Page 84 of Babel

Pendennis sneered, but it was clear the danger had passed. As long as Robin swallowed his pride, as long as he told himself it was only words Pendennis had hurled his way, words that meant nothing at all, he could simply turn and follow Ramy, Victoire, and Letty out of the college unscathed.

Outside, the cool night breeze was welcome relief against their reddened, overheated faces.

‘What happened?’ Robin asked. ‘What were they saying?’

‘It’s nothing,’ Victoire said. She was shivering violently; Robin pulled off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders.

‘It’s not nothing,’ snapped Letty. ‘That bastard Thornhill started going on about the different colours of our – our – you know, for biological reasons, and then Pendennis decided we ought to show them—’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Victoire. ‘Let’s just walk.’

‘I’ll kill him,’ Robin swore. ‘I’m going back in. I’m going to kill him—

‘Please don’t.’ Victoire seized his arm. ‘Don’t make this worse, please.’

‘This is your fault,’ Ramy told Letty.

‘Mine? How—’

‘None of us wanted to come. Victoire told you it’d end badly, and still you forced us out here—’

‘Forced?’ Letty gave a sharp laugh. ‘You seemed to be having a nice enough time, with your chocolates and truffles—’

‘Yes, until Pendennis and his lot tried to violate our Victoire—’

‘They had a go at me too, you know.’ This was a bizarre line of argument, and Robin was not sure why Letty made it at all, but she said it with vehemence. Her voice went up by several octaves. ‘It wasn’t just because she’s—’

‘Stop!’ Victoire shouted. Tears streamed down her face. ‘Stop it, it’s no one’s fault, we just – I should have known better. We shouldn’t have come.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Letty said in a very small voice. ‘Victoire, love, I didn’t...’

‘It’s fine.’ Victoire shook her head. ‘There’s no reason why you’d – never mind.’ She took a shaky breath. ‘Let’s just be out of here, can we, please? I want to go home.’

‘Home?’ Ramy stopped walking. ‘What do you mean, home? It’s a night for celebration.’

‘Are you mad? I’m going to bed.’ Victoire picked at the skirt of her gown, muddied now, at the bottom. ‘And I’m getting out of this, I’m getting rid of these stupid sleeves—’

‘No, you’re not.’ Ramy gave her a gentle tug towards High Street. ‘You got dressed up for a ball. You deserve a ball. So let’s have one.’

Ramy’s plan, he revealed, was for them to spend the night on Babel’s roof – just the four of them, a basket of sweets (the kitchens were very easy to steal from if you looked like staff), and the telescope under a clear night sky.* But when they turned the corner on the green, they saw lights and moving silhouettes through the windows of the first floor. Someone was in there.

‘Wait—’ Letty began, but Ramy jumped lightly up the steps and pushed the door open.

Fairy lights bobbed all around the lobby, which was crowded with students and graduate fellows. Robin recognized Cathy O’Nell, Vimal Srinivasan, and Ilse Dejima among them. Some danced, some chatted with wineglasses in hands, and some stood with heads bent over worktables dragged down from the eighth floor, watching intently as a graduate fellow etched an engraving into a silver bar. Something went poof, and the room filled with the scent of roses. Everyone cheered.

Finally someone noticed them. ‘Third years!’ Vimal cried, waving them in. ‘What took you so long?’

‘We were at the college,’ said Ramy. ‘We didn’t know there was a private party.’

‘You should have invited them,’ said a dark-haired German girl whose name Robin thought might be Minna. She danced in place as she spoke, and her head kept bobbing heavily to the left. ‘So cruel of you, to let them go to that horror show.’

‘One does not appreciate heaven until one has known hell,’ said Vimal. ‘Revelations. Or Mark. Or something like that.’

‘That’s not in the Bible,’ said Minna.

‘Well,’ Vimal said dismissively, ‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘That was cruel of you,’ said Letty.