The Sound of Thunder

by Taylor Caldwell

  Edward spoke aloud, smiling grimly. “I suppose that proves something or other.” The city was engulfed in silence, except for the storm. His hurrying feet made no sound on the rising snow. He blinked his lashes free from clusters of flakes, turned up the collar of his coat. He wondered if Margaret, in the P’s, was walking in the storm as he was walking, and if she was warm, and if she had enough to eat, and if she went to school. She was living on a farm with the Baumers near Albany. There was a law that would force the Baumers to send her to school, Edward consoled himself, aching with loneliness. But still, he was apprehensive. At fourteen, approaching fifteen, he had already seen enough of the world to know its cruelty and its deformed viciousness and its relentless hatred for the undefended.

  Heinrich glanced with hurt significance at the clock when Edward entered the store after carefully stamping off the layer of snow on his shoes. “It has been forty-five minutes, Eddie,” he said. “You take but half an hour for a walk after you have had your lunch.”

  “Sorry, Pa.” Edward hung up his clothing.

  Heinrich relented. “It is the worry that made you walk long,” he said. “You must not worry.” He brightened. “I, too, have been thinking of our problem with the gifted children. And,” he paused meaningfully, “I have come to the conclusion. The children must have scholarships to the universities, to the theatrical and music schools!”

  What, on their marks in school now? asked Edward himself, incredulous. He turned to his father, amazed at this innocence which could constantly conjure up impossible dreams in the face of reality. He said, as kindly as possible, and knowing it was a lie, “But, Pa. You know very well that scholarships are given only to those who cannot afford higher education or those who have no parents to support them.”

  Heinrich was crestfallen. He looked about the shop with mingled pride and mournfulness. “Ach, I can understand that, though in Europe it does not matter about parents or money. Scholarships are given without such consideration. But in America—ach, they do not care about these things. Eddie, what are we to do?”

  “Some way will be found,” said Edward. “Don’t worry, Pa.”

  Ways had been found before, and Edward had found them. Heinrich was cheered. He shook an arch finger at his son. “I am not going to speak to the mother about the wild and strange ideas you suggested this morning, Eddie! That would make her very angry with you, and her anger is very cold and long, and it is your birthday on Christmas Day. We must not spoil the birthday. Fifteen, my son! A man!”

  “It’s also Christ’s birthday, Pa,” said Edward, narrowing his eyes at his father. He paused, a wet cloth in his hand. Heinrich became a little pinker; he looked aside and rubbed an eyebrow. “Ach, yes,” he murmured. “It is so. It is a folk festival, as I have told you. I am not the completely ignorant man. All religions have celebrated that time, before the Christ was born. It was to return the sun from his southern journey. A celebration. So it was with the Chaldeans, and the Egyptians and the Greeks and the Romans. The Romans with their Saturnalia in late December. It is an old custom.”

  “Yes?” said Edward, and he leaned his elbows on a counter and watched his father with a dark smile.

  “It is not that I am not a Christian,” said Heinrich. “But what is a Christian? He is an altruist. He admits, if he is a wise man, that the supernatural, if there is a supernatural, does not concern him. He must be concerned with man only, and the welfare of man in the—how is it said?—the concrete. He must be concerned with political ideas, the progressive, the welfare, the good working conditions.”

  Edward’s smile became even darker. “Isn’t that putting the cart before the horse? First, shouldn’t a man be a good and practicing Christian? And then wouldn’t good ideas come of it as a result?”

  Heinrich regarded him with tender pity. “Ach, you are almost a man but you do not understand. Christianity is old, but still we have the wars, and the sweatshops and the oppression of labor, and the big profits for a few, and governments, like this America who do not understand that the means of production should belong to the State.”

  “Should they?” asked Edward. “Would you like the government to grab this shop and tell you what to buy and sell and how much money you could make? Eh, Pa?”

  “This is different,” said Heinrich, stiffly. “I am only a small shopkeeper.”

  Edward chuckled and shook his head. You’ve sure helled up religion for the whole family, Pa, he thought. You and your Socialism. Sure, you go to church and you make the others go. But that’s because you’re a proper father of the family. And then you tell us that Christianity’s only an “abstract”! That is, when Ma’s out of earshot.

