The Sound of Thunder

by Taylor Caldwell

  George Enreich did not know that he had become a hero to the Engers, in the three weeks before Christmas, and that even Maria had condescended to remark that he may not have been so bad as reported and that in America, unfortunately, a man’s origins were not held against him. On no substance at all she had conjectured that it was very possible that somewhere in George’s remote past there may have been some noble blood. Her family solemnly nodded their heads in agreement—all but Edward, who secretly found this amusing.

  Edward’s part in the “generosity” and the strange contract with Mr. Enreich passed notice. Maria it was who had “talked” with her husband about the expansion, and after a few such talks the whole family, except Edward, agreed that the mother had formulated the exciting new plan. Heinrich would even say to Edward, with trembling enthusiasm, “Is not the mother herself a genius? Alone in the house, she conceived this magnificence, at the dusting and over the stove and during the mending. There are those who believe that women are not entitled to the vote in this country and contend they are inferior creatures. This is not believed by the Socialists. How I wish my old friends in Germany could know the mother!”

  In the odd way of humanity he had totally forgotten that it was Edward who had proposed the expansion, for he never knew of Edward’s talk with Maria. Edward alone worried about that ten per cent on the gross profits resulting from the expansion. Edward was no longer trustful of people, for all his pity for them; in fact, his pity rose out of his sad mistrust. He conservatively figured profits later, at odd moments, and sometimes the ten per cent appalled him, and sometimes he thought George’s proposition exceedingly ungenerous. Still, he would console himself, if we have big profits, the ten per cent will not hurt us. We won’t even miss it. It never occurred to him that George Enreich might have more than a casual interest in him. He was not the kind who attracted notice from the powerful and the wealthy. Only the geniuses could do that.

  There were times when he smarted, during his family’s superior and patronizing eulogies of Mr. Enreich. They just took my contract I signed and put it in the tin box with the other papers and never look at my signature! How do they think the contract happened, anyway?

  Nevertheless, he had, long moments of inner excitement and happiness. The walls were already torn down between the three little shops and he and his father had to wear coats and mittens to wait on the customers, for the small iron stove could not heat the gaping holes on each side. After the work was finished, there would be one big stove, adequate for heating the expanded shop. Then, to everyone’s awe, Mr. Enreich grandly had radiators installed, and a marvelous central heating system in the dank basement. Heinrich had qualms about this. The monstrous furnace would devour coal. “Not much more than the big stove, Pa,” Edward said. “Besides, Mr. Enreich wouldn’t do this unless he knew we’re going to be rich!” Heinrich, moistening his lips and blinking thoughtfully, agreed that Edward was right. “Besides,” he said largely, “it will give the prestige, the newness. It is not every shop which has a furnace.” He even forgave Mr. Enreich for preferring Theodore Roosevelt to La Follette, “though Roosevelt is not all my man,” George would say gloomily. “The Populists, Mein Gott!”

  The small windows were removed and suddenly there was one big plate window and children and men and women often gathered to stare at its blaze of overwhelming crystal. And then, across it, in giant silvery letters which sparkled, “ENGER’S”. During lax moments both Edward and his father would step outside to look in speechless pride.

  Big squares of black-and-white linoleum covered the old boards, gleaming like marble. The counters were beginning to arrive, and the dozens of exotic cartons of delicacies from New York. Edward inserted expensive advertisements in the local papers, designed to attract the carriage trade. There would be a “grand opening.” In the meantime the shop continued to serve staples and a few of the cheaper delicacies to the local customers. They no longer engaged Edward in accounts of unemployment, derelict husbands, “the drink,” the ailments of babies and children, the worries about adolescent daughters who wanted to put up their hair too soon and were showing signs of being flighty at seventeen, and about sons who at fourteen were obstinately pleading to be allowed to continue school for a year or two more when they should be at jobs to help the family. Edward vaguely and anxiously worried about this. He did not as yet know that the new big shop was already overawing the humble and the neighbors, and especially the big plate glass window. It was not his intention yet to frighten away the backbone of any business, the steady, small purchasers.

