must eat,' said Kwan.
'What… what… what…' Mrs Tung shook her head no – no, over and over. 'What are you talking about?' Old Mrs Tung demanded. 'I don't want your food, woman! I want to go home. Why can't we go home?'
'Sssh, Granny,' said Kuei, coming from the stove.
'We have been here for hours!' Old Mrs Tung started to weep from frustration.
'Sssh, Granny. The house is gone; it was washed away in a Flood.'
'What?' Old Mrs Tung looked up in horror and her eyes shivered with all the despair of fresh discovery.
Old Mrs Tung could only live in the past.
Mae lived, fascinated, in air.
Air was real life – all of life all at once, for it made all times one time. For Mae, time was a breakfast table, with everything in reach. She would stretch across eternity and feel herself expand, out of Air and into any moment of her life.
Mae would walk to school hand in hand with her brother Ju-mei. She threw acorns at him, and they ran, laughing, round and round the One Tree.
Joe took her on a date, down the hill to Kurulmushkoy. The Teahouse there catered to young people and had a radio.
Dazzled, at sixteen, Mae sits in a booth and listens to U2. It is only two years since the Communists have gone; there is all this new stuff. Joe seems to be king of it.
'U2 are from Ir Lang Do. They are not English, not American. They had a big event, all the big stars sang for poor people. It went round the world. Yah.' Joe looked into his tea. His hair is buzzed short, he wears a chrome necklace. Joe is the future. His eyes are sad. 'We missed it.'
Mae is entranced. She is moved. 'We will not miss it next time, Joe,' she says. She ventures forth, and puts her hand on top of his. This is simply because she finds she feels the same. 'Next time, we will be part of the future.'
'We can bet on that,' he says, and pushes his hand into his tight jeans and pulls out a quarter-riel. He slams it on the table.
'It is a wager!' Mae giggles, at sixteen, and covers her teeth with her hands because she thinks they are huge and make her look like a horse. But her eyes are fixed on Joe.
And then this time shrinks and folds down into itself. It is the room and the people and the smell of boiled water and cigarettes that collapses, not Mae herself. Mae is always there.
Mae can do frightening things. She balloons herself back into the womb before she was born. She can feel her mother's terror and misery seething around and inside her. She hears pumping and muffled voices. She sees gentle light. It is like dying, a gentle dying that is not fearful because you know that this is the beginning.
The unborn infant knows that too, connected in Air to its own future.
We live and we die in eternity. Our physical bodies occupy the balloon world. The balloon world has space, and we are trapped in one part of it. The balloon expands and we are trapped with that expansion. And that is time.
But, oh, in Air!
Air has no time.
Air is everything that has been and will be, waiting its turn to puff out of its tiny dot into our brief world.
And Mae's life is hinged with that of another.
It is the first day of autumn school and Mrs Kowoloia comes with her little daughter Kwan.
Mrs Tung thinks: My, but the child is solemn. And Mrs Kowoloia, oh, she is so beautiful, ethereal. She floats – and all that embroidery!
'Mrs Kowoloia, you are as beautiful as the butterfly!' hoots Mrs Tung, seizing her client's hands with gratitude, for this is the first arrival of the school year. The courtyard will soon be full of children.
Mrs Kowoloia says, 'Mrs Tung, may I say what a benefit this is to all of us. To run a school for us year in and year out. And we all know of your education.'
'Ah! But all my books were lost,' hoots Mrs Tung, holding up her hands and laughing for the dead.
The little girl looks seriously ready for work and disgruntled that there is none to do.
'Kwan, dear, I have some paper and paints.'
Kwan wrinkles her nose. 'It's all right,' says Kwan. 'I'll read my book.'
Every time the boys play football together in the white dust of my courtyard, I say, 'Ahmet would have played with them.' When all the little girls sing or skip rope, I close my eyes and imagine I hear Lily chanting with them. My Lily, who I let fall and drown.
