Air (or Have Not Have)

weaken them.

'Then we both have the most each other has to give,' he said, and kissed her again, and she went wet again, and they made love again, this time more conventionally. I have blood and semen inside my belly, she thought. They washed again, the water like a cool, loving tongue of some creature that cared for both of them.

Dust, stickiness, their everyday selves were all washed away. Both of them tumbled into bed, darkness settling over their minds like night.

'Kuei,' she whispered. Finally, she had called him by his first name.

They were awakened by a pounding on the door.

A man was calling her name in rage.

'Joe!' gasped Mae.

Kuei was naked beside her in bed, and his clothes were in the small shed with the drain. Between the drawn curtains it was night.

'Stay here!' she whispered, pleading.

'Mae! Chung Mae!' someone bellowed.

Could it be that it was not Joe? Her heart shuddered. Anyone else would be a relief.

'I must talk with you. Open this door. I want words!'

Mae fluttered into her morning robe, her mind clearing, as if a strong wind had blown through it. She snapped the curtains shut around the alcove, and turned on the kitchen light.

Mae shouted back: 'I am coming. Who are you to be shouting so?' The kitchen was covered with unwashed pans, but betrayed no other sign of a male presence. 'Patience, patience!'

She opened the door and something was thrown in her face. It was lightweight, it fluttered, it did not hurt, but it made her turn her head. When she looked back, she was dismayed.

It was Teacher Shen.

His lean and handsome face was hard with tension; his eyes were wide with anger.

Mae was temporarily undone. She had been a friend.

Shen demanded, 'What are you about? What are you trying to do?' He was beside himself.

'I ask the same question of you. Have you gone mad, Shen, to shout at me? What is this about?'

'You know what this is about.'

'The TV.'

'You. Setting up a school!'

So that was it. This was going to be tiring, and there would be no resolution.

'Come in,' she said wearily. Mr Ken would be trapped in her alcove. 'I was in bed, I have been at work all day.'

'At that school.'

'I call it a school because that's what it is, but it is not a school-school. Everyone knows that. It is a way of teaching people.

He glowered at her. 'Teach them to watch bad movies. Teach them that it is better to live in Beijing or Bombay or any other place than here.'

I have made a mistake, thought Mae. I should have spoken to him, and got him to agree. This mistake will take time to undo. Her fingers were burrowed into her uncombed hair.

'Teacher Shen. We have always been friends.'

'Yes!' he insisted.

'I am an impulsive person. I see something needs doing, I do it. I should have talked to you first and explained.'

'You should not set yourself up. You let your rivalry with Sunni carry you too far.'

Ow. That was true.

'Teacher Shen. Do you know any thing about Info?'

He resented that, though his expression did not change.

'We all need to learn about it. We need to learn about it, because soon we will spend half our lives in Info. And no one, not one of us, knows a thing about it. We will all become like little children again. We will all be lost unless we learn.'

His expression had not changed, but there was something helpless, frozen, about him. A poor peasant boy who fought and fought to learn, who gave everything to be allowed to be a Teacher.

And he was her friend – kind Shen, wise Shen, poor Shen. She saw in his face that he feared he had lost everything. He lived in a hovel in a village on a hill; he had given his life to trying to teach the children.

'You are right about Sunni,' she said softly. 'Sunni tries to take my farm, my business. She wants to take everything I have.'

His chin started to tremble. He knew the feeling well. 'They can't even read most of them,' he said, finally, and looked up at the ceiling. 'What did you show them today?'

'Bay Toh Vang. We heard a part of a symphony, and we had 'Info' on him. I knew nothing about Bay Toh Vang.'

'They do not know their multiplication tables! And you are telling them, everything will be easy, just wish into the machine. You don't have to work. You don't have to learn.' Teacher Shen glared at her. 'You will make slaves of them.'

'No,' Mae said quietly. 'I will do the reverse of that.'

'Who puts Air into their heads? Who controls it? Who makes the things they see there? Do they? No. The great, huge, powerful things in the world do. You know how computers work, woman? By numbers. In the end, all those pictures, all those words, are just numbers. And these children cannot even add.'

Shen got up to go, sick at heart and unable to bear her and what she was bringing. 'Do you think any of my children went home and learned their arithmetic last night? Or were they humming the songs that Yu Op Pah wanted them to hum?' He had an old socialist hatred for the West.

'Tell them that, Shen,' said Mae. 'Tell them they must learn their numbers to control the machine.'

'When you call up Bay Toh Vang by toggling your right ear, by calling yourself 'Madam Owl'?' He looked hunted, destroyed, and powerless. 'You talk about Sunni to get my sympathy. You have done what Sunni would do. That's what you have done to me, Teacher Owl.'

Shen stood up. Mae thought: I have lost a good friend.

'I don't want us to be enemies,' she called after him.

He was already in the courtyard.

She went after him. 'Shen, Teacher Shen, we are on the same side! We both want the same things!' She ran across the courtyard. 'Shen, please. Come to my school, use it yourself. You must find out about it, too!'

That was of course entirely the wrong thing to say. He spun on his heel and snarled at her like a dog, baring fangs, beyond words.

Mae stopped, her breath halted by the shock. And suddenly he was gone, down the street.

Stumbling back into her kitchen, she saw what he had flung at her. Her leaflet, of which she had been so proud.

Kuei was by the table, towel around his waist.

'That sounded terrible,' he said.

'Oh! I should have talked to him. But there wasn't time. There never seems to be enough time!' She was near to weeping. She went to her Kuei, and leaned against him, and he put an arm around her. Her head turned around and looked at her room.

Then she saw. She had not pulled the curtain fully shut behind her. Mr Ken's shoes were beside the bed, fully visible, and the pillow with two head marks. Mr Ken had hidden behind the curtain, but the curtain had a gap on either side of it.

Had he seen? Teacher Shen was both a friend and an enemy. Would he say anything? When and why would he say it?

Later that night, asleep in bed, Mae heard applause.