  The little fragrant shop was warm; the windows dripped with moisture. Edward shoveled more coal into the red maw of the hot little iron stove in the rear. “We won’t have many customers today,” he said. “With this storm. How about shutting up early, at half past five?”

  “No,” said Heinrich, reproachfully. “We have established that we are open until seven every day but Wednesday and Saturday, and on those days we are open to eleven or later. We cannot break the rule.”

  That’s right, thought Edward, cynically. Socialism and short hours don’t apply to me, or good working conditions.

  The storm increased in its savage white intensity. The walls of snow shut off any view of the street, which was deserted. Edward, while his father was not watching, slipped his orders into an envelope, filched a stamp, and put the envelope in his pocket. Heinrich, humming absently to himself, was standing at the washbowl in the little closet, carefully scrubbing his celluloid collar under the running water. He did this, fastidiously, twice a day. He wiped off the collar, put it on again, secured it with a stud to his striped shirt, and neatly adjusted his black bowtie. He combed his fringe of black hair. Then he modestly closed the toilet door. I feel like a dog, thought Edward. Going behind his back. But I’ve had to do that for a long time. Poor Pa.

  Sometimes one or two of the children stopped at the shop on the way home from school to fill their mother’s orders. It was half past three when David, Sylvia, and Gregory stamped in, groaning with cold. “Outside!” shouted Edward. “Shake off that snow and wipe your feet! I’ve just cleaned up the floor.”

  “Honest?” said Sylvia, scornfully, taking off her red tam-o’-shanter and shaking the snow from it.

  “Old Garlic and Pickles,” said Gregory, in his light, snickering voice. “What do you do, anyways, when you’re not washing floors?” He deliberately removed his snow-covered coat and swished it through the air. Hard pellets dropped on everything. Edward’s face darkened. David merely stood and watched, smiling slightly. One of these days, Edward thought, I’ll beat hell out of them. But Heinrich was coming out of the closet, beaming with love. He spoke to the children with delight, and in German. “Ach, it is the little ones, like sunlight! I have the new candy.” He pushed his hand under a counter and fished out three suckers and extended them. “I don’t like peppermint,” said Sylvia, scowling. “You know that, Pa. And talk English. Haven’t you got cherry?”

  “We all like cherry,” said Gregory. “Give me a ham sandwich,” said David, leaning his elbow nonchalantly on the counter and staring at his brother. Edward saw this stare and frowned again. This was something new David had acquired, this thoughtful and unreadable contemplation of Edward, this peculiar calculation.

  Do they hate me, as Ralph hates me, and for the same reason? Edward asked himself. Or for the same no-reason? And why? What’ve I done to them except work for them? Could that be the reason after all? A hard thrill of vengefulness suddenly ran through his heart, and he was appalled at himself, and then, a moment later, he was not appalled at all. A fellow had the right to get mad when all that he did was just snatched and no thanks, and just expected! I’m flesh and blood, too, aren’t I? What’s that damn Dave doing anyway, just staring at me like I was a specimen or something?

  David said to him, as Edward roughly thrust the sandwich t
oward his elbow, “You know, this family has about as much mystery as this ham and bread. Except you, Ed.”

  “Me? Mystery?” Edward scowled at him. “What’s mysterious about having to work every day that God sends, and never having any money of your own, and washing floors and keeping shop and minding the books?”

  David smiled his slight smilei again and thoughtfully bit into the sandwich. “I wonder what you think,” he murmured. “What?” demanded Edward, not catching the words. But David only shook his head, and he did not smile.

  Sylvia and Gregory’s eyes roved over the candies laid out in a glass case. “I want some of those licorice shoestrings,” Gregory said, with that chronic whine in his voice. “And I want two of those pink wax frying pans with the goo in it.” “And I want three of those chocolate bottles,” said Sylvia, arrogantly.

  “You know Ma doesn’t want you to eat candy before dinner,” said Edward. But Heinrich was already eagerly obeying his children. They snatched the little striped bags as though starving. They filled their mouths and their eyes mocked their brother.