Two little girls slip through the gate all by themselves. One is tall and skinny, and angry. The other is tiny, so small that her chin hits her chest as she scowls.
I know who this is, thinks Mrs Tung, and she walks forward, bending at the middle.
'Are you the little girls who lost their daddy?' Mrs Tung asks.
The oldest looks at her with frightening directness. 'He was shot by Communists.'
'And what is your name?' Mrs Tung half hopes it will be Lily.
'I like to be called Missy,' says the elder. 'So that's what everybody calls me.' She looks down at her sister with a mother's pride. 'This is my sister, Mae,' she says, in a way that makes Mrs Tung want to weep, it is so full of love and care.
The little one is shy. She holds up an autumn leaf. 'It's red,' she says. 'I found it on the ground.'
'Leaves fall. That's because autumn is coming. I'm Mrs Tung.'
'It's beautiful. It looks like a cushion. All red.'
'Where is your mother?' Mrs Tung asks.
'Nowhere,' Missy says coolly.
Missy coughs, and from deep within her lungs comes the authentic crackle of TB. She coughs again, and passes Mae to Mrs Tung. 'Mae's clever,' says Missy. She ushers Mae forward, arm around her shoulder. Her solemn eyes meet Mrs Tung's. Mrs Tung feels a prickle up her spine, as if Missy is passing Mae to her, to care for.
Missy coughs again, Mrs Tung is sure.
Mrs Tung could taste Air.
'Come, Mae. We have another clever little girl for you to meet. Her name is Kwan.' Mrs Tung moves them forward together. The older one is lean and already grey as a ghost.
Mrs Tung gazes at the round face of the little girl and to her it is like an egg that will hatch. She can half see who this Mae will be – oh, clever, yes, but not in any way that school can capture. She will turn herself into Missy, to honour her and love her and remember her.
The children run around her, swirling like dust, and Mrs Tung can see them all hatching, into Shen, into Joe, into Kan-hui. It is her job to warm them, love them into life.
Mrs Tung sits in her big kitchen, darning wet socks.
You darn them wet so that they will dry and heal shut. Her smelly, kindly old husband is in the fields. Her young man is off in the hills. Mrs Tung feels heavy and weighted, as if going up a fast escalator. She is pregnant, and she knows the child is not Mr Tung's. She becomes aware that she is hearing gunfire. Has the war moved back here?
Suddenly, the guns batter so loudly that it is as if the guns are in the kitchen. Mrs Tung jumps. She hears a cry, from nowhere.
Then everything is still again, just dust turning in rays of light. Suddenly Mrs Tung is certain.
Kalaf is dead.
Something that was in the air is there no longer. Like music that is suddenly turned off. Like the sudden smell of burning food. He is dead, she thinks, and I will be getting a telegram.
She puts the sock down on the table, and ponders. It will not do for her husband to see any telegram about any man. She ponders a moment, and wonders why she is not crying when there is no doubt.
Mrs Tung goes up Lower Street to the Teahouse, and she slips sideways into the room with all the men and cigarette smoke. The men in cloth caps look up and glower. She is a woman, even if her head is covered. Only whores sit in cafes with men. Mrs Tung sits at a table and starts to darn socks. She focuses on the yarn and the thread. The morning passes. She nods yes to a glass of tea, but does not drink it.
Her cousin Mr Tui comes up and suggests she should leave. Mrs Tung just shakes her head, for she finds she does not trust herself to speak. She keeps her eyes on the socks.
Then the machine in the corner of the room chatters. Mrs Tung sees the shadow of Mr Tui turn away. Mrs Tung puts her hands in her lap and waits.
The shadow comes back. 'This is for you,' he says, leaning down, so that she has to see his walrus face looking sad.
'You should have said you were waiting,' says Mr Tui. Mrs Tung knows that if she speaks, she will start to weep. Cousin Tui stands up. 'She was waiting for this!' He shakes the telegram at the men at the bar.
He folds it flat and puts it in her limp and waiting hands.
