The Sound of Thunder

by Taylor Caldwell

  The storm bellowed at the door. The windows dripped. The day darkened. The globes of gas hissed from the ceiling. A lamplighter darted past the store, an old man with no topcoat, his battered hat layered with snow. Edward could dimly see him, with his lighted stick, turning on the street lamps. “Look, Pa,” he said. “It’s after four. Almost half past and the storm is getting worse. Why don’t you go home now? I’ll manage until seven. We won’t have many customers, anyway.”

  “Eddie, you are sometimes very thoughtful,” Heinrich said with gratitude. Something had depressed him, had disheartened him. He peered at his son and moistened his lips. “I will go, Eddie, if it will please you.” He spoke as if granting a favor to an importunate person, in a surrendering tone.

  “It’ll please me all right,” said Edward. “I won’t have to worry about you.”

  He helped his father on with his coat. He wrapped his father’s woolen scarf about his short throat. He buttoned his father’s coat, bending his knees to do so. He put his father’s cap on the round bald head, and found his father’s gloves and rubbers. He felt he was assisting a child. Impulsively then, he bent and kissed his father’s cheek, which was still too pale. Tears came into Heinrich’s eyes, easy tears. “My heart,” he complained, humbly. “It is always my heart.”

  Edward held the door open for him. The throbbing was really painful now, in his chest. “Good night, Pa,” he said, gently. “I’ll be home around eight after I’ve cleaned up a little. Tell Ma to leave something out for me. I can help myself.”

  He watched his father plunge into the storm, a small rotund figure. Poor Pa. Edward closed the door, looked about the warm and silent shop, so brightly lighted, so good-smelling. It was wonderful to be alone, sometimes. He began to sing softly to himself. Then, without his volition, his voice soared out, a rich baritone which shook the walls and the shelves, like a triumphant paean.

  “Silent Night, Holy Night!

  All is calm, all is bright!

  Round yon Virgin …”

  The storm swirled around the shop. There was thunder at the windows. Edward’s spirits rose exultantly as he sang. The day of the Lord’s birth was also the day of his, Edward’s, birth. His Germanic heart found some mysterious message in that. He wished he knew more about Christ and His coming. There was the Bible at home, of course, but when he arrived at night the parlor was firmly closed, and icy.

  Surprisingly, considering the storm, there were twelve customers in the next hour, and Edward waited on them briskly. He sold the rest of the tongue. All the customers were excited by his placard announcing the treats for Christmas. The till opened and shut with a heartwarming frequency, and the bills and silver mounted. The customers were fond of Edward. They told him their troubles and their difficulties as if he were a hoary man of much wisdom. He listened sympathetically. He knew them intimately, and was really concerned with them. He managed, deftly however, to increase their original orders. The slicer whirled, the bread diminished, the sardines dropped satisfactorily, the salami and baloney almost cut themselves to the butts. The pickles dwindled in the barrels. The women, grateful for the warmth after the cold outside, lingered, examined, recklessly bought more. The coffee mill ground on and on and filled the hot little shop with the most entrancing odors. When a customer bought more than a dollar’s worth, her child was rewarded with a sucker. The customers left the shop reluctantly, the women wrapping their wet shawls over their heads, the children sucking joyously. Everybody left messages for Heinrich.

  And then they were gone, and Edward restored neatness. His father would be pleased. He was alone again, and again began to sing. The doorbell tinkled and a very squat, very stout man, in a black broadcloth coat with a fur collar, entered, his glasses immediately steaming. He took off his excellent derby hat and shook it, and stamped his feet, which were protected by elegant pearly spats.

  “Mr. Enreich!” said Edward. Mr. Enreich frequently patronized his tenants, but always through his coachman. He rarely came himself. Then Edward saw the fine carriage outside, with the coachman on the high seat. Mr. Enreich smiled at Edward and showed a number of gold teeth between his pink lips. His tiny fat nose wrinkled and his shrewd greenish eyes looked on Edward with affection.

  “I thought we’d better have a talk between ourselves,” he said. “Just you and me, Eddie. By the way, I saw your father stumbling through the snow and drove him home. That’s why I knew he wouldn’t be here.”

  Edward smiled widely at him. “Now that’s awfully good of you, Mr. Enreich,” he said. “I worry about Pa and his heart.”

