Babel, page 12
Robin did the only thing he could think to do, which was take another heady gulp of ale. When he set the glass down, temples throbbing, the only word he managed was ‘Why?’
‘Easy,’ said Griffin. ‘There’s people who need silver more than wealthy Londoners.’
‘But – I mean, who?’
Griffin didn’t respond at once. He looked Robin up and down for several seconds, examining his face as if searching for something – some further resemblance, some crucial, innate quality. Then he asked, ‘Why did your mother die?’
‘Cholera,’ Robin said after a pause. ‘There was an outbreak—’
‘I didn’t ask how,’ said Griffin. ‘I asked why.’
I don’t know why, Robin wanted to say, but he did. He’d always known, he’d just forced himself not to dwell on it. In all this time, he had never let himself ask this particular formulation of the question.
Oh, two weeks and some change, said Mrs Piper. They’d been in China for over two weeks.
His eyes stung. He blinked. ‘How do you know about my mother?’
Griffin leaned back, arms folded behind his head. ‘Why don’t you finish that drink?’
Outside, Griffin set off briskly down Harrow Lane, tossing rapid-fire questions from out of the side of his mouth. ‘So where are you from?’
‘Canton.’
‘I was born in Macau. I don’t remember if I ever went to Canton. So when did he bring you over?’
‘To London?’
‘No, you dolt, to Manila. Yes, London.’
His brother, Robin thought, could be quite an ass. ‘Six – no, seven years ago now.’
‘Incredible.’ Griffin turned left onto Banbury Road without warning; Robin hastened to follow. ‘No wonder he never went looking for me. Had something better to focus on, didn’t he?’
Robin lurched forward, tripping on the cobblestones. He righted himself and hurried after Griffin. He’d never had ale before, only weak wines at Mrs Piper’s table, and the hops left his tongue feeling numb. He had a strong urge to vomit. Why had he drunk so much? He felt dazed, twice as slow at putting together his thoughts – but of course that was the point. It was clear Griffin had wanted him off-kilter, unguarded. Robin suspected Griffin liked to keep people unbalanced.
‘Where are we going?’ he asked.
‘South. Then west. Doesn’t matter; it’s just that the best way to avoid being overheard is to always be on the move.’ Griffin pivoted down Canterbury Road. ‘If you’re standing still, then your tail can hide and catch the whole conversation, but it makes things harder for them when you’re weaving about.’
‘Your tail?’
‘One should always assume.’
‘Can we go to a bakery, then?’
‘A bakery?’
‘I told my friend I’d gone to see Mrs Piper.’ Robin’s head was still spinning, but the memory of his lie stuck out with clarity. ‘I can’t go home empty-handed.’
‘Fine.’ Griffin led them down Winchester Road. ‘Will Taylor’s do? There’s nothing else still open.’
Robin ducked inside the shop and hastily purchased a selection of the plainest pastries he could find – he didn’t want Ramy to grow suspicious the next time they passed Taylor’s glass display. He had a burlap sack in his room; he could discard the shop boxes when he got home and dump the cakes in there.
Griffin’s paranoia had infected him. He felt marked, coated in scarlet paint, certain that someone would call him a thief even as he paid. He couldn’t meet the baker’s eye as he received his change.
‘Anyhow,’ Griffin said when Robin emerged. ‘How would you like to steal for us?’
‘Steal?’ They were strolling at an absurd pace again. ‘You mean from Babel?’
‘Obviously, yes. Keep up.’
‘But why do you need me?’
‘Because you’re a part of the institution and we’re not. Your blood’s in the tower, which means there are doors you can open that we can’t.’
‘But why . . .’ Robin’s tongue kept tripping over a flood of questions. ‘What for? What do you do with what you steal?’
‘Just what I told you. We redistribute it. We’re Robin Hood. Ha, ha. Robin. No? All right. We send bars and silver-working materials all over the world to people who need them – people who don’t have the luxury of being rich and British. People like your mother. See, Babel’s a dazzling place, but it’s only dazzling because it sells its match-pairs to a very limited customer base.’ Griffin glanced over his shoulder. There was no one around them save a washerwoman lugging a basket down the other end of the street, but he quickened his pace regardless. ‘So are you in?’
