Republic of Infidels – Book I: The Remains – Chapter 1: Difficult Children

Oxford

2030

On first impression, Master Jamal Salim was kindly. He wore a tweed suit and a silk tie, and would have been quite handsome ten years ago. Rachel knew she ought to be paying attention to what he was saying, but she was more interested in counting the blocks that made up the ancient columns surrounding them. This naturally led her to counting the diamonds in the mullioned windows, and beyond those, the silhouette of arching stone she did not have a name for.

“What is that?” she demanded, pointing out the window. 

Salim blinked. “I’m not sure what you’re referring to, Miss Kori.”

Annoyed, she detailed the object of her inquiry, miming the graceful shape with her small, brown hands. 

“Ah,” he said, and his smile was warm. “It’s a buttress. A flying buttress. It helps to support the building.”

“Who invented them?” she wanted to know.

“I’m not precisely sure,” he admitted. “This building was constructed nearly eight hundred years ago.”

This impressed her. She decided she might be able to tolerate this Jamal Salim. He knew things she didn’t and that was always a quality she valued. 

“Constructed how?” She knew he had things to tell her, that she had been shepherded to this meeting with him for a reason, but she didn’t care. 

He smiled thinly. “Perhaps you should ask your father.”

She had to be satisfied with that. Father would know. They must have been worthies, these architects of old. Before calculators and lasers, measuring tools, and blueprints, someone had crafted this library to last a thousand years.

She thought that person must have been like her, or her brother. It made her feel less lonely.

“Miss Kori,” Salim said softly. 

She blinked and turned her head. “What?”

Her bluntness seemed to unsettle the man, but he wasn’t going to let her distract him from his purpose. He shuffled his papers, and looked over his glasses at her.

“We’ve examined the issue, and I’m afraid we can’t move you ahead to your brother’s form. While no one denies your… exceptional gifts, it simply would not be appropriate for someone as young as you.”

She turned her gaze upward, now looking at the vaulted ceiling, trying but failing to count the bricks. They were too far away, and too well mortared. Frustrated, she fixed her eyes on Salim. “I can’t stay in the fifth form.”

“We understand that. Your parents have asked me to undertake private tutelage for you, but that isn’t quite the point.”

She straightened, put her hands in her lap, and stared at him with the dim, dull eyed gaze she used on her vapid fifth form teachers. Salim gave her a hard look, and she suddenly felt ashamed of herself. He wanted to help her. What was more, he had something to offer her.

“I am prepared,” he said softly, but with an air of deep seriousness. “To make you a conditional offer of entry into my college.”

Rachel felt her face go slack with surprise. She opened her mouth to speak, but he raised a hand.

“When you reach the age of sixteen, we will provide you with a special scholarship. You can make this your home, and study whatever you want, provided you commit yourself to your education between now and then.”

Rachel considered. “Six years.”

“It’ll pass by quicker than you think.”

She bit her lip. “Vikram is going to Cambridge next year.”

He shrugged, and smiled. “They’re free to make you an offer if they choose to. I have no doubt many universities will want you. But whatever happens, I’m afraid you can’t remain at the academy. It simply isn’t fair to the other students, and neither is it fair to you.”

She nodded. She hated the way the other students looked at her. She hated that they could not understand her, nor she them. She hated the hours she spent in the corner, waiting for the bell to ring, waiting to return to the adult world where she had always been more comfortable, even though she suspected she would outgrow that too, as her brother had. 

“Thank you, Master Salim,” she said politely, deciding to make an ally of him after all. “I’ll think about it.”

***

Master Salim walked the child back to the roundabout where Radhesh Kori waited. Radhesh was a presence, his bright eyes and ready smile belying a rare intelligence that was both warm and sharp. Salim had enjoyed the meeting with him and his wife Nadia. The latter was an esteemed colleague from days before, and Salim sympathized with her struggle to educate her exceptional, and very difficult children. His offer to help was as much an effort to assist her as it was an opportunity to study her daughter’s nearly unique mental capabilities. 

Salim watched as Radhesh took his daughter’s hand and walked her down the steps. He retreated back under the portico, out of the morning chill, but continued his observation of the pair. The little girl was not as dark as her Indian father, but there was no denying the resemblance. She had inherited his glossy black hair and wide eyes, but not the warmth of his smile. There was too much childish greed in her, something Salim hoped he could temper. 

