The Sound of Thunder

by Taylor Caldwell

  He paused for a moment to rub his foot against the side of the white tunnel. “I’m trying to remember Pa, and what he was really like, when we were children.” Margaret paused involuntarily with him. “And there’s only a loving little ghost of him. Yes, he loved us, and we didn’t care whether he did or not. None of us attach enough importance to love, especially if the meek and undemanding offer it. Pa never refused us anything, except a little money, when he worked so hard to make it, and he was too anxious that we love him, too. A man should never be too anxious for love; he never gets it if he is. I’ve noticed that the least deserving of people receive the most affection. You see, they give others the idea that they’re superior, and as superiors they’re treated. Not a nice thing to think about, but it’s true just the same.”

  The angry beat of Margaret’s head subsided. She said in a rush, “You don’t like people any more than Ed does, do you, Dave?”

  He looked at her with a curious expression. “I don’t hate them,” he replied quietly.

  She stood facing him, her color high and vibrant, her eyes like the eyes of a vigorous child, her soft hair escaping in waves from under her fur hat. He saw the fine lines about her lips, the tremulousness of her mouth, the innocence of her look, and he closed his eyes for an instant on a pang of pain long familiar to him.

  “You think Ed hates people?” she challenged him. “And if he does, why not?”

  “Why not, indeed?” he murmured inaudibly.

  Without any voluntary decision, they walked along together, until the house sank behind the snow dunes and only its chimneys fumed against the sky. Insensibly, they left the brick walls, so wet and red in the sunshine, and plowed through more shallow snow, and were lost in a white wilderness broken by the stark black framework of frozen trees. As if by mutual consent they stopped and faced each other, and Margaret’s lips began to tremble, and she bit them. She was terribly alone; she had no confidant; in many ways, now, she had no husband and she was filled with a deep sense of loss and mournfulness.

  My darling, thought David, sadly. My beautiful, innocent darling. What can I do to help you? Dear God, let me help her.

  He said, at last, and in the gentlest voice, “Margaret, what is it? No, don’t answer; I think I know. You’re terribly worried about Ed. You don’t understand him. You only love him.”

  “Isn’t that enough?” asked Margaret, trying to make her voice hard. Then, all at once, she was crying, as simply as a child, letting the tears run down her face without hiding them or wiping them away.

  “Not always enough,” said David. “I’m sorry, but there it is. I’ve watched you for years. You are kind and good, valorous and—this sounds sentimental—but you’re pure-hearted. You’ve suffered; you told me about that years ago. But always you kept a single eye on the world, and you never really condemned anything with hatred, and you never pitied yourself. And,” he added, more slowly, “you never thought of revenge.”

  “Oh, I’m not as good as that,” she said, trying to smile. She wanted someone strong and loving to put arms about her and hold her, and the longing was suddenly so intense that it was a passionate hunger in her. Then she was no longer smiling and the lines of her mouth became rigid and carved. “Are you trying to say that Ed is looking for ‘revenge’? On whom? All he wants—”

  The tears were immobile drops of crystal on her face, and her eyes were large and strained and, to David, almost unbearably blue.

  “Let us say that Ed isn’t like other men, or, he’s larger than other men,” David said, pretending not to see the tears. “He isn’t the average man, with average appetites or desires. Does that make him a monster? No. A giant cannot help his giantness. I know as well as you do that Ed is desperate, but I think I know a little more than you do why he is desperate. Because you don’t know he’s withdrawn from you to a great extent, not withdrawing his affection from you, but withdrawing because he’s afraid that you’ll find out how vulnerable he is. My mother even knows more than you. But I know the most. He won’t let me help him.”

  “Have you tried?” asked Margaret, with hostility. She was deeply outraged that David could imply that she did not know her husband at all.

  “Yes, I have tried,” he said, simply. “That may surprise you, but I’ve tried. And he—pushed—me away more furiously than he would ever push you away. His weakness has become his armor. Yes, Margaret, I said his weakness, or perhaps I should say his illusions.”

  “Illusions! Because he thought you were all geniuses? Well, I never did, believe me!” Her voice rose. “I know exactly what all of you are, but I won’t tell Ed. Yes, I know what you are—!”

