XLVIII
“INDIA’S MESSENGER”
COBDEN walked back from the maidan through the streets of Amritsar in the dawn. He did not feel like a foreigner. That which had happened during the night had furnished him with what rarely comes to a white man—the Indian point of view. He was in the Indian fabric for the moment, at least; no longer a spectator from the West. He did not hate England, not even the crooked finger that had mismanaged for England. He knew something right now that he might not be able even to remember—more sorrow than anger.
As he approached the Golden Temple, near which was the Inn, Nagar appeared in the street, and they walked together in silence. As he tottered a little, Nagar’s arm swung around him and Dicky said:
“Don’t. I’m very dirty.”
Now that the light was coming on, they saw people hurrying to the Jallianwalla Bagh.
In the room, Dicky said:
“Make a lot of tea, Nagar. Sorry you won’t join me in a little drink from the flask.”
A moment later, he said:
“I think after all, you’ll have to help me get off this shirt. I’m a rubbed-in mess of blood and dirt.”
Nagar perceived that the body of the American trembled full-length; also that his clothing was soaked with blood from the wounded shoulder, as well as from stains received from handling others.
“... Some of them crawled about in the dark!” Dicky was saying. “A woman sat there moaning through the whole night. The pariahs came—I heard them lapping, lapping. From the windows of the houses around the Bagh came the cries of the women who dared not disobey the curfew.... Why, that ten minutes of firing was longer than whole years I lived as a schoolboy, but the ten hours since dark—that passed, Nagar, like a man walking by a house, not a lame man.... I saw your India, oh, yes. The gentlest-tempered crowd I ever moved through, but something dangerous and deadly in its pain and grief. God help us—when you wake up——”
Nagar helped him. Dicky bathed his neck and face and hair copiously with one hand, and then washed the left arm. With Nagar’s help the wound was packed with clean lint. Dicky drank hot tea, filling his goblet several times and shivering, though the heat of the night was still in the room. Finally he sat down in his bathrobe by the open window and lit a cigarette. The sunlight had found the gold of the Temple dome.
“... I actually forgot myself,” Dicky repeated. “When an American forgets himself, Nagar, you can be sure a big show is being pulled off.... I’ve smoked too much, talked too much. I am going to lie down for a little—until breakfast.... Bed! Think of having a bed, in Amritsar. A bed with sheets.... Out there so many were lying on the ground. Oh, I say, Nagar, where will they put them all?”
The Hindu’s cool, slim fingers reached over and touched his hand. He didn’t speak, just kept his hand still, and Dicky found it easier to stop talking, because of that hand; easier to endure the furious forces of activity in his brain. Finally Nagar spoke:
“I had to stay with the students. They wanted to go to the maidan. That would not have been well, but it was well for you to be there—to forget yourself there through the hours. It will come forth from you for years—not as the voice of an American, but as a citizen of the world. You have prepared long; last night India found you prepared, and dared to show you something of herself. Miss Claes would be very glad to be here with us this morning.”
Dicky’s mind fumbled with the idea that he had not only come closer into the Indian heart, but into Nagar’s as well.
“You might sleep a little until breakfast. I shall not leave you until after that. You are very tired and spent, but you will not be injured from last night. When a man forgets himself, as you say, he is strangely replenished.”
But Dicky did not sleep. They breakfasted early and Nagar arose, saying:
“... In the days that you remain in Amritsar finishing your work (for last night will mean more and more to you as the days go on) you and I shall not be much together. What you see in Amritsar—you must watch without feeling or partisanship. One cannot tell—you may see strange things. Remember, always remember, that you are American; that as an American you have no enemies, and belong to the world. In the fusion of all Europe, which America is, to form a new type of nobility, remember that no country has furnished a nobler ingredient—than England. And forgive my many words, Richard, if I ask you to remember this also: that anything which might happen to me here in Amritsar in the days you remain, must never make you forget that you have a message to carry to America.”
“I don’t understand, Nagar.”
“It is difficult to say. I can only repeat: Anything which might happen to me in this city must not arouse in you a personal or partisan effort to help me. We must be strangers—unless I come to you alone. The English are beside themselves; they know not what they do. You must have no feelings about me—to betray you. Go further into the English. Forget me—except as a part of your own source of kindness and strength.”
Nagar was gone. As Dicky conned all this, he began to wonder if he would see his friend again. All the days before this in Amritsar, he had been waiting for things to get quiet so that he and Nagar might really begin to get together.... “India’s messenger,” he muttered, as he fell asleep.