The Sound of Thunder

by Taylor Caldwell

  David raised his eyes and looked at her with a strange, long look. “I suppose you believe that, Margaret,” he repeated. “For, you see, he believes that himself. We weren’t angels; we were worse than he was. I’m not condoning anything. But now we’re his prisoners, and we can’t get away, because we haven’t any courage. None of us. He took our courage away from us.”

  Her face was high and colored with indignation and scorn. He shook his head. “You don’t understand yet, Margaret. Perhaps you’ll never understand. I hope you won’t, anyway.”

  He took his mother’s invitation from his pocket and tore it up, with absorbed concentration. Then he neatly deposited the fragments on the table and lifted his coat and hat from a chair. “He wanted you to come tomorrow night. I see that now. He wanted to gloat in himself. Don’t come, Margaret. I’ll go away the day after tomorrow. Don’t come for some time. You owe that to me, at the very least.”

  He walked to the door, graceful and outwardly poised as always, in spite of the livid bitterness, on his face and the poignancy in his eyes. He stopped at the door and the lamplight glimmered on his smooth black hair as he turned his head.

  “What Ed has done to me shows how much he despises me. But he doesn’t despise me as much as I despise myself. I hope that’ll be some comfort to you in the future, Margaret.”

  CHAPTER VII

  William MacFadden sat with his employer in Edward’s extravagant office. His shoulders were shrugged up in his expensive brown suit, which he had bought on Saville Row in London. The suit was shaggy, and he resembled a fox more than ever as he fixed his vital hazel eyes on Edward and rumpled his tawny hair with his lean fingers.

  “Time is running out, boyo,” he said. “You see the shadows all over Europe. My M.P. friend is right. War. Bally marching feet. You hear them against the music in Vienna and the silly laughing of the blooming dancers. Gamboling’s over. Prancing in the moonlight. Cavorting around the Maypoles. Picking the damned daisies in the fields. Picnics under the oaks. Peace, and beer in the gardens of the Gasthaus. Nights at the opera and ladies calling the next day with cards, rolling around in their carriages. Thatched roofs in the sun, and manor houses filled with graciousness. Freedom. Kids running. Leisure. Good will to men. The workingman coming home at sunset, swinging his basket or his pail, and waiting to buss the missus. The peasant in his fields, lifting his back and listening to the Angelus. It’s all over, laddie. Over, I’m thinking, forever.”

  Edward listened gloomily and with resistance. “Why should the world give up order for war, and freedom for slavery, as you’ve said? The world isn’t populated by idiots.”

  “That, my innocent, is an error. A ruddy error. The world’s got more idiots in it now than ever before in history. Modern medicine keeps the idiots alive, to perpetuate themselves. The plagues used to clear ’em out, and the germy dirt. Now they beget, they with their blind eyes and their deaf ears. Century of the Idiots. Man’s historical enemy, his government—ah, and it’ll be riding to the hounds very soon! With a heigh-ho and away we go! And the multitudes of the idiots stumbling along behind, rattling their chains meekly, giving up their liberty, which they didn’t want anyway, for something the Engels and the Marxes call security. What was it your Benjamin Franklin said, to the effect that a man who gives up his freedom for a little temporary security deserves neither freedom nor security? His race is dead, laddie, dead as a turnip in the soup. Now you have the Common Man, and may the saints help us!”

  Edward said stubbornly, “You Europeans are all alike. The status quo. There has to be progress—”

  “Progress to what?” asked William, shaking his vulpine head. “If a man goes on a journey, he knows where he is going. Sure, and the murderers know where they are going! Europeans, you say. No. America, too, America of the baseball and the football and the peaceful band concerts on Sunday evenings and the new jazz and the restricted government and the supreme faith in every blinking thing. The murderers are here, too, in your blessed country, boyo. How the hell, otherwise, did it happen that America is the only country in the world that adopted Marx’s prescription for the overthrow of capitalistic society—the graduated income tax? Oh, and it’s saying you are that the tax is small! But wait a bit! The government, that bloody enemy of men, gets its sticky fingers in your pocket and takes a farthing one day, a bob the next, a quid the next, and then all your cash, and then all your freedom’s gone and it’s bars and bolted doors for you if you try to keep your property. Property’s tied up with liberty; read your own Constitution! Property goes,” and he threw out his hands, “and liberty goes. Cotton-wool cells for the idiots, in the name of security. And confiscation and jails for the men of freedom. An old story, old as death. Reaction. Jacobins. Guillotines, the hangman’s rope. Despotism. Liberty’s new in the world, and the plotters are afraid of it. Government is ancient, and it takes its directives from hell.