  “Do you?” he said, with great compassion. “Do you know what Sylvia is, and Gregory, and Ralph, and I? In another woman I’d think that was arrogance. But I know that in you it’s only protectiveness, for Ed.”

  She pressed her gloved hands together in a convulsive movement. “Oh, I don’t care about any of you! It’s just that I can’t stand Ed looking so terrible, so closed, so alone! I can’t get near him any longer. It isn’t just the children; he’s using the children to keep me at a distance; he’s using our quarrels to keep me off. Have you looked at him, really looked? It’s like looking at someone dying.” She moved closer to David, the longing for comfort stronger in her, and now her shoulder touched his arm. She cried out, “Help me, help Ed! I can’t bear it!”

  It was the simplest matter in the world, the most natural thing in the world, for David to take her into his arms and hold her to him lovingly, and it was all simplicity, all grief, and all loneliness, which made her put her head on his shoulder and cling to him like a lost child.

  She was sobbing drearily, her lips near his chin. “When his father died—he never said anything. He took care of all the funeral arrangements. I tried to talk to him—he wouldn’t go to his father when he was dying. I saw him standing near the casket and looking down—it was an awful thing to see. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. My husband, and I didn’t know what he was thinking. I’m afraid—I can’t stand it—I’m afraid—”

  “Yes,” said David, and held her more closely to him. Her wet cheek was against his now, and she cried so passionately that her whole body shook. Her hands clutched him in agony.

  “And after the funeral, he went up to his room and closed the door behind him. He never closed his bedroom door to me before! I—I tried to open it. It was locked, locked to me, his wife!”

  “Yes,” said David. My darling, he said in himself again. My dearest child, my love. He stroked the glossy curls that escaped her hat at her nape. I would give my life for you, he continued in his mournful inner conversation. You were all I ever had. And the only thing I can do now is to hold you and listen to you cry about my brother, who is your husband, and who is tormented, and whom you can’t help. The bitterness of it was like a corrosion in his throat.

  She was sobbing and gasping in her extremity. “If only something could be done! If only he and I were alone! Things are too much for him; there’s too big a burden on him. He can’t carry it any longer.”

  He can’t carry himself any longer, said David sorrowfully. Leave him alone? That would deprive him of his perverted meaning in life.

  Margaret pushed herself away from him. “I’m sorry,” she stammered. She wiped away her tears with the back of her glove. “I’m such a fool about Ed. But if he isn’t relieved, he’ll die. I know he will.”

  David’s arms felt empty and bereft, and fell numbly at his sides. He had thought he was reconciled. He had believed that he had sublimated his love for Margaret in the loveliest amorous songs in Samson Smith. There was one which the critics enthusiastically had declared was a classic: “Wherever You Are.” Wherever you are, Margaret, he had thought while writing it. Living or dead, wherever you are, there I will be, too, though you’ll never see me or understand. For there was never anybody for me but you, from the very beginning, when you were a shy young girl timidly entering a room, and when you looked
at me. And now he knew that he would never be reconciled. The old love was a devouring anguish in him.

  She looked up into his eyes and she thought them obdurate and strange in their restless intensity. Nobody understands, she thought hopelessly.

  “Can’t you all go away, all of you?” she said, stammering again in her extremity. “I suppose your mother will have to stay. But if you’d all leave us alone—”

  He shook his head. “It isn’t possible, dear. Not possible. For his sake! That is, for his sake at this time.”

  Now she was angered. “I don’t know what you mean! ‘For his sake!’ To take everything he has and give nothing—for his sake! Dave, you’re the best of them, yet you can talk like that. Dave, please go away!”

  “I’m not here very much,” he said. “Does it bother you to have me here, Margaret, the few times I come?” He spoke with the heaviness of grief.

  She was ashamed, because of his wondering, sad tone. “Well, David, perhaps not you. Though Ed seems to get worse when you come. But the others. Won’t you tell them leave, Gregory, Sylvia, Ellis, André, Ralph, Violette? You could explain it to them.”

  He was silent. She thought he was considering. She put her hand pleadingly on his arm. “Please, Dave.”

