Air (or Have Not Have)

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 most days.

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