Balance Wheel

by Taylor Caldwell

  Charles forced himself to look at his mail. Orders, orders, orders. He put aside the orders and looked at the two letters marked “personal” on his desk. Then he became more intent. One was postmarked Washington. He opened it and saw a few impersonal lines of typing, signed “John Lord.” He read: “I hope to be in Andersburg the latter part of April and have a little talk with you. I remember our last meeting, and the renewal of our acquaintanceship will be pleasant.”

  Charles put down the letter. Rain had begun to wash against the windows; they rattled in the spring wind. Now the office, to Charles, seemed unbearably invaded by the roar of the shops. The letter on his desk appeared to him as deadly as a loaded gun.

  He picked up the other letter. The handwriting on it seemed familiar. He opened the envelope, and saw that the letter was from Phyllis, and had been sent from Philadelphia.

  “I’m afraid we’re going to stay a little longer than I expected, Charles. However, Wilhelm has confided a little in me, again. And I’m sorry to say that it seems that Jochen has been poisoning Wilhelm’s mind against you. I don’t know how, or in what way. He wouldn’t tell me. I asked him if you had offended him, and he wouldn’t answer me. At any rate, it seems to be affecting Wilhelm’s health. He is losing weight and is unhappy. I think he distrusts you about something, and he was always so fond of you, you remember.—I’ll call you, as you asked, at the first opportune moment. I think it’s very necessary that you and Wilhelm have a talk, as soon as possible.”

  Charles reread the letter, carefully. Then he struck a match and burned it, and watched it smolder away into ash in his tray. The smoke coiled and twisted, then was gone. But he still stared at the ashes, and he knew that the bitter taste in his mouth was the taste of hatred.

  He heard someone outside his door whistling a parody of a hymn sung by Billy Sunday’s chorus. Billy Sunday had recently held a “revival” in Andersburg, and some of the more irreverent inhabitants had cleverly changed the tempo of the hymns so that they sounded like the music of fox-trots. Charles was familiar with that whistling; he sat very still in his chair, and waited. The door opened and Jochen came in, whistling even louder. He stopped and smiled at Charles genially. Charles did not return the smile. He did not know that he was leaning forward in his chair, formidably, and that his hands were fists on his desk. But Jochen saw this at once, and his wide smile disappeared.

  “Hey!” he said. “You look like a villain in one of the Perils of Pauline episodes! What’s the matter?”

  He came towards Charles’ desk, cautiously, his eyes slightly squinting. “Business off, or something?”

  “No,” said Charles.

  Jochen saw the orders on the desk. He picked them up, a thick sheaf. He inclined his head, contentedly. “Well, it’s not business, then, that makes you look like a heavy.” He put down the sheaf. He stood by the desk, and Charles saw his new confidence, his secret arrogance. He returned Charles’ stare without his usual uneasiness. Not glancing away, he took out his silver cigar case and lit a cigar. Then he sat down.

  “What’s this damn fool business of Fred out there in the shops?” he asked. “Another one of your games, Charlie?”

  Charles unclenched his hands. The fingers ached. He said: “He has a right here, hasn’t he? He has a right to learn the business. It’s about time.”

  Jochen’s eyes narrowed. He looked at the streaming windows. He began to speak, slowly: “Have you forgotten that Fred’s my territory, not yours?”

  “Territory?”

  “Well, you’ve got your Willie, and I’ve got my Fred. No fair poaching.” Jochen grinned, then turned fully to his brother.

  Charles did not answer. He studied the other man. He had never underestimated Jochen’s real capacities. Jochen was cunning. And able. He was a rascal. But he knew his business. He was exigent. But he was shrewd. Now he had become dangerous.

  Jochen said: “What’ll that idiot do, out in the shops? What’s up your sleeve, Charlie? Think you can put any sense into that thick head? Think you can use him? Oh, I know all your little tricks. Making him feel important to the business, then using him. It’s no use, Charlie. Stick to your Willie, and I’ll stick to my Fred.”

  He grinned again, slyly.

  “Well, play with him, Charlie. But all I have to do is to crook my finger and he comes running. He believes everything I say. Just as Willie believes everything you say. Doesn’t he?”

  “Does he?” asked Charles. There was something humming furiously in his ears. He felt a strong violence in himself.