Dear friend, beloved cousin Kalaf is dead.
'He was kind to me when I was young,' says Mrs Tung, and scrunches up the telegram as if it were her face. Her face becomes a rag to be wrung; she can feel water seeping. She stands up, and holds up, and swiftly strides out of the Teahouse. She keeps her head high, walks back home through the narrow corridor of houses, and cannot tell anyone that the father of her child is dead. She finally closes the door of the kitchen, and hides her face in her husband's wet socks.
Mrs Tung knew before she could have known.
Mrs Tung had been a traveller in Air. Before there was Air.
So Mae went to find her.
Mae went back to the day of the test.
Mae burgeoned back into her old life.
The cauldron is boiling; Joe has eaten his rice. Old Mrs Tung is led in, chuckling at herself. Kuei helps her, blind to his own future, as blind as this time-bound, work-bound Mae.
____________________
to Chung Mae Wang
CERTIFICATE OF APPRECIATION FROM THE GRADUATING CLASS OF 2019
for FASHION STUDIES
____________________
And all around them are the magnetic fields, the arcs emanating from the fire in the heart of the earth – unnoticed and of no importance to Kizuldah for two thousand years.
Until now.
There is the flash and the buzz and the inflation of the mind. Every neural pathway is jolted at once.
A kind of Question Map of the self. Every question answered, complete.
Buzzed and jolted and in that moment stamped for ever on eternity, in Air. A complete, unchanging, unloving, unnatural Map.
And, oh, murmuring, here comes the Format.
Mae has to chuckle. It was such a cheap and tinny thing, the Format, like a child's plastic space-helmet clamped on the head. A few lines of code, a bit of information added to the mix.
'Chocolate. I smell chocolate,' coos Old Mrs Tung.
Here it comes, thinks Mae-in-Air, here it comes.
The cauldron is knocked, and topples. It will fall forever. That white steaming sheet will like a shroud cling and scald the old thin flesh for an eternity.
Mae is moved by pity and jumps forward, her mind addled and stirred by the unfamiliar immanence of all-time one-time. She plucks away the scalding shroud.
Mrs Tung? another Mae demands, riding on the shoulders of her old life. Where are you, Mrs Tung?
Mae-in-Air seeks the eternal soul.
In time, Mrs Tung takes another Mae's hand. There are sticky trails across Mrs Tung's face, as if from snails. Her hands are lumpy and blue.
'I can see!' Mrs Tung whispers. Her eyes waver back and forth, skipping, leaping, but they move in unison.
Mrs Tung, it's me, Mae!
Air was saying, 'To send messages, go to the area called Airmail…'
Mae watches her early self swoop clumsily across a virtual courtyard and overshoot the graphics. She embeds herself in the blue stone. Seen from enough distance, anything is funny.
Air says, 'For an emergency configuration, simply repeat your own name several times.'
And Mae-in-Air hears her other self say over, and over, 'Mae, Mae, Mae…'
Mrs Tung cries out in unison, Mae! Mae!
Click.
That was it. That was it right there.
Such a simple thing, a mailbox address. You don't need to talk about souls, or wonder how your imprints got entangled. It's nothing to do with the Gates or the UN Format.
All you have to do is chant the same name together when they configure your mailboxes.
Mae starts to laugh. Their mailboxes had the same name! That was the problem. They would have the same name for eternity – all eternity, both past and future.
The imprint had the mailbox, but the imprint was connected always to the real self, the real person who controlled.
All I have to do, Mae realizes, is talk to the real Mrs Tung.
Water, says Granny Tung, as if in prophecy. The 1959 flood comes gurgling back, but Mae is gone.
Mae pierced and repierced air like a sewing needle, looking for the real soul of Mrs Tung.
Mae sat on her own shoulder, morning visit after morning visit to Mrs Tung's attic.
There Mrs Tung was in her chair at ninety, the wind blowing in her face as if fresh from a Cossack campfire, looking back at memories of the hills.