  Mr. Enreich, though the hero, did not pay a return visit to the shop, though he sent his coachman for the new and expensive goods. Once Ellis said patronizingly to Edward as he disdainfully lifted big bags, “Mr. Enreich doesn’t buy from New York or Albany any more. You should thank your lucky stars. Twelve dollars this time.”

  After the “grand opening” there was a constant parade of carriages on the street, which first intimidated the local customers. And then they were happy and preening to be allowed to brush elbows with ladies in sable coats and smelling of wonderful scents and wearing hats bobbing with long plumes, and gentlemen who had fur on their collars and who wore derby hats gleaming like hard silk. The mothers no longer sent children who would not appreciate this splendor; they themselves came in their head shawls and in their dragging coats and skirts and with Coarse hands, to stare, to pretend for a few moments that they were also fine ladies and that the carriages outside were their own. That made things all the better, for the ladies and the gentlemen smiled at them, and the gentlemen graciously permitted some poor woman to be served in her proper sequence rather than brushing her aside.

  The neighborhood, conscious of its shabbiness in all this grandeur, decided to be worthy. Windows were washed frequently and shone. Curtains suddenly became white and stiff with starch. Walks, usually left covered with beaten snow and ice until spring suns melted them in due course were shoveled feverishly. The workingmen became particular about their dress and never entered the shop with dinner pails as they had done in the past. Children were protestingly scrubbed within an inch of their lives, and holes disappeared in their stockings and clothing. There was much talk of house-painting when the summer came.

  To crown it all, the plank walks were removed and concrete poured before the big new shop and for some distance beyond it. Concrete carriage steps appeared. The ultimate occurred when, a few days before Christmas, at least four of the astounding automobiles chugged in clouds of smoke to Enger’s, all very big, very red, and very bright, and the occupants swathed in furs and scarves and wearing long leather gloves lined with fur. They brought all the children running.

  New cartons from New York arrived daily. There was almost always a van before the door. Then Edward hired Billy Russell after school to help with the harder work in the back and the basement and to assist with the cleaning. Heinrich no longer went to the market even for staples and hams and corned beef and pickles. Edward took over, with Billy. “But a Negro boy!” Heinrich had protested at first. “He is my friend,” said Edward, and had looked at his father sternly. “Don’t Socialists say all men are equal?”

  “That is true,” Heinrich admitted, with some uneasiness. “However, one draws lines.”

  “What lines?” demanded Edward, with a new hard eye which disconcerted his father. To this, Heinrich had no reply. There was no use, sometimes, arguing with Edward. He had the stubborn, blind soul that refused to be sensible on occasion. The selfish soul that did not understand, Heinrich would think, not the selfish soul that does not give of its heart, but the soul that did not consider other points of view but its own. And what was this “friend” matter? Edward had no friends but this Negro boy. Heinrich discussed this with Maria. Edward invariably chose acquaintances among the inferior, but that was because he had inherited the full impact of the Enger blood. “One has only to consider that priest,” Heinrich would remark. “I understand Edward speaks with him ofte
n.”

  In the meantime, in his spirit, Edward talked to God, gratefully, happily, as a child talks to its father in joy over gifts. God was not in His heaven alone. He was in a snowflake, in the bellow of the north wind, in a sudden glimpse of blue sky among ominous winter clouds, in an instantaneous smiting of the sun on a snowbank, in the majesty of the northern lights in the late black sky, in the goodness of bread and butter and milk, and in the drowsy pleasure a weary body experiences in a warm bed after a day of bitter labor. Sometimes at night, before falling to sleep, Edward said in his spirit, “Father?” And God always answered in a gentle and comforting voice, “My son.” It was enough. It was more than enough. It was, above all else, the only thing.

