Air (or Have Not Have)

'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?