  “And now the curtain goes up, today, tomorrow, on the last push of the despots. War. Been too much confounded liberty in the world; mankind’s feeling its oats. It’s got to be stopped. The Common Man. He’s got to be put in his place, and he’ll go there, with the carrot dangled before his nose. Willingly. So it’s war and taxes and the end of property and freedom, and the despots are chortling in advance, now, in every bloody capital in the world.”

  “If it’s that simple, the people will know.”

  “And how’ll they know?” asked William, cunningly, leaning forward like a fox sniffing game. “Oh, it’s the fine high slogans they’ll be given, the words of angels used by devils. Defending the homeland. Freedom. Patriotism. Rescue of the enslaved. Destruction of tyrants. And the drums and the fifes and the banners aflying! Don’t forget them, lad. They’re potent. Let a man hear a drum and it’s off to any cursed war at all. Jungle instincts. The despots know about those instincts. They’re scoundrels, but they’ve got the wisdom of Satan in their black hearts.”

  He lit a cigarette and rolled it between his nicotine-stained fingers and narrowed his eyes on Edward. “The straw men are already up. The Kaiser, the Tsar, your President Wilson, the nobs in their country houses, the bad industrialist who grinds the faces of the poor, the vested interests—all the straw men. But who’s peering through the false faces? The old, old despots, licking their lips and slavering.”

  Edward was silent. Watching him, William smoked rapidly. He said, “You’ve heard of President Wilson’s New Freedoms. A man of mind, but a scholar with his head in the rosebushes and his hands full of pansies. Who invented the New Freedoms? Not Squire Wilson, who loves essays and Plato and the odor of learning and books in leather covers, and dreams that mankind stands on its hind legs. It was invented by the same men who invented Germanitum and Socialism and Fabianism. Ah, they’ve got no quarrel among themselves, the fiends! They know what they’re after, and they’re one together, whether they speak German or French or Russian or English. No quarrels in hell.”

  “All right,” said Edward, impatiently. “What can I do about it?”

  William reflected, wrinkling his eyes together. “You’ve got cash. Get in politics with it, standing behind the few men who already know the plot. Subsidize men who write for peace. Help others who’ll come up, crying they want no war for America. There’ll be societies of thinking men; join ’em. Fight for America with the bankbook. There’ll be exposures of the plot; give the exposers the quid with both hands. You can’t go out in the marketplace yourself; help those who can. I’m not saying, mind you, that it’ll keep America out of wars. But it will, though I doubt it, keep Americans aware of what’s really happening in the world, and perhaps it will move the naïve idiots to put manacles on their government. But I doubt it. However, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you’ve done what you could, and the hope that someday there’ll be liberty again. Casting seed, you’ll be doing, for future generations.”

  Edward suddenly thought of the vast amounts of munitions stock he held. George Enreich had known a long time ago, an
d had urged this stock on his protégé. Edward frowned. He rubbed his lips with his fingers.

  “I’ve seen Ralph,” said William, still watching his employer. “I’ve told him to run for it. Better put the clamps on the checkbook. Bring him home. Can’t be too soon. Hell will explode this summer. And isn’t Dave in Berlin? Bring him home.”

  “Stop crying havoc,” said Edward, but he leaned across his desk and made a note in his sharp and angular handwriting. William nodded, satisfied. He noticed that the mention of David’s name had cleft two deep lines between Edward’s thick black eyebrows. Edward said, abstractedly, “I’ve been reading a lot lately about Eugene Debs and Victor Berger. And Patterson and Lawrence.”

