XVIII
MEANWHILE TED STROVE TO put his domain in order so that when he returned to Vhai there might be no loss. He was grateful for the task which kept him busy day and night, so that he need not face himself in the mirror of his own soul. He could not now decide right from wrong. He must have time to consider, to ponder and to meditate. More here was concerned than that Livy had fallen in love with the nearest young man, who happened to be Jatin. This fact, an experience common, he supposed, to every father, had strange deep roots inside himself. Why did his flesh and his mind rise up against the knowledge that Livy wanted to marry Jatin? He could not answer his own question but he was so disturbed by it that he found himself repelled by the very sight of Livy moving about the house in graceful silence, even while his heart yearned over her. When he had time, on the ship and in America, he would look into the hidden mirror and face himself. Not now, however, not on this soil could it be done. He had to get away but first he must get Livy away so that he could be free from the nagging necessity to know where she was every moment of the day. Only when the ayah came out of her room at night and he knew her safely in bed, could he rest and even then it was no rest, for there was Ruth, his wife, watching him thoughtfully and asking no questions. Oh, she had them, he knew, but she would not ask them now, and he could not risk them. They were pent up in her and he dared not release them, nor did he wish to know what she thought, if she were thinking, as perhaps she was not, for she had an Indian trick of simply allowing a matter to rest inside her mind until in silent growth it took on shape of its own, and then she was voluble and persistent. Let that come on the ship, or in America, when he had Livy safely away.
And he did not know, how could he, that every Indian in the compound watched over Livy and that they shielded her from him by complete silence. When he was gone, they would talk endlessly, but now it was the child they protected, the little Livy who had grown up among them and who was part of them while he was not and never could be. He belonged to the white men, but she had come, a solitary little figure, toward them. Whenever she came to Jatin, she came to them. They longed to stretch out their arms and draw her into themselves, but they waited in silence, to see whether he would take her away. Not a hint did they give of the secret, and part of the shield and the covering was their obedience to Ted, their quick willingness to help him prepare everything for the departure.
Nevertheless Jehar, the Christian sadhu, walking southward, was met by rumor, a seemingly unspoken communication which spread from mouth to ear, village to village, until it was brought to his ears. He heard and hastened to Vhai, knowing what must be going on in the earth-walled house. He arrived there one evening when the sun was setting over green fields. The monsoons were ended, the fields had not yet dried to dust, and the sun fell behind the horizon in clear color as he stood before the gate door of the house.
Ted looked through the open window of his study, aware that someone had passed, and seeing the familiar and well-loved figure he rose and went to the door himself.
“Jehar!” Ted exclaimed. “There is no one whom I had rather see at this moment.”
He put out his hand and clasped Jehar’s large smooth hand, and drew him into the house and thence into the study. There he closed the door and the two stood gazing at each other. Jehar was taller, a mighty figure, his height emphasized by the small, closely wound turban on his head and by the sweeping folds of his saffron robe.
“Sit down,” Ted said. “Are you hungry or thirsty?”
“Neither,” Jehar replied. His voice was deep and peaceful, his great eyes, intensely dark, were mild and affectionate, and his black beard and brows made his olive skin pale but not colorless. His feet were bare. Barefoot he had walked over much of the world, even in the snows of Tibet. He had been to Europe and to England, and at last to America, but everywhere he was the same.
Ted sat down near him and putting his hands on his knees, he continued to look at his old friend. “I had no idea that you were near Vhai.”
“I was not,” Jehar replied. “I have been preaching among the Sikhs. While I was there, word came to me that you were planning to return soon to your own country, and so I came to inquire if it is true and if it is, when you will come back to us.”
“It is true,” Ted said. He hesitated and then suddenly the need to confide his trouble overcame him. There was no one to whom he could speak so freely as he could to Jehar, no one who would understand so well why he felt that Livy must not marry Jatin, even though Jatin was good. So he told Jehar exactly what had happened and why he was taking Livy away quickly.
Jehar listened, nodding his head now and again. “I can see,” he said, “I understand. I could not have understood, perhaps, had I not seen your home. Ted, my brother, I have never told you that I saw your father in New York.”
“My father told me,” Ted replied with some diffidence. His father had written him almost angrily that Jehar had behaved in New York exactly as though he were in India, and while he had made an impression, it was not as a Christian, but as a swami, a fakir, someone strange and even false. “He has not been asked to speak in any of the important pulpits,” his father wrote. “There is something distasteful to the true Christian in this parading of Indian robes, bare feet, and so on. It was distressing to us all.”
“Perhaps he did not tell you that he felt it his duty to rebuke me,” Jehar said with a smile. “I accepted his rebuke for I knew that he must make it, but I went on as I was. I was not a swami, I told him, for that name means ‘Lord,’ and I am no lord. I am only a sadhu, that is, a religious man, and being an Indian I may use that name even though I see God through Jesus Christ.”