  “At times,” Edward would say, concerned, “I get pretty impatient with Pa. He doesn’t have to grovel in front of our new customers. He doesn’t have to be so pigheaded sometimes. He doesn’t have to order Billy around like a dirty slave and say mean things to him. Then I get mad at Pa, and I yell at him—I’m not a very good person now—and I threaten the kids when they get out of hand, and I say things to my mother. What of that? Is it very bad?”

  “Go to sleep, child,” God would answer. “It is enough that you try. Good night, child.” The Voice sounded as if it came from over vast spaces, echoing like muted thunder, but still it was very close, as close as breathing.

  But there were times when God was mysteriously silent, and this was when Edward angrily or anxiously discussed his brothers and sister with him. Edward would say, “They don’t take advantage of what Pa and I are doing for them and plan to do for them. They’re geniuses, and I push them. Oh, they want the world, but they don’t seem to want to do the things to get the world. There’s Dave; he can play like an angel, but I’ve heard him play ragtime. That’s the new music, he told me one time. It’s cheap and silly and it isn’t music. Why does he play that stuff?”

  But God was silent. Edward would continue, “And I’ve caught Sylvia, who can design stage sets at school and get the kids to learn their parts, looking in some store window at women’s and girls’ clothes, and she isn’t fourteen yet. She spends a lot of time fixing up her own clothes, and pushes the drama books she gets from the library off the table while she sews. A terrible waste of time. And there’s Ralph, getting lessons at the art gallery now, two dollars a lesson, every week, and I see his report cards, good in art but wonderful in mathematics. Sylvia brings him mathematic books from the library and he reads them as if they were the Bible or something, and when he should be painting and drawing, there he is filling his paper up with figures and mechanical drawings, not paintings or sketches at all, though he has his assignments. And Gregory writes joking stories no one can understand except Dave and Sylvia, and they laugh their heads off over them. He should be doing his serious writing.”

  But God was silent, and Edward, to his bewilderment, thought he detected a stern if loving vibration in that silence. He would go to sleep, frowning. Perhaps God didn’t think he kept after the kids enough.

  It was three nights to Christmas Eve, and during the last week Enger’s kept open until eleven at night. Heinrich, exhausted, would leave at eight, and it was Edward’s business to conduct the store’s affairs for the next three hours, with the help of Billy. Sometimes, however, the boys could not leave until much later, and they would walk part of the way home together, hardly speaking from weariness, but content. It had begun to snow again this last week and the white crispness would crunch dryly under their plodding feet, and the air, in the light of the golden street lamps, would sparkle and stream and blow with bits of diamonds. The boys would catch the tiny flakes on their sleeves and study the miraculous beauty and mystic wonderfulness of them with a kind of awe. “Look,” Edward would say, “they never have more than six points, any of them, and how do you suppose that happens?”

  “Guess God told them not to make more than six, or something. Look at this one, Ed. Like lace or something. A design. Nobody could make anything like that.” Then Billy, as if he had seen a miracle, would be inspired to pull out his harmonica and play reverently as he walked along, the small but rolling organ notes rising above the wind and the fall of the patient snow. Edward, after a while, would sing with the music.

  “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen,

  Nobody knows, but Jesus!”

  Man, Billy would think with compassion, listening to the rich and youthful baritone, you ain’t seen anything yet of trouble! I’ve got it in my bones that you’ll see plenty, yes sir.

  It was three nights to Christmas Eve, and it was on that night that Edward had his first serious and violent quarrel with his father.

  Billy, who took care of the furnaces which supplied the fine new radiators with steam, always ate his evening sandwiches in the basement. At seven o’clock, as usual, he went downstairs with several sandwiches and a pint bottle of milk. Edward was very tired. He was suffering from what his parents called “one of his black moods.” He had worked steadily since six that morning. Resentment had a way of gathering in him long before he expressed it. It was like a low and diminished fire, breathing under the surface of his conscious mind, and then, after a considerable time, it would flare up into a devouring ferocity that silenced even his parents who had long ago forgotten the source of it. “He remembers the most trifling things,” Maria would say, vexed. “Why does he not speak of it when it happens? But no, he must hoard it in himself until no one remembers any longer and it is foolish to mention it.”

