Edward and Mr. Enreich talked happily, but Billy was silent and awkward. He still could hardly believe in this. There was a lump of excitement in his throat, and for the first time since he had been a very young child, he felt hope. If a gentleman, a real gentleman like Mr. Enreich, could take his presence for granted, and eat with him, perhaps the North wasn’t so bad after all. His parents would tell him he was lying, though they knew he never lied. He would throw the whole neighborhood in a tizzy when he told them.
“Now,” said Mr. Enreich as he comfortably drank his coffee and permitted himself to enjoy some special Christmas strudel which Edward had ordered from New York. “You must tell me of your plans to expand again, Eddie, for you have the plans. That I know.”
Edward was surprised. “But I’ve only talked about them to Billy. How did you know?”
Billy said, “Mr. Enreich knows many things.” Then he was embarrassed. But George nodded at him. “And Billy is a very wise boy, not like this Dummkopf.”
Edward blazed with excitement. George became very familiar with that incandescent look in the years following, the sudden hot glaze of eye, the sudden flush, the sudden broadening of the wide mouth and the shine of big white teeth. “All right, sir!” Edward exclaimed. “I’ll tell you! I haven’t told Pa yet or even suggested it to him. I want to open another shop in the best part of town, where only the rich people shop and where it’ll be more convenient for most of them than this place. A bigger shop! More elegant. More expensive delicacies, more imports. Best shop outside of New York! People’ll drive from miles away! Why, they’ll come from Syracuse, maybe. We can advertise in the Albany papers, and customers can buy from us cheaper and quicker than they can buy the things from New York; we don’t have New York overhead. And we can send big orders by canal or by railroad. Five hours by rail for delivery on receipt of order! New York can’t do that. And clerks in the store, not in white canvas aprons like these. A head clerk, perhaps in a morning coat, and clerks in white jackets. An elegant store! An out-of-town department where we can send rush. Think of it. Isn’t it a grand idea?”
George studied that young and glistening face and smoked placidly. He said, “A grand idea. Of course it is many years too early even to think of it, this delicatessen Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company! Four—five—years too early.”
When Edward frowned, George went on imperturbably. “You were thinking that you are not too young, you who are barely fifteen. But I do not eat green fruit. I prefer it to ripen on the tree. Otherwise,” and he spread his hands with an eloquent if brutal gesture, “one gets the bellyache. I will tell you, my Eddie. I will give you books to read, and I will speak with you twice a month in my house, and I will teach you to be the entrepreneur it is fated for you to be. I recognize men of fate, even though they have just been elevated to the long trousers out of the knickers. And why am I so interested in this so raw fruit? Because I expect to make the large profit. One does not do things for charity, hein?”
Edward’s impatience vanished. He gazed at George Enreich with intense gratitude. This is the father I should have had, he thought. Affection replaced the hot glaze in his eyes. “You are very right, Herr Manager. I was just too enthusiastic.”
“Enthusiasm,” said George, “is very good. One admires it but not if it is without substance. We do not expect, naturally, to stop with one shop. Shall we begin the tutoring on January the tenth?”
“You will do all this for me?” said Edward, marveling.
“I have said, one does not do things for charity.” But George smiled, and all his gold teeth glittered.
Edward suddenly remembered Billy. He said, “Herr Manager Enreich, we are being discourteous. We are speaking German before my friend.”
Billy spoke with careful slow awkwardness but also with triumph, in German. “I have learned a little German from listening to you and your father and some of the other German people who come into this shop. And I have been learning it at school and in study at night.”
George turned to him, unsmiling, and gave him one of his long and penetrating regards. “It is a boy of intellect, this Billy. His syntax is perfect. His accent is admirable. We must discuss him later.”
Astonished and proud, Edward stared at his friend, while Billy beamed with importance. He managed to give the impression of strutting though he did not move his feet or body.
