Page 3 of Babel

The boy swallowed, coughed to clear his throat, and began to read. The book was intimidatingly thick, the font very small, and the prose proved considerably more difficult than the breezy adventure novels he’d read with Miss Betty. His tongue tripped over words he didn’t know, words he could only guess at and sound out.

‘The par... particular ad-advantage which each col-o-colonizing country derives from the col... colonies which par... particularly belong to it, are of two different kinds; first, those common advantages which every empire de... rives?’ He cleared his throat. ‘Derives... from the provinces subject to its dom... dom...’*

‘That’s enough.’

He had no idea what he’d just read. ‘Sir, what does—’

‘No, that’s all right,’ said the professor. ‘I hardly expect you to understand international economics. You did very well.’ He set the book aside, reached into his desk drawer, and pulled out a silver bar. ‘Remember this?’

The boy stared, wide-eyed, too apprehensive even to touch it.

He’d seen bars like that before. They were rare in Canton, but everyone knew about them. Yínfúlù, silver talismans. He’d seen them embedded in the prows of ships, carved into the sides of palanquins, and installed over the doors of warehouses in the foreign quarter. He’d never figured out precisely what they were, and no one in his household could explain. His grandmother called them rich men’s magic spells, metal amulets carrying blessings from the gods. His mother thought they contained trapped demons who could be summoned to accomplish their masters’ orders. Even Miss Betty, who made loud her disdain for indigenous Chinese superstition and constantly criticized his mother’s heeding of hungry ghosts, found them unnerving. ‘They’re witchcraft,’ she’d said when he asked. ‘They’re devil’s work is what they are.’

So the boy didn’t know what to make of this yínfúlù, except that it was a bar just like this one that had several days ago saved his life.

‘Go on.’ Professor Lovell held it out towards him. ‘Have a look. It won’t bite.’

The boy hesitated, then received it in both hands. The bar was very smooth and cold to the touch, but otherwise it seemed quite ordinary. If there was a demon trapped inside, it hid itself well.

‘Can you read what it says?’

The boy looked closer and noticed there was indeed writing, tiny words engraved neatly on either side of the bar: English letters on one side, Chinese characters on the other. ‘Yes.’

‘Say them out loud. Chinese first, then English. Speak very clearly.’

The boy recognized the Chinese characters, though the calligraphy looked a bit strange, as if drawn by someone who had seen them and copied them out radical by radical without knowing what they meant. They read: ????.

‘Húlún tun zao,’ he read slowly, taking care to enunciate every syllable. He switched to English. ‘To accept without thinking.’

The bar began to hum.

Immediately his tongue swelled up, obstructing his airway. The boy grasped, choking, at his throat. The bar dropped to his lap, where it vibrated wildly, dancing as if possessed. A cloyingly sweet taste filled his mouth. Like dates, the boy thought faintly, black pushing in at the edges of his vision. Strong, jammy dates, so ripe they were sickening. He was drowning in them. His throat was wholly blocked, he couldn’t breathe—

‘Here.’ Professor Lovell leaned over and pulled the bar from his lap. The choking sensation vanished. The boy slumped over the desk, gulping for air.

‘Interesting,’ said Professor Lovell. ‘I’ve never known it to have such a strong effect. What does your mouth taste of?’

‘Hóngzao.’ Tears streamed down the boy’s face. Hastily he switched to English. ‘Dates.’

‘That’s good. That’s very good.’ Professor Lovell observed him for a long moment, then dropped the bar back into the drawer. ‘Excellent, in fact.’

The boy wiped tears from his eyes, sniffling. Professor Lovell sat back, waiting for the boy to recover somewhat before he continued. ‘In two days, Mrs Piper and I will depart this country for a city called London in a country called England. I’m sure you’ve heard of both.’

The boy gave an uncertain nod. London existed to him like Lilliput did: a faraway, imaginary, fantasy place where no one looked, dressed, or spoke remotely like him.

‘I propose to bring you with us. You will live at my estate, and I will provide you with room and board until you’ve grown old enough to make your own living. In return, you will take courses in a curriculum of my design. It will be language work – Latin, Greek, and of course, Mandarin. You will enjoy an easy, comfortable life, and the best education that one can afford. All I expect in return is that you apply yourself diligently to your studies.’

Professor Lovell clasped his hands together as if in prayer. The boy found his tone confusing. It was utterly flat and dispassionate. He could not tell if Professor Lovell wanted him in London or not; indeed, this seemed less like an adoption and more like a business proposal.

‘I urge you to strongly consider it,’ Professor Lovell continued. ‘Your mother and grandparents are dead, your father unknown, and you have no extended family. Stay here, and you won’t have a penny to your name. All you will ever know is poverty, disease, and starvation. You’ll find work on the docks if you’re lucky, but you’re still small yet, so you’ll spend a few years begging or stealing. Assuming you reach adulthood, the best you can hope for is backbreaking labour on the ships.’

The boy found himself staring, fascinated, at Professor Lovell’s face as he spoke. It was not as though he had never encountered an Englishman before. He had met plenty of sailors at the docks, had seen the entire range of white men’s faces, from the broad and ruddy to the diseased and liver-spotted to the long, pale, and severe. But the professor’s face presented an entirely different puzzle. His had all the components of a standard human face – eyes, lips, nose, teeth, all healthy and normal. His voice was a low, somewhat flat, but nevertheless human voice. But when he spoke, his tone and expression were entirely devoid of emotion. He was a blank slate. The boy could not guess his feelings at all. As the professor described the boy’s early, inevitable death, he could have been reciting ingredients for a stew.

‘Why?’ asked the boy.

‘Why what?’

‘Why do you want me?’