  “Um,” said the older man. He removed a fur-lined glove and helped himself to a rosy slice of ham. “Let me make you a sandwich,” said Edward, impulsively. “And I’ve got some root beer on ice.” He never saw Mr. Enreich without pleasure. He looked at the gentleman warmly. Mr. Enreich had a square head with a stiff crop of red hair standing up on it like a bristling fence. Edward wished there were a chair for such a customer, and he pushed out his father’s stool to the other side of the counter. “Such ham,” said Mr. Enreich. “Yes, a sandwich, but not the root beer! Mein Gott, not the soft beer!” He heaved his fat haunches on the stool and wiped his glasses. He looked at the close walls of the shop and nodded.

  “I can make you some coffee,” said Edward. “We’ve got a gas hot plate back there and a pot and some cups. Pa likes to drink his coffee several times during the day.”

  “With his heart, of course,” said Mr. Enreich. “Make me some coffee, Eddie.” His English was gutteral but sure and often idiomatic.

  Edward turned up the gas on the hot plate, rinsed out the granite coffee pot, and brought out the best coffee. He’ll probably buy at least five dollars’ worth, he thought contentedly. Pa might deprecate Mr. Enreich as a Prussian and not an elegant Bavarian, but Mr. Enreich invariably bought large quantities of foods and was not to be underestimated. Besides, the Herr Manager was a rich man and should be cultivated. He did not patronize Edward and this was a wonder to the boy. He treats me like a man, Edward said to himself, setting down two cups and spoons and sugar and cream. The screaming white storm outside, the night, the lights, and the clouded windows inside filled the boy with contentment and peace. And now the shop was permeated with the fragrance of coffee. Edward made a sandwich for Mr. Enreich and one for himself. During all this neither spoke or found reason for speaking.

  Mr. Enreich, waiting, lit a fine Havana and puffed it. He had removed his fur-lined coat and had thrown it nonchalantly on a pile of cartons, and had crowned it with his derby and gloves. His black broadcloth suit was as rich as silk, and his stiff white collar gleamed about his huge red neck. A monstrous black pearl glimmered on his thin blue tie, and a heavy gold chain, swinging with seals and other impedimenta, shone on his paunch. He gave the impression of enormous strength and physical vitality, at which Edward marveled, considering that Mr. Enreich must have been at least forty-eight, a precariously elderly age in Edward’s youthful opinion.

  Edward poured the coffee. Mr. Enreich set big gold teeth into a sandwich, nodded his head blissfully, drank deep of the liquid, which he had generously diluted with yellow cream and sweetened with four teaspoons of sugar. His glasses steamed again with delight. “Ach,” he said. “I say it now and will say it again, there is nothing like simple food and good fresh coffee off the fire. Another sandwich, Eddie. This time the mustard I will try.” His ruddy cheeks bulged.

  Edward sat on the edge of the counter, and the two ate with contentment and drank another cup of coffee. Then, replete, Mr. George Enreich wiped his hands fastidiously on a big square of fine linen faintly perfumed with lemon verbena. “We shall now get down to business, Eddie, and you will tell me all your plans.”

  He listened intently as Edward spoke with quiet enthusiasm, and occasionally he nodded and turned to look when Edward pointed to the spots where the new counters would stand. He read the placard Edward had printed, and smiled. “It is the advertisement that pays,” he said. “That
is what they say in this country, and I have proved it. It is the better mousetrap, it is said. But no, it is the better advertising. My coke is not better, not different, from other cokes. How can cokes be different? Yet in the past four years I have sold four times what my competitors in Waterford have sold. That is advertising, in the streetcars, in the newspapers. So it goes with all things. This writer, this Harold Bell Wright. Does he compare with the great writers? But no. Yet the great writers from Europe, even from America, they starve in the attics. Mr. Wright grows rich. It is the public? No, it is his publisher who knows the cunning words, the big praise, the shout that Mr. Wright is the mighty genius.”

  The word made Edward somewhat uneasy, and Mr. Enreich, who never missed anything, chuckled. “I have said you are the business genius, with the advertising, the new ideas, the knowing what the people want, the ability of the people to deceive themselves.” He put up his short, broad hand, which sprouted red hairs. “You will say you have a good clean shop, and that I admit. But you, my boy, have made your customers believe they can buy things here they can buy nowhere else. That is not lying! That is being a salesman, the subtle thing.”

