Air (or Have Not Have)

So Kwan made herself smile, and collected the stone mugs and murmured to friends, not wanting to disturb their viewing.

They were watching a programme about Mat Unrolling.

Kwan was glad to see Suloi there. Suloi would understand. Two Eloi sets of eyes caught each other's glances.

Kwan said, 'Remember Mae? She talked about her Mat all the time.'

Very solemnly, Suloi nodded downward, once – yes. Mae was our oracle.

Kwan came to Luk. 'Son? When this is through, could you and I go for a walk?'

He glanced at his friends, two of the Pin brothers, all bucktoothed and sweet. Kwan was glad he had such good friends.

It was unusual for her to ask. He looked at his friends and said, 'I can go now if you like.' Mat Unrolling bored him, maybe.

Kwan was careful not to tell him how to dress; he did not want to hear his mother telling him to bundle up. And she promised herself as she slipped on boots that she would not let her worries run away with the night. She would not worrit him about studying, about not spending, about writing her. Nothing he could do would fill the gap that would be left behind when he went. Nothing she could do would make his life better if he failed to fly by himself.

We must meet as equals, she thought.

So they trudged out together, and her son had bundled himself up in sheepskin coat, scarf, and gloves, almost too carefully.

And this made Kwan think: Where is the swagger in him? Is Luk a bit too quiet, even a bit dull?

Don't worrit, Kwan.

They walked out into the courtyard.

Kwan asked her son, 'What do you make of Chung Mae?'

That surprised him. If he had been dreading a motherly discussion, that would have reassured him.

'I don't really know,' Luk said, finally. 'She is your good friend. I'm sorry she is not well.'

'That's what I think, too, of course. But what do you think she is?'

Luk looked back at her askance. Was this a trick question? Adults asked questions when they knew the answers.

Kwan did not want to play a guessing game. 'The Eloi in me thinks she is something very mysterious.' Kwan found herself smiling and wiggling her eyebrows, almost making fun of it. They both stood in the courtyard light.

Luk grinned. He understood. 'She is a bit spooky,' he said.

'Your grandmother would have said she was oiya,' said Kwan. 'That means "disturbed," which means the elements are out of balance.'

'Many people would have called her disturbed,' said Luk. 'Only, she turned out to be right.'

Kwan stepped out of the courtyard, and began to walk out of the village, up the hill. It was so cold that the stars seemed to be made of frost – as if her own wreathing, white breath blew up into heaven to freeze there. Stars and breath, it's too big, she thought. You can't cram all of the Eloi world into someone all at once.

'The Elois said that stars are solid places in the air, for spirits to rest,' she said. 'They are like frozen air.'

'Well, they're fire instead,' said Luk.

'Do you ever think about the Elois?' she asked him.

She could hear his sheepskin shrug. 'Only that I am part Eloi. My first name is Eloi – I think. It doesn't seem to make any difference in the way people treat me.'

'You don't have any sudden urges to stand up and herd sheep on the high hills?'

She heard the rustle of a smile. 'No. No urge to tattoo my legs, either.'

'You should try it, it looks beautiful.'

'Ah, but my legs are just a bit too hairy for it.' He was joking, but it was also the truth. His legs were Chinese.

'And they don't allow tattoos in the military.'

He sighed. 'Well. That might be a good reason to get one, then.' Then he said, 'Okay. Tell me about the Eloi.'

The air was still.

'You really want to know?'

'Not as much as you want to tell me. But I don't know it.'

Good, said the stars.

'Okay. I'll talk. But if a nightjar churrs, we have to go back inside, because birds can talk to the air. If a nightjar calls, it is warning you.'

'About what?'

'That you are betraying the secrets of the spirits. Or that the spirit inside the body you are talking to is not ready yet. Things like that.'

'Mom. You don't really believe this, do you?'

Kwan had to consider. 'Not really. Not with the top part of my head. But, this old stuff – it produces the right words. You just say what the old people would have said, and something is explained. Somehow it's all easier to bear.'

Even now, down the hillside, water trickled.

Luk spoke next: 'There's something about Earth resting underneath, and being the foundation. And Air on top, with Fire and Water as the filling in the sandwich.'

'Yes, but I think those are the wrong words.'

'Ah. I am a modern fellow,' he said.

Kwan said. 'There are two kinds of time. There is time in motion, measured by clocks, and there is "the Time." The Time is the situation you live in. You make it, the world makes it, most of the time it is like a punch you roll with. You make your choices, and do not resent them, and wait for the season to pass. And the season is made of the four elements, all of which have characteristics, powers. They all kind of swirl together.'

Those are the wrong words, too, Kwan.

O, Mother Kowoloia, O spirits of the Air, the Water, the Earth, speak for me.

The nightjar also churrs when you are not ready to speak. It sleeps in the road, dazzled by headlights, only because the asphalt is still warm.

'In Mae, all these forces are gathered together. So Mae is the Time. Do you understand? Mae is like a picture of the Time. Your grandmother would say that Mae has solidified the Time, like water solidifies into ice. And ice breaks – when the season begins to move. You see?'

Not yet. Luk waited.

Kwan continued: 'So Mae is the Earth, like women are – she derives her power from women, from the Circle, from Bugsy. You see how it works? The old words? So, you have Mae, who is in her character most like the Earth, she is an Earth person: rooted, least-moving of all people. But her head – her head has been filled with Air; this is the Age of Air. And so she is disturbed. Spirit mixing with Earth, swept away by the enraged waters, which are change, which drive change.'

Luk said, 'Mae is Earth moved by Air and moved by Water.'

'Yes!' Kwan was pleased. Luk understood.

'What is the fire?'

She still remembered him at five, all innocent toddling nakedness. She remembered him at sixteen, how soft and troubled he looked back when Tsang had been seducing him.

'Don't you know?' She prodded him. 'Think. You know. She is disturbance – so what was disturbed?'

Luk was embarrassed. 'Ah. Well. Her husband and things…'

'Fire is desire, and Fire flared up. Your grandmother would have said that was only to be expected, too. But Fire is not just sex, it is yearning, for everything, here, now, on Earth. It makes us have children, it makes us love them, love our friends. Water carries us, but Fire makes us swim.'

There were the stars of fire.

Rather clumsily, her huge son put a sheepskin-muffled arm around her shoulders. She felt how small and frail she must seem to him.

She pointed to the stars. 'You see? In the world of the Air, there is no time. Even Fire is still. Fire becomes permanent.'

Why was she crying? 'Fire becomes love. In Air.'

He stood beside her and she was not sure what he felt.

'You see? You see? You see?' Even to herself, Kwan sounded like a bird.

In March the road was finished, and in one of the first cars up, it carried Fatimah from Yeshiboz Sistemlar.

Fatimah asked where Mae was. Sunni and Kwan greeted her with firm smiles.

'Mae is gone away,' said Kwan.

Fatimah looked suspicious and disappointed. Kwan had been her ally.