Air (or Have Not Have)

Please have your Clever Card or Believability Card ready. Calls cost two dollars a minute. Buy this book; join this bank. Just say yes.

'No, no, no, no,' Mae kept saying.

They crowded round like wasps on shit. One little window sliding on top of another one, a little babbling voice talking over the last.

'Stop!'

'Temporarily overloaded,' replied the TV, and suddenly went dark.

One little voice spoke from the darkness. 'Thank you for using our Helpful Librarian tool. From time to time searches on this free service will result in paid-for responses arriving according to your interest.'

In the silence Mae felt her heart thumping. That was it? That was the great online world, the Net that Mr Wing had talked so long and hard about, that he had yearned for, fought for?

No wonder. No wonder they wanted to replace it.

Mae's eyes swelled with disappointment and anger. What use was it to them, this thing? It was just a way to sell them things, to take money from poor people. What use was it if you had no money, no banks, no way to get Clever Cards or Believability?

Maybe Shen was right. All it did was show us worlds we could never join. We just sit and watch and get soft and fat and bored and talk about Singapore fashion as if we could ever take part. We push our noses against the window and watch other people eat.

'Off,' said Mae. And the TV went as still and ominous as black thunderclouds.

So what was she to do now? Mae plunged her fingers into her hair. Her hair was greasy and needed washing. She had missed a fashion season; she had to find an extra twenty-four riels for the loan.

So what did she have? Make a list, Mae. She listed 'house,' 'three rice terraces.' No orders for dresses?

She had Mrs Tung's memories.

She had sickness, debts, and an idle husband. His hardworking brother. His aging father. She had her own interfering brother, and her overwhelmed mother. If she went to them for help, they would try to take over.

She had Kwan's offer. Would it be so bad, owing Kwan money?

She had Air. She had been inside Air deeper than anyone else. So, what was in Air?

All right. She closed her eyes and tried to find her way back in. 'Air,' she said. Nothing happened. She tried to think her way back to the courtyard. She remembered it, but could not see it.

She did begin to discern something, dimly – an extra weight in her head like a load to be carried. She felt it and tried to describe it to herself. Unlike a headache, it didn't disappear when described. Instead it focused.

If anything Air felt like a turnip. In the rice sometimes a tuber grew. You would pull on what you thought was a weed, but it wouldn't budge, so you would reach deep down into the mud, and follow the root to pull it free. And there, numb, dumb, but salvageable, there would be something you could use.

You just had to haul it out.

Mae seemed to trace this root with her mind, deeper and deeper, but it was held fast, mired. It would not move. It was as if it were rooted by an entire planet rather than its blanket of earth.

And then Mae remembered something. She had an address, and the address was her name.

'Mae, Mae, Mae, Mae, Mae, Mae…'

She felt a gentle settling. It was as if she were dust or feathers, in the air during cleaning day. She seemed to swirl in the sunlight like stars, and then to fall gently down.

She settled gently, slowly into place. It was rather calming. She felt a wide smile spread across her face. The loan, the money, the house, her husband, Mr Haseem – all seemed to fall back, up, away into a world that was full of light and dust and settling.

It was as if she were finally, finally going to her bed after a long day in the fields, when your shoulders are sore and knees are full of needles. You settle not so much onto the bed as into yourself.

More and more of Mae fell into place. Gradually, enough of her came together to look up and around.

Mae seemed to stand in the courtyard.

'Welcome,' a voice said. 'You don't have any Airmail messages.'

The stones were blue as if in moonlight. They were made of dust, too. Mae could waft up to and then through them. They were just pictures as on a screen. Did the TV make images out of dust?

She asked for 'Info.'

Air spoke to her, in the voice and accent of her people. 'Right now we have nothing new. We just have some things to show how Air works. You can have a look at some of those.'

The voice was like her own. This is me talking.

'Okay. I want to find out about making money.'

'Okay, but this is the first time you've done this. A lot of things we have here are like movies. They are very familiar because they are made to work like movies. This won't be like that. This will be as if you grew someone else in your head. This will be as if you become someone different. If you don't like it, just say your address.'

'Okay,' said Mae. 'Oh. No. Wait. Does this need my address to work?'

'Airmail and all services but Air movies need your address to work.'

'Am I the only one in the village with an address?'

There was a buzzing. For the first time Mae felt that her brain was made of something. She could feel the ends of it sparkle and fizz, like it was the edge of a tapestry before the ends were tied.

Air said, 'Old Mrs Tung is the only other person with an address. Do you still feel like accessing our Money Expert?'

Somewhere else, where she was huge like the moon, Mae nodded her head – yes. That was enough for Air.

This courtyard, Mae thought. It is my own courtyard.

Something she could not turn into a voice came at her. It was dim, like talking on her mobile when there was a bad connection. There were no words but she somehow understood. That understanding suddenly ballooned out.

Yes, they want to help poor people and they want to demonstrate this thing, so they needed me.

It was as if she had another Mrs Tung.

It was not quite a whole person. It rattled too quickly and seemed to go a bit in circles. It was a part of person, an attitude to something. It was a thousand things that person knew, matted together like a rug.

So of course I said yes. Money - what do you want to know?

Mae could almost see it, a tiny little overcoming spirit so sure of itself, so amused, and so in love with money and business and investments and trust funds. Trust funds? Suddenly sure, secure, and certain, Mae had knowledge of trust funds. It was not book-learning. It was knowledge like riding a bicycle or how to walk across the spring flood-plain by stepping on the tufts of reed.

The banks hold your money and pay you so that they can use it…

Stop! Stop! I want to sell people something new.

Well, then, you better find out what they want. One way is to do a 'Koeh so tong ah. 'A Question Map.

Mae saw one, all lines of writing on paper, in English. Someone else's memories.

You find people who are like the people you want to know about. Normally that's so tough you need scientists to help you, but in this case you can actually ask all the people. That's a one hundred per cent sample. Just make sure you really have got them all.

Mae saw a series of black balls in a column. This was a list, a way of remembering, called 'Dos and Don'ts.' She saw a name, too, and knew it was the name of the person in her head, and she caught a word.

This was Kru. Kru in her own language meant 'a great teacher.' This was a Kru word for something she couldn't pronounce but which got turned into 'Mat Unrolling' in Karzistani. 'Mat Unrolling' is