The boy Vikram lounged by the Land Rover, hands in his pockets, as his father and sister approached. He was something different from them. At twelve, he was a sophisticate, his posture lazy and confident. He too had his father’s dark hair and eyes, a slightly lighter complexion that spoke of too little exposure to the sun. The effect was to make him appear delicate, but Salim knew better than to let it fool him. There was deliberation in every gesture, and though he composed himself to appear amiable, Salim perceived it as affect. 

The young man’s sleepy eyes moved over the scene, not compulsively counting the way Rachel’s had, but surveying the ancient architecture. Salim shivered as the boy’s eyes came to rest on him. Beautiful eyes, with a preternatural sense of authority, but also an intimacy that discomforted Salim. Vikram was aware, comfortable with his power, confident in his destiny.

He opened the back door of the car for his sister, and helped her up inside. As they put their heads together, Salim decided that whatever else he may be, Vikram was clearly devoted to her. He was unsure of whether he considered this to be a good thing. But then, the poor girl would have it hard enough without her brother’s help. 

Salim watched them drive away, and decided that denying Vikram a place at Oxford University had been the right decision. He’d take the sister — for all her precocity, Rachel was not a manipulator. Putting some space between them would, he hoped, preserve some of her innocence. In time, she would hopefully become a woman like her mother — formidable, but compassionate. 

Salim made a note to meet with the Koris soon to discuss it, though he would remain circumspect. Their remarkable offspring were already too famous among academics. One had already coined a name for their shared psychiatric condition: mnemothesia. A near-totality of memory. Salim hoped the term wouldn’t catch on. Being bright children would be challenging enough for the two Kori children. Being extraordinary might destroy them. 

Rachel, being the younger, had the benefit of her brother’s experience to insulate her. Salim was honoured that his friends would entrust her education. He turned for home, already planning the first of many lessons for Rachel Kori’s hungry little mind. 

***

“The date’s been set. We’ll be leaving just as soon as school lets out.” 

Rachel speared a piece of salmon on her fork and ate it moodily. She didn’t want to hear about this. She was busy reading on her iPad.

“Rachel,” Nadia said sternly. “Are you listening?”

Her mother could look fierce when she wanted. Her defined cheekbones, high forehead and dark grey eyes made her look imperious, but Rachel wasn’t impressed. She was halfway through a paper and the distraction was unacceptable to her. She had to finish reading.

Vikram yanked the iPad out her hand. 

“Hey!” she snapped. “Give that back.”

“Not until you listen,” he said, giving her that look that said humour them.

She huffed. Then sighed dramatically. “In twelve days we’ll be going to the Himalayas for father’s hydroelectric dam project. You’ve been talking about it for the last two months.”

“You don’t sound very excited,” Radhesh observed gently.

She averted her eyes. “I don’t want to go.”

“Unfortunately that’s not up to you, Rakhila,” her mother said with an arched brow. Rachel tried to stare her down. She needed to finish reading the paper. She needed to be alone in her room. Dinner suddenly felt like chaos to her. 

“May I —”

“Yes,” Nadia said. “Put your plate in the fridge.”

“It’s just for the summer,” Vikram said quietly as he perched at the end of her bed.

Rachel was tempted to turn up her music, but instead she just lay back on her bed, waiting for the feeling of inconvenience to resolve itself. She knew she was being childish, and she resented everyone else for knowing it, too. 

“I hate it,” she said, not looking at her brother. 

He laced his fingers across his knee and gave her a big, poisonous grin. “Why? It’s not like you’re leaving friends behind.”

Now she did look at him, hating him with a force that made the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. 

“You don’t have friends,” she spat back. “You just have a fan club.”

“It’ll be good for you,” he insisted. “Maybe you’ll meet a nice sherpa and then you can go climb Everest together.”

“Oh, go to hell,” she snapped. “If I have to kill myself out of boredom I’m taking you with me.”

He looked at her sidelong, and she could see the hurt in his face behind his smooth exterior. He could hide things from other people, even from their parents, but she always knew when she’d stung him. 

She felt the temperature between them drop as he rose, his brow knit. “Why would you say something like that?

Rachel flushed with shame. She looked at him, shrugged, too helpless to admit that she was terrified of being rusticated, being forced to rely on her internal resources, of which she had very few. Vikram knew she had no friends, knew she was dependent on him as he was on her, and that fact was becoming uncomfortable. But they had to rely on each other. Neither of them knew how to be children, but they didn’t have the agency of grownups either. 

He rose, his movements stiff, his face blank. She sat up, tried to find her words. He paused at the door, and looked at her with his big black eyes. 

“If you did that,” he said calmly. “I’d follow you anyway.” 

Then he walked away, leaving her feeling even more friendless than she had before.