  It was a slow time in the shop between six and seven, and Edward was cleaning up the broad new counters and polishing the wood of them. Heinrich, happily inspecting the till and unaware that his son had been quiet too long, remarked, “Is it not marvelous, Eddie? We have taken in this day twice which we took in a month ago in a week of days! We shall be rich, as the mother prophesied!”

  “I prophesied that,” said Edward, in a loud, hard voice. Heinrich started apprehensively. “You’ve forgotten,” Edward added. He looked at his father’s blank face and shrugged with despair. “Never mind. Funny how people forget things.” He suddenly threw down his damp cloth. “Pa, I’ve got to talk to you before you go home. Billy’s been coming in here after school every day, at three o’clock, and working sometimes to midnight. Nine hours a day. And you pay him three dollars a week, and only charge him fifteen cents a day for a lunch at four o’clock and another sandwich or two at seven or eight! Now isn’t that wonderful? Ninety cents a week out of his three dollars! He can take home two dollars and ten cents. Wonderful!”

  Heinrich blinked. He could not understand. He stared at Edward’s wrathful face, at the fiercely glittering gray eyes. He stammered, “You think fifteen cents is not enough, Eddie, for the meals?”

  Edward’s large fist clenched on the counter. “Pa, I think it’s too much. That’s what I think. You shouldn’t charge him anything. And you should pay him at least five dollars a week. You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to tell Billy to quit unless you give him his meals free and pay him five dollars.”

  “What is this?” cried Heinrich. “Have you become mad, Eddie? The boy eats what he wishes, and it is worth more than fifteen cents, and two dollars and ten cents a week is very good! It would be a fortune in Bavaria for a boy, with the good ham and the corned beef and the milk and the cakes—”

  “This isn’t Bavaria,” said Edward. He pushed aside a carton of English biscuits with a furious gesture. “This is America. Well, Pa? Does Billy quit or do you raise his pay and stop charging him for meals?”

  “I do not understand you, Eddie,” faltered Heinrich, retreating before the cold blaze of his son’s eyes. “Do we not work and save only for the children? You would rob the children of their future?”

  “What of Billy’s future, Pa?”

  Heinrich, very frightened, stammered, “The boy—the Billy—he has no future.”

  Edward’s big mouth became a whitened ridge in his face. “Who says that, Pa?” he asked after a moment or t
wo. “You? How many others, besides you? Too many.”

  Neither father nor son had seen Billy’s bronze face and thick black curls rise above the floor at the rear of the store, where the stairs descended to the basement. Neither ever knew that Billy had been listening from the start, caught unexpectedly by the sound of his own name.

  “Maybe you haven’t heard, Pa,” Edward continued, in a voice growing progressively more inflexible and bitter. “We aren’t considered too much, either. We’re foreigners, even if all of us except you and Ma were born in this country. The people in this town, most of them, don’t think we’ve got any future to mention. We’re just the delicatessen keepers. Even people with our own ancestry look down their noses at us, because we’re new here. I heard Ma laugh about it one time, but I don’t laugh. And I’m not laughing now.”

  Heinrich’s small plump stature seemed to dwindle. He shook his head feebly. “Well, it is to be expected of barbarians, my son. We do not think it of much importance.”

  “Billy might think it important. For him. And that brings me to another suggestion. You’ve been giving me five dollars a week since June, when I left school. We’re making a fortune now. I’m not going to put four of my five dollars into the fund for educating the other kids any more unless you raise my pay to ten dollars a week. Ten dollars Pa. Maybe I’ve got a future, too. I’ve started to think about it.”

  Now Heinrich was truly appalled at this blasphemy against the family. He wet his round, pink mouth and his eyes became big black circles in his face. “Eddie!” he whispered. “What is wrong with my son who has dedicated himself to the geniuses? He would exploit them, deprive them—When was it that he began these thoughts?”