The door opened and young Father Jahle came in, in his thin coat, his face blue and pinched with cold. Edward went to him at once and shook his hand, and George, strangely interested now, watched. He knew of this earnest and youthful priest, though he had never seen him before. He made it his business to be interested in all priests. His expression became stiff and solid, and all his Prussian nature expressed itself in his ruddy jowls, set and unyielding, and in the little green pinpoint under his lashes. This priest made a nuisance of himself. He had a friend in the two local newspapers, and the newspapers never failed to give Father Jahle’s newest ideas of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man some prominence every Monday morning, much to the irritation of less shabby and more prosperous priests, and especially ministers with excellent parishes. Father Jahle’s ideas, it was believed, were very dangerous and provocative, and George had heard the invidious word “Socialism” on more than one occasion.
George did not think the priest’s ideas “Socialism,” which was much heard of in these days especially by the way of one Debs, but he never denied it to his friends. Dangerous men should have no champions lest they, in their purity and dedication, become a menace to the world.
Edward was drawing Father Jahle affectionately to George, who merely grunted at the timid words of greeting. He saw that the priest had no warm gloves; his worn hands were purplish. He was trying to repress shudders of cold. George noticed that this poverty-stricken, this starveling, priest, was not intimidated at learning who he was. He stood on his dignity, tired, beset, and raveled, as a man of God before whom the rich and the powerful were only as all men, to be enlightened and brought to the Lord.
The priest greeted Billy as a friend and then turned to Edward and said, “I only want a quarter of a pound of butter, Simon, and a quarter of a pound of cheese. And, yes, a quarter of a pound of ham. My mother likes your ham so much.”
His clerical collar was stiff but showed severe signs of wear as he loosened the black scarf which his mother had knitted for him. George said in a slow and brutal voice, “Your hands look frostbitten. No doubt—you gave your gloves away.”
It had been a contemptuous thrust, and he was surprised when the priest’s thin face colored. “To tell you the truth, Mr. Enreich, I did that this morning. My mother had knitted me gloves to match this scarf, but I saw a newsboy without gloves and he needed them more than I did.”
George’s face was expressionless. He moved his enormous shoulders in a gesture of repudiation and disgust. He half turned his back on the priest, who began to talk with Billy. Then George saw that Edward was trying to conceal what he was doing. He was slicing a large quantity of ham, probably more than a pound, and hurrying to wrap it, and then he was slipping a full pound of butter into a bag, three pieces of strudel, a good fine piece of cheese of excellent dimensions, and a tin of imported sardines. He was hesitating now, his eye scanning the shelves. A can of beans, fine quality, laced with rich pork. He crushed down the bag to make as inconspicuous a parcel as possible. George’s lips twitched, but not in a smile.
He turned to the priest again, slowly and arrogantly as one turns to a servant. “You have called Eddie ‘Simon,’—and why is this?”
The priest blushed again, bent his head, and said in a low voice, “It was St. Simon who helped carry Our Lord’s Cross.”
George stared, and his face seemed to swell. He looked at Edward and saw that the parcel was now fat and deceptively small. Edward was thrusting a piece of holly under the string.
Then George said to the priest, “I never make a mistake in things, and in ruthless men, and men wh
o are equal with me. I know my humanity. I should not call Edward ‘Simon.’ I should call him one of the Atlantes. There are times when they hold up a useless arch. But am I to quarrel with humor?”
The priest regarded him with surprise. A gross and illiterate man, he had heard. A cruel and voracious man. An atheist. One of the worst type of German. The priest’s kind young eyes, so brown, so serious, so ingenuous, became humble. He must remember again that one never judged another by rumor or malice.
“However,” said George, “it may be you are wiser than I. It may be that in a distorted fashion Eddie is indeed ‘Simon,’ but it is a papier-mâché cross he is carrying, by his own will, and perhaps by his innocent ruthlessness.”
Edward came back to them, careful to set the parcel on the counter. Father Jahle was so absorbed in what George had said that he was abstracted. Edward thought he was suspicious. He said eagerly, “I’m sorry I had to use heavy and bulky paper tonight, Father, but we’re out of the lighter bags.”
“So,” murmured George. He said to Edward, “Will you call in Ellis for me—Simon?”
