Inside the chapel, Billings paused before a bas-relief monument. ‘I suppose you’ll know who that is, being translation students and all.’
They knew. Robin and Ramy both had been hearing the name constantly since their arrival at Oxford. The bas-relief was a memorial to the University College alum and widely recognized genius who in 1786 published a foundational text identifying Proto-Indo-European as a predecessor language linking Latin, Sanskrit, and Greek. He was now perhaps the single best-known translator on the continent, save for his nephew, the recently graduated Sterling Jones.
‘It’s Sir William Jones.’ Robin found the scene depicted in the frieze somewhat discomfiting. Jones was positioned at a writing desk, one leg crossed pertly over the other, while three figures, clearly meant to be Indians, sat submissively on the floor before him like children receiving a lesson.
Billings looked proud. ‘That’s right. Here he is translating a digest on the Hindu laws, and there are some Brahmins on the floor to assist him. We are, I believe, the only college whose walls are graced with Indians. But then Univ has always had a special link to the colonies.* And those tigers’ heads, as you know, are emblematic of Bengal.’
‘Why’s he the only one with a table?’ Ramy asked. ‘Why are the Brahmins on the floor?’
‘Well, I suppose Hindus preferred it that way,’ said Billings. ‘They like sitting cross-legged, you see, for they find it more comfortable.’
‘Very illuminating,’ said Ramy. ‘I never knew.’
They spent Sunday night in the depths of the Bodleian bookcases. They’d been assigned a reading list upon registration, but both, faced with a sudden deluge of freedom, had left it off until the last possible moment. The Bodleian was supposed to close by 8.00 p.m. on weekends. They reached its doors at 7.45 p.m., but mention of the Translation Institute seemed to hold immense power, for when Ramy explained what they needed, the clerks told them they could stay as late as they liked. The doors would be unlocked for the night staff; they could leave at their own convenience.
By the time they emerged from the stacks, satchels heavy with books and eyes dizzy from squinting at tiny fonts, the sun had long gone down. At night, the moon conspired with streetlamps to bathe the city in a faint, otherworldly glow. The cobblestones beneath their feet seemed like roads leading into and out of different centuries. This could be the Oxford of the Reformation, or the Oxford of the Middle Ages. They moved within a timeless space, shared by the ghosts of scholars past.
The journey back to college took less than five minutes, but they detoured up and around Broad Street to lengthen their walk. This was the first time they’d been out so late; they wanted to savour the city at night. They moved in silence, neither daring to break the spell.
A burst of laughter drifted from across the stone walls when they passed New College. As they turned down Holywell Lane, they saw a group of six or seven students, all garbed in black gowns, though from the sway of their walk they must have just departed not from a lecture but from a pub.
‘Balliol, you think?’ Ramy murmured.
Robin snorted.
They’d been three days at University College, but they’d already learned the intercollegiate pecking order and associated stereotypes. Exeter was genteel but unintellectual; Brasenose was rowdy and lush with wine. Their neighbouring Queen’s and Merton were safely ignored. Balliol boys, who paid near the highest tuitions at the University, next to Oriel, were better known for running up the tab than for showing up for their tutorials.
The students glanced their way as they approached. Robin and Ramy nodded towards them, and a few of them nodded back, a mutual acknowledgment between gentlemen of the university.
The street was wide, and the two groups were walking on opposite sides. They would have passed each other without commotion, except that one of the boys pointed suddenly at Ramy and shouted, ‘What’s that? Did you see that?’
His friends pulled him along, laughing.
‘Come on, Mark,’ one said. ‘Let them go—’
‘Hold it,’ said the boy called Mark. He shrugged his friends off. He stood still on the street, squinting at Ramy with drunken concentration. His hand hung in midair, still pointing. ‘Look at his face – you see it?’
‘Mark, please,’ said the boy furthest down the road. ‘Don’t be an idiot.’
None of them were laughing any more.
‘That’s a Hindu,’ said Mark. ‘What’s a Hindu doing here?’
‘Sometimes they visit,’ said one of the other boys. ‘Remember the two foreigners last week, those Persian sultans or whatever they were—’
‘I think I do, those fellows in turbans—’
‘But he’s got a gown.’ Mark raised his voice at Ramy. ‘Hey! What have you got a gown for?’
His tone turned vicious. The atmosphere was no longer so cordial; the scholarly fraternity, if it had ever existed, evaporated.
‘You can’t wear a gown,’ Mark insisted. ‘Take that off.’
Ramy took a step forward.
Robin gripped his arm. ‘Don’t.’
‘Hello, I’m talking to you.’ Mark was now crossing the street towards them. ‘What’s the matter? Can’t you speak English? Take off that gown, do you hear me? Take it off.’
Clearly Ramy wanted to fight – his fists were clenched, his knees bent in preparation to spring. If Mark drew any closer, this night would end in blood.
So Robin began to run.
He hated it as he did so, he felt like such a coward, but it was the only act he could imagine that didn’t end in catastrophe. For he knew that Ramy, shocked, would follow. Indeed – seconds later he heard Ramy’s footsteps behind him, his hard breathing, the curses he muttered under his breath as they sprinted down Holywell.
The laughter – for there was laughter again, though it was no longer born of mirth – seemed to amplify behind them. The Balliol boys hooted like monkeys; their cackles stretched alongside their shadows against the brick walls. For a moment Robin was terrified they were being chased, that the boys were hot on their heels, footsteps hammering all around them. But it was only the blood thundering in his ears. The boys had not followed them; they were too drunk, too easily amused, and certainly, by now, distracted in pursuit of their next entertainment.
Even so, Robin didn’t stop until they reached High Street. The way was clear. They were alone, panting in the dark.
‘Damn it,’ Ramy muttered. ‘Damn it—’
‘I’m sorry,’ Robin said.
‘Don’t be,’ Ramy said, though he wouldn’t meet Robin’s eye. ‘You did the right thing.’
Robin wasn’t sure either of them believed that.
They were much further from home now, but they were at least back under the streetlamps, where they could see trouble coming from further off.
They walked awhile in silence. Robin could think of nothing appropriate to say; any words that came to mind died immediately on his tongue.
‘Damn it,’ Ramy said again. He stopped abruptly, one hand on his satchel. ‘I think – hold on.’ He dug through his books, then cursed again. ‘I left my notebook behind.’
Robin’s gut twisted. ‘On Holywell?’
‘In the Bod.’ Ramy pressed his fingertips against the bridge of his nose and groaned. ‘I know where – right on the corner of the desk; I was going to place it on top because I didn’t want the pages crumpled, only I got so tired I must have forgotten.’