Air (or Have Not Have)

to take a risk. You never have done that, Siao. You have never left home.'

'Neither have you,' said Siao, quietly. 'But I think perhaps soon you may have to.'

Mae spoke. 'Joe, your brother is right.'

'Wife. This is between men.'

Mae turned. 'Mr Haseem, please, my husband does not know what he is doing, please take the money back, there is no way we can pay you. Except to give you the farm.'

She was being honest. She was much reduced; she had no weapons.

'I think that is for your husband to say,' said Mr Haseem.

Mae leaned forward. 'Mr Haseem, please don't take the farm, please don't do this, I am a friend of your wife's, think of the friendship and please don't swallow us. Please, I beg of you!'

Terror and confusion from the Test, hatred of what was happening, overwhelmed her. Mae got down on her knees. In the dust in her best white dress with the heart-shaped patterns, she abased herself.

'Please don't take our farm!'

'I think it is your wife who is drunk,' chuckled Sunni's husband.

'Wife!' barked Joe. 'You are making a scene. You are ill. Ill in the head.' He jabbed a finger at his own.

'Take the money back!' sobbed Mae, seizing it from Joe and pushing it at Mr Haseem. 'Please.' It fell on the ground. She cradled it up, poison money, and tried to push it at him again. He took it, rolled it neatly, leaned across the table, and put it into Joe's pocket, patted it, grunted, and leaned back. He looked content, exactly as though he had eaten well.

So, Mae thought. You have your loan and you even had me begging on my knees. You know that I know, and that I am helpless. I should have denied you that, at least. I give nothing else away to you.

Mae stood up and wiped her cheeks. She had a blinding headache, suddenly, and the entire room seemed filthy, dull, and wearisome.

'One hundred riels is not a bad price to pay for a farm,' she said. 'It is good business, Mr Haseem. For you.'

Joe looked befuddled.

'Here, husband.' She poured him another whisky. 'It is best that you be merry now. It is best that you forget.' She stroked his crisp, slicked-back hair, then lightly batted it.

He took the glass with a hazy swagger. The wife pours her man a drink, that is right and proper behaviour. Mae slipped her hand into his pocket, and took the money. She counted it.

'One hundred riels,' she said, in acknowledgement to Sunni's husband. 'It is all there.'

'Of course,' said Mr Haseem, leaning back. 'I am an honest man.'

'An honest man!' insisted Joe, and held up the glass.

'The wife always keeps the money,' Mae said, folding the money into the collar of her best dress. She thought, I would not put it beyond you to steal it back from my husband while he drops off.

Sunni's husband tipped his glass towards her in mock salute.

Mae could not bear to see any more. She left and pulled the curtain shut behind her, but did not lie down. She stood riveted to the spot by panic. He has us, he has us, just like he got the others, the loans, the further loans, the money that could not be paid, the seizing of the house, the lands. This whole house is only worth three hundred riels! Our fields only bring in about a hundred. We have to find a year's extra income, with interest.

Mae thought of Sunni. Men's business, is it? Well it can be women's business as well.

Now she could turn on the light. The bare bulb glowed over sewing machine, toiletries, and heaps of cloth. It showed her crumpled face, bags and lines around the eyes, a puffy mouth as if her husband beat her. There was her comb. She pulled it through her hair. There was her lipstick. She precisely placed it, outlining the lips she wished she had. She pinched her cheeks and found the right shoes, and threw on a sweater. She strode back out into the kitchen.

'I'm going for a walk,' she announced, and stalked out into the courtyard. Sunni's husband roared with laughter, and saluted her. 'Walk well, fashion expert!'

Mae walked across Upper Street then up the steep slope to Mr Haseem's riverside house. She knew that Sunni would be awake, bitter, watchful.

Mae pushed open the courtyard gate, walked to the kitchen door, ducked down, and entered. The kitchen light was on, but Sunni was not there. Best not to surprise her if she was not looking her best. 'Friend Sunni!' she called. 'It is just Mae. Can I come to talk?'

In fact Sunni was ready for her. Mae knew that from the way the curtain snapped back on its rings, the way Sunni's hair and makeup were perfect, but most of all from the way she stood straight and tall with her plump face set.

'This is late for a social call,' Sunni informed her.

'Indeed. But I need your help.'

'Indeed. You have not been yourself lately,' said Sunni. 'Standards have been allowed to slip.'

Mae knew then in her gut that this was pointless, she knew in her gut what the situation was. But at least later she would be able to say that she had asked.

'Are you going to ask me to sit down?' Mae asked. 'I do not intend to stay long. As you say, I have not been well lately.'

Sunni motioned for her to sit, at the kitchen table, not to enter her main rooms. Sunni chose to stand.

Mae announced: 'I will, of course stay in the fashion business.'

Sunni's head inclined. 'That is the first time I have heard you admit that it is a business. It has always been couched before in terms of friendly advice.'

'And indeed much advice was given for free. Out of friendship,' said Mae. Her voice was sad, she felt sad. 'And one can tell, of course, who one's friends are in adversity.' Sunni, Sunni, I know what you are, but you are better than this. Sunni said nothing.

Mae continued: 'Your husband, of course, is in the farm-buying business.'

Sunni was still unmoved. All of this, so far, she would have been expecting; she would have known that the loan would be offered. Sunni may even have tried to dissuade her husband, but right now, as far as she was concerned, the decision had been taken.

Sunni took her time to respond. 'It is more clever than being a farmer. It is the way to prosperity. It is, of course, prosperity that pays for fashion.'

'Your husband has got Joe drunk, and fired him up with wild imaginings and loaned him one hundred riels.'

'Tuh. More like your Joe has got my husband drunk, to loan you that much.'

'We can't pay, Sunni, and you know as well as I do that that is how your husband gets rich. And I am asking you as a friend to use your good offices to get your husband to take back the money now. Or, indeed' – Mae reached down into her dress – 'to take the money back from me now yourself. And plead our case with him, and ask him to spare us.'

Mae held out the money, printed so elaborately with the portrait of President Kubla Khan. Sunni seemed to falter in her resolve.

'Please, Sunni,' said Mae, and felt the weakness of the illness return, as her voice shook, near tears again. 'Otherwise we will lose everything.'

'This loan nonsense,' said Sunni, faltering. 'It is men's business, my husband's business, I cannot interfere.'

'Sunni. He will destroy us!'

'I cannot help you.' She turned to go.

'Sunni, if you were ever my friend…' Mae stood to follow her, unbidden, into the rich man's house.

There were embroidered curtains, embroidered cushions, gold on green, everything overstuffed, the very room overstuffed, a small farm room full of glass decanters, snowstorm domes, and a set of billiard balls without a table.

'This is none of my business!' said Sunni, more fiercely now. Her arm was across her tummy, as if she had cramps. She suddenly spun. 'And as for being friends, you were a servant, do you understand? I bought your services, your, your, advice, your, your fawning over me, I purchased it, and you know that.'

Sunni, Sunni, you hate this, you are made clumsy.