'Then perhaps you can let us inside,' said Mae.

Mae won. Reluctantly Ju-mei admitted her. Her mother sat enthroned and avoiding her gaze. Young Mrs Wang had taken the baby elsewhere. The inside of the house, as always, was as empty and as clean as an iceberg. The tiny brazier did nothing to warm it. On the wall was the framed photograph of all of them as children, and another photograph of her father, so familiar that it looked nothing like him.

Mae's mother cowered in black trousers and jacket and a long flowered scarf. She looked tiny and frail and unhappy. There is nothing in her to be frightened of, Mae thought. Then she thought: Frightened?

Siao said, bowing, 'We have decided to take Mae's kind offer.' Something in the way he said it made Mae realize: Siao is head of the family now. Joe's going has been good for him.

Ju-mei glowered. 'I cannot believe you will accept any help from that woman.'

'We have taken much already from her family who owed us nothing and were so kind to make space for us in their home,' said Siao. 'We are impoverished and through our own efforts have lost everything we inherited. At least this way, there may be some small illusion that we live in our own home.'

Ju-mei glowered at Mae. 'Your sentiments are noble, Siao, and I can only add that I am deeply ashamed that my own sister has left you in such a terrible situation. You have been an ideal guest…'

Ah, thought Mae, they've all been driving each other crazy.

'… and I feel that as a mark of my respect and affection for you that I will assist in carrying your cases and goods.'

He wants to see what is going on, thought Mae.

And he did. Ju-mei went into the barn and saw the giant weaver with its lights and display, and its speaking voice. His eyes boggled.

'You make money from this?'

Mae used her little formula: five hundred collars at ten dollars each.

Ju-mei looked so forlorn that part of Mae wanted to hug him. He looked like such a disappointed little boy: he pouted and looked sad and yearning, and hung his head. Ju-mei had always thought that if someone had something, they had got it by stealing it from him.

'Tuh. Who will work for a woman like you?'

'About half the village,' chuckled Siao, 'since it makes them so much money. Your sister has appeared in the New York Times' He even gave his sister-in-law a little hug about the shoulders.

'Hmm. And you think you can run a business of this size by yourself?'

'Oh, I do not think that,' said Mae, ringing her little bell voice. 'I know I can. So I will not be needing your help.'

Mae moved into the attic.

She wanted it that way, to keep her new TV out of the way of thieves, she said. She did not mention the Flood to Siao.

'That will be fine,' said Siao. 'I was tired of that attic. But, hoi, Mae! Let me tell you – that attic is cold! Are you sure you want to be up there?'

'Siao. I am a fallen women. People will be more comfortable coming to your kitchen to offer you work if I am not there.'

His eyes looked briefly pained and then he nodded yes.

As if to make it up to her, Siao made a pulley. It had a strong net to carry things and strong wooden wheels and it could hoist her TV up and down from the attic. 'In case you want to take it outside in summer to teach,' he said.

Siao was plainly overjoyed to be back. He scampered, bringing in charcoal for the braziers, making a new bedspace for his father beside the fire, and screwing hooks into the roofbeam. He ducked and climbed and dangled, as lithe as any monkey.

Mae warmed whisky, and around their old wooden table, they all toasted the Chung family and its house. 'The new house,' they called it, as if it had been rebuilt.

And then, alone and wearing every single piece of clothing she possessed to keep warm, Mae sat alone in her attic, in front of a television of her own.

'Please say hello,' it asked her, to start the process of getting to know her.

'Hello,' replied Mae. It was like meeting a female cousin for the first time and knowing you were going to become friends.

She entered a new e-mail address – the one she had told Kwan's machine to forward e-mail to – and at last began to work on her own. She sipped yet more warmed whisky, and went to work.

____________________

audio file from: Mr Hikmet Tunch

17 December

I have been looking at a particular site in America about history and have found it very interesting. Perhaps friends of yours would like to know it is available. Strange indeed are the uses to which we all are put. I myself come from a long line of peasant soldiers of the Karz. Throughout history, we have laid down our rakes and picked up our axes to march off to bash the Happy Province into submission. But it is like a walnut that does not break open, but is only driven into the mud, so that it sprouts again. I seem to have been used to help plant it afresh. Once there was a dictator. He drove millions to various kinds of deaths, by war, in prison, or simply in harsh deserts farming their lives away. He destroyed temples, burned books, and ruined the art of calligraphy. He wrote terrible poetry and forced everyone to learn it, so destroying the literary taste of one quarter of humanity. He remained a warrior even as Chairman. He was at his best as a warrior, because as a warrior, he was fighting for his people, dreaming for them. After that, he only ground them down. But I forgive him for saying one beautiful thing:

'Women hold up half the sky.' -Chairman Mao Tse Tung

CHAPTER 19

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audio file from: Mrs Chung Mae

26 December

Mr Oz

Kwan has an e-mail saying that Teacher Shen has lost his job and is to be replaced. How? The snows have come. You can't get even a tractor up our road now. So is Teacher Shen supposed to go on teaching unpaid? How will it help our children if there is no school? Look, okay, Teacher Shen gave me a big blow and did the Party of Progress great harm. But this will do no good. Please listen to his wife, our friend Shen Suloi.

Mr Oz-sir, I am Mrs Shen Suloi, the wife of Teacher Shen. Gracious friend, you have been all kindness to us and we need your help again. My husband is wrong about the TV and Air, he sees these things as a great flood that will sweep everything away, but he is a good man and he wants the best for the children of our village. Gracious friend, it is a very bad thing that the message he lost his job came through the TV, and came after your visit. This makes many men here think of the TV as an enemy. They think it spies for the government. They think it takes away a man's whole life. Many say they will not let their children go to school if it is taught by a government replacement woman. My husband goes on teaching now for no money, but he is broken-hearted. We are poor people, Mr Oz, okay? That is hard for us to admit – easier perhaps for the women. We have four children ourselves, and no farm. My husband goes to the school with his shoulders hunched. He does not comb his hair. He sits at night by the single candle and weeps. All his life he trained to be Teacher. It was a great accomplishment for a boy from Kizuldah, and now that has gone, and his wife makes more money than he does. So can you talk to the people who did this and explain we have no Teacher? Can you get them to give my husband back his job? This is Mrs Chung. Tell them this mail comes from me, whom he harmed. Winter is when our children traditionally do their lessons. It does no good to have no Teacher here now.