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

‘Many think ahimsa means absolute pacifism, and that the Indian people are therefore a sheepish, submissive people who will bend the knee to anything. But in the Bhagavad Gita, exceptions are made for a dharma yuddha. A righteous war. A war in which violence is applied as the last resort, a war fought not for selfish gain or personal motives but from a commitment to a greater cause.’ He shook his head. ‘This is how I have justified this strike, Mr Swift. But what you’re doing here is not self-defence; it has trespassed into malice. Your violence is personal, it is vindictive, and this I cannot support.’

Robin’s throat pulsed. ‘Then take your blood vial before you go, sir.’

Professor Chakravarti examined him for a moment, nodded, and then began turning out the contents of his pockets onto the middle table. A pencil. A notebook. Two blank silver bars.

Everyone watched, silent.

Robin felt a flash of irritation. ‘Would anyone else like to voice a complaint?’ he snapped.

No one else said a word. Professor Craft stood and walked away up the stairs. A moment later, Ibrahim joined her, then Juliana; and then the rest until only Robin and Victoire stood in the lobby, watching Professor Chakravarti stride down the front steps towards the barricades.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

How the Chimney-sweepers cry

Every blackning Church appalls,

And the hapless Soldiers sigh

Runs in blood down Palace walls

WILLIAM BLAKE, ‘London’

The mood in the tower turned sombre after Professor Chakravarti left.

In the early days of the strike, they’d been too occupied with the exigencies of their situation – with pamphleteering, ledgers research, and barricade fortifications – to pay attention to the sheer danger they were in. It had all been so monumental, so unifying. They’d delighted in each other’s company. They’d talked long into the nights, learning about one another, marvelling at how astonishingly similar their histories were. They’d been plucked from their motherlands at a very young age, thrown into England, and instructed to thrive or be deported. So many of them were orphans, all ties to their countries severed except that of language.^*

But the frantic preparations of those early days had now given way to gloomy, suffocating hours. All the pieces had been laid on the board; all hands were shown. They had no threats left to make other than ones they’d already shouted from the rooftops. What stretched before them now was only time, a ticking down to the inevitable collapse.

They’d issued their ultimatum, sent out their pamphlets. Westminster Bridge fell in seven days, unless. Unless.

This decision had left a bad taste in their mouths. They’d said all there was to say, and no one wanted pick apart the implications. Introspection was dangerous; they only wanted to get through the day. Now, more often than not, they drifted to separate corners of the tower, reading or researching or doing whatever it was they did to make the time pass. Ibrahim and Juliana spent all their waking hours together. Sometimes the rest of them speculated whether the two might be falling in love, but they found they could never sustain that conversation; it made them think of the future, of how this might all end up, and that made them too sad. Yusuf kept to himself. Meghana occasionally took tea with Robin and Victoire, and they would exchange stories about their overlapping acquaintances – she’d graduated recently, and had been close to both Vimal and Anthony – but as the days drew on she also started withdrawing into herself. And Robin wondered, sometimes, whether she and Yusuf were now regretting their decision to stay.

Life in the tower, life on strike – at first so novel and strangely exciting – took on a routine, monotonous air. Things were hard going at first. It was both funny and embarrassing, how little they’d learned about how to keep their living quarters in order. No one knew where the brooms were kept, so the floors remained dusty and littered with crumbs. No one knew how to do laundry – they tried producing a match-pair using the word bleach and words derived from the Proto-Indo-European root bhel (‘shining white, to flash, to burn’), but all this did was temporarily turn their clothes white and scorching-hot to the touch.

They still congregated for meals three times a day on the hour, if only because that made rationing simpler. Their luxury items had quickly disappeared. There was no coffee after the first week; they were close to running out of tea by the second. Their solution to this was to dilute the tea more and more until they were drinking little more than slightly discoloured water. There was no milk or sugar to speak of. Meghana argued they ought to just enjoy the last few teaspoons in a properly, full-brewed cup, but Professor Craft vehemently disagreed.