“Did my father understand?” Ted asked.
“I do not know how nearly his heart and mind are one,” Jehar replied. He sat thoughtful for a little while, and Ted, accustomed to such silences, waited.
When Jehar spoke, it was not to mention Livy’s name. “You will remember,” he said, “that verse from the Mahabharata which Gandhiji likes so well to quote.”
He paused, drew in his breath, closed his eyes and then began to chant with a deep pulsing rhythm,
“The individual may be sacrificed for the family;
The family may be sacrificed for the sake of the village;
The village may be sacrificed for the sake of the province;
The province may be sacrificed for the sake of the country;
For the sake of conscience, however, sacrifice all.”
He opened his eyes and looked earnestly at Ted, his dark and penetrating gaze seeming to cast an actual physical warmth upon Ted’s flesh, or so Ted imagined.
“What does your conscience say?” Jehar inquired.
“I do not know,” Ted replied. “I have only acted as I felt I must.”
Jehar listened to this, his gaze still affectionately upon his friend. “You have been busy, but when all is done, then you will have time to listen. Each conscience is different from every other, and mine must not speak for yours. What is the conscience? It is the most highly developed part of the human being, the core of the spirit, the most sensitive, the most tender. It is shaped by the mores of a given society, it is developed toward wisdom by individual experience, it is maintained by the strength of the will. Your conscience is different from mine—as mine is different from every other. For me it has been right to live the life of a sadhu in the old Hindu sense, while preaching only Christ. As I told your father, love and home and wealth are wrong for me, while right for others, and I have my rewards. Here in Vhai you have done a great thing, and you have made a renunciation far beyond that of most men of your kind, and you have your rewards as I have mine. Your father cannot understand this, any more than he can understand me. No matter—you have your reward, as I have mine. But now—”
He shook his head, and Ted recognized the old light of ecstasy in the fathomless Indian eyes.
“But now,” Jehar went on, “a new opportunity has come to you. It is not for me
to counsel you. The opportunity comes to you from God as all things come to us from God. What does it mean? You may ask yourself, is what you have done not enough? If you feel it is enough, if your conscience says it is enough, then it is enough and you will have your reward. But, if in the quiet of the ship upon the sea, your conscience tells you that what you have done is not enough, that God offers to you the opportunity for more, then listen to your conscience. The ladder to Heaven is made of steps. With each step we think we have reached the goal. But there is another step, and the final one before the gates of God is the one when all of self is given.”
Ted fought the old magic of the dark eyes and the powerful gentle voice. He tried to laugh.
“Jehar, you will never make an Indian of me! I am hopelessly American, though I trust I am as good a Christian as you are.”
Jehar smiled. “Why should I wish to make you what you are not born? It is because you are an American that I delight to call you my brother, and I have seen for myself how much you have renounced in order to be a Christian in India. What I have given up is nothing in comparison to the riches, the pleasures, the honors you might have had in your own country. But you have chosen to live your life here in an Indian village, in an earth-walled house covered with thatch, I am humble before you. You have even brought up your children here, and I have had no children. I do not know what it is to have a child demanded in sacrifice. But what I see, in my humility, is that you have lived so fully the life of a Christian in my country that you are now given the final invitation to accept an Indian for your own son, and his children as your grandchildren. It is possible now for you to take the step of complete brotherhood, in flesh as in the spirit. God has made this possible for you that your life may complete the whole meaning of Christ.”
The very air was trembling with intensity. Jehar’s grave voice quivered, he lifted his magnificent head, he closed his eyes, and went into silent prayer.
And Ted, too, was compelled to silence. He could not pray, but he sat immobile, not thinking, not feeling. With his whole will he resisted the magnetism of Jehar. He refused to be compelled.
It was over in a moment. Jehar opened his eyes and gave his natural vivid smile. He rose. “I am glad that you told me yourself. Others will tell me and I shall tell them that I know all, and that whatever you do is according to your conscience. And now, Ted, dear brother, I shall go on my way.”
“Stay with us tonight, Jehar.” He made the invitation, but he did not urge it. He felt suddenly very weary and for some reason depressed. Usually Jehar lifted up his spirit but tonight Jehar could not reach his heart.
“I cannot, Ted,” Jehar replied. “I am expected tomorrow morning some thirty miles south of Vhai and I shall walk through the night.”
They clasped hands again and Jehar put his left hand over their clasped hands.
“Come back,” he said. “At least come back to India.”
“Of course,” Ted said.
Jehar said no more. He stepped back, and looking into Ted’s eyes, held his upraised hands together, palm to palm, in the old Indian greeting and farewell. “I see God in you,” the gesture said.
Ted bowed his head and stood watching half-wistfully the tall figure walking barefoot toward the south.
And after Jehar had gone, he remembered. Why had Jehar said India and not Vhai?