'Is that you, my dear Mae?' Mrs Tung would banter and then laugh again from heartbreak. 'Well, well, come and sit near me child, and tell me all your news. Hoo-hoo-hoo!'
Mae would collapse. 'Woh! Nothing Granny, just laundry.'
'Oh-ho-ho, I used to so love doing laundry. Watching it hang out in the sun all those colours. I used to love the smell of it you know.'
That's because you loved the people who wore the clothes, Granny.
And Mae-in-Air, on her own shoulder, would whisper: Granny, Granny Tung, can you hear me?
And it seemed sometimes, that the old catlike face would go still and listening, as if just catching a whisper.
Granny, Granny, I'm here.
'Hoo-hoo-hoo, strange how the mind plays tricks. I suddenly remembered – oh, I don't know why – something long before your time.'
And Mae-in-time, fresh from laundry and Joe's noodles, and the smell of Siao in the loft, would lean forward, hopeful for novelty, wanting beauty. 'Remembered what, Granny?'
'Oh!' Mrs Tung waved it away. 'I remembered… I don't know why – hoo-hoo-hoo – I remember one year, the rice fields were full of poppies. Just for no reason. And we all left them there, because so many of our young men had died. Poor souls.' Her old blind eyes still glittered with joy. As if they could see the eternity beyond.
And Mae would stand up to go, and Mae-in-Air would collapse herself back down.
Then she would huff and puff and blow herself back up to another day, another visit.
Mae followed herself, haunted herself, trying to find whenever Mae had been near Old Mrs Tung. She reasoned that there might be some closer link, the closer she got to their final relationship, their final state.
Then, finally, Mae went back to the day just before the Test.
Mae-in-time thumped her way up the stairs to Mrs Tung's room. It was a duty visit. Her head full of dresses and how she could deliver them all in time by leaving off lace collars. She was feeling impatient, a tickle of nerves making her jump as she collapsed onto the chair Mrs Tung kept for guests. They talked about wishboats and pumpkin seeds. Mae, outside time, could see now that Old Mrs Tung was in a mysterious mood.
'I remember the day you first came to me,' Mrs Tung said as if the time had come to talk of final things. As indeed it had. 'I thought: Is that the girl whose father has been killed? She is so pretty. I remember you looking at all my dresses hanging on the line.'
Yah, yah, yah, a sweet old lady's memories, thought Mae. She replied, half thinking, 'And you asked me which one I liked best.'
Another Mae thought: Pay attention, Mae, this is precious. This is the last time this will happen.
Mrs Tung giggled. 'Oh yes, and you said the butterflies.' She sat straight up in her chair as if surveying all of her life from a high cliff. The air from the open window blew her hair. 'We had tennis courts, you know. Here in Kizuldah.'
'Did we?' Mae pretended she had not heard that before.
'Oh yes, oh yes. When the Chinese were here, just before the Communists came. Part of the Chinese army was here, and they built them. We all played tennis, in our school uniforms. Oh! They were all so handsome; all the village girls were so in love.' Mrs Tung chuckled. 'I remember, I couldn't have been more than ten years old, and one of them adopted me, because he said I looked like his daughter. He sent me a teddy bear after the war.' She chuckled and shook her head. 'I was too old for teddy bears by then. But I told everyone it meant we were getting married. Oh! I wish I had married him.'
There were so many people Old Mrs Tung wished she had married – from her Cossacks to boys in other villages and of course her Kalaf. She even managed to love the ones she had married.
It's all so precious, thought Mae-in-Air, it's all so beautiful, we have to ignore it, to get on with the laundry.
And Mae felt a wind blow, a movement in Air.
Old Mrs Tung did a slight jerk, and turned her head and tried to chuckle. 'Ooh. Hoo-hoo-hoo. Someone just walked on my grave,' she said, in time.
And outside time, dim and confused something rippled, like a voice: Mae?
