Page 180 of Babel

Chapter Thirty-Two

She sate upon her Dobie,

To watch the Evening Star,

And all the Punkahs as they passed

Cried, ‘My! How fair you are!’

EDWARD LEAR, ‘The Cummerbund’

They sent everyone else upstairs before they opened the door. Letty was not here to negotiate with the crowd; they would not have sent an undergraduate to do so. This was personal; Letty was here for a reckoning.

‘Let her through,’ Robin told Abel.

‘Pardon?’

‘She’s here to talk. Tell them to let her through.’

Abel spoke a word to his man, who ran across the green to inform the barricaders. Two men climbed on top of the barricade and bent down. A moment later Letty was lifted over the top, then lowered none-too-gently down onto the other side.

She made her way across the green, shoulders hunched, flag trailing behind her on the pavement. She did not raise her eyes until she met them at the threshold.

‘Hello, Letty,’ said Victoire.

‘Hello,’ Letty murmured. ‘Thank you for seeing me.’

She looked miserable. She had clearly not been sleeping; her clothes were dirty and rumpled, her cheeks hollow, and her eyes red and puffy from crying. The way she hunched her shoulders around her, as if flinching from a blow, made her look very small. And despite himself, despite everything, all Robin wanted then was to give her a hug.

This instinct startled him. As she’d approached the tower he’d entertained, briefly, the thought of killing her – if only her death did not doom them all, if only he could just throw his own life into the bargain. But it was so hard to look at her now and not see a friend. How could you love someone who had hurt you so badly? Up close, staring her in the eyes, he had trouble believing that this Letty, their Letty, had done the things she had. She looked grief-stricken, vulnerable, the wretched heroine of a terrible fairy tale.

But that, he reminded himself, was the advantage of the image Letty occupied. In this country, she had the face and colouring that inspired sympathy. Among them, no matter what happened, Letty alone could walk out of here innocent.

He nodded at her flag. ‘Here to surrender?’

‘Here to negotiate,’ she said. ‘That’s all.’

‘Then come in,’ said Victoire.

Letty, invited, stepped through the door. It slammed shut behind her.

For a moment the three of them only looked at each other. They stood uncertain in the middle of the lobby, an unbalanced triangle. It felt so fundamentally wrong. There had always been four of them; they had always come in pairs, an even set, and all Robin could think of was the acute absence of Ramy among them. They were not themselves without him; without his laughter, his quick, easy wit, his sudden turns of conversation that made them feel like they were spinning plates. They were no longer a cohort. Now they were only a wake.

Victoire asked, in a flat and toneless voice, ‘Why?’

Letty flinched, but only just barely. ‘I had to,’ she said, chin high, unwavering. ‘You know it’s all I could have done.’

‘No,’ said Victoire. ‘I don’t.’

‘I couldn’t betray my country.’

‘You didn’t have to betray us.’

‘You were in the thrall of a violent criminal organization,’ said Letty. The words came out so smoothly Robin could only assume they had been rehearsed. ‘And unless I pretended I agreed with you, unless I played along, I didn’t see how I was going to get out of there alive.’

Did she truly believe that? Robin wondered. Was that how she’d always seen them? He couldn’t believe these words were coming out of her mouth, that this was the same girl who’d once stayed up late with them, laughing so hard their ribs had ached. Only Chinese had a character that encapsulated how much simple words could hurt: ?, cì, the character for thorns, for stabs, for criticism. Such a flexible character. In a phrase,??,??, it meant ‘barbed, stinging words’. ? could mean ‘to goad’. ? could also mean ‘to murder’.

‘So what’s this, then?’ Robin asked. ‘Parliament’s had enough?’