Babel

by R.F. Kuang

Still, something did not seem right, and Robin could tell from Victoire’s and Ramy’s faces that they thought so too. It took him a moment to realize what it was that grated on him, and when he did, it would bother him constantly, now and thereafter; it would seem a great paradox, the fact that after everything they had told Letty, all the pain they had shared, she was the one who needed comfort.

‘She thinks it’s about personal happiness,’ Ramy interjected. ‘But Letty, we’ve told you, it doesn’t matter how happy we were personally, it’s about the broader injustice—’

Letty paused by the doorway and glanced over her shoulder – her eyes lingered on Robin, and she seemed on the verge of saying something – but then she pursed her lips and hurried out the door.

Ive never liked her and i have a bad feeling about this

And then Letty broke the world. A click; a bang. Ramy collapsed. Victoire screamed.

Ramy was dead. Letty had betrayed them, Hermes had fallen, and Ramy was dead. Ramy was dead.

She loved him, she loved him almost like Robin loved him – she’d told him so, he remembered, and if that were true, then how could she look into Ramy’s eyes and shoot to kill?

What an awful tableau, he thought. Griffin’s and Sterling’s bodies lay adjacent on the ground, blood pooling beneath each one, running together under the rain. Some kind of love story had concluded on this square – some vicious triangle of desire, resentment, jealousy, and hatred had opened with Evie’s death and closed with Griffin’s. Its details were murky, would never be known to Robin in full;* all he knew, with certainty, was that this was not the first time Griffin and Sterling had tried to kill each other, only the first time one of them had succeeded. But all the principal characters were dead now, and the circle was closed.

‘Received your message,’ panted Professor Chakravarti. ‘Very well done.’

Aaaaand now im crying agai

‘It was for Anthony,’ she said in a very hard voice. ‘And that’s the last I ever want to speak of it.’

‘Do you think she was always going to turn on us?’ he asked. ‘Do you think it was difficult for her, what she did?’ Victoire didn’t need to ask who he meant. ‘It was like an exercise in hope,’ she said after a pause. ‘Loving her, I mean. Sometimes I’d think she’d come around. Sometimes I’d look her in the eyes and think that I was looking at a true friend. Then she’d say something, make some off-the-cuff comment, and the whole cycle would begin all over again. It was like pouring sand into a sieve. Nothing stuck.’

‘You have to believe there’s an after,’ she murmured. ‘They did.’ ‘They were better than us.’ ‘They were.’ She curled around his arm. ‘But it all still wound up in our hands, didn’t it?’

I’m so sorry. But I don’t know how to go on.’ ‘Day by day, Birdie.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘You go on, day by day. Just as we’ve been doing. It’s not hard.’ ‘No, it’s – Victoire, I can’t.’ He didn’t want to cry; if he started crying, then all his words would disappear and he would never manage to say what he needed to.

‘Someone’s got to speak the words. Someone has to stay.’ ‘Then aren’t you going to ask me to stay with you?’ ‘Oh, Victoire.’

Abel raised the parcel. ‘Is this a suicide note?’ ‘It’s a written record,’ said Robin. ‘Of everything that’s happened in this tower. What we stood for. There’s a second copy, but in case it gets lost – I know you’ll find some way to get this out there. Print it all over England. Tell them what we did. Make them remember us.’

Often, he had thought of death as a reprieve. He had not stopped dreaming of it since the day Letty shot Ramy.

Ramy, smiling. Ramy, reaching.

He went back to his first morning in Oxford: climbing a sunny hill with Ramy, picnic basket in hand. Elderflower cordial. Warm brioche, sharp cheese, a chocolate tart for dessert. The air that day smelled like a promise, all of Oxford shone like an illumination, and he was falling in love. ‘It’s so odd,’ Robin said. Back then they’d already passed the point of honesty; they spoke to one another unfiltered, unafraid of the consequences. ‘It’s like I’ve known you forever.’ ‘Me too,’ Ramy said. ‘And that makes no sense,’ said Robin, drunk already, though there was no alcohol in the cordial. ‘Because I’ve known you for less than a day, and yet . . .’ ‘I think,’ said Ramy, ‘it’s because when I speak, you listen.’ ‘Because you’re fascinating.’ ‘Because you’re a good translator.’ Ramy leaned back on his elbows. ‘That’s just what translation is, I think. That’s all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases to glimpse what they’re trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands.’

He shut his eyes. But he’d waited for death to come before. He remembered this now - he knew death. Not so abruptly, no, not so violently. But the memory of waiting to fade was still locked in his bones; memories of a stale, hot room, of paralysis, of dreaming about the end. He remembered the stillness. The peace. As the windows smashed in, Robin shut his eyes and imagined his mother’s face. She smiles. She says his name.

Straight up feel like im gonna vomit blood

If they must die, she wants them to be buried together.

She has the letter from Griffin that Robin never opened.

SHOOT ME IN THEFACE AGAIN WHYDONTYOU

Her eyes are swollen from tears, her throat sore with stifled sobs.

ME too

She’d winked at him. ‘Ask me a little later, and I’ll tell you.’