  He took out a gold toothpick and cleaned his teeth meditatively, his green eyes, like full marble agates, fixed on Eddie. He had a deep and purring voice, not in the least “refined” or “genteel.” “Eddie, I have said I will break down the walls and rent you the two stores. I will finish it twelve or fifteen days before Christmas. I have already called the workmen. They will begin tomorrow. How much are you going to invest in the expanding, hein?”

  “I’m not investing, Pa is,” said Edward, a little uncomfortable.

  Again Mr. Enreich chuckled. “Does he know?” he asked. “Ach, I thought not. But invest he will. Eddie, I will make you the proposition. Ten per cent of your increased sales when the shops are thrown together. Ten per cent gross.”

  Edward frowned. He did not know whether it was a good offer or not. He said, “Mr. Enreich, I think rent would be better.”

  “No.” Mr. Enreich slapped his hand on the counter. “I take the gamble. Maybe more than rent, maybe less. I am the businessman.”

  “For how many years?” asked Edward, cautiously.

  “Why, forever,” Mr. Enreich replied genially. “Unless you close up the shop. No leases; we gamble together. Yes?”

  Edward reflected. He forgot he was not yet fifteen; he forgot that this was his father’s shop, not his. He folded his arms and stared into space. “All right,” he said. “We’ll make a contract, Mr. Enreich.”

  “I have it already,” said Mr. Enreich, and drew out the papers from an inner pocket. “With the new fountain pen, the wonder, that holds all the ink so no one stands back and says, ‘I will sign it tonight, or tomorrow, at home, at the office, where I have the pen and ink.’ Eddie, when the customer is there is the time for the signature. Tomorrow never comes.”

  “But my father is the one to sign,” said Edward, coming to himself. “I only work for him, for five dollars a week. And I won’t be fifteen until Christmas Day.”

  “Sign, Eddie. Your signature is as good as gold to me. The father? Who writes and sends out the orders to New York and keeps the books? You. Yet under law, you have no right to do so. But you do it.”

  “All right,” said Edward, and neatly wrote his signature below the few lines of agreement. His writing was small and firm and compact. Mr. Enreich nodded to himself as he watched. “I hope it stands up,” said Eddie.

  “It will,” replied Mr. Enreich, cheerfully. Eddie was holding the gold pen in his hand. It was engraved with the letters G E. It felt very good in Edward’s big fingers. “You like it, hein? Well, Eddie, you will have a pen someday like this for yourself. You will not stay with the delicatessen all your life. No, no, I know men. You will be a rich man.”

  “I hope so,” said Edward, returning the pen reluctantly. “I mean, I’ve got to be. All the kids, and Pa’s getting old. He’ll soon be thirty-five.” He colored when Mr. Enreich roared with laughter. Then Mr. Enreich became serious. He rested his elbows on the counter and studied Edward intently.

  “You must tell me, Eddie. I am curious. How is it that you got into this, this belief in the geniuses, this belief that you must serve them? You are not a fool; you have the intelligence. They call you the fool, but you know they are wrong. So. What is it?”

  “I’m not gifted,” Edward replied. “They are. My parents say so, and they know. The other kids knew from the beginning what they wanted. They showed their talents; they never had any doubts. That is the way with genius, my mother says, and she knew many geniuses in Munich. I didn’t have any talents.”

  “So,” said Mr. Enreich, sardonically. “That is a matter of opinion.”

  Again he studied Edward’s square, dark face with the resolute gray eyes, the good chin and short, sturdy nose. It is the son I should have had, had not my wife died, he thought. We shall see. “So,” he said, “you will give your life to your brothers and sister, your life that is not yours to give but which God gave you. You have not told me why. You have said only words.”

  Edward considered, his color brightening. He bit his lip. Then he spoke quickly and impulsively. “It’s my father. He must not be—be—well, he must have his beliefs. It would just about kill him if they weren’t so. You see, Mr. Enreich? And maybe he’s right. I’ll do all I can, just for him, I kind of—kind of—”

  Mr. Enreich smiled at him gently.

