And Mae's life is hinged with that of another.
It is the first day of autumn school and Mrs Kowoloia comes with her little daughter Kwan.
Mrs Tung thinks: My, but the child is solemn. And Mrs Kowoloia, oh, she is so beautiful, ethereal. She floats – and all that embroidery!
'Mrs Kowoloia, you are as beautiful as the butterfly!' hoots Mrs Tung, seizing her client's hands with gratitude, for this is the first arrival of the school year. The courtyard will soon be full of children.
Mrs Kowoloia says, 'Mrs Tung, may I say what a benefit this is to all of us. To run a school for us year in and year out. And we all know of your education.'
'Ah! But all my books were lost,' hoots Mrs Tung, holding up her hands and laughing for the dead.
The little girl looks seriously ready for work and disgruntled that there is none to do.
'Kwan, dear, I have some paper and paints.'
Kwan wrinkles her nose. 'It's all right,' says Kwan. 'I'll read my book.'
Every time the boys play football together in the white dust of my courtyard, I say, 'Ahmet would have played with them.' When all the little girls sing or skip rope, I close my eyes and imagine I hear Lily chanting with them. My Lily, who I let fall and drown.
Two little girls slip through the gate all by themselves. One is tall and skinny, and angry. The other is tiny, so small that her chin hits her chest as she scowls.
I know who this is, thinks Mrs Tung, and she walks forward, bending at the middle.
'Are you the little girls who lost their daddy?' Mrs Tung asks.
The oldest looks at her with frightening directness. 'He was shot by Communists.'
'And what is your name?' Mrs Tung half hopes it will be Lily.
'I like to be called Missy,' says the elder. 'So that's what everybody calls me.' She looks down at her sister with a mother's pride. 'This is my sister, Mae,' she says, in a way that makes Mrs Tung want to weep, it is so full of love and care.
The little one is shy. She holds up an autumn leaf. 'It's red,' she says. 'I found it on the ground.'
'Leaves fall. That's because autumn is coming. I'm Mrs Tung.'
'It's beautiful. It looks like a cushion. All red.'
'Where is your mother?' Mrs Tung asks.
'Nowhere,' Missy says coolly.
Missy coughs, and from deep within her lungs comes the authentic crackle of TB. She coughs again, and passes Mae to Mrs Tung. 'Mae's clever,' says Missy. She ushers Mae forward, arm around her shoulder. Her solemn eyes meet Mrs Tung's. Mrs Tung feels a prickle up her spine, as if Missy is passing Mae to her, to care for.
Missy coughs again, Mrs Tung is sure.
Mrs Tung could taste Air.
'Come, Mae. We have another clever little girl for you to meet. Her name is Kwan.' Mrs Tung moves them forward together. The older one is lean and already grey as a ghost.
Mrs Tung gazes at the round face of the little girl and to her it is like an egg that will hatch. She can half see who this Mae will be – oh, clever, yes, but not in any way that school can capture. She will turn herself into Missy, to honour her and love her and remember her.
The children run around her, swirling like dust, and Mrs Tung can see them all hatching, into Shen, into Joe, into Kan-hui. It is her job to warm them, love them into life.
Mrs Tung sits in her big kitchen, darning wet socks.
You darn them wet so that they will dry and heal shut. Her smelly, kindly old husband is in the fields. Her young man is off in the hills. Mrs Tung feels heavy and weighted, as if going up a fast escalator. She is pregnant, and she knows the child is not Mr Tung's. She becomes aware that she is hearing gunfire. Has the war moved back here?
Suddenly, the guns batter so loudly that it is as if the guns are in the kitchen. Mrs Tung jumps. She hears a cry, from nowhere.
Then everything is still again, just dust turning in rays of light. Suddenly Mrs Tung is certain.
Kalaf is dead.
Something that was in the air is there no longer. Like music that is suddenly turned off. Like the sudden smell of burning food. He is dead, she thinks, and I will be getting a telegram.
She puts the sock down on the table, and ponders. It will not do for her husband to see any telegram about any man. She ponders a moment, and wonders why she is not crying when there is no doubt.
Mrs Tung goes up Lower Street to the Teahouse, and she slips sideways into the room with all the men and cigarette smoke. The men in cloth caps look up and glower. She is a woman, even if her head is covered. Only whores sit in cafes with men. Mrs Tung sits at a table and starts to darn socks. She focuses on the yarn and the thread. The morning passes. She nods yes to a glass of tea, but does not drink it.
Her cousin Mr Tui comes up and suggests she should leave. Mrs Tung just shakes her head, for she finds she does not trust herself to speak. She keeps her eyes on the socks.
Then the machine in the corner of the room chatters. Mrs Tung sees the shadow of Mr Tui turn away. Mrs Tung puts her hands in her lap and waits.
The shadow comes back. 'This is for you,' he says, leaning down, so that she has to see his walrus face looking sad.
'You should have said you were waiting,' says Mr Tui. Mrs Tung knows that if she speaks, she will start to weep. Cousin Tui stands up. 'She was waiting for this!' He shakes the telegram at the men at the bar.
He folds it flat and puts it in her limp and waiting hands.
Dear friend, beloved cousin Kalaf is dead.
'He was kind to me when I was young,' says Mrs Tung, and scrunches up the telegram as if it were her face. Her face becomes a rag to be wrung; she can feel water seeping. She stands up, and holds up, and swiftly strides out of the Teahouse. She keeps her head high, walks back home through the narrow corridor of houses, and cannot tell anyone that the father of her child is dead. She finally closes the door of the kitchen, and hides her face in her husband's wet socks.
Mrs Tung knew before she could have known.
Mrs Tung had been a traveller in Air. Before there was Air.
So Mae went to find her.
Mae went back to the day of the test.
Mae burgeoned back into her old life.
The cauldron is boiling; Joe has eaten his rice. Old Mrs Tung is led in, chuckling at herself. Kuei helps her, blind to his own future, as blind as this time-bound, work-bound Mae.
____________________
to Chung Mae Wang
CERTIFICATE OF APPRECIATION FROM THE GRADUATING CLASS OF 2019
for FASHION STUDIES
____________________
And all around them are the magnetic fields, the arcs emanating from the fire in the heart of the earth – unnoticed and of no importance to Kizuldah for two thousand years.
Until now.
There is the flash and the buzz and the inflation of the mind. Every neural pathway is jolted at once.
A kind of Question Map of the self. Every question answered, complete.
Buzzed and jolted and in that moment stamped for ever on eternity, in Air. A complete, unchanging, unloving, unnatural Map.
And, oh, murmuring, here comes the Format.
Mae has to chuckle. It was such a cheap and tinny thing, the Format, like a child's plastic space-helmet clamped on the head. A few lines of code, a bit of information added to the mix.
'Chocolate. I smell chocolate,' coos Old Mrs Tung.
Here it comes, thinks Mae-in-Air, here it comes.
The cauldron is knocked, and topples. It will fall forever. That white steaming sheet will like a shroud cling and scald the old thin flesh for an eternity.
Mae is moved by pity and jumps forward, her mind addled and stirred by the unfamiliar immanence of all-time one-time. She plucks away the scalding shroud.