  He was still silent, pitying her, loving her. She dropped her hand. She exclaimed with incoherent despair, “No! You’ve got too much of a good thing here, at the cost of Ed’s life and health! You won’t go away. I hate you; I hate all of you!” Her eyes blazed at him.

  She turned then and left him, running like a young girl, as if something were pursuing her.

  All I ever had, thought David. But, for the first time, I held you, and you cried in my arms. That will have to do for me the rest of my life.

  CHAPTER VII

  Prince Emory, nee Billy Russell, stopped at the desk of the Waldorf-Astoria and gathered up a sheaf of mail. He glanced at it happily, for among the letters was one from Hollywood. He put the mail on the desk and asked the clerk to keep it for later. He went to the door, and people in the lobby paused to stare at him, to whisper about him, or to hail him loudly. He responded to greetings with a handsome smile and a wave of his light gray felt hat, and his step grew more buoyant so that he moved in one easy fluid motion like a bronze-colored cat. The new talkies! he thought. Now they’ll have my band on the screen, with sound! Good thing I invested in them.

  The October day marched over the turreted city like a banner of blue light, and the brisk wind carried a sparkle with it. There was nothing like New York anywhere in the world! It was a southern city, gray, tan, white, and cream, and its topmost towers reflected the sun vivaciously. Billy stopped on the sidewalk to inhale the strongly masculine odor of the city, and he could feel the sinews of Manhattan move about him. Paris, he thought, was for women; London was for commerce and law. But New York was for men.

  As he waited for his limousine he hummed the latest hit tune by Davey Jones. In a week, since he had introduced it last night, it would lead all other songs in the nation. Billy’s vigorous eyes roved over the crowds approvingly; he loved the quick movement of them. Then his eyes paused, hesitated, turned away, then turned again on a man who had followed him from the hotel and who was now hailing a cab.

  The man was tall and broad and had a look of power about him. He was inconspicuously dressed, in that age of flaring lapels, wide-pinstriped suits and jaunty hats. His thick gray hair was half hidden by an old hat, and his shoes did not match his blue serge suit. Billy craned his head to look at his profile, which was strong and hard and impatient. Billy grinned. He strolled over to the man and said, “Ride, sir? My car’ll be here in a minute, and I’ll be glad to take you wherever you want to go.”

  The man swung about; he frowned at Billy. “What? A ride? I’m waiting for a cab.”

  “That’s what I thought,” said Billy in his rich and gentle voice. “How’re you—Ed?”

  Edward Enger stared blankly, and then as blankly at Billy’s offer of his gloved hand. “Who are you?” he demanded, and his tone was an insult. His eyes roved significantly over Billy’s lavish suit and London topcoat and polished English boots. A Negro gangster, no doubt, or a bootlegger.

  Billy dropped his hand. It was hard to maintain his smile. “You don’t remember me? Why, I’m Billy Russell. From the old days in Waterford, State of New York.” His smile definitely ached, but he kept it. “In the delicatessen. Remember?”

  Edward’s face was still blank, and then it was suddenly amazed. “Billy Russell! I don’t believe it!” And now he thrust out his hand and forcibly shook Billy’s. He smiled, and his face, so like worn granite, became youthful. “Well, well, Billy Russell. How did you know me, Billy?”

  “Your face in the paper, old pal. And on the cover of your Chauncey magazines.”

  Edward threw back his head and laughed. He retained Billy’s hand, and people passed about them on the sidewalk, glancing at them curiously. Billy’s limousine drew up, and Billy said, “How about having lunch with me, at my club. The Ivory Club, here in town, with my own band. Prince Emory.”

  “Who?” asked Edward, still laughing. “Who’s Prince Emory?”

  Billy caricatured high dignity. “I am Prince Emory, sir, at your service. King of Jazz.”

  “I don’t believe it!” exclaimed Edward, to whom the name Prince Emory meant nothing at all except an unpleasant vagueness connected with popular music. “I mean, I’d never have recognized you. Or maybe I would. You haven’t changed.”

  “Neither have you, old Ed,” replied Billy. “And we’re nearly forty.”