  William nodded. “Sure, and they know. Put on the armor, boyo. Drop the visor. Rub up the steel. Sound the trumpets from the battlements. The legions of hell are on the move.” He seemed to lose his alert tawniness, his freckles, his dry facial lines, and his gaiety. With a few eloquent and deft gestures he was suddenly a knight in armor, tall and heroic, plumed and horsed, with a lance in his mailed fist, a lance tipped with a bright standard and blowing in an unheard wind.

  Edward shook his head and laughed. “What an actor,” he said. “For a moment there I could see you digging in your spurs and hear the trumpets. But I want to know about Ralph. You saw him. How’s his painting progressing?”

  William gave him a shrewd glance. “Beefy,” he said. “Pink as a damned rosebud. Painting. Nice little bit of twist he’s got for a model now. Violette. No flaws; excellent lines; good colors.” He made a smacking sound.

  “The model or the painting?”

  “Both,” said William. “That’s the trouble. No flaws. Where’s there a painter chappie without flaws? It makes an artist.”

  Edward flung his pen from him with a clatter. He drew in his heavy lips. “That’s the matter with all of them. As you say, no flaws. Perfection. Technique. No accent. No vitality. Goddamn it! Craftsmen, that’s what they are. And absolutely stupid.”

  “They haven’t lived yet,” said William, not liking the sudden and dusky color on Edward’s face. “Give them time. Give everybody time.”

  Edward furiously opened his desk drawer and brought out his checkbook and struck it with a hard fist. “Time! Time’s my life, my money. How long do I have to support these parasites?”

  William stood up. “Only as long as you want, laddie, only as long as you want. And you’ll be wanting it forever, I’m thinking. You’ll not be letting them get away from you.” He lifted up a lean and prehensile hand. “I refuse to be sacked. You’ve sacked me every time I gave you my opinion, and then there’s been a few more quid in my pocket afterwards. You can’t afford it. So I’ll be off talking to your manager just now, and you won’t think. No, laddie, you won’t think.”

  Edward was driven in his limousine through the cobbled streets of Waterford in the late May sunset. Even in his dull and intense preoccupation and chronic anger he was aware of the softness of the early evening, of the sweetness of lilacs and honeysuckle drifting from lush backyards and the fragrance of cut grass. Children were playing on the streets, under the new green trees. Hopscotch. Ball. Jumping rope. Jacks. Marbles. The braids and ribbons of the little girls plopped on their active backs. The little boys ran and shrilled. Wistaria was climbing in purple plumes over old porches. The thick white candles of chestnuts blew in a gentle wind. Men were coming home in work clothes, carrying pails, and they moved quicker in spite of their weariness, and smiled or shouted at the children, or stopped to study their small patches of lawn. Women talked on stoops, aprons tucked over their plump arms. Beyond the trees the western sky burned in scarlet and gold and magenta, and above the conflagration a silver star pulsed alone.

  It was on such a street that he had known his early childhood and youth. For the first time in all the years since, he felt nostalgia instead of his usual anger. He forgot, for a moment or two, the crowded years of his young life, the bitterness, the weary days, the suppressed rage and depressions, the silent revolts. He could even imagine that his boyhood had been rich and carefree, filled with promise, and that he had played as these children now played, blithe and joyous and content. Now he was a man, anxious and uneasy and filled with premonitions and angry doubts. But then, he thought, in those days I didn’t carry such a burden as I’m carrying now. I had time to be an entity.

  The streets were peaceful. It was impossible to believe that anything menaced this peace, this freedom, this American contentment, this American hope and virility. Nothing sinister lay in the long red beams of the sun as it illuminated the boughs and coppered the leaves of the trees. The little lawns seemed to quiver with green vitality. Kitchen windows lit up, one by one. There was an odor of corned beef and cabbage, of roasting pork, of good soup, drifting out of open doors. Someone was playing a gramophone, and the metallic music and lilting voice clamored on the warm air. A train wailed in the distance, and a streetcar rattled and rang. Peace had a power greater than war. America lay in peace as a happy man lay in summer waters, dreaming.

  “To hell with William, the damned male Cassandra,” said Edward, aloud, to the glass which separated him from his chauffeur. “Who would we fight, and why?”

  He suddenly rapped on the glass, and it slid aside. “Henry, stop at that next corner for a few minutes. In front of the church and parsonage.”