  “Maybe he’s right,” Edward insisted. “He’s got to be right! The kids have talents. You should hear Dave play the piano, and Sylvia got a prize last year for the Christmas play, and she was only twelve then. And there’s Greg, he writes wonderful stories, everybody says so, and Ralph paints. They’ve got his paintings hanging all over the classroom. He got a prize, too. Nobody ever called me bright, except a couple of teachers, because I was good at mathematics—and things.”

  Mr. Enreich still smiled at him gently.

  Edward burst out, “They are geniuses! It’s a dream, for me. I’ll make the dreams come true.”

  Mr. Enreich no longer smiled. He sighed. He said, “I want a lot of delicacies, Eddie. Get out the big bag and I’ll call Ellis in to take it to the carriage.”

  He walked about the shop, puffing on his cigar, Edward following him alertly. Five dollars, six dollars, seven dollars! The bag bulged to the very top. Edward was elated. The coachman came in and carried the bag to the carriage, and Mr. Enreich put on his hat and coat and gloves, slowly and carefully. Then he went to the door. He turned and looked at Edward, his hand on the handle.

  “It was Shakespeare who said something, in the Hamlet. The soliloquy. It is something for you to remember, Eddie. ‘… and all the spurns which patient merit of the unworthy takes …’”

  He closed the door silently behind him. Edward stood still a long time, frowning, trying to understand. Then he shrugged. He would have to hurry, to close the shop by seven.

  The snow was very deep now. Its drifts lay against the windows.

  CHAPTER IV

  Mr. George Enreich was one of the richest men in Waterford, and he might have been considered rich even in New York, as well as in a small city of some quarter of a million souls. Heinrich, who had read much of what he called, with mingled awe and envy (being a Socialist), “the robber barons,” had decided that Mr. Enreich was not to be numbered in that esoteric company. He did not resent Mr. Enreich much, for after all, the most dedicated of Socialists excluded the rich men of their acquaintance from an onerous company of faceless men with silk hats, diamonds on their fingers and in their ties, and with big stables full of blooded horses and magnificent carriages. The “robber barons” had mysterious and evil associations with something called Wall Street, and, as Heinrich said, he had never, heard that Mr. Enreich was committed to the inhabitants of the Street who “ground the faces of the poor.”

  Yet Mr. Enreich was, and in his own genial and hard-handed way, a “robber baron” and entrepreneur. O
ver the years it had become his custom to enter a sound company in Waterford as a manager, and then, by manipulation, to become at least one of the directors of the board if not a vice-president. He was “interested” not only in the Walz Coke and Coal Company but in Waterford’s lumber mill, in a number of small and flourishing factories, in the Everingham Iron Works, in the one steel mill, and in a chemical plant. Many people in those companies hated him; they had forgotten that he had entered their industries as a manager or a superintendent and then had put them on their almost bankrupt feet, by his acumen, his sleepless shrewd tactics, and his money. He had done well. He had arrived in America as a clean but penniless immigrant when he had been eighteen. His father had been a poor baker and Maria Enger had imperiously delegated George to a humble place outside the pale of aristocracy. George Enreich did not know this. He had never met Maria Enger, which was fortunate.

  He was outside a number of pales, for he was unfamous for his predilection for “loose women,” which meant, in Waterford, any lady of frivolous temperament or high fashion no matter whether married or single. Once he had been seen in the one good restaurant in the town in the company of a woman who smoked! To add to all this, he was rough, even brutal at times, contemptuous of almost everybody, and lived as he wished. When he gave parties, he rarely invited the “society” of Waterford. He preferred politicians from Albany, New York, and Washington, many of whom he regrettably influenced and bought. He thought it a very comfortable arrangement; politicians were not easy to buy in proper England and in stern Germany, and this often inhibited men with ideas. “Nothing like money to make a man zealous in the legislature,” he would say without shame. “Buy a man and your table will be full, and a lot of rich crumbs will inevitably fall to those under the table, and who can quarrel with that?” It was rumored with good foundation that he became boisterously drunk at his own parties. He paid his servants excellent wages, which did not prevent them from retailing vivid stories of what went on in his mansion. In a way, it added a number of cubits to their humble stature. It was not every day that a man or woman worked in a house where there were lots of “goings-on,” all scandalous.