Edward grinned. “One of these days Father Jahle is going to tell me why he calls me that.” He missed Billy’s look of incredulity at this statement and then his following thoughtfulness. He ran to the door and called Ellis, who was gloomily stamping his cold feet up and down on the snow-covered sidewalk.
George fumbled in his breast pocket. There was a fifty-dollar gold bill there. Hastily he pulled it out and pressed it into the priest’s hand. The priest looked at it, stupefied. George said, “Say a prayer for me—a prayer for me—Father. God and I have a quarrel, a quarrel since I was an immigrant of eighteen. I have not been to Mass since, nor have made my confession. Nor,” and he scowled ferociously at the priest, who was suddenly pale and whose eyes were suddenly shining, “do I ever intend to do so. Let us say nothing about this.”
The priest’s lips trembled. “I shall pray that you return to the Church, Mr. Enreich,” and he leaned across the counter to the returned Edward and shook his hand, and then Billy’s hand. “Happy, holy Christmas to you both, boys,” he said hurriedly. And left with a flap of his long black coat. He paused at the door. “And to you, Mr. Enreich, a joyous journey home.”
George smoked as the boys, glancing at the clock, saw it was nearly ten. The cold air outside rang with the sweet sound of bells as sleighs raced past the shop. A child’s wan face pressed itself against the window to stare at the tree, and then was gone, like the face of a ghost.
“Slow night,” said Edward. “It usually is, two nights before Christmas. Then everybody comes in on Christmas Eve. Rush, rush, rush.”
George looked at Ellis, who had picked up the loaded bags of goods which his employer had bought. Ellis licked his lips. Let anybody talk about Mr. Enreich being greedy. The help in his house ate what he ate. There was no locking of cupboards nor any inspection of them. Ellis carried the bags out to the sleigh, and George lifted his bulky body from the chair.
He hesitated. It was at Billy he looked now. “I never make a promise I do not keep, my Billy. I shall remember you and your future.”
Suddenly Billy’s face, so handsome, so quick, became sullen. He mopped the counter. “I don’t have any future,” he said. He raised his eyes to George, and they were hard and flat. “What chance does a nigger have anywhere, sir?”
“He doesn’t if he is a ‘nigger,’ Billy,” said George, with cold disgust. “If he thinks he is a ‘nigger,’ so he is. But if he thinks he is a man, then he is a man, and no one can take his manhood from him, no matter his work or his circumstances or the contempt of fools, or even prison. If you do not learn that, then I cannot help you.”
Billy’s eyes filled with tears. Edward put his hand on his shoulder. George pulled on his coat and left without a word, though Edward called, “Merry Christmas!” after him.
Billy’s present to Edward for Christmas was a second-hand twenty-five-cent copy of the New Testament.
CHAPTER VI
But Christmas Eve was not busy, much to Edward’s surprise. On this night the shop closed promptly at half past eight, as there were only two customers from half past seven on. However, the day had been exceptionally busy. Now the people were preparing either for midnight church services or Christmas parties.
All of Edward’s family were in the parish house to see the Christmas play, the dialogue of which had been written by Gregory and the play itself produced by Sylvia. It was Sylvia, too, who had designed the sets with the assistance of young Ralph, and David had composed the music. It was a proud occasion for the Engers. Edward had been left with the shop.
It was customary, over any holiday, for Edward to carry the day’s receipts home, for Heinrich’s frugality had not as yet extended to a safe for the shop. The money was kept in a strongbox at home, to be deposited in the bank after the holiday. As there had been some robberies in the neighborhood, Billy insisted on accompanying Edward home as a bodyguard. Edward, for a reason he did not as yet understand, had bought Billy one of the new fountain pens, at a cost of three dollars. It was made of black bakelite and had Billy’s initials engraved on it in gold. Billy had accepted it with grave gratitude and then had gazed at Edward curiously. “I will use this pen all the time,” he said.
