Page 111 of Babel

Book IV

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Chapter Nineteen

‘There is, first of all,’ I said, ‘the greatest lie about the things of greatest concernment, which was no pretty invention of him who told how Uranus did what Hesiod says he did to Cronos, and how Cronos in turn took his revenge; and then there are the doings and sufferings of Cronos at the hands of his son. Even if they were true I should not think that they ought to be thus lightly told to thoughtless young persons.’

PLATO, Republic, trans. Paul Shorey

‘Keep him in the cabin,’ Victoire said with amazing composure, though the words that came out of her mouth were quite mad. ‘We’ll just... roll him up in those sheets and keep him out of sight until we get back to England—’

‘We can’t keep a body concealed for six weeks,’ Letty shrilled.

‘Why not?’

‘It’ll rot!’

‘Fair that,’ said Ramy. ‘Sailors smell bad, but they don’t smell that bad.’

Robin was stunned that their first instinct was to discuss how to hide the body. It didn’t change the fact that he’d just killed his father, or that he’d possibly implicated all of them in the murder, or that scarlet streaked the walls, the floor, his neck, and his hands. But they were talking as if this were only a matter to be fixed – a thorny translation that could be resolved, if they could only find the right turn of phrase.

‘All right, look – here’s what we’ll do.’ Victoire pushed her palms against her temples and took a deep breath. ‘We’ll get rid of the body somehow. I don’t know how, we’ll figure out a way. Then when we dock—’

‘How do we tell the crew to leave him alone for six weeks?’ Letty demanded.

‘Nine weeks,’ said Victoire.

‘What?’

‘This isn’t one of the fast clippers,’ said Victoire. ‘It’ll take nine weeks.’

Letty pressed her palms against her eyes. ‘For the love of God.’

‘How’s this?’ asked Victoire. ‘We’ll tell them he’s got some contagion. I don’t know, some – some scary disease – Robin, you come up with something exotic and disgusting that will scare them off. Say it’s something he picked up in the slums and they’ll all be too scared to come in.’

There was a brief silence. This was, they all had to admit, rather good logic; or at least, it was not immediately evident this was nonsense.

‘Fine.’ Ramy had begun pacing back and forth across the small stretch of wooden floorboards that weren’t covered with blood. ‘Oh, heavens – Allah forgive us.’ He rubbed at his eyes. ‘Fine, yes, that could work. Suppose we keep this a secret until we’re back in London. What then?’

‘Easy,’ said Victoire. ‘We’ll say he died during the journey. During his sleep, perhaps. Only we can’t have the ship’s doctor coming to do an autopsy, because the risk of contamination is too great. We’ll ask for a coffin, which we’ll stuff a bunch of – I don’t know, books rolled up in clothes – and then we’ll carry it off and get rid of it.’

‘That’s insane,’ said Letty. ‘That’s absolutely insane.’

‘Do you have a better idea?’ Victoire inquired.

Letty was silent for a moment. Robin was absolutely sure she would insist they turn themselves in, but then she threw up her hands and said, ‘We could just tip him overboard in broad daylight, say he accidentally drowned, and then they’ll all have seen him die so we won’t seem suspicious—’

‘Oh, and that’s not suspicious?’ asked Ramy. ‘We’ll just drag this bloody corpse up above deck, pretend it’s walking on its own, and then hurl it into the waves where anyone can see that gaping hole where his heart should be? That’s how we prove our innocence? Have some creativity, Letty, we’ve got to play this right—’

At last Robin found his tongue. ‘No. No, this is mad, I can’t let – You all can’t—’ He kept tripping over his words. He took a deep breath, stilled his tongue. ‘I did this. I’ll tell the captain, I’ll turn myself in, and that’s it.’

Ramy scoffed. ‘Well, that’s out of the question.’

‘Don’t be an idiot,’ said Robin. ‘You’ll be implicated if—’

‘We’re all implicated regardless,’ said Victoire. ‘We’re all foreigners returning from a foreign country on a ship with a dead white man.’ This statement excluded Letty, but no one corrected her. ‘There is no world in which you go to prison and the rest of us walk free. You see this, right? Either we protect you, or we damn ourselves.’

‘That’s right,’ Ramy said firmly. ‘And none of us are letting you go to prison, Birdie. We’ll all keep our silence, all right?’