‘I have another question, then,’ said Robin. ‘And I know you won’t tell me much about Hermes now. But at least tell me how this all ends up.’
‘How what ends up?’
‘I mean – my situation. This current arrangement feels fine – as long as I’m not caught, I mean – but it seems, I don’t know, rather unsustainable.’
‘Of course it’s unsustainable,’ said Griffin. ‘You’ll study hard and graduate, and then they’ll ask you to do all kinds of unsavoury things for the Empire. Or they’ll catch you, as you said. It all comes to a head eventually, like it did for us.’
‘Does everyone at Hermes leave Babel?’
‘I know very few who have stayed.’
Robin was not sure how to feel about this. He often lulled himself into the fantasy of the post-Babel life – a cushy fellowship, if he wanted it; a guarantee of more fully funded years of study in those gorgeous libraries, living in comfortable college housing and tutoring rich undergraduates in Latin if he wanted extra pocket money; or an exciting career travelling overseas with the book buyers and simultaneous interpreters. In the Zhuangzi, which he’d just translated with Professor Chakravarti, the phrase tantú* literally meant ‘a flat road’, metaphorically, ‘a tranquil life’. This was what he wanted: a smooth, even path to a future with no surprises.
The only obstacle, of course, was his conscience.
‘You’ll remain at Babel as long as you’re able,’ said Griffin. ‘I mean, you ought to – heaven knows, we need more people on the inside. But it gets harder and harder, you see. You’ll find you can’t reconcile your sense of ethics with what they ask you to do. What happens when they direct you to military research? When they send you to the frontier in New Zealand, or the Cape Colony?’
‘You can’t just avoid those assignments?’
Griffin laughed. ‘Military contracts compose over half of the work orders. They’re a necessary part of the tenure application. And they pay well too – most of the senior faculty got rich fighting Napoleon. How do you think dear old Dad’s able to maintain three houses? It’s violent work that sustains the fantasy.’
‘So then what?’ Robin asked. ‘How do I leave?’
‘Simple. You fake your death, and then you go underground.’
‘Is that what you did?’
‘About five years ago, yes. You will too, eventually. And then you’ll become a shadow on the campus you once had the run of, and pray that some other first year will find it in their conscience to grant you access to your old libraries.’ Griffin shot him a sideways look. ‘You’re not happy with this answer, are you?’
Robin hesitated. He wasn’t quite sure how to verbalize his discomfort. Yes, there was a certain appeal to abandoning the Oxford life for Hermes. He wanted to do what Griffin did; he wanted access to Hermes’s inner workings, wanted to see where the stolen bars went and what was done with them. He wanted to see the hidden world.
But if he went, he knew, he could never come back.
‘It just seems so hard to be cut off,’ he said. ‘From everything.’
‘Do you know how the Romans fattened up their dormice?’ Griffin asked.
Robin sighed. ‘Griffin.’
‘Your tutors had you read Varro, didn’t they? He describes a glirarium in the Res Rustica.* It’s quite an elegant contraption. You make a jar, only it’s perforated with holes so the dormice can breathe, and the surfaces are polished so smooth that escape is impossible. You put food in the hollows, and you make sure there are some ledges and walkways so the dormice don’t get too bored. Most importantly, you keep it dark, so the dormice always think it’s time to hibernate. All they do is sleep and fatten themselves up.’
‘All right,’ Robin said impatiently. ‘All right. I get the picture.’
‘I know it’s difficult,’ said Griffin. ‘It’s hard to give up the trappings of your station. You still love your stipend and scholar’s gowns and wine parties, I’m sure—’
‘It’s not the wine parties,’ Robin insisted. ‘I don’t – I mean, I don’t go to wine parties. And it’s not about the stipend, or the stupid gowns. It’s just that – I don’t know, it’s such a leap.’
How could he explain it? Babel represented more than material comforts. Babel was the reason he belonged in England, why he was not begging on the streets of Canton. Babel was the only place where his talents mattered. Babel was security. And perhaps all that was morally compromised, yes – but was it so wrong to want to survive?
‘Don’t trouble yourself,’ said Griffin. ‘No one’s asking you to leave Oxford. It’s not prudent, strategically speaking. See, I’m free, and I’m happy on the outside, but I also can’t get into the tower. We’re trapped in a symbiotic relationship with the levers of power. We need their silver. We need their tools. And, loath as we are to admit it, we benefit from their research.’
He gave Robin a shove. It was meant as a fraternal gesture, but neither of them was very practised at those, and it came off as more threatening than perhaps Griffin intended. ‘You do your reading and you stay on the inside. Don’t you worry about the contradiction. Your guilt is assuaged, for now. Enjoy your glirarium, little dormouse.’
Griffin left him at the corner of Woodstock. Robin watched his narrow frame disappear into the streets, his coat flapping around him like the wings of a giant bird, and wondered at how he could both admire and resent someone so much at the same time.
In Classical Chinese, the characters ?? referred to disloyal or traitorous intentions; literally, they translated as ‘two hearts’. And Robin found himself in the impossible position of loving that which he betrayed, twice.
He did adore Oxford, and his life at Oxford. It was very nice to be among the Babblers, who were in many ways the most privileged group of students there. If they flaunted their Babel affiliation, they were allowed in any of the college libraries, including the absurdly gorgeous Codrington, which didn’t actually hold any reference materials they needed, but which they haunted regardless because its high walls and marble floors made them feel so very grand. All their living expenses were taken care of. Unlike the other servitors, they never had to serve food in hall or clean tutors’ rooms. Their room, board, and tuition were paid directly by Babel, so they never even saw the bill – on top of that, they received their stipend of twenty shillings a month, and were also given access to a discretionary fund they could use to purchase whatever course materials they liked. If they could make even the flimsiest case that a gold-capped fountain pen would aid their studies, then Babel paid for it.