Dying people say their fathers return. The dead sit down beside them, to comfort them. They give them kisses in dreams. Missy lay dying in summer, in an attic room that was always hot and smelled of old sweat in clothes. Mama would not let Mae visit, for fear of making her ill as well. But Mae still crept in and marvelled in horror at the dark circles under her sister's eyes and the dew of sweat. Missy looked at her, said sweetly, 'Isn't it lovely that Papa lies so quiet next to me?'
Again: Mae?
It was just a whisper, unclear, unformatted, a swirl, an eddy in time from a place where nothing can move.
Mae-in-Air reached across for it, across the breakfast table of time.
And very suddenly, like the incomplete thing it was, the room, the space it contained and the bodies in it, collapsed like cards, fell back and down.
And there in infinite layers reflecting back, reflecting forward, babe, child, woman, Granny, was Mrs Tung.
Mrs Tung was a weaving blur around the landscapes of three villages lost in forgotten hills. Mrs Tung was a serpent-weaving pattern of someone's entire life, a sinuous wild shape through time, folded in on itself.
Folded in on Mae.
Mae didn't use one name to call it. She used all names: Young Miss Hu, Ai-ling, Mrs Yuksel, Mrs Tung, Granny. The names were a weaving serpent blur as well.
And the entirety seemed to rouse itself, in something like recognition. It rose up like a ghost.
There was no speaking to it. There was nothing clamped to its head to translate and set other people's messages in order. It rose up and then settled down, into the most probable shape. But it could be teased down the hill, edged towards the imprints.
'Help me,' whispered Mae.
And the entirety lifted up its aged, young, beautiful self and corralled its separate parts like hundreds of waving chiffon scarves, collected itself, trying to recognize and learn in a realm where time and learning were complete. Finished, meaning, accomplished.
Mae nipped in and out of that life like a mouse through floorboards. Mae called, and the entirety tried to lift its head as Mrs Tung slept.
Mae whispered to Mrs Tung in dreams.
A young wife tossed fitfully in her bed in a village called Mirrors. Mae tried to lead her back to the moment when the cauldron spilled, when the fire shot through the Air.
Little Miss Hu shivered on the grass as she slept by a campfire, trading horses. Mae called.
Granny shook her head, aching in a wooden chair, asleep in dreams, in Air.
Dreams are a way for the finished self in Air to live again, to have a before and an after in which to think. We learn through all eternity in our dreams.
And so did Mrs Tung. The dream had recurred all through her life.
It was a terrible dream, always the same. A friend, a daughter, even Lily perhaps, needed her. She, Mrs Tung, had done something. She didn't mean to do it, she had not known she had done it, but it was something she had done. Sometimes, at its most nightmarish, she had somehow stolen her friend's body.
And the answer was always the same.
Old Mrs Tung lifted all of herself up like a thousand ragged ghosts. And she was blown by love towards one particular time.
'Mae Mae Mae Mae Mae Mae…'
And she met a friend, and that friend seemed to pour her like slithery silk scarves to one particular thing.
That thing was a part of Mrs Tung's life. A moment of her life that had been taken and frozen and held. It was like a burn victim, so scarred that it could not move, embittered and incomplete. Incomplete and angry, after the beautiful pattern should have been finished. Mrs Tung settled on it with her whole self, and enveloped it and welcomed it and hugged it and stilled it. She was reunited with a tiny, hardened, mean little part of her life. She wove it back into the beautiful carpet.
And then said, very clearly, quoting the poet through all her life:
'Listen to the reed, how it tells a tale, complaining of separations.'
Somewhere in time, Mae's eyes fluttered and opened again.
She was in her kitchen, back in herself.
'I'm back,' she managed to whisper. There was a sound of scraping chairs as two men jumped up from the table.
But somewhere else, two spirits sat together as if in an attic exchanging memories, joined forever, remembering the poets.
'Body is not veiled from soul, nor soul from body, yet none is permitted to see the soul.'
In the future, everyone will be able to talk with their dead.