It was a fine night. The boys locked up, banked the furnace, left one light burning in the shop. Then they went out onto the street. The marble silence of the winter night surrounded them. The streets were almost empty. The lamps glimmered brilliantly in the clarified purity of the air. The snow crunched under their feet and the black skeletons of the trees cracked with the frost. No wind blew. The yellow rectangles of the houses showed spangled Christmas trees aglisten with ornaments and heavy with long peppermint canes. An occasional sleigh jingled by, filled with occupants covered with furs. The boys felt exhilarated. There would be no work tomorrow, except that Edward would remain home to keep the furnace fired well and watch the goose in the oven. The rest of the family would be at church services up to noon.
“They never think I might want to go, too,” Edward grumbled.
“You got the Bible I gave you,” said Billy, mildly. There was something in his voice that made Edward glance at him sharply. Billy continued: “You can read the whole thing yourself. Specially St. Luke. I like him best. He never saw the Lord but he wrote best about Him. He saw His Mother. She told him all about it. You can read it tonight or tomorrow.”
Edward was silent. For weeks now he had “heard” nothing from God. He talked with Him with humble if rising impatience. What did I do wrong? Are You mad because I stood up for Billy and wanted something for myself, too? Didn’t You like what I said to Pa? Haven’t I got rights as well as anybody else? Is that what You’re mad about? But God did not answer, and Edward uneasily felt that if God were angry it was not because He was angry for these things. However, Edward forced himself to believe this, for something dark and formidable lurked in the back of his mind, some truth which he would not face, some inexorable decision which he had made and on which he stood like a man stands on a battlement.
“I like the Magnificat,” Billy was saying. Still, Edward did not speak. Billy pulled out his harmonica and softly made it sing to the night, a song of reverence and beauty and young triumph and joy. Edward’s eyes angrily moistened and his heart trembled. I do love You, he said in himself. Even if You won’t speak to me any more. I’ll just go on loving You, though You don’t seem to love me now. He looked at Billy, whose face was withdrawn and full of peace, as he played his harmonica. There was no confusion, no doubt, no resentment, in his dreaming eyes. He sure lives a simple life, thought Edward with some vexation. He doesn’t have my problems and my worries. God didn’t suddenly shut him out of—things. Like He did me. And it all began with Betsy; it made me think.
He was not aware that Billy had stopped playing until the latter said gently, “Easy, boy.”
“What?” said Edward, and shrugged his big shoulders. How long had Billy be
en annoying him with his sudden insights, his sudden understanding which embarrassed him, Edward? “All I’m doing,” said Edward, “is just walking along, thinking.”
“Sure,” said Billy. “And what you’re thinking isn’t so good. Ed, you’ve changed since last summer. Not all at once but just steady. I don’t know what the change is but I’ve got a feeling it’s wrong for you.”
“I’ve got my problems,” said Edward curtly, and moved his neck against a sense of smothering.
“Maybe you made them,” said Billy, in that soft voice.
“Now look here!” exclaimed Edward angrily. But Billy began to play again, a Christmas carol, and Edward subsided. He listened with reluctant pleasure. Billy was a genius. He should have a violin, and he would be famous. Edward said, “One of these days, when I’m rich, I’ll give you a violin, and you can take music lessons.”
Billy said, “If God wants me to have a violin, He’ll get one for me. Didn’t He give me the harmonica? Sure, it was yours, but all at once He fixed it so I had it. You know something? God gives you what you ought to have, if you’ll just believe He will.”
Simple, repeated Edward inwardly. Very, very simple.
“Don’t push me,” said Billy, but he grinned at his friend affectionately and pranced forward in a little dance which prevented any reply from Edward.
They reached the Enger house. To Edward’s surprise the parlor was all lit up, though when the family was absent the whole house was frugally dark. Someone was playing the piano, and as the boys neared the icy wooden steps of the porch the music could be heard clearly in the quiet night.
“Listen to that!” said Edward, furiously. “It’s Dave. He’s supposed to be at the church party tonight. Does he call that music, the crazy, daffy noise, that ragtime? He always does that when he thinks nobody’s around! It makes me sick, after all the—”
The Sound of Thunder Page 14