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

Anthony had the rare skill of talking smoothly while walking backwards. ‘There’s eight floors to Babel,’ he said. ‘The Book of Jubilees claims the historical Tower of Babel reached a height of over five thousand cubits – that’s nearly two miles – which is of course impossible, though our Babel is the tallest building in Oxford, and likely all of England, excepting St Paul’s. We’re nearly three hundred feet tall, not counting the basement, which means our total height is twice that of the Radcliffe Library—’

Victoire lifted her hand. ‘Is the tower—’

‘Larger on the inside than it seems on the outside?’ Anthony asked. ‘Indeed.’ Robin had not noticed this at first, but now felt disoriented by the contradiction. Babel’s exterior was massive, but it still did not appear tall enough to admit the high ceilings and towering shelves of each interior floor. ‘It’s a pretty trick of silver-working, though I’m not sure of the match-pair involved. It’s been like this since I got here; we take it for granted.’

Anthony guided them through a throng of townsfolk standing in busy queues before cashier windows. ‘We’re in the lobby now – all business gets conducted here. Local tradesmen ordering bars for their equipment, city officials requesting public works maintenance, that sort of thing. It’s the only area of the tower accessible to civilians, though they don’t interact with scholars much – we’ve got clerks to process their requests.’ Anthony waved for them to follow him up the central staircase. ‘This way.’

The second floor was the Legal Department, which was full of dour-faced scholars scratching at paper and flipping through thick, musty reference volumes.

‘It’s always busy here,’ said Anthony. ‘International treaties, overseas trade, that sort of thing. The gears of empire, the stuff that makes the world go round. Most Babel students end up here after graduation, as the pay is good and they’re always hiring. They do quite a lot of pro bono work here, too – the whole southwest quadrant is a team working on translating the Code Napoléon into other European languages.^* But we charge a pretty penny for the rest. This is the floor that draws the largest income – except silver-working, of course.’

‘Where’s silver-working?’ Victoire asked.

‘Eighth floor. Up at the very top.’

‘For the view?’ Letty asked.

‘For the fires,’ said Anthony. ‘When fires start you’d rather they be at the top of the building so everyone has time to get out.’

No one could tell if he was joking.^*

Anthony led them up another flight of stairs. ‘The third floor is the landing base for the live interpreters.’ He gestured around the largely empty room, which showed few signs of use except for several stained teacups lying askew and the occasional stack of paper on a desk corner. ‘They’re almost never here, but they need a place to prepare briefing files in confidence when they are, so they get this entire space. They accompany dignitaries and foreign service officials on their trips abroad, attending balls in Russia and taking tea with sheikhs in Arabia and whatnot. I’m told all the travel gets quite exhausting, so there aren’t too many career interpreters who come out of Babel. They’re usually natural polyglots who picked up their languages elsewhere – they had missionary parents, or they spent summers with foreign relatives, for example. Babel graduates tend to avoid it.’

‘Why?’ Ramy asked. ‘It sounds fun.’

‘It’s a cushy posting if what you want is to travel abroad on someone else’s money,’ said Anthony. ‘But academics by nature are a solitary, sedentary lot. Travel sounds fun until you realize what you really want is to stay at home with a cup of tea and a stack of books by a warm fire.’

‘You have a dim view of academics,’ said Victoire.

‘I have a view informed by experience. You’ll understand in time. Alums who apply for interpreting jobs always quit within the first two years. Even Sterling Jones – Sir William Jones’s nephew, mind you – couldn’t hack it for more than eight months, and they had him travelling first class wherever he went. Anyway, live interpretation isn’t considered all that glamorous, because all that really matters is that you get your basic points across without offending anyone. You don’t get to play around with the intricacies of language, which is of course where the real fun is.’

The fourth floor was a good deal busier than the third. The scholars also appeared to be younger: messy-haired and patch-sleeved types compared with the polished, well-dressed folks in Legal.

‘Literature,’ Anthony explained. ‘That is, the businesses of translating foreign novels, stories, and poems into English and – less frequently – vice versa. It’s a bit low on the prestige rung, to be honest, but it’s a more coveted placement than interpretation. One considers a postgraduation appointment to Literature the natural first step towards becoming a Babel professor.’