Page 153 of Babel

Chapter Twenty-Six

Colonialism is not a machine capable of thinking, a body endowed with reason. It is naked violence and only gives in when confronted with greater violence.

FRANTZ FANON, The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Richard Philcox

Ahidden door by the Vaults & Garden supply cellar revealed a cramped dirt tunnel, just large enough for them to wriggle through on their hands and knees. It felt endless. They inched forth, groping blindly. Robin wished for a light, but they had no candle, no kindling or flint; they could only trust in Anthony’s word and crawl, their shallow breaths echoing around them. At last, the ceiling of the tunnel sloped upwards, and a rush of cool air bathed their clammy skin. They pawed the earthen wall until they found a door, and then a handle; this they pushed open to find a small, low-ceilinged room, illuminated by moonlight seeping through a tiny grate above.

They stepped inside and blinked around.

Someone had been here recently. A loaf of bread sat on the desk, still so fresh that it was soft to the touch, and a half-melted candle beside it. Victoire rooted in the drawers until she found a box of matches, and then held the lit candle up to the room. ‘So this is where Griffin hid.’

The safe room felt uncannily familiar to Robin, though it took him a moment to realize why. The room’s layout – the desk beneath the grated window, the cot tucked neatly in the corner, the double bookshelves on the opposite wall – was a precise match of the dormitories on Magpie Lane. Here below Oxford, Griffin – consciously or not – had tried to re-create his college days.

‘Do you think we’re safe here for the night?’ Robin asked. ‘I mean – do you think—’

‘It doesn’t look disturbed.’ Victoire sat down gingerly on the edge of the cot. ‘I think if they knew, they would have torn this place apart.’

‘I think you’re right.’ He sat down beside her. Only now did he feel the exhaustion, seeping up his legs and into his chest. All the adrenaline of their escape had ebbed, now that they were safe, hidden in the belly of the earth. He wanted to keel over and never wake up.

Victoire leaned over to the side of the cot, where a barrel of what looked like fresh water stood. She poured some over a bunched-up shirt, then handed it to Robin. ‘Wipe.’

‘What?’

‘There’s blood,’ she said softly. ‘There’s blood all over you.’

He glanced up and looked at her, properly, for the first time since their escape. ‘There’s blood all over you.’

They sat side by side and cleaned themselves in silence. They were covered in an astonishing amount of grime; they went through one shirt each, and then another. Somehow, Griffin’s blood had got not only on Robin’s hands and arms but also across his cheeks, behind his ears, and up in the hollows where his neck met his ears, caked under layers of dust and dirt.

They took turns wiping at each other’s faces. The simple, tactile act felt good; it gave them something to focus on, distracted from all the words that hung heavy and unsaid. It felt good not trying to give them voice. They could not articulate them anyhow; they were not discrete thoughts but black, suffocating clouds. They were both thinking of Ramy and Griffin and Anthony and everyone else who’d been abruptly, brutally torn from this world. But they could not touch that abyss of grief. It was too early yet to give it a name, to shape and tame it with words, and any attempt would crush them. They could only wipe the blood from their skin and try to keep breathing.

At last, they dropped the dirty rags on the floor and leaned back against the wall, against each other. The damp air was cold, and there was no fireplace. They sat close, pulling the flimsy blanket tight around their shoulders. It was a long while before either of them spoke.

‘What do you suppose we do now?’ asked Victoire.

Such a heavy question, uttered in such a small voice. What could they do now? They had spoken of making Babel burn, but how in God’s name was that in their power? The Old Library was destroyed. Their friends were dead. Everyone bolder and better than them was dead. But the two of them were still here, and it was their duty to ensure their friends had not died in vain.

‘Griffin said you would know what to do,’ said Robin. ‘What did he mean?’

‘Only that we’d find allies,’ Victoire whispered. ‘That we had more friends than we knew, if we could just get to the safe room.’

‘We’re here.’ Robin gestured pointlessly about. ‘It’s empty.’

Victoire stood. ‘Oh, don’t be like that.’

They began searching the room for clues. Victoire took the cabinet, Robin the desk. Inside the desk drawers were stacks upon stacks of Griffin’s notes and letters. These he held up to the flickering candle, squinting. It made Robin’s chest ache to read Griffin’s handwriting in English – a cramped, spidered style that looked so similar to Robin’s own, and to their father’s. These letters, all these narrow, bold, and crowded lines, spoke of a frenetic but meticulous writer, were a glimpse into a version of Griffin that Robin had never known.

And Griffin’s network had been so much vaster than he’d suspected. He saw correspondence addressed to recipients in Boston, in New York, in Cairo, in Singapore. But the names were always coded, always obvious literary references like ‘Mr Pickwick’ and ‘King Ahab’ or names so generically English like ‘Mr Brown’ and ‘Mr Pink’ that they could not possibly be real.

‘Hm.’ Victoire held a small square of paper up to her eyes, frowning.

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s a letter. Addressed to you.’

‘Can I see?’

She hesitated a moment before handing it over. The envelope was thin and sealed. There on the back was his name, Robin Swift, dashed out in Griffin’s forceful scrawl. But when had he found the time to write this? It couldn’t have been after Anthony brought them to Hermes; Griffin hadn’t known where they were back then. It could only have been written after Robin had cut ties with Hermes, after Robin had declared he wanted nothing to do with him.