Page 140 of Babel

‘Yes,’ said Anthony after a pause. ‘I suppose there’s Letty. But she’s a rare case, isn’t she?’

‘Then what’s our path forward?’ asked Robin. ‘Then what’s the point of any of this?’

‘The point is to build a coalition,’ said Anthony. ‘And it needs to include unlikely sympathizers. We can siphon as many resources from Babel as we want, but it still won’t be enough to budge such firmly entrenched levers of power as the likes of Jardine and Matheson. If we are to turn the tides of history, we need some of these men – the same men who find no issue in selling me and my kind at auction – to become our allies. We need to convince them that a global British expansion, founded on pyramids of silver, is not in their own best interest. Because their own interest is the only logic they’ll listen to. Not justice, not human dignity, not the liberal freedoms they so profess to value. Profit.’

‘You may as well convince them to walk the streets naked.’

‘Ha. No, the seeds for a coalition are there. The time’s ripe for a revolution in England, you know. The whole of Europe has been feverish for reform for decades; they caught it from the French. We must simply make this a war of class instead of race. And this is, indeed, an issue of class. It seems like a debate over opium and China, but the Chinese aren’t the only ones who stand to lose, are they? It’s all related. The silver industrial revolution is one of the greatest drivers of inequality, pollution, and unemployment in this country. The fate of a poor family in Canton is in fact intricately tied to the fate of an out-of-work weaver from Yorkshire. Neither benefits from the expansion of empire. Both only get poorer as the companies get richer. So if they could only form an alliance...’ Anthony wove his fingers together. ‘But that’s the problem, you see. No one’s focused on how we’re all connected. We only think about how we suffer, individually. The poor and middle-class of this country don’t realize they have more in common with us than they do with Westminster.’

‘There’s a Chinese idiom that catches the gist,’ said Robin. ‘Tùsihúbei.* The rabbit dies, and the fox grieves, for they’re animals of a kind.’

‘Precisely,’ said Anthony. ‘Only we’ve got to convince them we’re not their prey. That there’s a hunter in the forest, and we’re all in danger.’

Robin glanced down at the pamphlets. They seemed so inadequate just then; just words, just ink scrawls on flimsy white paper. ‘And you truly think you can convince them so?’

‘We have to.’ Anthony flexed his fingers once more, then picked up his pen and resumed flipping through Professor Lovell’s letters. ‘I don’t see any other way out.’

Robin wondered then how much of Anthony’s life had been spent carefully translating himself to white people, how much of his genial, affable polish was an artful construction to fit a particular idea of a Black man in white England and to afford himself maximum access within an institution like Babel. And he wondered if there would ever be a day that came when all this was unnecessary, when white people would look at him and Anthony and simply listen, when their words would have worth and value because they were uttered, when they would not have to hide who they were, when they wouldn’t have to go through endless distortions just to be understood.

At noon they regrouped in the Reading Room for lunch. Cathy and Vimal were quite excited with what they’d done with the polemikós match-pair, which, true to Griffin’s predictions, caused pamphlets to fly about and continue flapping around bystanders if thrown into the air. Vimal had supplemented this with the Latin origin of the word discuss: discutere could mean ‘to scatter’, or ‘to disperse’.

‘Suppose we apply both bars to a stack of printed pamphlets,’ he said. ‘They’d fly all over London, wind or no. How’s that for getting people’s attention?’

Gradually, the ideas that had seemed so ridiculous last night, those chaotic scribblings of sleep-deprived minds, coalesced into a rather impressive plan of action. Anthony summed up their numerous endeavours on the blackboard. Over the next few days, weeks if necessary, the Hermes Society would try to influence the debates in any way they could. Ilse’s connection on Fleet Street would soon publish a hit piece on how William Jardine, who’d stirred up all this mess in the first place, was whiling away his days at a spa town in Cheltenham. Vimal and Cathy, through several more respectable white intermediaries, would try to convince waffling Whigs that restoring good relations with China would at least keep open avenues trading legal goods, such as teas and rhubarbs. Then there were Griffin’s efforts in Glasgow, as well as the pamphlets about to fly all over London. Through blackmail, lobbying, and public pressure, Anthony concluded, they might make up enough votes to defeat the war motion.

‘This could work,’ Ilse said, blinking at the blackboard as if surprised.

‘It could work,’ Vimal agreed. ‘Bloody hell.’

‘Are you sure we can’t come with you?’ Ramy asked.

Anthony gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. ‘You’ve done your part. You’ve been very brave, all of you. But it’s time to leave things to the professionals.’

‘You’ve barely got five years on us,’ said Robin. ‘How does that make you a professional?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Anthony. ‘It just does.’

‘And we’re supposed to just wait without knowing anything?’ Letty asked. ‘We can’t even get the papers here.’

‘We’ll all be back after the vote,’ said Anthony. ‘And we’ll come back occasionally to check on you – every other day, if you’re that nervous.’

‘But what if something happens?’ Letty persisted. ‘What if you need our help? What if we need your help?’

The graduate fellows all exchanged glances with each other. It looked like they were having a silent conversation – a repeat, Robin guessed, of a conversation they’d had many times before, for it was clear what everyone’s position was. Anthony raised his eyebrows. Cathy and Vimal both nodded. Ilse, lips pursed, seemed reluctant, but at last she sighed and shrugged.

‘Go ahead,’ she said.

‘Griffin would say no,’ said Anthony.

‘Well,’ said Cathy, ‘Griffin’s not here.’

Anthony stood up, disappeared for a moment into the stacks, and returned bearing a sealed envelope. ‘This,’ he said, placing it down on the table, ‘contains the contact information for a dozen Hermes associates across the globe.’

Robin was astonished. ‘You’re sure you should be showing us that?’

‘No,’ said Anthony. ‘We really shouldn’t. I see Griffin’s paranoia has rubbed off on you, and that’s not a bad thing. But suppose you lot are the only ones left. There are no names or addresses here – only drop points and contact instructions. If you end up on your own, you’ll have at least some means to keep Hermes alive.’

‘You’re talking like you might not come back,’ said Victoire.