The Ken family – Mr Ken, his mother, his two little girls – all sat around the table as if at a séance. They all held hands, and it seemed to Mae, because she could hear nothing, that they were all chanting in unison.
Mr Ken rose up at the table and mouthed at her. She began to make out what he was saying.
'… no need for fear and alarm.'
'Mr Ken,' Mae began, and the noise in her head rose to an all-consuming lion's roar…
The two girls and Old Mrs Ken waved her forward, nodding. Join in! they seemed to say. They all stood up and worked their mouths like fish at her.
'Just listen to the words. Try talking along with them. You will find that will help.'
Mae listened, and the roaring seemed to narrow into something like a line of surf breaking along a beach. She focused and there seemed to be voices, like mermaids in the waves.
Mae started to repeat them and they suddenly came clear.
'Imagine that your mind is a courtyard. Assign these words like livestock to a pen. They are instructions. They will be in that pen whenever you need them.'
The roaring stopped. Mae sighed, 'Oh!' with relief. Mae nodded to indicate to Ken that she got it.
'Try to see the courtyard. You will find that you have a very clear picture of it in your head.'
Echoing after each word, a great sigh rolled all around their house, rising and falling with Mae's own voice. Everyone in the village was saying the same thing at once.
Mae grabbed hold of Mr Ken's forearm and started to pull.
'Can you see it? There are four pens in the courtyard, and they have signs over them. Can you see the signs? Can you read them?'
'Mr Ken,' cried Mae. 'Your grandmother!'
The words rocked the room like a ship at sea and Mae was nearly thrown from her feet. The unfocused motorboat sound roared again.
Mae winced. She rejoined the chanting of the choir.
'The signs say: "Help. " "Information. " "Airmail. "And "That's Entertainment!" '
Mr Ken looked quizzical. Mae signalled desperately towards her house. She saw him remember: Granny! He waved wildly to his mother and his daughter, and then turned and ran with Mae.
Outside, all the voices of the village tolled around them like a thousand calls to prayer.
'We call the pens and things inside them the Format.'
The laundry in the corner of the courtyard had sat up. Mrs Ken Tui sat with her elbows pressed tightly over her ears. Mr Ken moved towards her. Mae pulled him and signalled, No, no – in here, in here!
'Go to "Help " when you need help using Air. "Info" will tell you about everything from weather reports to what's available in the shops…'
Mae dragged Mr Ken into her kitchen. On the floor Granny Tung lay with her back arched, her hands claws of pain. Mr Ken ran forward and slipped on the steaming mud floor.
' "Airmail" is where you go to send messages to other people. Anyone, anywhere!'
Old Mrs Tung felt her grandson's hands. She looked up, her blind eyes staring, her face smeared with trails of tears. She quailed, in a thin voice, '"That's Entertainment" is full of Air versions of your favourite films…'
Mr Ken tried to pull her out of the steaming water. He touched her and she howled with pain. He winced and looked up at Mae in horror.
'Let's rest for just a moment. Take some time to think about the Format… and in a few moments, you'll see what Air really can do.'
Like the sound of a rockfall dying away, everything went still. There was the sound of wind moving in the courtyard. Was that it? Was it finished?
'I'm so sorry, Mr Ken, she stood up and knocked the brazier-'
'Anything to make a bandage?' Mr Ken asked.
'All the sheets were boiling. Everything will still be hot.'
He nodded. 'I must see to my wife. I'll get a sheet.' He stood and left them.
Mae knelt. 'Do you hear that, Mrs Tung? Your grandson Ken Kuei is bringing bandages.'
Mrs Tung seized Mae's hand. Mae winced at the ruined flesh. 'I can see,' Mrs Tung whispered. Her blind eyes moved back and forth in unison.
Blind Mrs Tung said she could see, and something moved behind the curtain of the world.
The world had always been a curtain, it seemed – one drawn shut inside Mae's head. Now it parted.
'Oh, God… oh, please,' said Mae. 'Inshallah!'
The village dogs began to howl again.
The world pulled back and suddenly Mae stood in a blue courtyard. Everything was blue, even her own glowing hands. Neon signs glowed over the livestock pens. They were green, red, yellow, and mauve, and the flowing scripts were in the three languages of Karzistan and Mae knew, as if in a dream, what the words meant. In Air, Mae could read: Help, Info, Airmail.
The voice of Air said, 'Perhaps you see the Format more clearly now. This is how Air will look from now on. This is an Aircast, an image we can send out to you. It will be there whenever you need it. Let's see what an Aircast looks like. Go into the area called "That's Entertainment.
Mae! Mae! said a voice, far too closely, far too intimate, as if someone were whispering in her ear. Mae, Mae – help!
'Today, we have an Aircast from National Opera!'
'Granny Tung!' Mae heard her own voice. But she had not spoken.
The voice of Air said, 'We will see part of the opera Turandot. The opera is a favourite with audiences in the capital.'
The whisper came again. It was Granny Tung. Mae. Where is the world?
'I'm trying to find you, Granny!'
Air said, 'Perhaps we like to think that the opera's hero, Kalaf, is Karzistani.'
Mae raged. 'I don't want to go to an opera! I need to talk to Granny Tung!'
Immediately, the sound of the opera dimmed. A new, calmer voice spoke. 'To send messages, go to the area called Airmail.'
Mae shot forward. She went through a blue wall, and into it. Mae crashed into metaphor. Information swallowed her. Information was blue and she was lost in it.
Mae! Mae!
'Do not attempt to send or receive Airmail until you have configured your personal airmail address. This is like putting your house name on your letterbox.'
If Mae had had a voice, she would have shouted. 'I've got no time, this is an emergency!'
'For an emergency configuration, simply repeat your own name several times.'
Mae said her own name over and over.
Mae! Mrs Tung seemed to cry out.
'Mae, Mae, Mae…'
Mae!
Something seemed to go click. It felt like a small electric shock. Something was connected.
Immediately, Mae was seized, hugged, held in terror as if she were a strong tree in a flood.
Can you feel it? It's pulling us back, Mae!
The voice of Air slowed to a crawl. 'Your… mailbox … is configured…' Time was stopping.
Old Mrs Tung said one small, forlorn, unexpected word, full of dread.
Water.
Time reversed. Everything, the Format, the voices, the whitewashed stone walls, the people in them were sucked back in, down. It all collapsed, and everything was gone.
The past is so very different, we know it at once.
Mae knew she was in the past because of the smells. The wood beams stank of creosote; the house had a stewed odour of bodies and tea and fermenting beanshoots.
She was in a house at night, with no lights on; the walls were in unexpected places. A stairwell opened up underneath her feet. A woman stumbled, rolled down the steps and landed up to her knees in water.