‘I – I don’t know.’ Robin blinked. ‘I can’t just – I mean, I still have so many questions.’
Griffin shrugged. ‘So ask anything you want. Go on.’
‘I – all right.’ Robin tried to arrange his confusion into sequential order. ‘Who are you?’
‘Griffin Lovell.’
‘No, the collective you—’
‘The Hermes Society,’ Griffin said promptly. ‘Just Hermes, if you like.’
‘The Hermes Society.’ Robin turned that name over in his mouth. ‘Why—’
‘It’s a joke. Silver and mercury, Mercury and Hermes, Hermes and hermeneutics. I don’t know who came up with it.’
‘And you’re a clandestine society? No one knows about you?’
‘Certainly Babel does. We’ve had a – well, it’s been quite back and forth, shall we say? But they don’t know much, and certainly not as much as they’d like to. We’re very good at staying in the shadows.’
Not that good, Robin thought, thinking of curses in the dark, silver scattered across cobblestones. He said instead, ‘How many of you are there?’
‘Can’t tell you.’
‘Do you have a headquarters?’
‘Yes.’
‘Will you show me where it is?’
Griffin laughed. ‘Absolutely not.’
‘But – there’s more of you, surely?’ Robin persisted. ‘You could at least introduce me—’
‘Can’t, and won’t,’ said Griffin. ‘We’ve just barely met, brother. For all I know, you could go running to Playfair the moment we part.’
‘But then how—’ Robin threw up his arms in frustration. ‘I mean, you’re giving me nothing, and asking me for everything.’
‘Yes, brother, that’s really how secret societies with any degree of competence work. I don’t know what sort of person you are, and I’d be a fool to tell you more.’
‘You see why this makes things very difficult for me, though?’ Robin thought Griffin was brushing off some rather reasonable concerns. ‘I don’t know a thing about you either. You could be lying, you could be trying to frame me—’
‘If that were true you’d have been sent down by now. So that’s out. What do you think we’re lying about?’
‘Could be you’re not using the silver to help other people at all,’ said Robin. ‘Could be the Hermes Society is a great fraud, could be you’re reselling what you steal to get rich—’
‘Do I look like I’m getting rich?’
Robin took in Griffin’s lean, underfed frame, his frayed black coat, and his unkempt hair. No – he had to admit, the Hermes Society did not seem like a scheme for personal profit. Perhaps Griffin was using the stolen silver for some other secret means, but personal gain did not seem like one of them.
‘I know it’s a lot at once,’ Griffin said. ‘But you’ve simply got to trust me. There’s no other way.’
‘I want to. I mean – I’m just – this is so much.’ Robin shook his head. ‘I’ve only just arrived here, I’ve only just seen Babel for the first time, and I don’t know you or this place well enough to have the slightest idea what’s going on—’
‘Then why’d you do it?’ Griffin asked.
‘I – what?’
‘Last night.’ Griffin cast him a sideways look. ‘You helped us, without question. You didn’t even hesitate. Why?’
‘I don’t know,’ Robin said truthfully.
He’d asked himself this a thousand times. Why had he activated that bar? It wasn’t merely because the whole situation – the midnight hour, the moonlight glow – had been so dreamlike that rules and consequences seemed to disappear, or because the sight of his doppelgänger had made him doubt reality itself. He’d felt some deeper compulsion he couldn’t explain. ‘It just seemed right.’
‘What, you didn’t realize you were helping a ring of thieves?’
‘I knew you were thieves,’ Robin said. ‘I just . . . I didn’t think you were doing anything wrong.’
‘I’d trust your instinct on that,’ said Griffin. ‘Trust me. Trust that we’re doing the right thing.’
‘And what is the right thing?’ Robin asked. ‘In your view? What’s all this for?’
Griffin smiled. It was a peculiar, condescending smile, a mask of amusement that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Now you’re asking the right questions.’
