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

There was no debating with Letty when she was in these moods – it was obvious she only wanted an audience to vent to – but Robin tried anyway. ‘Suppose it means more to her than you realize.’

‘But it doesn’t. I know it doesn’t! She’s not the slightest bit religious; I mean, she’s civilized—’

He whistled. ‘That’s a loaded word, Letty.’

‘You know what I mean,’ she huffed. ‘She’s not Haitian. She’s French. And I just don’t see why she has to be so difficult.’

Halfway into Michaelmas, Letty and Victoire were hardly talking to each other. They always came to class several minutes apart, and Robin wondered if it took skill to space out their departures so that they never crossed paths on the long walk down.

The girls were not the only ones suffering fractures. The atmosphere of those days was oppressive. Something had seemed to break between them all – no, break was perhaps too strong a word, for they still clung to each other with the force of people who had no one else. But their bond had twisted in a decidedly hurtful direction. They still spent nearly all their waking moments together, but they dreaded each other’s company. Everything was an unintended slight or deliberate offence – if Robin complained about Sanskrit, it was insensitive to the fact that Professor Harding kept insisting Sanskrit was one of Ramy’s languages when it wasn’t; if Ramy was pleased he and Professor Harding had finally agreed on a research direction, it was a callous remark to Victoire, who had got nowhere with Professor Leblanc. They used to find solace in their solidarity, but now they saw each other only as reminders of their own misery.

The worst, from Robin’s perspective, was that something had changed suddenly and mysteriously between Letty and Ramy. Their interactions were as heated as ever – Ramy never ceased to make fun, and Letty never ceased to flare up in response. But now Letty’s rejoinders had acquired an oddly victimized tone. She snapped at the smallest, often intangible slights. Ramy in return had got more cruel and more snide in a way that was hard to describe. Robin didn’t know what to do about this, nor did he have the faintest clue what it was all about, other than that it gave him strange pangs in his chest whenever he watched these exchanges happen.

‘She’s just being Letty,’ said Ramy when pressed about it. ‘She wants attention, and she thinks throwing a tantrum is the way to get it.’

‘Did you do something to upset her?’ Robin asked.

‘Other than generally exist? I don’t think so.’ Ramy seemed bored by the subject. ‘Suppose we get on with this translation? Everything’s all right, Birdie, I promise.’

But things were decidedly not all right. Things were in fact very weird. Ramy and Letty seemed unable to stand each other, and at the same time, they gravitated around each other; they could not speak normally without fiercely opposing each other in a way that made them the protagonists of the conversation. If Ramy wanted coffee, Letty wanted tea; if Ramy thought that a painting on the wall was pretty, then Letty suddenly had twelve reasons why it exemplified the worst of the Royal Academy’s adherence to artistic conventionalism.

Robin found it unbearable. One night, during a fitful burst of sleep, he had a sudden and violent fantasy of pushing Letty into the Cherwell. When he awoke he searched himself for any hint of guilt, but could find none; the thought of Letty drenched and sputtering brought just as much vicious satisfaction in the sober light of day.

There was at least the distraction of their third-year apprenticeships, for which they would each assist a faculty member in their silver-working duties throughout the term. ‘Theory comes from the Greek theōria, meaning a sight or spectacle, whose root also gives us the word theatre.’ So Professor Playfair expounded before he sent them off with their respective supervisors. ‘But it is not enough to merely watch the operations. You must get your hands dirty. You must understand how the metal sings.’