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.'

'I would love to do that!' enthused Sezen, so brightly that it was plain she could think of nothing worse. 'She would teach me how to improve my pronunciation.'

And improve your manners, thought Mae. She gave Sunni's hand a little squeeze. To her surprise, Sunni squeezed back.

Sunni persisted. 'Such a terrible thing that people do not understand the uses of the TV. To think! There are people who want it turned off!'

'People who try to destroy others,' said Sezen, her voice now simple, hard and dark.

'Indeed,' said Sunni, simply. Mae twisted around and her eyes said to Sezen: Enough.

Sezen's smile was one of contentment. She gave Mae a little salute and looked away, honour satisfied.

Already their little village was gone. Just alongside Mr Oz's window, there was a brutal falling-away of stone. 'Music?' Mr Wing asked, and turned on the radio.

Full of echo and sounds of machinery was something like a song for Sezen's generation. She was drawn, silenced by what to her was a mating call, a cry to be joined with the modern. The old folk fell silent.

Fluttering past like insubstantial scarves went rice fields, misty terraces, fat men riding donkeys, women in broad straw hats considering harvest.

They went down into the Desiccated Village. Mae was shocked to see grey dishes and wires on most of the houses.

'They've had those since summer,' said Sunni, turning. 'Perhaps we are not so advanced in Kizuldah.'

'Installing sat ho lih tuh,' said Mr Oz, shaking his head, as if they all shared his amusement. 'Still, it's reliable old technology.'

Mae felt unable to ask: What is a satellite?

'Look,' said Sunni, suddenly pointing. 'They are already threshing!'

Going down the hill was like plunging into their future. On the burnished-yellow threshing ground were big rented machines and wagons loaded with chickpeas. The men were pitchforking them raw into the threshers. The jets of straw, the waiting reed baskets to collect the peas, the women and boys bearing them off to plastic matting, the little girls herding the geese away from the mats – it was all as it always had been.

The vision was withdrawn behind a flurry of fencing and gates. A good harvest.

'Ah!' sighed Sunni, as if the relief were her own. 'They will have a good party, then.'

'High feasting,' agreed Mae. 'It is useful that they are so dry compared to us. We grow rice, they grow chickpeas.'

'Mmm, we can just exchange,' Sunni agreed. It was what they always said.

Suddenly the road stopped complaining under them. Suddenly it was smooth, humming like a song. The clouds of white dust died away in trails behind them, like the silver tracks of aircraft.