They’d looped back round to Banbury Road. The University Parks loomed lush before them, and Robin half hoped they would cut south to Parks Road – it was getting late, and the night was quite cold – but Griffin took them north, further from the city centre.
‘Do you know what the majority of bars are used for in this country?’
Robin took a wild guess. ‘Doctors’ practices?’
‘Ha. Adorable. No, they’re used for sitting room decorations. That’s right – alarm clocks that sound like real roosters, lights that dim and brighten on vocal demand, curtains that change colour throughout the day, that sort of thing. Because they’re fun, and because the British upper class can afford them, and whatever rich Britons want, they get.’
‘Fine,’ said Robin. ‘But just because Babel sells bars to meet popular demand—’
Griffin cut him off. ‘Would you like to know the second and third largest sources of income at Babel?’
‘Legal?’
‘No. Militaries, both state and private,’ said Griffin. ‘And then slave traders. Legal makes pennies in comparison.’
‘That’s . . . that’s impossible.’
‘No, that’s just how the world works. Let me paint you a picture, brother. You’ve noticed by now that London sits at the centre of a vast empire that won’t stop growing. The single most important enabler of this growth is Babel. Babel collects foreign languages and foreign talent the same way it hoards silver and uses them to produce translation magic that benefits England and England only. The vast majority of all silver bars in use in the world are in London. The newest, most powerful bars in use rely on Chinese, Sanskrit, and Arabic to work, but you’ll count less than a thousand bars in the countries where those languages are widely spoken, and then only in the homes of the wealthy and powerful. And that’s wrong. That’s predatory. That’s fundamentally unjust.’
Griffin had a habit of crisply punctuating each sentence with an open hand, like a conductor bearing down again and again over the same note. ‘But how does this happen?’ he continued. ‘How does all the power from foreign languages just somehow accrue to England? This is no accident; this is a deliberate exploitation of foreign culture and foreign resources. The professors like to pretend that the tower is a refuge for pure knowledge, that it sits above the mundane concerns of business and commerce, but it does not. It’s intricately tied to the business of colonialism. It is the business of colonialism. Ask yourself why the Literature Department only translates works into English and not the other way around, or what the interpreters are being sent abroad to do. Everything Babel does is in the service of expanding the Empire. Consider – Sir Horace Wilson, who’s the first endowed chair in Sanskrit in Oxford history, spends half his time conducting tutorials for Christian missionaries.
‘The point of it all is to keep amassing silver. We possess all this silver because we cajole, manipulate, and threaten other countries into trade deals that keep the cash flowing homeward. And we enforce those trade deals with the very same silver bars, now inscribed with Babel’s work, that make our ships faster, our soldiers hardier, and our guns more deadly. It’s a vicious circle of profit, and unless some outside force breaks the cycle, sooner or later Britain will possess all the wealth in the world.
‘We are that outside force. Hermes. We funnel silver away to people, communities, and movements that deserve it. We aid slave revolts. Resistance movements. We melt down silver bars made for cleaning doilies and use them to cure disease instead.’ Griffin slowed down; turned to look Robin in the eyes. ‘That’s what this is all for.’
This was, Robin had to admit, a very compelling theory of the world. Only it seemed to implicate nearly everything he held dear. ‘I – I see.’
‘So why the hesitation?’
Why indeed? Robin tried to sort through his confusion, to find a reason for prudence that did not simply boil down to fear. But that was precisely it – fear of consequences, fear of breaking the gorgeous illusion of the Oxford he’d won admission to, the one Griffin had just sullied before he’d been able to properly enjoy it.
‘It’s just so sudden,’ he said. ‘And I’ve only just met you, there’s so much I don’t know.’
‘That’s the thing about secret societies,’ said Griffin. ‘They’re easy to romanticize. You think it’s this long courting process – that you’ll be inducted, shown a whole new world, shown all the levers and people at play. If you’ve formed your only impression of secret societies from novels and penny dreadfuls, then you might expect rituals and passwords and secret meetings in abandoned warehouses.