  The car slowly wheeled to a halt and Edward got out. He gazed at the church critically, and was pleased. His gifts to Father Jahle had made an enormous improvement in the building, a small church but fine and secure in its little lawns. He thought of the altar he had bought for the priest, and the statues, and the red carpet in the aisles. He guessed that the great gilded cross on the steeple had been bought by George Enreich, and that William MacFadden had had a hand in the purchasing of the new pews and the bells. But the parsonage remained cramped and drab and badly in need of repairs. Gifts of money were invariably spent by Father Jahle on the parochial school and the playground adjoining. It was useless to demand that he spend the money on his rectory or for good food for himself or on even necessary clothing. As a result, one of the vans of C. C. Chauncey’s stopped every Monday with a huge load of groceries and delicacies, and even then Edward vexedly guessed that much of this fine offering went to “the more deserving” in Father Jahle’s parish.

  Edward fumed, thinking of all this, and then he climbed the scabrous steps of the little parsonage and pulled the bell rope. Mrs. Jahle, the priest’s mother, as tall, thin, and starved as himself, and with the very emaciated but shining face of her son and his own large and tender eyes, smiled joyously as she saw Edward. Her gray gingham dress was the color of her thin hair and hung on her slatlike body in folds. Her white apron was stiff and spotless. She shyly gave Edward her hand. The Father was in the garden, tending his precious roses, which he cultivated for the altars. She would call him. Edward sat down in the dark and narrow little parlor, with its horsehair furniture, its cold and tiny fireplace, its dimmed windows over which patched white curtains had been drawn. The old house had a dank and chilly atmosphere and gave off an odor of dust and age. The worn red carpet had been neatly darned, but it was as thin as paper. Edward was depressed; he had forgotten how wretched the parsonage was.

  Father Jahle, whose clothing had been covered with a workman’s blue denim apron, came in, drying his thin hands on a towel. He was happily surprised to see Edward, who stood up and shook hands with him. Edward was not so happy. The priest had a hectic flush on his gaunt cheekbones, and his eyes were too bright, and his air of being beset and everlastingly tired had increased over the years. He was only forty, but his lank hair was gray. “Eddie!” he exclaimed. “I haven’t seen you for almost a year!” He held off the younger man and studied him, and still smiled, though he sighed. “You look well, thank God.”

  He sat down and began to fill a very charred pipe with cheap tobacco. His eyes fixed themselves affectionately on his visitor, who was frowning.

  �
�I wrote you about seeing a doctor, about six months ago,” said Edward. “Well?”

  The priest blushed like a boy. “That was Christmas,” he said. “I couldn’t go then. And before I knew it, it was Easter. There’s nothing wrong with me, Eddie.”

  “Nothing except starvation and overwork and worry,” replied Edward. “Now you listen to me. I don’t like that cough of yours. You’ll go to my doctor tomorrow or we won’t be friends any more. Is that understood?”

  “Tomorrow there are confessions,” protested the priest.

  “Then you’ll go tonight. Here’s my card. He has office hours between seven and nine. Give him my card. He’ll take care of you.”

  The priest turned the card about in his fingers and looked troubled. He hesitated. Then he lifted his eyes and they were filmed with tears. He said simply, “Eddie, I can’t leave my church. If your doctor should find—if he should say I need a rest—it would be impossible. I am feeling much stronger.”

  “Seven to nine, tonight,” replied Edward, inexorably. “Is that a promise?”

  The priest was silent. He looked about the little parlor, where he had heard so much grief, so much despair, so much seeking, so much anguish. He could hear the faint and broken voices of those he had comforted, exhorted and brought into the light. He could not endure the thought of leaving this place even for his health, even for a little while.

  “You might have something contagious, and that isn’t fair to your people,” said Edward. “It, isn’t fair to your church. What if what you have kills you? Then you won’t be coming back at all. Be sensible.”

  “All right,” the priest said. His people came first, and then there were the children whom he might be endangering. Too, his bishop, a few months ago, had sternly asked him about his health. He had evaded his bishop. He had only a bad winter cough. He closed his eyes convulsively. What if it was tuberculosis? That would mean months in bed, endless treatment. Would his replacement understand his “children”? Would he be kind and forebearing and everlastingly patient?