Her voice trailed away. She was asleep. Mae felt a curtain descend behind her forehead, a curtain of sadness and exhaustion. I will sleep here amid the fleas, she thought. Because I have just seen a miracle. A miracle comes when someone speaks, really speaks, because when someone does that, you also hear God.
Air will be wonderful. I didn't know that.
Mae leaned her head down onto the earthern floor. It smelled of spice and corn, not garbage. Sezen was snoring. Mae took her hand and managed to blow out the candle. Anaesthetized, Mae fell asleep.
It was still dark when the smells of the filthy house woke her up – stale vegetation, drying shitcakes, and sour old rice in the bins. The voracious fleas were sticking needles into her. There was slippery, queasy stirring below, in addition to a blinding hangover headache.
Mae was bleeding, below.
She felt her breath like a candle flame. Blood means I am not pregnant. I can't be pregnant. She needed to check, to be sure. She would not risk feeling her female wound with dirty hands. She could not do that here. She could not sleep here now either, sober. The house did stink.
Forgive me, Sezen, I did keep you company for a while.
Sezen stirred, murmuring. 'Good night,' Mae whispered.
Mae stumbled out onto the cobbles, and looked up at the mountain sky, a river of stars across it as milky as Sezen's father's wine. The air was sweet, it cleared everything. Yes, Sezen was right, the Air was wonderful. She, Mae, was not pregnant. Good things were still to come, good things to do.
She listened again to her village – to the far dogs, the wind in reeds, and the sounds of their river leaping over stones.
Pregnant? demanded a voice in her head.
The nausea came again, in a wave.
In the morning, Mae was still nauseous, but told herself it was the wine.
If she was bleeding, she could not be pregnant. And if she were ill, badly ill, she found, she did not mind.
All that she asked was that she lived long enough to get the village on Air.
Downstairs, in the kitchen, Kwan was worried. 'Where did you go?' Kwan asked her.
'I went drinking with Sezen,' said Mae, abstracted by hangover.
Kwan looked horrified.
'She is very bright, brighter than you would think.'
'She would have to be. Perhaps you could teach her to wash.'
Mae felt like a truck on a bad road. There was need of repair. 'We all need to improve in some ways,' she said.
Kwan rumpled her lips, as if to say: Don't be so mealymouthed and pious.
'I'm not pregnant,' Mae said.
Kwan blinked, for a moment. 'That at least is a blessing.'
'In some ways. Who is to say what is a blessing these days?' Mae sat up. 'I need to see my government man.'
Things were still too bad for her to walk in daylight through the village. Certainly not to be seen returning to the home of Mr Ken.
Kwan sighed.
Mae said, 'I fear I am proving to be a trouble to you.'
Kwan gave her head a dismissive twitch. 'I will send a child with a message.'
It was only after Kwan had gone that Mae realized: I did not tell her about the government money. She will think I am hiding it from her. Maybe I was.
Mae washed. She was still bleeding. The blood smelled of woman. She pushed a clean rag up herself, and went downstairs. She told Kwan about the government money, after giving an apologetic dip at the knees. 'I was more relieved at the other news.'
'Both are good,' said Kwan, blandly.
The government man came, Mae told him about the grant. He smiled, but he did not look overjoyed. 'That quick.' He shook his head. 'That means there have been few applications. They have spare funding; they need to use it.' Mae tried to read the hand across his forehead, the distracted look.
'You are worried?' she asked.
'It means no one else is finding anything,' he said. 'It's not working.'
From down below came the sound of the men and the TV. Do women and children ever get to watch it now? They were watching snooker. Of all the pointless things to waste a morning on.
'Stay here,' Mr Oz told her.
He turned and went down Kwan's whitewashed steps. Mae listened, hidden behind the doorway. The staircase smiled white in the sunlight.
Suddenly there were howls from the men, protests.
'Quiet,' demanded Mr Oz. 'This is more important than sports.'
A roar of protest from the men.
Mr Oz continued: 'What do you care about snooker scores in Balshang? Balshang doesn't care that you burn shit for fuel. Balshang doesn't even know you exist!'
Mae blinked. Fighting words from such a frail boy. Who would have thought it? The men suddenly fell silent. The screen made a trumpeting sound, the sound of government. Humbled, silent, made small by the weight of society above them, the village men waited. Mae could feel them wait.
Then she heard a spreading mumble.
They know, she realized. They know about the money. He's shown them on TV.
'Thank you, gentlemen,' said Mr Oz.
Naked but brave. A harlot funded by the government to make herself richer than the men. That's what they will call me. I will have to have a face of stone, now. I will have to be as enduring as the mountain. Mountains hold up air.
Oblivious as always, the Central Man bustled back in with paper. Kwan emerged, concerned, curious, wiping her hands. The paper had printed out all the terms and conditions.
'Right,' he explained. 'The funding is in the form of bank credits. Do you know what those are?'
Mae shook her head. 'Believability Card?'
'Better than that. But I need to go with you to ratify them. That will set up a business account in the bank. We then need to set up a Question Mark account, so that you can use it on the Net. Then… you are in business.'
'That means going to Green Valley City,' said Mae. Her heart leapt. The City! She had not seen it since spring.
'Mmm-hmm,' Mr Oz said, oblivious again to what that meant for her. 'And that is good, too, because there is a big seminar there this week. For people in the Taking Wing Initiative. It will be good. The Wings have also been invited.'
'Can we take Sunni with us?' asked Mae.
Sunni ran out of her house to the government van.
She was immaculate in city-woman oatmeal, with a beige scarf on her head. She darted down the hill to the bridge, quickly so that no one would see her. She squashed into the backseat next to Mae, and greeted Mae, Mr Oz, and Mr Wing. Plainly, she wanted to be away.
'Hello, Mrs Sunni-ma'am.' Sezen beamed at her. Pleased to see me? Sezen's eyes were spiked with merriment like a dog's collar against wolves. Mae gave Sezen a little warning with her eyes.
'Good morning, Sezen,' Sunni managed. She flinched at Sezen's graduation dress, mounds of shiny lemon-yellow. Sunni put on her sunglasses as if against the glare.
'Mrs Haseem-ma'am,' Mr Wing replied with dignity from the front seat. Mr Oz nodded and backed the van back into Upper Street.
Sunni turned to Mae, and her smile was from the old days. 'It was very kind of you to ask me,' she said to Mae.
Mae said, 'I felt it would be good for old friends in the party of progress to go together to see what they are doing in the City.'
'And it is such a beautiful morning!' said Sezen, reaching around Mae to touch Sunni on the shoulder. 'We can stop and wave to all your friends, working in the fields.'
'If those who are friends of progress are not friends of each other, then disaster awaits,' said Mae, and glared.
'Indeed,' murmured Sunni. 'Those are my feelings.' Protected by sunglasses, Sunni looked fragile in defeat, uncertain and frightened by the need for trust.
Impulsively, Mae took her hand. 'It is good to be with friends.'
'Where is the Lady An?' chirped Sezen.
Sunni found enough heart to reply. 'An is studying for a qualification in fashion studies. She does this through the Net on my TV. She is enjoying it. Perhaps you should talk to her, Sezen, and see if the course interests you. You could study together.'