‘But that’s not how things work, brother. This is not a penny dreadful. Real life is messy, scary, and uncertain.’ Griffin’s tone softened. ‘You should understand, what I’m asking you to do is very dangerous. People die over these bars – I’ve watched friends die over these bars. Babel would like to crush the life out of us, and you don’t want to know what happens to the Hermes members they catch. We exist because we’re decentralized. We don’t put all of our information in one place. So I can’t ask you to take your time reviewing all the information. I’m asking you to take a chance on a conviction.’
For the first time, Robin registered that Griffin was not as confident, not as intimidating as his rapid-fire speech made him sound. He stood, hands wedged in his pockets, shoulders hunched and shivering against the biting autumn wind. And he was so visibly nervous. He was twitching, fidgeting; his eyes darted over his shoulder every time he finished a sentence. Robin was confused, distressed, but Griffin was scared.
‘It’s got to be like this,’ Griffin insisted. ‘Minimal information. Quick judgment calls. I’d love to show you my whole world – I promise, it’s not fun being alone – but the fact remains you’re a Babel student who I’ve known for less than a day. The time may come when I trust you with everything, but that’ll only be when you’ve proven yourself, and when I’ve got no other options. For now, I’ve told you what we do, and what we need from you. Will you join us?’
This audience, Robin realized, was drawing to an end. He was being asked to make a final decision – and if he said no, he suspected, then Griffin would simply vanish from the Oxford he knew, would fade so effectively into the shadows that Robin would be left wondering if he’d imagined the entire encounter. ‘I want to – I do, really, but I still don’t – I just need time to think. Please.’
He knew this would frustrate Griffin. But Robin was terrified. He felt he’d been led to the edge of a precipice and told, with no assurances, to jump. He felt as he had seven years ago, when Professor Lovell had slid a contract before him and calmly asked that he sign away his future. Only then he’d had nothing, so there had been nothing to lose. This time he had everything – food, clothing, shelter – and no guarantee of survival at the other end.
‘Five days, then,’ said Griffin. He looked cross, but he made no recriminations. ‘You get five days. There’s a lone birch in the Merton College gardens – you’ll know it when you see it. Scratch a cross in the trunk by Saturday if it’s a yes. Don’t bother if it’s a no.’
‘Just five?’
‘If you don’t know the layout of this place by then, kid, there’s no getting through to you at all.’ Griffin clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Do you know the way home?’
‘I – no, actually.’ Robin hadn’t been paying attention; he had no idea where they were. The buildings had receded into the background; now they were surrounded only by rolling green.
‘We’re in Summertown,’ said Griffin. ‘Pretty, though a bit boring. Woodstock’s at the end of this green – just take a left and walk all the way down south until things start looking familiar. We’ll part here. Five days.’ Griffin turned to go.
‘Wait – how do I reach you?’ Robin asked. Now that Griffin’s departure seemed imminent, he was somehow reluctant to part ways. He had a sudden fear that if he let Griffin out of his sight then he might disappear for good, that this would all turn out to be a dream.
‘I told you – you don’t,’ said Griffin. ‘If there’s a cross on the tree, I reach you. Gives me insurance in case you turn out to be an informant, you see?’
‘Then what am I supposed to do in the meantime?’
‘What do you mean? You’re still a Babel student. Act like one. Go to class. Go out drinking and get into brawls. No – you’re soft. Don’t get into brawls.’
‘I . . . fine. All right.’
‘Anything else?’
Anything else? Robin wanted to laugh. He had a thousand other questions, none of which he thought Griffin would answer. He took the chance on just one. ‘Does he know about you?’
‘Who?’
‘Our – Professor Lovell.’
‘Ah.’ This time, Griffin did not glibly rattle off an answer. This time, he paused before he spoke. ‘I’m not sure.’
This surprised Robin. ‘You don’t know?’
‘I left Babel after my third year,’ Griffin said quietly. ‘I’d been with Hermes since I started, but I was on the inside like you. Then something happened, and it wasn’t safe anymore, so I ran. And since then I’ve . . .’ He trailed off, then cleared his throat. ‘But that’s beside the point. All you need to know is you probably shouldn’t mention my name at dinner.’