  Gregory was a true Enger. At eleven, he had an extraordinary resemblance to Edward, and it was perhaps this resented fact which impelled him to imitate David. He was newly striving for that well-bred appearance, but he did not have David’s patrician face. He had Edward’s smoky-gray eyes, but without their steadfastness. His own were excitable and volatile and too acutely alert. Moreover, his expression was all knowing, all smug, all wise, and this invariably irritated Edward. What did a kid of eleven know about the world anyway, that he should look at it so distrustfully? Sure, he wrote wonderful stories, Edward supposed. At least so said his teachers, and his parents. He was intelligent, but beyond the subjects of English and history his school marks were deplorable. His favorite subjects were easy for him; where work was necessary he avoided it.

  Gregory, sucking on his candy, began to inspect the pickles with a critical eye. “Why don’t you get more sour ones?” he asked discontentedly.

  “Because we have more calls for dill and sweet,” said Edward.

  Sylvia slapped her mother’s list before Edward. “Make it fast,” she said. “We’ve got to skedaddle. Can’t wait all day. The storm’s getting bad. Hurry up.”

  “And what did my children do in their classes today?” asked Heinrich with fatuous adoration. “Do?” asked Slyvia in her sharp voice. “Why, what we always do in the dumb school. I want three white eggs, not those old browns,” she said to Edward. She closely watched her brother as he silently filled the order. She began to tap her narrow foot and hum under her breath. Her black eyes became keener, and there was an uncomfortable line of color under them. Then she tossed her head as if throwing off a disagreeable thought. Oh, what did it matter about old Ed, anyway? Why should a person feel funny this way, sometimes, about him? What was he made for, except to work? She wished she’d stop having these thoughts, which came often lately.

  She said crossly, “I want those Norwegian sardines, not the American.”

  “Dainty appetite, haven’t you?” asked Edward. “The Norwegian are too expensive. You’ll take the American or nothing.”

  “If one has the dainty appetite, it should be encouraged. It is discriminating,” said Heinrich reproachfully. He smiled tenderly at his daughter, who did not smile in return, and dropped a tin of the expensive sardines into the big brown bag for her.

  “Never mind! I don’t want them if he doesn’t want me to have them!” cried Sylvia, and was angrily amazed at herself. She snatched out the tin and almost threw it at Edward. “Eat them yourself, you greedy thing!”

  “I’ll do that,” said Edward. “I haven’t tasted them yet.” But he put the tin back on its shelf.

  “Greedy thing,” repeated Gregory. “Hey, I need a dime. Give me a dime, Ed. Your pockets’re always jingling. It won’t kill you.” He extended his slender palm imperiously.

  Edward’s first impulse was to slap down that hand. And then he saw his father’s anxious and imploring expression. “All right, all right,” he said wearily and put his hand in his trouser pocket. Fifty cents there. He’d be able to put only forty cents on his bicycle tomorrow. He gave Gregory a shining silver dime, and Gregory gloated over it as if he had accomplished something triumphant. “And now go on home, all of you,” said Edward, shortly, controlling his temper. He was rarely angry as others were angry. His anger took the form of a dark and cold resentment, which built up steadily over days and weeks.

  “How about a dime for me, too?” asked Sylvia. “I want to buy a new hair ribbon.”

  “What is a dime?” murmured Heinrich, pleadingly.

  “Yes,” said Edward, with an inward thrust of that cold rage. “What is a dime? Give Sylvia a dime, Pa.”

  Never before had he embroiled his father in small arguments, but now there was a hard aching behind his eyes, and a pain under his breastbone. Heinrich, in bewilderment, began to protest, his hand on the till. And then he saw his son’s face, the wide cheekbones shining whitely under the sallow skin, the gray eyes fixed on him steadily. And he shrank. No one saw David’s watching face, or the delicate bunching of flesh between his eyes, as he regarded his brother.

  Heinrich swallowed. “Dear children,” he implored. “A dime is a large sum of money. It is a profit on four pounds of tea, or two pounds of butter. It is hard work. As Eddie says, you must go home. See how the storm is. It is not good for children to be walking in it. There is the pneumonia.”