  “You ought to know. You’ve used him all the time, against me. You’re a bright boy, Charlie, but play with your own toys.”

  Charles looked at the ash in his tray, and Jochen’s eyes followed that glance. “Burning something? A billet-doux?” Jochen laughed. “Old Charlie getting love letters?” He was intrigued by the ashes. He stirred them with his cigar, tried to find a fragment that could be read. Charlies watched him. “Something important, eh?”

  “Very important,” said Charles.

  His tone made Jochen look up, alertly. “Business?”

  “Business.”

  “Then, why burn it? I’m vice-president, aren’t I? Or have you forgotten?”

  “I haven’t forgotten.”

  Jochen started to speak, then stopped. He scrutinized Charles’ face; he saw its sallowness; he saw the hard mouth, thinned and spread. He saw Charles’ eyes, fixed on him with an expression he had never seen before. Now his confidence left him; his uneasiness came back. His sudden fear made him bluster: “You seem to have forgotten—if that’s business smoldering away there. Another Bouchard order you don’t want me to see?” Then he noticed the unburned envelope on Charles’ desk, and the postmark. His nostrils widened. He looked away, quickly, full of excitement. He had recognized Phyllis’ handwriting, for he was a man who noticed every detail, automatically.

  “It’s very important. But it’s not a Bouchard order,” said Charles. There was nothing he could do; there was nothing he could say.

  He said: “Fred’s out there, learning what he ought to have learned long ago. Let him alone, Joe, let him alone. I’m warning you.”

  “You’re warning—” Jochen began to exclaim. Then again, he saw Charles’ eyes. He spoke more moderately: “Hell, let him look at the pretty machines, if he wants to. I’m not objecting, except that he’ll probably slow up the men. No, I’m not objecting to anything, except that I’ve got a little warning for you, too. You won’t be able to play your tricks on old Freddie. He doesn’t trust you as far as he can see you.”

  Charles thought of Friederich’s defenseless eyes, his vulnerability. He stood up, with abruptness. “I want you to know this, Joe,” he said. “I want you to know that Fred’s sincere about learning the business. Yes, I’m encouraging him. I can’t protect him from you, but I think you’re going to find it a little hard to lie to him about me. Now.”

  Jochen took another long puff at his cigar. He was afraid of his brother, even at this moment. “Who does the lying around here? You! I’ve exposed your tricks a few times, to Willie and Fred, that’s all. And I’ll go on exposing them.” He stood up. He loomed over his brother. He pointed the cigar at him. “You’re tunning this business into the ground, Charlie. You’re old-time. We should be expanding, with all these orders. You don’t want to expand. You want your tidy little business to remain just a tidy little business.”

  Charles said: “Brinkwell isn’t going to get any of my own patents. And they’re the ones he wants. And I think he won’t get many, if any, of the others, either. That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?”

  Jochen began to breathe heavily, in his fury. Charles went on: “I’m not leasing or lending any patents to Brinkwell. Nor to the Bouchards. And I’m not selling either Brinkwell or the Bouchards the things they want. I know Brinkwell’s been after you, all the time. But I’m here, Joe. I’m still president. I still have my patents. And Joe, I’m watching all the orders. They’re not
putting any tricks to work. They’ll never get what I own by ordering through dummy companies, either. I know where every tool goes.”

  Damn you, damn you to hell! thought Jochen.

  Charles put his palm on his desk so that it could support him, for there was a long trembling running over his body. He knew it was this queer and unfamiliar violence in himself, roaring into a flood, which he would soon not be able to contain, and not want to contain.

  If Jochen had not felt so frustrated, so enraged, he might have seen what could have been seen, and exercised his own particular caution. But now he began to shout furiously: “I’ll ‘remember’ nothing but that you’re a tight old fool, that you’re ruining us, and that someway, somehow, you’ve got to be shaken loose!”

  It’s come, thought Charles. The break was inevitable. Nothing could stop it. Even in his violence he had a moment’s sick regret.

  Jochen’s voice rose louder: “Who’s been working here all the time, with you? Who’s been giving every day to this damned place, and thinking only of how it could be kept going during hard times, and sweating and worrying—with you? Either of those cottonheads, Willie or Fred? What’ve they ever done for you, for us?”

