Babel : Or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution (9780063021440)

They were all very drunk by the time the party broke up – except for Ramy, who was drunk anyway on exhaustion and laughter – which was the only reason it seemed a good idea to wander through the cemetery behind St Giles, taking the long way round north, to where the girls lived. Ramy murmured a quiet du’a, and they traipsed through the gate. At first it seemed a great adventure as they stumbled against each other, laughing, as they picked their way around the tombstones. But then the air seemed to change very quickly. The warmth of the streetlamps dimmed; the tombstone shadows stretched long, shifting, as if belying some presence that did not want them there. Robin felt a sudden, chilling dread. It was not illegal to walk through the cemetery, but suddenly it seemed a horrific violation to trespass these grounds in their state.

Ramy had felt it too. ‘Let’s hurry.’

Robin nodded. They began weaving faster among the tombstones. ‘Shouldn’t be out here after Maghrib,’ Ramy muttered. ‘Should have listened to my mother—’

‘Hold on,’ said Victoire. ‘Letty’s still – Letty?’

They turned around. Letty had fallen behind several rows back. She stood before a tombstone.

‘Look.’ She pointed, her eyes wide. ‘It’s her.’

‘Her who?’ asked Ramy.

But Letty only stood there, staring.

They doubled back to join her before the weathered stone. Eveline Brooke, it read. Dearly beloved daughter, scholar. 1813–1834.

‘Eveline,’ said Robin. ‘Is that—’

‘Evie,’ said Letty. ‘The girl with the desk. The girl with all the match-pairs on the ledger. She’s dead. All this time. She’s been dead for five years.’

Suddenly the night air felt icy. The lingering warmth of port had evaporated with their laughter; now they were sober, cold, and very scared. Victoire pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders. ‘What do you think happened to her?’

‘Probably just something mundane.’ Ramy made a valiant effort to dispel the gloom. ‘Probably she fell sick, or had an accident, or overexhausted herself. Could be she went skating without a scarf. Could be she got so wrapped up in her research she forgot to eat.’

But Robin suspected Evie Brooke’s death was about more than some mundane bout of illness. Anthony’s disappearance had left hardly a trace on the faculty. Professor Playfair seemed by now to have forgotten he’d ever existed; he’d not uttered a word about Anthony since the day he’d announced his death. Yet he’d kept Evie’s work desk undisturbed for five years and counting.

Eveline Brooke had been someone special. And something awful had happened here.

‘Suppose we go home,’ Victoire whispered after a while.

They must have been in the graveyard for quite some time. The dark sky was slowly giving way to pale light, the chill condensing into morning dew. The ball was over. The last night of term had ended, had given way to endless summer. Wordlessly, they took each other’s hands and walked home.

Chapter Fifteen

As the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs really finish’d and indolent-ripe on the tree,

Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all!

WALT WHITMAN, ‘Halcyon Days’

Robin received his exam marks in his pidge the next morning (Merit in Translation Theory and Latin, Distinction in Etymology, Chinese, and Sanskrit), along with the following note printed on thick, creamy paper: The board of undergraduate studies at the Royal Institute of Translation is pleased to inform you that you have been invited to continue your tenure as undergraduate scholar for the following year.

Only when he had the papers in hand did it all seem real. He’d passed; they’d all passed. For at least another year, they had a home. They had room and board paid for, a steady allowance, and access to all of Oxford’s intellectual riches. They would not be forced to leave Babel. They could breathe easy again.

Oxford in June was hot, sticky, golden, and beautiful. They had no pressing summer assignments – they could do further research on their independent projects if they liked, though generally, the weeks between the end of Trinity and the start of next Michaelmas were tacitly acknowledged as a reward, and brief respite, that incoming fourth years deserved.