  “Why should Greg get a dime and not me?” said Sylvia, and held out her own palm smartly. But this time it was directed at Heinrich, whose distress was growing.

  David said languidly, “Why should Ed give two dimes? It’s up to you now, Pa.”

  Edward was startled at this sudden championing, and uneasy and newly resentful. Dave was up to something. He and Sylvia had no right to badger their father and confuse him. A dime was a dime to Heinrich; it was a symbol of his work. So he raised his voice harshly, “Go on, now. Get out, all of you. If you don’t, I’ll throw you out.”

  It was very seldom that he spoke with such mature authority, and his brothers and sister looked at him with amazement. Then David smiled to himself and nodded imperceptibly. But Sylvia, in umbrage, saw Edward’s clenched fists on the counter, and she suddenly decided that a dime was not worth the indignity of a blow.

  “Aw, come on,” said Gregory. “Who wants a silly old dime, anyway?” He clutched his own tightly.

  “Let’s go,” said David, and lifted his elbow from the counter, and shrugged his shoulders under his cheap coat so that it fell into elegant lines. He gave Sylvia an affectionate push, and handed her her red wool hat, which she adjusted while she glared at Edward. Then the three picked up the parcels and marched out of the shop in silence. “God be with you, my children,” Heinrich called after them, but they did not turn their heads. Gregory slammed the door and the bell tinkled violently. Heinrich sat down on his stool and looked before him with melancholy. Without speaking, Edward cleared up the mess his brothers and sister had left behind them. He washed and wiped the counter. He took a broom and swept up the wet and dirty sawdust. Heinrich, after a while, began to watch him.

  “Eddie,” he said at last, and in a weak voice.

  “Yes, Pa,” replied Edward, bending to sweep the sawdust into a pan.

  “I am not well, Eddie. I am hurt by discordant voices and quarrels.”

  Edward threw the fragments of bread and ham, and the dirty sawdust, into a galvanized pan and replaced the cover. There was a throbbing in his chest, a painful throbbing. When he had been twelve years old, he had had what Heinrich had called “the growing pains.” All his joints had been swollen and painful for a short time. Since then Edward had suffered these occasional throbbings in his chest, especially when he was angered or overworked or tired. Sometimes he could not sleep. It was like a knife in his chest.

  “It is my heart,” said Heinrich, with a tentative and wounded reach for conciliation. There were times,
these days, when Edward frightened him, with his strange new manner and the strange new look in his eyes. When had all this begun? It was sometime in the past—sometime in the summer.… Was it still that foolish hen?

  “Sure, Pa,” said Edward. “Never mind. You mustn’t pay too much attention to the kids. I’m not mad. Honestly.”

  Heinrich sighed with relief. “There are times when you are truly understanding, my son. One must be particularly understanding of the artistic temperament.”

  “Sure,” repeated Edward. He was very tired.

  “One cannot sacrifice too much for it,” Heinrich said, urgently. “The geniuses in Europe, they are honored, treated tenderly, served. It is understood that they serve man.”

  “And not God?” Edward could not help himself. He stood up and looked at his father.

  “Who is an abstract,” murmured Heinrich. “It is a word for good and service to the world.”

  The lousy, damn world, thought Edward with unusual bitterness. He was taken aback by the thought, which was so new to him. What was the world but an aggregation of self-seeking and murderous sharkmouths? It didn’t deserve the prophets who had died for it in blood and torture; it didn’t deserve the heroic ones who had fought for it. It deserved neither liberty nor love, for it had no constant loyalties and no devotions. Edward did not believe that Christ was an abstract. And He had perished on a cross so that the world might live. For what? For what? thought Edward, with devoted anger. He remembered the history books he had concealed in his room at home. They were a long and dreadful tale of man’s inhumanity, of man’s hatred and malice, of man’s cruelty and lawlessness, of man’s rejection of all that was noble in living. The heroes stood out like a flash of light on the black pages. But at the end the heroes were always defeated. The lights were always extinguished.

  Now Pa is a good man, Edward’s thoughts ran on. But his “abstracts” and his belief in man as a sort of super being had not done his children good service, in spite of his wife’s cold but steadfast faith. They had no heroic and religious values.