  The violence was surging heavier in Charles, but he could still control himself enough to nod, and to say: “Yes, we’ve worked together, and the others didn’t work. We cut our salaries, to save the business, when the others refused to cut. We’ve stayed here, day and night, month after month, trying to find out ways and means, so we could survive. We did it, together.”

  Had Jochen been less than an instinctive bully, he might have listened to this with reason, and might still have come to some terms with Charles. But he thought that Charles’ admissions were the admissions of weakness, and he rushed at what he believed was a breach.

  “Oh, yes!” he bellowed. “You can be mealy-mouthed, can’t you, and ‘reasonable,’ and admit things, but that wouldn’t move you from your damned idiotic stand! Good old balance wheel, not denying anything, but not giving anything, just grinding away at nothing! But I tell you now that I’m not going to stand this. I’m going to do something—”

  The rage in Charles gushed up to his face and turned it to a dark crimson. His small eyes began to glitter. He took his hand off his desk, and stood there solidly, and in an implacable silence.

  “‘Do something?’” he said, finally. “Such as poisoning Willie’s mind against me?”

  Jochen was petrified, even in the very midst of his rage. Now he saw Charles clearly, and his old dread of his brother came back to him.

  “You’ll do nothing,” said Charles. “You can lie about me to Willie, or to anybody else, you can play at plots behind my back. But it’ll come to nothing. I thought we’d never need to have this out, and that we’d never need to show each other how much we hated each other, and always did. But it’s come, now. And so I’m giving you a final warning: I’ll smash you, Joe. I’ll find some way to smash you, and drive you out. Lift one real finger against me, try to harm me in any way, or put any of yours and Brinkwell’s plots into actual action, and I’ll smash you. You’re a fool, and you don’t know what’s behind Brinkwell, or you wouldn’t care if you did know. But I know. And that’s why I’ll drive you out if you really try anything.”

  Jochen could not speak. The cigar shook in his big fingers. He stared at Charles incredulously. When he could talk his voice trembled: “You know what that means, don’t you, after what you’ve said? We’re enemies. You’ve made us into enemies.”

  “No,” said Charles. “You did. And we were always enemies.”

  Jochen dropped his cigar in the ash-tray. He was sobered, but he had also become as implacable as his brother. The fat’s in the fire, he thought. He said: “Do you know what you’ve been saying? That you’ll ‘drive’ me out? I’m the vice-president of this company; this company belongs to me, too. Have you lost your mind?” His large fat face had lost its ruddy coloring.

  “I told you, Joe: I’ll smash you, and I’ll drive you out. I’m desperate, and I’ll stop at nothing. Vice-president or no vice-president, I’ll find a way to ruin you.”

  They looked at each other, and they knew that from this day on there would be not even the smallest sign of friendship between them, nor any pretense of it. Again, in spite of his anger and his violence, Charles could feel regret, remembering all the years he and Jochen had worked together. But Jochen felt only hatred and determination. He was in danger. He would have to strike fast, now, he thought. It was Charles, or he.

  He walked out of the office, clumsily and heavily. After quarrels with Charles he usually slammed the door after him. But today he closed it quietly. To Charles, that slight sound was more ominous than any slam, or any exclamation of fury, or any threat.

  He said to himself: I must move fast. Very fast. I don’t know where, but I must.

  Jochen, walking rapidly towards the shops, also said to himself: I must move fast. He opened the thick wooden door and the thundering of the machines engulfed him. He looked about for his brother Friederich. There was the imbecile Socialist, in his shirt-sleeves, and wearing a leather apron, and bending over a machine in the company of Herman Mohn! Jochen braced himself, made himself smile. He sauntered over to his brother, studying Friederich as he came. What had happened to the fool? What had that swine, Charlie, done to him? Friederich’s hair was neat, and he had a wondering and absorbed expression, like an idiot confronted by a miracle.

  “Interesting, Fred?” asked Jochen, genially.

  Friederich lifted his head, saw his brother, and scowled for a moment. “Yes,” he said shortly. “It’s very interesting. Herman, you were saying—”

  “Wait a minute,” said Jochen. He nodded at Herman Mohn, and the foreman retreated to a spot out of hearing. Friederich was annoyed. He scowled again. Jochen said: “How’s old Charlie figuring to use you this time, Fred?”

