That night after Sophie had gone to bed, Robert lay awake in his room with the door open, listening for her to fall asleep. When finally her breathing was deep and regular, he crept out of the room and down the stairs. He lit a single lamp and drew the curtains, even though it was unlikely anyone was trying to peer in the window.
He unlocked the safe and took the heavy bags to the kitchen table. His heart pounding, he untied one and peeked inside. Gold coins, dozens of them, glinted in answer. After pausing a moment to make sure he heard no stirring from Sophie’s room, he emptied all the bags onto the table.
Although he wasn’t an avaricious man, Robert held his breath in a long moment of pleasant fantasy about what this much gold and silver really meant. He didn’t have to stay here and run the store. He could go almost anywhere. He could enroll Sophie in the best school the United States had to offer, buy a house with furnishings that would be the envy of his neighbors. He could maybe even buy a small coal diesel automobile, like city leaders sometimes drove. He and his daughter could have the best food, the best clothes, they could go on vacations like people used to do long ago…
But then cool practicality returned. This money had to last the rest of his life, and probably the rest of Sophie’s, too. There would be emergencies. There would be unanticipated expenses. And then there were the predictable costs of living in the world, like Sophie’s future wedding, or maybe university, if he could ever get her to see the value of an education. No, every shiny gold and silver coin had its future already stamped on it, and that future didn’t include self-indulgent luxuries.
He took a moment to wonder why his brother hadn’t done anything with all this money. From his occasional letters, Robert hadn’t gotten the impression that Arthur was living lavishly. Certainly the shabby state of the apartment suggested he mostly lived off his meager profits from the store. He hadn’t even bothered to put up new curtains or reupholster the stained living room sofa.
As Robert put the money back in the safe and moved things around to hide it again, he pondered this little mystery. There must have been something Arthur knew that kept him wanting to appear as poor as possible. And until Robert could figure out just what that was, the gold was going to have to remain off limits. To the gossiping townspeople, he would remain store rich but cash poor, just as Sophie had said.
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