Babel

by R.F. Kuang

‘Then is King George going to invade China?’ he persisted. For some reason this made the gentlemen laugh. ‘Would that we could,’ said the man with the deep voice. ‘It’d make this whole enterprise a lot easier, wouldn’t it?’ A man with a great grey beard peered down at Robin. ‘And where would your loyalties lie? Here, or back home?’ ‘My goodness.’ The fourth man, whose pale blue eyes Robin found unnerving, bent down to inspect him, as if through a massive, invisible magnifying glass. ‘Is this the new one? He’s even more of your spitting image than the last—’ Professor Lovell’s voice cut through the room like glass. ‘Hayward.’ ‘Really, it’s uncanny, I mean, look at his eyes. Not the colour, but the shape—’ ‘Hayward.’ Robin glanced back and forth between them, baffled. ‘That’s quite enough,’ said Professor Lovell. ‘Robin, go.’ Robin muttered an apology and hurried up the stairs, muddy boots forgotten. Over his shoulder, he heard fragments of Professor Lovell’s response: ‘He doesn’t know, I don’t like giving him ideas . . . No, Hayward, I won’t—’ But by the time he reached the safety of the landing, where he could lean over the banister and listen in without being caught, they had already changed the topic to Afghanistan. That night, Robin stood before his mirror, staring intently at his face for so long that eventually it began to seem alien. His aunts liked to say he had the kind of face that could blend in anywhere – his hair and eyes, both a softer shade of brown than the ...