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

In practice this meant a lot of unpaid donkey work. To Robin’s disappointment, the apprentices spent very little time on the eighth floor, where all the exciting research happened. Instead, three times a week, he accompanied Professor Chakravarti on trips around Oxford, helping with silver-work installation and upkeep. He learned how to polish silver until it shone (oxidation and tarnishing greatly dampened the match-pair effect), how to choose between different sizes of engraving styluses to painstakingly restore an inscription to its original clarity, and how to deftly slide the bars in and out of their specially welded fixtures. It was too bad that Griffin had gone underground, he thought, for his apprenticeship gave him almost unrestricted access to the tower’s tools and raw materials. He wouldn’t have had to let thieves in at midnight. Amidst whole drawers of engraving equipment and absent-minded professors who wouldn’t have noticed a thing, he could have plucked whatever he liked from the tower at will.

‘How often do you have to do this?’ he asked.

‘Oh, it never ends,’ said Professor Chakravarti. ‘It’s how we make all our money, you see. The bars fetch a high price, but it’s the upkeep that’s the real grift. The workload is a bit harder on myself and Richard, though, since there are so few Sinologists.’

That afternoon they were doing a house call on an estate in Wolvercote, where a silver-work installation in the back garden had ceased to function despite a twelve-month warranty. They’d had some trouble getting through the front gate – the housekeeper seemed unconvinced they were Babel scholars, and rather suspicious that they were here to rob the place – but after supplying various proofs of identification, including the recitations of many Latin graces, they were at last invited in.

‘Happens about twice a month,’ Professor Chakravarti told Robin, though he looked quite put off. ‘You get used to it. They don’t give Richard half the trouble.’^*

The housekeeper led them through the estate to a very lush, pretty garden with a burbling, serpentine stream and several large rocks arranged at random. It was designed in the Chinese style, they were informed, which had become very popular in that era after William Chambers’s Oriental landscaping designs were shown for the first time in Kew Gardens. Robin could not recall ever seeing anything like this in Canton, but he nodded along appreciatively until the housekeeper had gone.

‘Well, the problem here’s obvious.’ Professor Chakravarti pushed some shrubbery aside to reveal the fence corner where the silver-work was installed. ‘They’ve been pushing a cart back and forth over the bar. It’s rubbed the engraving half off. That’s their own fault – this won’t qualify under the warranty.’

He let Robin extract it from its fixture, then turned the bar around to show him the inscription. On one side: garden; on the other, the character 齋, which could mean a landscape garden, but more generally evoked a place for private withdrawal, to retreat from the world, with connotations of ritual purification, cleansing, alms-giving, and Daoist acts of repentance.

‘The idea is to make their gardens nicer and quieter than the hubbub of Oxford allows. Keeps out the riffraff. The effect is quite subtle, if we’re being honest; we didn’t do all that much testing, but there’s really no limit to what the wealthy will throw money at.’ Professor Chakravarti whittled at the bar as he spoke. ‘Hm. We’ll see if that’ll do the trick.’

He let Robin reinstall the bar, then bent down to check his work. Satisfied, he stood and brushed his hands on his trousers. ‘Would you like to activate it?’

‘I just – what, say the words?’ Robin had seen the professors do the same many times, though he couldn’t imagine it was all that easy. Then again, he recalled, the wúxíng bar had worked for him on the first try.

‘Well, it’s a particular kind of mental state. You do speak the words, but more importantly, you hold two meanings in your head at once. You exist in both linguistic worlds simultaneously, and you imagine traversing them. Does that make sense?’

‘I – I think so, sir.’ Robin frowned at the bar. ‘That’s really all it takes?’

‘Oh, no, I’m being careless. There are some good mental heuristics you’ll learn during your fourth year, and some theory seminars you’ll have to sit through, but when it comes down to it, it’s about the feeling.’ Professor Chakravarti seemed rather bored; Robin got the impression he was still very irritated by this household and wanted to be away as quickly as possible. ‘Go on.’

‘Well – all right.’ Robin placed his hand on the bar. ‘Zhāi. Garden.’

He felt a slight thrum beneath his fingertips. The garden did seem quieter then, more serene, though he couldn’t tell if this was his doing or his imagination. ‘Have we done it?’

‘Well, we’d better hope so.’ Professor Chakravarti slung his tool bag over his shoulder. He was not concerned enough to check. ‘Come on, let’s go and get paid.’