‘What would you do?’ he asked. ‘End this strike? Open up the tower?’
‘If I tried,’ she said, ‘could you stop me?’
They both stared at the ledger. Neither of them spoke for a very long time. They did not want to follow this conversation where it might lead. Neither of them could bear any more heartbreak.
‘A vote,’ Robin proposed at last, unable to take this any longer. ‘We can’t – we can’t just break the strike like this. It’s not up to us. Let’s not decide, Victoire.’
Victoire’s shoulders sagged. He saw such sorrow on her face. She lifted her chin, and for a moment he thought she might argue further, but all she did then was nod.
The vote came out narrowly in Robin’s favour. Victoire and the professors were against; all the students were for. The students agreed with Robin that they had to push Parliament to the breaking point, but they were not thrilled about it. Ibrahim and Juliana both hugged their arms against their chest as they voted, as if shrinking from the idea. Even Yusuf, who usually took great pleasure in helping Robin compose threatening pamphlets to London, stared down at his feet.
‘So that’s that,’ said Robin. He’d won, but it did not feel like such a victory. He could not meet Victoire’s eye.
‘When does this happen?’ Professor Chakravarti asked.
‘This Saturday,’ Robin said. ‘The timing’s marvellous.’
‘But Parliament isn’t going to capitulate by Saturday.’
‘Then I suppose we’ll hear about the bridge when it’s collapsed.’
‘And you are comfortable with this?’ Professor Chakravarti glanced about, as if trying to gauge the moral temperature of the room. ‘Dozens of people will die. There are whole crowds there trying to get on boats at all times of day; what happens when—’
‘That’s not our choice,’ said Robin. ‘It’s theirs. It’s inaction. It’s killing by letting die. We’re not even touching the resonance rods, it’s going to fall on its own—’
‘You know very well that doesn’t matter,’ said Professor Chakravarti. ‘Don’t mince the ethics. Westminster Bridge falling down is your choice. But innocent people can’t determine the whims of Parliament.’
‘But it’s their government’s duty to look out for them,’ said Robin. ‘That’s the entire point of Parliament, isn’t it? Meanwhile, we don’t have the option of civility. Or grace. It’s an indiscriminate torch, I’ll admit that, but that’s what the stakes demand. You can’t put the moral blame on me.’ He swallowed. ‘You can’t.’
‘You are the proximate cause,’ insisted Professor Chakravarti. ‘You can make it stop.’
‘But that’s precisely the devil’s trick,’ Robin insisted. ‘This is how colonialism works. It convinces us that the fallout from resistance is entirely our fault, that the immoral choice is resistance itself rather than the circumstances that demanded it.’
‘Even so, there are lines you can’t cross.’
‘Lines? If we play by the rules, then they’ve already won—’
‘You’re trying to win by punishing the city,’ said Professor Chakravarti. ‘That means the whole city, everyone in it – men, women, children. There are sick children who can’t get their medicine. There are whole families with no income and no source of food. This is more than an inconvenience to them, it’s a death threat.’
‘I know,’ said Robin, frustrated. ‘That’s the point.’
They glared at each other, and Robin thought he understood now the way that Griffin had once looked at him. This was a failure of nerve. A refusal to push things to the limit. Violence was the only thing that brought the colonizer to the table; violence was the only option. The gun was right there, lying on the table, waiting for them to pick it up. Why were they so afraid to even look at it?
Professor Chakravarti stood. ‘I can’t follow you down this path.’
‘Then you ought to leave the tower,’ Robin said promptly. ‘It’ll help keep your conscience clear.’
‘Mr Swift, please, listen to reason—’
‘Turn out your pockets.’ Robin raised his voice, speaking over the ringing in his ears. ‘Take nothing with you – not silver, not ledgers, not notes you’ve written to yourself.’ He kept waiting for someone to interrupt him; for Victoire to intervene, to tell him he was wrong, but no one spoke. He took this silence as tacit approval. ‘And if you leave, I’m sure you know, you can’t come back.’
‘There is no path to victory here,’ warned Professor Chakravarti. ‘This will only make them hate you.’
Robin scoffed. ‘They can’t hate us any more than they do.’
But no, that was not true; they both knew it. The British did not hate them, because hate was bound up with fear and resentment, and both required seeing your opponent as a morally autonomous being, worthy of respect and rivalry. The attitude the British held towards the Chinese was patronizing, was dismissive; but it was not hatred. Not yet.
That might change after the bridge fell.
But then, Robin thought, invoking hatred might be good. Hatred might force respect. Hatred might force the British to look them in the eyes and see not an object, but a person. Violence shocks the system, Griffin had told him. And the system cannot survive the shock.
‘Oderint dum metuant,’ he said.* ‘That’s our path to victory.’
‘That’s Caligula,’ said Professor Chakravarti. ‘You’re invoking Caligula?’
‘Caligula got his way.’
‘Caligula was assassinated.’
Robin shrugged, wholly unbothered.
‘You know,’ said Professor Chakravarti, ‘you know, one of the most commonly misunderstood Sanskrit concepts is ahimsa. Nonviolence.’
‘I don’t need a lecture, sir,’ said Robin, but Professor Chakravarti spoke over him.
‘Many think ahimsa means absolute pacifism, and that the Indian people are therefore a sheepish, submissive people who will bend the knee to anything. But in the Bhagavad Gita, exceptions are made for a dharma yuddha. A righteous war. A war in which violence is applied as the last resort, a war fought not for selfish gain or personal motives but from a commitment to a greater cause.’ He shook his head. ‘This is how I have justified this strike, Mr Swift. But what you’re doing here is not self-defence; it has trespassed into malice. Your violence is personal, it is vindictive, and this I cannot support.’
Robin’s throat pulsed. ‘Then take your blood vial before you go, sir.’
Professor Chakravarti examined him for a moment, nodded, and then began turning out the contents of his pockets onto the middle table. A pencil. A notebook. Two blank silver bars.
Everyone watched, silent.
Robin felt a flash of irritation. ‘Would anyone else like to voice a complaint?’ he snapped.
No one else said a word. Professor Craft stood and walked away up the stairs. A moment later, Ibrahim joined her, then Juliana; and then the rest until only Robin and Victoire stood in the lobby, watching Professor Chakravarti stride down the front steps towards the barricades.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls
WILLIAM BLAKE, ‘London’
The mood in the tower turned sombre after Professor Chakravarti left.
In the early days of the strike, they’d been too occupied with the exigencies of their situation – with pamphleteering, ledgers research, and barricade fortifications – to pay attention to the sheer danger they were in. It had all been so monumental, so unifying. They’d delighted in each other’s company. They’d talked long into the nights, learning about one another, marvelling at how astonishingly similar their histories were. They’d been plucked from their motherlands at a very young age, thrown into England, and instructed to thrive or be deported. So many of them were orphans, all ties to their countries severed except that of language.*