On the last day, Ted called Jatin to him.
“Jatin,” he said, “I leave you in charge of the compound.
You will keep the medical work going and I have sent for a young man from Poona for the schools. Jehar will pass by now and again and hold the church together. You will not miss me too much.”
“We shall miss you,” Jatin said.
He stood before Ted wearing his hospital gown, tall and steadfast, his arms folded.
“Sit down,” Ted said.
Jatin sat down. Whatever his duty was he would not tell of the seven nights. They would be hidden in his memory, deep as jewels in a cave beneath the sea. Life would flow over them, but no one would know.
“I wish to thank you,” Ted said. “You have been very faithful to me. Livy is young and you might have stirred her emotions to the point of no control. Instead you have been kind and strong. You have made her feel that her childish preference for you is to be forgotten. I am grateful for this and yet I feel I should make some sort of apology, for I discern in the whole matter a fault in myself. I say that Livy is too young, and indeed she is, but if I am honest with myself as I wish to be, I know that I—that there is more than this reason for parting you.” So much Jehar had worked in him.
“Please go no further, Mr. MacArd,” Jatin said. “I understand. It is natural for parents to feel that their children should marry within their own kind. Indeed, it may be this is right. At any rate, it is not my wish to insist against you. It is karma between your daughter and me. We were fated to love one another. We are fated by our birth never to marry. I know this and I accept it.”
“I must say more,” Ted insisted. “I am a Christian, Jatin, and it may be that as a Christian I should not have such feelings. I thought I had yielded my life to my God, and yet, perhaps, I have not.”
Jatin smiled. “I would not wish to accept Livy as a sacrifice to your religion.”
Ted could not smile. “It is not Livy, it is I myself. I should perhaps be willing to carry the meaning of love to its ultimate. The very essence of Christian love leads us to the ultimate. I feel a failure in myself. I am not ready to face the ultimate nor to accept it.”
He was surprised by the warmth in Jatin’s face. “Dear sir,” Jatin said impulsively. “Please do not feel you are at fault. The love of which you speak is not only Christian, it is human, and it cannot be forced. Livy is able to feel it, but then she has been born a generation after you. I feel it, though I am not a Christian, but then I have been born a generation after my father. I shall not marry Livy. Sir, I promise you that—it is not within my fate. Livy knows this also. But some day when Livy is married to a man of her own kind, if her child wishes to do what we have wished, then she will allow it. Time and the generations work together with fate, sir, and this is true. This is what I believe.”
“You make me feel small,” Ted said, and he was much troubled.
“Then I do wrong,” Jatin replied.
He rose to his feet. “Let us speak no more and think no more of this matter. What has been cannot be changed, and what is to be has been decided upon.”
That night Livy came to him for the last time and that night he did not take her to his bed. Instead they talked long, in whispers, clinging to one another and at last he spoke his fear.
“If there should be a child, Livy?”
“Oh, I hope there is a child!” she cried.
“No, Livy, I hope there is not. But if there is, you must not keep him.”
“I will keep him, Jatin.”
“No, I forbid it. I cannot live in peace if you are burdened with a child and I cannot share the burden with you.”
“But what should I do?”
“Give him away to someone else. He would be dark, like me. The darkness of our people stains the blood, Livy. Give him to the dark people in your country.”
“But our child would not be a Negro, Jatin,” she cried, shocked at his command.
“Hush—” he put his hand on her mouth. “Let him grow up belonging to them, since he could not belong to us. But perhaps he will never be born and that would be best, for you must be free of me, and I must be free of you, and our burden must not be laid upon a child. This is our fate and so it must be. Yet all that there can be we have had.”
He held her at the last, knowing that only minutes remained, and then he let her go. She clung to him but he pushed her gently from him toward the door.
“Now is the end,” he whispered. “It is over, and we have had everything and it shall not be taken from us. Good-by, Livy, good-by!”
He locked the door and stood, hearing her lean against it and sob
. He wept then, but he did not yield and at last he heard her go away.
XIX
THE SHIP PULLED AWAY from the dock and Ted watched the receding shores of Bombay. The last light of sunset was falling from the west upon the green heights of Malabar Hill. A tall clock tower caught the final ray and shone out the hour, and upon the street nearest the shore the colors of the garments that people wore flashed into sudden brightness, amid which the robes of Parsee priests were shining white.
He had a sense of leave-taking that was foreboding in its finality. Would he never see those shores again? Was he leaving India as his father had done, without knowing it? Was something changed in him, some virtue gone? He did not know.
He felt a touch upon his arm and turning his head he saw Ruth at his side. Again, as so often, he saw her apart from himself, a sturdy apple-cheeked woman, neat always and now unfamiliar in a blue serge tailored suit.
“Where is Livy?” he asked involuntarily.
“Downstairs unpacking,” she said. She slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow.