The Sound of Thunder

by Taylor Caldwell

  “Sin isn’t supposed to be gay,” said Edward, smiling.

  William shook his head. “The truth about it is that it is. That’s its fascination. You should see the South Sea Islands, laddie. Innocent sin. Gaiety. Joy. Dancing.” His hands flew about, and immediately Edward could see the warm green palms against a copper sunset, and could hear the sound of warm green seas surging gently against a coral beach and the ring of laughter and the lilt of music. He could see flashing eyes and golden naked bodies and wreaths of flowers and whirling feet. He could smell the fragrant jungle and hear night cries of strange birds. He shook his head in bemusement.

  “You’ve gotten around,” he said. “Where haven’t you been?”

  William was leaning on a broom now. He rubbed his chin on the top of the handle. “I can’t think,” he said. “I’ve even met Gauguin. The world well lost for joy and fulfillment.”

  Edward did not know of Gauguin. He was emptying the cash register, preparing to put the money in the big safe in the office. It was six o’clock. He looked up, after an interval, to see that William was watching him with a strange expression. “Yes?” he said.

  “I didn’t speak,” said William, thoughtfully. “But I was thinking. It is spring, lad, spring! Why no prancing in the wildwood? Hounds of spring and all that? Cloven hoofs on the grass?” He dexterously put his prehensile hand on his head and extended two fingers like horns. He lifted his knees high and danced and whirled. He whistled, and it was like the sound of distant pipes. He breathed out an aura of wild gaiety and abandon and lasciviousness, all delicate but bold. He rolled his eyes, and the light above caught their vivid gleaming, their hazel passion. “Why no nymphs and gamboling in the moonlight, and no rustling in the bushes?” He was Pan, exquisitely obscene, obsessed with joy and delirium. And then, all at once, he was William, inquisitively smiling.

  “What do you think I am? A kid?” said Edward scornfully, but he was breathing a little fast. “I know all about that. Did you think I was a virgin or something?”

  William shook his head sadly. “I don’t call it joy to dash, wallow, then run,” he said shrewdly. “There is an art to it. Without art, a lass is only a furtive partner, pulling up her drawers quickly and scuttling away, with a dollar or two in her purse. That’s not art. That’s depravity.” He snapped his fingers. “It is the difference between gobbling at the Greasy Spoon and a dinner with wine, while looking through the windows at the Seine glimmering with lamplight and starlight. Ah, it’s sad, I am thinking, to be content with corned beef and cabbage or not to know that the world’s table is not set with only corned beef and cabbage.”

  “You’ve got a fine opinion of me,” said Edward with rising annoyance. “I’m young yet and one of these days I’m going to visit those fine places you talk about. Give me time.”

  William studied him shrewdly. “Time? Is that all you need?”

  “What do you think I need?”

  “Why, boyo, it is very simple. You need yourself.”

  Here was another who talked in riddles. “There’s nothing I dislike so much,” said Edward, “as elusive talkers. Impractical talkers. Oh, it’s all jump-up and away we go—the flowers that bloom in the spring, tra-la! There’s such a thing as work. Or maybe you never heard of it?”

  “Never really liked it,” said William, solemnly.

  “We can’t all be tramps,” said Edward, with brutality. “Someone must do the world’s work.”

  “That is the trouble,” said William. “People doing the world’s work. Now I believe in letting the world do its own work. Noninterference. No management. No exhortations. No demands that other folk be the same as we are. No arrogance. No pushing. Why is a man born? To find himself, not to find others. Now mind. I’m no theologian, like my dour Belfast cousins. Yet I mind me of my catechism. Why is a man born? To love God, to serve Him in this world—and a lovely world it is!—and to be happy with Him forever after death. An old aphorism: you cannot serve God and Mammon. You cannot serve God and mind your neighbor’s business, either. If you have a soul, I’m thinking, then your business it is to save your soul. ‘A whole life’s tasking.’ Or, it could be, you do not know the poets.”

  “What’re you doing to save your soul, William?”

  “Now that you remind me, I am doing a bloody lot. I make you laugh, occasionally, and making the Sphinx laugh is an easy job in comparison.”

  Edward laughed, and William elaborately applauded. “Hear, hear!” he shouted ironically.

  Edward, shaking his head indulgently, took the money into his office, counted it, entered it in his books, then put it in the safe. When he returned to the shop, William had finished polishing the inside of the windows. Now a soft darkness had invaded the street like a silent tide.

  “I’d like to invite you home to dinner,” said Edward.

  William immediately covered his head with a convulsively defensive movement. “God, no! I haven’t met your dadda, but if you are an example of your home, I am not wanting it, I am thinking.”

  Edward took no offense. “My father isn’t like me. He’s a Socialist.”

  William regarded him with utter horror. “A Socialist? God spare us from the hurriers, the rushers, the men who would save souls in the name of materialism, control of the means of production, a quart of milk for every savage, whether the bugger wants it or not, and cutting off the faces of the people! I have my own theory. A Socialist is a man who hates every other man. At least he is honest. He knows what he is about. He wants to be the man with the knout.”

  Edward frowned. “You go off on tangents,” he said. “Pa is the meekest man alive and the gentlest.”

  “I have heard that of almost every man who’s been hanged,” said William. “All homebodies. All gentle bastards who wouldn’t kill a fly. Good providers, love children and animals. Potter around the gardens on weekends. Raise prize flowers. Then one dark night,” and he made a loathsome, sucking sound, “a knife in somebody’s guts. Spare me your Socialists, laddie. For further information, read Karl Marx or Engels.”

  “You can’t change human nature by fiat,” said Edward.

  “Not an original conclusion, but you’d be surprised, my bucko, to know how few Socialists know that. ‘Love your fellow man and give him all your substance or we’ll bash your blasted skull in,’ they say. ‘Or better still, give us the cash. We know how to use it better than you do. From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.’ That’s Marx’s manifesto, for the destruction of free, capitalistic society. It means income taxes,” he explained when Edward looked baffled.

  “Oh, we’d never stand for that,” said Edward, complacently.

  “Ah, now, you wouldn’t, eh?” said William. He shook a finger at Edward. “When I travel, it’s my ears I keep open. I mingle. Converse. I’m the élégant when I have clothes. I am at home in the capitals, the fulminating capitals. I know the boys from Harvard, the Fabians from Oxford, the bubble-heads in Germany, the big-eyed rascals in Washington. And these wee creatures are all for big income tax, to ‘distribute the wealth,’ they say, smacking their chops and mentally rubbing their hands. Sure, and it’s the wealth they want themselves, and the fine carriages, and the new automobiles, and the whips and the power. But not the girls. Ah, never the girls! They are too dainty for that.”

  He saw Edward was puzzled, and clucked. “Ah, well, it is the innocent you are. But mark my words, it will not be long before we see the deluge.”

  “We have freedom in this country,” said Edward uneasily.

  “Do you now?” answered William. “Take a look at it, laddie, take a long look. You may not see it tomorrow, nor your children, nor your children’s children. The road to perdition is already greased by rascals, and is a long way down. No nation ever came back after sliding down that road on its imbecile ass. Look at ancient Rome.”

  Edward as yet had not “looked” at ancient Rome. He began to roll down the shades on the windows. “You’re morbid,” he said. He y
awned. “There’s a lot of ham out for you, and some of your delicacies. Don’t eat up the profits. And make yourself a gallon of tea.”

  “Eat up the profits, the spalpeen says,” muttered William morosely. “It won’t be long before there’s no profits you can stuff—Have you thought of wars? The darlings have that in mind, to destroy civilized nations.”

  He helped himself to a gay cardboard box of special Turkish cigarettes in which Enger’s specialized. “Take it out of my wages, when I earn them,” he said. “Two bob, my God!” He lighted one. He did not become aware, for a moment or two, that Edward had abruptly turned to him and that his face was sharply alive. “What? Have a cigarette. It is my treat.”

  Edward took the cigarette, and William struck a match on the seat of his shabby trousers and lit it for him. “What did you say? Wars?” he asked, in a disquieted tone.

  “How else can a nation be shattered, a capitalist nation?” asked William reasonably. “I was in London. There’re rumors. Germany, they whisper, is getting ‘too strong.’ She’s running away with England’s sanctified markets. Nothing makes an Englishman so enraged as to threaten his profits. But he’s not unique. Germany is the devil; she can produce faster, and better, than England. It’s outrageous. ‘Cheeky beggars,’ they say in England, and they Germans themselves. Mark my words, there’s going to be trouble. And America right in the midst of the whole ruddy mess, with banners.” He paused. “But, of course, the real reason won’t be shown. The banners and the drums and the fifes will be the shop-dressing. The cause will be hidden. Socialism.”

  “We have a tradition about entangling alliances. Washington,” said Edward.

  “Hah, hah,” said William somberly. “And what has Washington got to do with the quiet Socialists who genuflect before the altar of Karl Marx three times a day, like a blasted Arab bending toward Mecca? There’s Russia. Ever heard of the Eastern Question? It’s old, almost as old as hell. Come death, come ruin, come change of government, old Mother Russia eats away at the shingle of the world, like a black sea. Siberia for the Socialists? Hah! You can’t keep a religion down, and this is the religion of the Devil himself. That’s because you’ll rarely find a Christian, I’m thinking.”

  It was nearly seven. Edward had forgotten. He leaned against a counter, scowling. “My father talks confidently of wars. I’ve thought him a windbag for years. You really mean it?”

  William surveyed him, like a recruiting officer. “You are a braw boyo,” he said in his curious mixture of Scots and Irish idioms. “Better take shooting lessons. You’ll just be in time. Dadda’s right. He may never have heard about the Eastern Question, but diplomats lie awake nights mulling over it, everywhere. Old imperialistic Russia. Wait until she gets Socialism, and she will! We’ll give it, free, to her. Then you’ll really see the damned fireworks. And the knout. Since Peter the Great, or perhaps it’s Ivan the Terrible, Russia’s had but one dream—the conquest of the world. Medieval man still strong in the traces. Never knew the Renaissance or the Age of Enlightenment. I’ll send for my books. They’re stowed away in Boston, somewhere. Take the hair right off your scalp.”

  Edward jingled his keys. William was a whole new source of education to him, and though he attempted to be incredulous, he was not. The store felt suddenly cold.

  “In the meantime we must exist. We must pretend the whole bloody world is not about to plunge down into the abyss. We must think of the shops. You are an amateur, I am thinking, in spite of the Herr Enreich; I think I heard you calling him on the telephone. The Herr Enreich may not be so informed as I. Shall we discuss the shops?”

  “I’m tired. I’m an hour late.”

  “No doubt for the spareribs and sauerkraut.”

  “My mother’s cooking is the best of German cooking, and she also, sometimes, uses French recipes,” said Edward, irritated. “She was a Von Brunner. What about the shops?”

  “‘Fine Food Shops.’ What a brilliant name. You need elegance. A flair. A polish. Some name with sophistication. I have a suggestion. Shall we call it—let me see—something with initials, too. C. C. Chauncey’s? That’s the ticket! You will gather I am offering, modestly, the use of part of my name. Have you heard of S. S. Pierce’s in Boston? A name that sticks. Unusual. Simple yet not so simple. C. C. Chauncey’s. What could be better?”

  “People will laugh. They’ll know who it is all the time.” But Edward was intrigued.

  “People never laugh at pretentiousness. They adore it. They only laugh at humility and simplicity, and why not? That is all they deserve, for they are a sort of affectation in themselves. C. C. Chauncey’s.” He rolled the name deliciously on his tongue. “And you must import the best wines and put your own labels on it.”

  He scratched his chin, and his lean tongue rubbed the corner of his mouth. His expression grew brighter and brighter. “Aha,” he said triumphantly. “There’s this new slogan: ‘It pays to advertise.’ Excellent. Do we remain snobbish delicatessens for a few or do we reach for the sky? I have another man for you.”

  Edward forgot his dinner again. He picked up a fragment of ham and chewed it. “Go on,” he said. “Who’s the man? One of your fellow tramps?”

  William looked hurt. “What is a tramp? A man who refuses to obey the mores of marrying, dancing off to a shack, and breeding a brood of brats. On three quid a week, if he’s lucky. An individualist, the tramp. A free man. A man choicy about what he will do. The chap I am speaking of is Padraig Devoe. Not Paddy, mind. Padraig. There’s not a man living who would dare to call him Paddy. He is not a man who can be bought, like any churl. I must send the word along the bally railroad chaps, and when I can reach him, I will try to persuade him.”

  “I hope he’ll condescend,” said Edward, “after he’s eaten his mulligan.”

  “It doesn’t pay to be patronizing, laddie. Curious chap, Padraig. Contrasted, that is, with mankind as a whole. An anachronism. If he likes you and feels a job will be interesting, it will be a bit of luck for you.” He paused. “Have you, now, ever seen a conchie? Come, come, don’t look so blank. The ladies put the shells, the conch shells, on the mantelpieces and the kiddies listen to the sea roaring in them, or so they say. Lovely shells; murderous people who take them from the warm, soft blue waters of the summer seas.”

  “Padraig looks like a conch shell?” asked Edward, laughing, as he thought of the big shells with their great, thick, rosy lips, veined with delicate pearl, and the beautiful serrated turrets behind them.

  “St. Patrick, how you lack imagination! I am speaking of the creatures who inhabit the shells on the coral floors of the oceans. You thought they hadn’t been inhabited? I have seen the shells dragged up to the surface, on pleasure or fishing boats in the Caribbean, to be sold for a shilling to some pie-faced drab. I’ve seen them being killed, the living creatures inside, thrown into buckets to die—ravishment that should call down the wrath of God. And then the shell left, the empty, miserable shell, washed and cold. The empty shell that will never live again or hold a beating heart.”

  There was a sudden glistening in the foxlike eyes. “Ah, if the poor creatures were to be used as food for the hungry, then it would not be a crime, for man and the lesser animals must sustain themselves. But murder for sport, or murder to obtain shells or other trophies—that is unpardonable. I am speaking of Padraig. He and I were on a commercial fishing boat, out of Jamaica—a hot, hellish place in the summer. We were down to our last few bob, and a man must earn a living sometime.”

  William swung himself up lightly to sit on a counter. He lit another cigarette, and his face was intent with remembrance. “It was very fine, to fish, to throw the nets, in spite of the blasted, everlasting sun that seared the hide. It was not sport; it was serious business. Man must eat. Still, a man’s heart must misgive him to watch the poor creatures struggling, the big fish glittering like gold and silver as they throw themselves in the air and try to live and escape. It is not too bad if one doesn’t look into their eyes. It was very bad
for Padraig, for like all philosophers he detests mankind and has the tenderest heart for the innocent ones. ‘Don’t look at their eyes, Padraig,’ I would say. ‘We have three bob left.’ You see, boyo, I knew Padraig.”

  “How did you get all the way to Jamaica?” asked Edward.

  “That is a long story, in more ways than one, and I will not bore you with it. That Montego Bay! Beautiful but evil. The natives say there is a curse upon it. But the sunsets are the ones a man would choose to see when he is dying, the brilliant coppery path of the sun cutting across the purple water like a flaming sword, dividing. It was one sunset when some diver chaps got us into shallow waters and went down for the conchies. Dangerous stuff, that, with the sharkies nosing around. Unfortunately they were not around that sunset to settle the worldly affairs of the divers. It was not I who suffered the most; it was Padraig. He disappeared from my ken for three years shortly after that.

  “Well, and now. Up come the diver chappies with the conchies, big shells with the sand and the water running off them, with the lovely wide lips spreading from the noble turrets where the creatures live, like knights in a blasted old castle. Yes, and they are noble, those creatures, for you shall know any living thing by what it creates, and beauty is not born in blindness. ‘And what would they be, and what is it you would be doing?’ asks Padraig. ‘We sells ’em to the lady trippers and to the market,’ says a Sassenach. A Sassenach always sells anything. These were no darky divers. The darkies have more intelligence than gallivanting around sharks.

  “So they get out their buckets and their scrubbing brushes and kneel on the deck, dripping the water off them and shaking it out of their hair. And they take a spike and hammer it through the turrets of the conchies, to kill them or loosen them. Stubborn, poor creatures, trying to hide in their turrets, dark, liver-colored creatures, shrinking from the death and no one to pray for them or ask their pardon.