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

Robin didn’t know what it was that compelled him to act – the recent terror of the Balliol boys, the utter absurdity of this scene, or the disorienting sight of his doppelgänger’s face – but he stepped forward and put his hand on the bar. His doppelgänger relinquished it without a word.

‘Wúxíng,’ Robin said, thinking of the myths his mother had told him, of spirits and ghosts hiding in the dark. Of shapelessness, of nonbeing. ‘Invisible.’

The bar vibrated in his hand. He heard a sound from nowhere, a breathy sigh.

All four of them disappeared.

No, disappeared was not quite the word for it. Robin didn’t have the words for it; it was lost in translation, a concept that neither the Chinese nor the English could fully describe. They existed, but in no human form. They were not merely beings that couldn’t be seen. They weren’t beings at all. They were shapeless. They drifted, expanded; they were the air, the brick walls, the cobblestones. Robin had no awareness of his body, where he ended and the bar began – he was the silver, the stones, the night.

Cold fear shot through his mind. What if I can’t go back?

Seconds later a constable rushed up to the end of the street. Robin caught his breath, squeezing the bar so hard that pangs of pain shot up his arm.

The constable stared right at him, squinting, seeing nothing but darkness.

‘They’re not down here,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Try chasing them up Parks . . .’

His voice faded as he sprinted away.

Robin dropped the bar. He couldn’t maintain his hold on it; he was barely aware of its presence anymore. He didn’t so much as use his hand and open his fingers as he did violently thrust the bar away to try to separate his essence from the silver.

It worked. The thieves rematerialized in the night.

‘Hurry,’ urged the other man, a youth with pale blond hair. ‘Shove it in your shirts and let’s leave the trunk behind.’

‘We can’t just leave it,’ said the woman. ‘They’ll trace it.’

‘Pick up the pieces then, come on.’

All three began scooping the silver bars off the ground. Robin hesitated for a moment, arms hanging awkwardly at his sides. Then he bent down to help them.

The absurdity of this had not yet sunk in. Dimly he realized that whatever was happening had to be very illegal. These youths could not be associated with Oxford, the Bodleian, or the Translation Institute, or else they wouldn’t be skulking about at midnight, clad in black and hiding from the police.

The right and obvious thing to do was to raise the alarm.

But somehow, helping seemed the only option. He didn’t question this logic, he simply acted. It felt like falling into a dream, like stepping into a play where he already knew his lines, though everything else was a mystery. This was an illusion with its own internal logic, and for some reason he couldn’t quite name, he didn’t want to break it.

At last all the silver bars had been shoved down shirt fronts and into pockets. Robin gave the ones he’d picked up to his doppelgänger. Their fingers touched, and Robin felt a chill.

‘Let’s go,’ said the blond man.

But none of them moved. They all looked at Robin, visibly uncertain what to do with him.

‘What if he—’ began the woman.

‘He won’t,’ Robin’s doppelgänger said firmly. ‘Will you?’

‘Of course not,’ Robin whispered.

The blond man looked unconvinced. ‘Would be easier to just—’

‘No. Not this time.’ Robin’s doppelgänger looked Robin up and down for a moment, then seemed to come to a decision. ‘You’re a translator, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Robin breathed. ‘Yes, I’ve only just got here.’

‘The Twisted Root,’ said his doppelgänger. ‘Find me there.’

The woman and the blond man exchanged a glance. The woman opened her mouth as if to object, paused, and then closed it.

‘Fine,’ said the blond man. ‘Now let’s go.’

‘Wait,’ Robin said desperately. ‘Who are – when should—’

But the thieves had broken into a run.

They were startlingly fast. Just seconds later, the street was empty. They’d left no trace they’d ever been there – they’d picked up every last bar, had even run away with the broken ruins of the trunk. They could have been ghosts. Robin could have imagined this entire encounter, and the world would have looked no different at all.

Ramy was still awake when Robin returned. He opened his door at the first knock.

‘Thanks,’ he said, taking the notebook.

‘Of course.’

They stood looking at each other in silence.

There was no question about what had happened. They were both shaken by the sudden realization that they did not belong in this place, that despite their affiliation with the Translation Institute and despite their gowns and pretensions, their bodies were not safe on the streets. They were men at Oxford; they were not Oxford men. But the enormity of this knowledge was so devastating, such a vicious antithesis to the three golden days they’d blindly enjoyed, that neither of them could say it out loud.