  “Not nearly. Just forty,” said Edward. His eye touched Billy’s excellent garb again, and a little reserve crept over his face. Was Billy a bootlegger or a gangster? “Live in town, Billy?” Probably in Harlem.

  “When I’m in town. I’m staying right here at the Waldorf,” and Billy grandly indicated the hotel. “Where you’re staying. But here’s my limousine. Come on down to my club and have lunch with me. Unless,” and he paused, “you’re in a hurry.”

  Edward was silent. He looked at the black and glassy limousine. He looked at Billy. Then he said, “Well, I was on my way to the warehouses and the offices. My wife and I are sailing for Europe tomorrow. Ireland, particularly, to see the wife of an old friend.” He hesitated. A club? One of those night clubs? Was Billy a waiter there? Edward was confused. Then he thought, It’s really Billy Russell, Billy with the harmonica, Billy whom he had struck and driven away, Billy for whom he had mourned for a long time! He said, “Never mind my own business. All right. Let’s go somewhere together and talk.”

  The chauffeur had come around in a sharp, military fashion, and he bowed in the two men and clicked the door after them. The fittings inside the limousine were of heavy silver and rich black leather. There was a fine fur rug over the bar. The limousine glided away, and the uniformed chauffeur swung through the traffic. Edward began to feel a slight unreality in all this. Waiters did not own such vehicles; waiters were never conveyed in them. His dazed conviction that Billy was a bootlegger returned to him. He said, “How’s the Scotch and bourbon market these days?”

  Billy heard this innocently insulting remark and did not change expression. He said, lightly, “Very good. My bootleggers are the best; no cut liquor, no fakes. My customers expect the best. In my club. The Ivory Club. I own it, you see.”

  Edward’s sense of unreality increased. He considered what Billy had said. Then he asked, “In Harlem?”

  Billy’s mouth tightened for a moment, but he said kindly, as one would say to an ignorant tourist, “No, Ed. In the East Fifties. Best and most exclusive club in town. Best floor show, too. Best band. Mine.”

  Edward was embarrassed. He wanted to apologize. But he was still suspicious. How did a jazz player get such a limousine? A club, he had said, in the East Fifties. One of those colored clubs? Prince Emory … He said, “I’m sorry, Billy, but this is all news to me. Frankly, I still can’t believe it’s you. I’ll wake up in a
minute. Who in hell is Prince Emory? You, you said. But what is it?”

  Billy relented. His bronze profile smiled. “I see you’re an outlander, a foreigner. You’ve been wandering around the classical corridors, staring at busts of Beethoven and Brahms and Bach. Now, as the papers are nice enough to call me, I’m the king of Jazzland, the interpreter of blues, the joy of millions here and abroad. Last week I visited the White House, to which I had been invited by President Hoover, who doesn’t particularly care about jazz, either, but is too much of a gentleman to say so. But it’s the thing, as the English say, to invite me. I’ve been at Windsor Castle, too. So far, Mussolini’s been the only boy who hasn’t asked for my presence. My music is decadent, to the Fascists.”

  Edward pushed his hat back on his head, stared at Billy again, then burst into another fit of laughter. But he was overjoyed as well as hilarious. “Damn it!” he shouted. “I’d never have believed it! Let me shake your hand again, Billy.” His eyes were the eyes of the boy in the delicatessen in Waterford on a cold Christmas Eve, and frank and affectionate. He struck Billy again and again on the shoulder. Then he flung his arm about that shoulder and hugged his old friend like a child who was filled with delight. “Old Billy,” he said, marveling. “I want to hear all about it.”

  There was color in his seamed cheeks, and light in his pale gray eyes. Billy smiled at him, with an ache in his throat. Poor old Ed, poor old driven, bedeviled Ed. “And I want to hear all about your family, too,” he said, a little huskily. “How’s—everybody?”

  Edward’s face changed. He looked away. “My father died six years ago this Christmas. You remember him?”

  “Why, sure,” said Billy, slowly, as if he had never heard this before. “I’m sorry, Ed. He was a good man, a good simple man, and I think he loved you more than anything in the world, even his shop.”