Page 22 of Babel

‘Help me,’ he begged. Then in Chinese, ‘Bangmáng.’*

Robin didn’t know what it was that compelled him to act – the recent terror of the Balliol boys, the utter absurdity of this scene, or the disorienting sight of his doppelgänger’s face – but he stepped forward and put his hand on the bar. His doppelgänger relinquished it without a word.

‘Wúxíng,’ Robin said, thinking of the myths his mother had told him, of spirits and ghosts hiding in the dark. Of shapelessness, of nonbeing. ‘Invisible.’

The bar vibrated in his hand. He heard a sound from nowhere, a breathy sigh.

All four of them disappeared.

No, disappeared was not quite the word for it. Robin didn’t have the words for it; it was lost in translation, a concept that neither the Chinese nor the English could fully describe. They existed, but in no human form. They were not merely beings that couldn’t be seen. They weren’t beings at all. They were shapeless. They drifted, expanded; they were the air, the brick walls, the cobblestones. Robin had no awareness of his body, where he ended and the bar began – he was the silver, the stones, the night.

Cold fear shot through his mind. What if I can’t go back?

Seconds later a constable rushed up to the end of the street. Robin caught his breath, squeezing the bar so hard that pangs of pain shot up his arm.

The constable stared right at him, squinting, seeing nothing but darkness.

‘They’re not down here,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Try chasing them up Parks...’

His voice faded as he sprinted away.

Robin dropped the bar. He couldn’t maintain his hold on it; he was barely aware of its presence anymore. He didn’t so much as use his hand and open his fingers as he did violently thrust the bar away to try to separate his essence from the silver.

It worked. The thieves rematerialized in the night.

‘Hurry,’ urged the other man, a youth with pale blond hair. ‘Shove it in your shirts and let’s leave the trunk behind.’

‘We can’t just leave it,’ said the woman. ‘They’ll trace it.’

‘Pick up the pieces then, come on.’

All three began scooping the silver bars off the ground. Robin hesitated for a moment, arms hanging awkwardly at his sides. Then he bent down to help them.

The absurdity of this had not yet sunk in. Dimly he realized that whatever was happening had to be very illegal. These youths could not be associated with Oxford, the Bodleian, or the Translation Institute, or else they wouldn’t be skulking about at midnight, clad in black and hiding from the police.

The right and obvious thing to do was to raise the alarm.

But somehow, helping seemed the only option. He didn’t question this logic, he simply acted. It felt like falling into a dream, like stepping into a play where he already knew his lines, though everything else was a mystery. This was an illusion with its own internal logic, and for some reason he couldn’t quite name, he didn’t want to break it.

At last all the silver bars had been shoved down shirt fronts and into pockets. Robin gave the ones he’d picked up to his doppelgänger. Their fingers touched, and Robin felt a chill.

‘Let’s go,’ said the blond man.

But none of them moved. They all looked at Robin, visibly uncertain what to do with him.

‘What if he—’ began the woman.

‘He won’t,’ Robin’s doppelgänger said firmly. ‘Will you?’

‘Of course not,’ Robin whispered.

The blond man looked unconvinced. ‘Would be easier to just—’

‘No. Not this time.’ Robin’s doppelgänger looked Robin up and down for a moment, then seemed to come to a decision. ‘You’re a translator, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Robin breathed. ‘Yes, I’ve only just got here.’

‘The Twisted Root,’ said his doppelgänger. ‘Find me there.’