  Friederich straightened himself with dignity. “No one’s using me,” he answered. “Why don’t you go away, Jochen?” He paused. “My opinion is that you’ve been libeling Karl to me for years. I refuse to listen to you. Others have told me how decent and reliable and honest Karl is, and their opinion, to me, is better than yours.”

  Jochen heard this unbelievingly. His tool had turned in his hand and had struck at him. His rage came back. “Who’s been telling you anything about Charlie? Your Socialist friends, your anarchists, perhaps?”

  Friederich, the unstable and easily aroused, lifted an oil-stained finger and shook it in his brother’s face. The men nearby listened with discreet avidity, and glanced at each other under lowered lids.

  “No!” cried Friederich. “It was George Hadden, and George Hadden is no liar!”

  “Hadden? That sly, simpering Quaker?” exclaimed Jochen. “You’ve got into the hands of that hymn-singing—”

  Miss Hadden’s face flashed before Friederich. He took a step closer to his brother, and shook his finger directly under Jochen’s nose. He almost screamed: “Let me alone! Don’t speak to me! Go back to your Brinkwells and your murderers!”

  Jochen recoiled from the finger. “Are you crazy?” he demanded, stupefied.

  Friederich dropped his hand. He studied his brother. Karl was right; Jochen was a fool, in spite of his industry. So much was clear to him, Friederich, at this moment. He was excited by it. The old fanatical light flashed back into his eyes.

  “Go away!” he exclaimed. “Whatever you tell me I’ll tell Karl. I’m warning you, Jochen.”

  He beckoned to Herman Mohn, who came back soberly, but all ears. Jochen could only stand there, completely dumfounded. Then he saw how ridiculous he must appear to all his workmen nearby, who had overheard everything. He walked away; his head was beginning to ache. Something was moving up behind the strong wall of his life, and soon there would be a battering against it.

  He returned to his office and called Roger Brinkwell.

  PART FOUR

  … the abomination of desolation …

/>   MATTHEW 24:15

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  The windows stood open and the cool April wind poured in, strongly yet sweetly. Charles could smell the life of the April earth, fresh and intensely poignant. The street was quiet outside, for everyone had gone to bed or was dozing in a chair after a heavy Sunday dinner. April sun lay on the window sills, spangled the lace curtains of the parlor, a sun not vivid but alive, a new sun. By turning his head on the cushion of the sofa he could see the outlines of the elm tree on his lawn, the pliant bending of the branches faintly shadowed in green. His father had planted that tree forty years ago, a young sapling. Now its limbs brushed the upper windows of the house. It was a friend. But all its outlines seemed, to Charles, the outlines of silent pain, and the green gauze beginning to show on them was timid life on old sorrow.

  Charles had been reading Goethe again, this afternoon. He lifted the book, a slight one, but which had a feel of heaviness in his hand. “What is man—Do not his powers fail when he most requires their use? And whether he soar in joy or sink in sorrow, is not his career in both inevitably arrested?” Charles adjusted his glasses, and read another phrase: “… does he not feel compelled to return to a consciousness of his cold, monotonous existence?”

  Charles closed the book. No matter what happened, Monday morning always arrived. Possibly that was why Sunday evening always had a melancholy of its own, shadowed and sad. It was the inevitability of the Mondays which wounded a man’s spirit. He might be able to stand grief and regret and loss, with some kind of dignity. It was the Mondays, the exigent, toneless, colorless Mondays, the days of renewed monotony, which broke his heart.

  For how long, now, had Monday seemed unbearable to him? It hadn’t always been this way, he thought. I’m not forty-one, yet, but Mondays do something awful to me. Was it because of Jochen, to whom he never spoke these days except on matters of business, and then only coldly and briefly? Nothing could have prevented the break, Jochen being what he was. But one never broke definitely, and with finality, with a brother, without regret almost as strong as grief. There was nothing I could have done to delay it, Charles told himself. And then he looked at the chair near the fireplace which the young Jochen had always obstinately appropriated for himself on winter Sundays and evenings, and he closed his eyes for a moment. We hated each other, all our lives, he told himself, but there is something between brothers. Did Jochen feel this? Charles, realistically, doubted that he did, or, if he did, he did not understand what it was he was feeling.